Clack...

Ling set the teacup back on the table, sadness drifting across her face like dusk fog.

After hearing Nina’s tale, she finally grasped what Rafi had endured. Sympathy rose like warm steam, soft and persistent.

Compared to herself, she felt Rafi was the more pitiful one. She wore a good-life mask, but paid with pieces of her own soul.

Her resentment thinned like smoke in rain, then faded. Killing Rafi? The thought now pricked like a thorned conscience.

No—if she killed Rafi, guilt would gnaw like a stray dog under her ribs.

But that didn’t mean she would let Rafi walk free. At least, Rafi should help with a few things, like a debt paid in kind.

"Kukuku~ What an amusing story," Ling said, palm on her right eye like a half-mask. "For once, you look pleasing to me."

"Let’s seize the moment. Want my forgiveness? Offer me a path, and lead me toward the Yanluo King."

Gold hair framed her face like a sunlit banner, and the pose lent her a thin thread of authority.

Rafi chose sanity over theatrics, like cool water over wine. "I don’t know where the Yanluo King is. But I can take you to the Demon King. He should know."

"That works," Ling said, tone airy as paper lantern light. "Get me to the Demon King, and I’ll forgive you."

Rafi sighed, long and soft, like wind through reed beds. She took Nina’s hand and left to pack, while Ling waited like a guest at a gate.

—Scarlet King!—

"This road is too long," Ling grumbled, calves burning like hot coals.

Her body was built like tempered steel, yet even steel creaks. Meanwhile Rafi and Nina walked like swans on a lake.

Did she have a useless trait called Can’t Walk Long Distances, with zero charm and zero point? The thought stung like a mosquito bite.

She’d imagined the Demon King lived in a grand citadel, a lord fat on gold. Instead, he was a country recluse, a hut in wild grass.

No wonder Rafi needed to pack. The track was dull as chalk; boredom stretched like a classroom clock, every second a year.

At least the destination finally rose like a stone gate at dusk. No more trudging over dust and thorns.

"Don’t complain," Rafi said, voice calm as a shaded pond. "No one can guess the Demon King’s mind."

"Even the Great Sage Xiao Di and Governor Lord Guan only brush a corner of it, like fingertips over ice."

Ling answered with a cute, defiant nose-huff, a little kettle puffing steam.

I don’t care about his odd tastes. He soured my mood, so he’ll pay, she thought, carving the vow into her heart like a tally on bamboo.

"Wait here," Rafi said. "I’ll report to the Demon King."

Before Ling agreed, Rafi turned and passed through a black door. Not opened—passed through, like a fish through river shadow.

Ling’s eyes lit like lacquered gold at the curious door, but she remembered she was a guest, a moon among hosts.

So she simply lifted the door with one hand, dismantled it piece by piece, then tucked it into the floating Script, clean as a blade stroke.

Less than a minute later, Rafi returned. When she retraced her steps, a strange emptiness tugged at her, cold as a draft.

She pointed at the bare rectangular hole behind her, then glanced at Ling, who was admiring the scenery like a cat on a sill.

"Ling, wasn’t there a door here before?"

"Eh? What are you talking about? I don’t know a thing~" Ling sang, sugar in her voice, danger in the glaze.

When Ling spoke that cute, honeyed way, trouble usually bloomed like night jasmine. Rafi let it go, like a leaf on the current.

"It’s fine. Let’s go. You can enter now."

"Aye aye~" Ling chimed, stepping into a shadowed corridor, black swallowing light like thick ink.

Why do demons love black so much? Don’t they know a dark UI ruins gacha luck, like fog over stars?

Before she could ask, they reached the Demon King’s door, a final wall like a cliff face.

"This is it," Rafi said, pause firm as a seal stamp. "You’ll go in alone. I can’t follow."

Ling studied the black door. Countless human figures were carved across it, all the same face, all brandishing longswords like frozen lightning.

Each man had a ridiculous 128-pack of abs, every ridge etched like rice terraces. Why were the abs so lovingly carved?

Her mind flipped into detective mode. Rows of multiplication tables marched like troops across her thoughts.

By her dazzling deduction, the chance those figures were the Demon King was 96.48527%. Labels snapped on like talismans: narcissist, shut-in.

She waved for Rafi and Nina to leave, then set both palms on the door like a priest to stone.

"Ha~" she breathed, and pushed. The door slid off and flew several meters, a dark whale breaching.

Two adorable palm prints stayed stamped on the wood, cute as cherry blossoms. With the right hype, that door could auction for a fortune.

Blessing from blunder, she thought, a smile like silver fish.

She stepped into the room of an otaku uncle. The first sight was squalor, a battlefield of trash.

From threshold to shadowed corners, instant noodle cups stood like little pagodas, and bottles of ice-cold cola glinted like dark amber.

The worst sin? Some cola was still left over, sticky and flat. Heaven would frown; thunder would mutter.

"You’re here. Sit," a lazy male voice called from the trash heap’s heart, tickling her ears like a feather.

But one question loomed like a mountain.

Where am I supposed to sit?