Something silent seeped in, like dusk soaking rice paper, and it drenched the 【Demon King】—
Lina, stealing glances at Ye Weibai from the side, felt it the way a cat senses a storm rolling in.
No matter how the 【Demon King】 kept repeating in the 【Hero King】’s 【World】 that he was driven only by curiosity, not by “good” or “justice.”
She slowly understood: the black-haired boy before her wasn’t some wanton monster. If he moved under “interest,” was that true freedom? No—never. Every motion, however the path twisted, ended as a sacrifice that saved someone.
She didn’t want to admit she could now see what hid behind human complexity. It meant she had begun to chew the flavor of “humanity,” bitter tea steeped too long.
The moment she joined with Aerin, tasting that flavor, she could no longer return to a throne set above the clouds. Later, to defeat the 【Demon King】, she reread Aerin’s memories of him, page after page like lanterns in mist. It gave her no chance to overturn the game; instead her divinity thinned, replaced by the rich tangles of a human soul.
She wouldn’t admit it, but she could dimly see ahead: she could no longer return to that state of “it.”
She would never again be that one and only Deity, sovereign of heaven and earth.
Yet because Aerin’s impression of Ye Weibai was carved deep, Lina could read every flash of him, each frame like raindrops on glass. And so she could confirm the spark that flitted through her mind—
The 【Demon King】 had changed, somewhere, sometime, in a delicate way.
She stared at Ye Weibai, thinking: it feels like something important was peeled away from the 【Demon King】.
She could warn him. Instead, a cold laugh rang in her chest, frost on stone.
Why would I?
Even with Aerin’s fondness for “Master Bai” lodged in her, she had never dropped her hatred for the 【Demon King】.
Watching him slide toward an unknown abyss—wasn’t that worth celebrating?
...
...
Ye Weibai could feel Lina’s gaze like a thin thread tugging at his sleeve, but he had no hands free. His eyes were locked on the mirror-【World】.
In the scene, black shadow crept like spilled ink, slowly swallowing Zhaomingming where she lay, unable to move.
His breath quickened, a wind trapped in a narrow throat. Call it coincidence, call it luck. Blame Zhaomingming’s power as the protagonist to bend the 【World】. Blame the “middle-aged, washed-up uncle” conjured from a twin-tailed girl’s fantasy.
But the hand that nudged everything forward was his. This was 【Misfortune】 he had shaped—shaped by riding the current like a boat catching floodwater.
Ye Weibai knew that, clean as a bell in winter air.
It was he who set the fuse of 【Evil】 into the picture, and now the blaze had reached this frame.
He knew what he was doing. His mind skipped connections like stones over water; he could see the next image coming—the hand already pressing down on the girl’s shoulder.
I know what I’m doing. I know I will have the strength to bear it, he told himself, a whisper struck like flint.
【People can only save themselves】.
I want to see this black-haired girl change this 【World】 more. This 【World】 has been perturbed around Zhaomingming, its stars spinning with her at the center. Then, if she meets 【Misfortune】, how will this 【World】 answer?
Will it collapse?
Will this mirror that’s smooth and sharp as a blade sprout a crack?
If the crack in this 【World】 grows wide enough, can I step through?
I stand at something like a control deck, bathed in data like rain at sea, and yet I have no lever to pull. All this information is useless driftwood.
The more you gather, the more powerless you feel. Especially when your “death-date” draws near—helplessness swells like tides gnawing the shore, wave after wave pounding the heart until breath thins.
He murmured, palm over his chest. His heartbeat struck like hammers on iron, sparks scattering into dark water.
There lay the last of the 【Demon King’s power】, a blaze that looked fierce yet was quietly thinning, like embers under ash.
The Time that a certain Deity had stretched and slowed wasn’t as grand as he told Lina.
He joked about dying, but he was, in truth, dying.
But I can’t die yet, he said to himself, voice a wire pulled taut.
“To see more variables, you have to raise ripples. Only then can you mark the fish under a calm lake.” Ye Weibai spoke so soft only he could hear. “So—sorry. I have to break your 【World】.”
His black pupils mirrored the mirror’s darkness, a night inside a night. His wording was steady; his voice carried a tremor he hadn’t noticed.
...
...
Yexiaobai jolted awake from a dream.
He forgot the scenes, but the chill of falling into a bottomless gorge clung like frost.
He exhaled long, looked to the moon hung outside the window. Moonlight lay like white frost, bright enough to cut, yet his heart felt heavy, as if he’d done something he should be ashamed of.
For no clear reason, Zhaomingming’s face flashed across his mind like a sparrow’s shadow over snow.
Was it because he kept running into her these days?
He sat up, tugged the quilt like pulling seaweed from his legs, and decided to get water in the living room.
He pushed the door open, turned, and saw Sis Yexiaokong sitting on the balcony.
Her legs were crossed; elbows on the rail; cheek nestled in her palm. She gazed at the night sky, bored as a cat on a windowsill. Moonlight poured over her, sketching silver lines along her body. For a breath, Yexiaobai felt his sister’s beauty turn translucent, like glass washed by rain.
“Hey, Yexiaobai.” She turned, smiling already as if she’d expected him. “Come.”
He, still foggy-headed, didn’t catch that note and walked over.
The night wind lifted his hair like willow tips, clearing him a little. “Sis, you can’t sleep either?”
“Mm. Some work.” Yexiaokong tapped the chair across from her.
He sat. “School’s that heavy now?”
“School? Oh, that.” She laughed. “You guessed wrong. My assignment…” Yexiaokong curled a strand by her ear, tilted her eyes, and fixed them on Yexiaobai. “—was handed down by you, little brother.”
“Huh?”
Seeing his blank face, Yexiaokong couldn’t help herself. She reached out and kneaded his cheeks hard, her expression a blend of happiness and headache, then said something that left him more lost.
“Ah, having too many little brothers is a problem.”
“Ha?” He finally wriggled free, confusion thick as fog.
Yexiaokong just sniffed her own hand indulgently, then laughed. “Especially when the two little brothers won’t stop sulking.”
“You, you’re a silly one, never easy. And that one… also a sulky child. Truly a hassle.” She sighed, but joy shimmered through, impossible to hide—openly delighted to tell the whole world about her “hassle.”
The look rippled alive, like the moon stepping into a mirror lake, rings spreading clear enough to reveal fish in the water.
Stunned and dazzled, Yexiaobai couldn’t help a prickle of jealousy toward that “someone” who made his sister glow like dawn.
Yexiaokong caught it at once. The corners of her mouth lifted, a smile blooming like honey melting an iceberg. Her eyes opened a touch; more moonlight flowed in, glittering like star-sparks.
“This… is peak sis-con.”
She pressed a hand to her chest.
“Ah, I’m dead.”
...
...
