A silhouette stepped out.

Silent, and sharp.

The figure halted just inside the light, then took one small step back, the lost gray eyes lifting to him with an unmistakable look of accusation.

As if saying:

You dare dump this on me?

"Can you stop playing around?" her voice was cool, clean, without ripples, like water touching stone.

"I'm playing around?" Wang Xiao blinked, absolutely unapologetic.

"Yes," she said, tone flat. "Stop playing around with children."

Her gaze slid briefly toward the girl who had left moments before.

"That woman was not human," she continued. "She's a spy, and not from this universe."

"…Oh." Wang Xiao nodded. "That explains why she asked me to teach her."

Yuriko closed her eyes for half a breath, the kind of exhale one gives when the world insists on being stupid.

She stepped fully from the mist.

Tonight she wore no bamboo hat.

Her silver hair, usually wild like a snowstorm, was tied neatly, half flowing down her back like a frost waterfall, half braided and resting against her chest. The braid brushed over the white fabric wrapped tightly around her torso, dark armor and white kimino robe merging into a cold, elegant silhouette, like a hybrid warrior hanfu.

Her eyes, quiet, gray, held the calm of someone who had killed storms and found them boring.

Her presence, at first glance, was simple, beautiful, almost disappointingly so.

Remove the armor, put back that worn bamboo hat, and Yuriko looked no different from a bored, unamused beautiful farmer-girl in some forgotten Yunnan valley: the kind who watered cabbages at dawn and ignored the world's mess at dusk.

Yet the old saying went: Some blades hide better in cotton than in sheaths.

Wang Xiao lifted a brow.

"Yuriko? You rarely leave Yunnan. What wind brought you here?"

Her gaze swept to Ning Xue unconscious in his arms, then returned to him, she said nothing for a breath.

"... You always pretend to be stupid just to make others speak first," she sighed, finally. Mist curled around her ankles like frost returning to its owner. "Whatever scheme you have… it won't proceed smoothly. That girl just now, she wasn't someone who slipped here after the worlds merged. She arrived before the merge ever started."

Wang Xiao smiled, a slow, knowing smile, the kind that made even gods want to slap him.

Yuriko's calm expression finally cracked.

"You understand what that means? Outsiders were here long before the veil tore. Some came with purpose, some never left. We do not know their origins, their loyalties, or whether they still speak to the universes they came from. We know nothing."

Wang Xiao chuckled. "Why panic? Aren't you more worried about preventing your thousandth reincarnation from taking over your body?"

Yuriko fell into a quiet stillness. "Do you feel no regard for this world?" she asked slowly.

One glance at his eyes gave her the answer.

She looked away.

"…so that's it," she murmured, defeated. "That green haired girl is already crossing into continent as we speak... She held something, someone, connected to you. Any moment now, one of your women will call."

Wang Xiao blinked, his phone rang.

He gave her a suspicious look, "What an impressive talent. Want to be my assistant? Filter out the annoying calls?"

Yuriko took him literally and nodded. "If you keep your word and fulfill the agreement between us."

She would never help him without that vow.

Little did she know he wasn't worried, for Yin Yue was already in the shadows, silently hunting that green-haired spy.

The call was Josephine.

Seraphina's daughter.

Not to question her mother's pregnancy with his child, but to report that Aisha, on field trip in Africa, had been missing for two days.

She had sent Helena to investigate.

Wang Xiao had yet to meet Helena Berg, but he knew her bloodline, Ericka's eldest, Freya's older sister, First Princess of Norhaven.

[A/N: Princess Helena Berg is different than Commander Helena Krajci (current US president)]

Someone had been weaving a net for him, and observing him.

Planning for days... Maybe longer.

His expression hardened.

But only for a heartbeat.

By the time he walked past Yuriko, the coldness vanished, replaced by a lazy smile.

"Did no one teach you? When hunting a prey, don't alert it. Too late now, they're already on guard... Due to you!"

Yuriko frowned.

Was he actually playing dumb the whole time?

Of course he was.

______

Meanwhile…

Far away, Eveline staggered from one acquaintance to another.

All refused her.

"Persephone…" she whispered to the last person she trusted.

Persephone's face twisted with regret, she faded back, shadow dissolving,

escaping.

She had once begged Eveline to arrange an audience with Wang Xiao to ressuruct her husband.

Eveline had helped.

But now... now Persephone turned her back.

"I'm going to tell him you came to me," she said, voice trembling. "Please… run."

"…"

Eveline clenched her fists, vision burning.

Persephone closed her eyes.

Tears fell like pearls cut loose.

She chose her husband over her friend, a betrayal born from love, yet betrayal nonetheless.

Eveline stumbled toward a shrine, Athene's shrine.

Hours passed as she knelt, begging for the goddess to appear.

It was the same shrine where Medusa once knelt..

Begged...

Was still denied.

History looping like a curse.

Athene felt the call, she wanted to answer.

But he was watching.

Every thread had been laid.

Every golden doorway monitored.

Would she break her old vows to save herself?

She couldn't even use Ning Xue as bargaining chip this time, Wang Xiao had deliberately kept the girl close, within arm's reach.

Everything was in motion.

Every piece already placed.

And while the world thought they were stalking a prey, the hunter had been stalking them from behind the whole time.

People often assumed that a man who laughs, who plays, who wanders without care, must be foolish, careless, easy to read.

But no one reaches the peak by being dim.

Tonight…

Many would learn their lesson.

____

Midnight, just as the clock slipped into 13th January, when winter nights are at their coldest and even breath turns brittle.

Thwop-thwop-thwop…

Rotor blades carved the darkness.

The military-grade quadcopter, shinni Dark Knight, hovered like a steel hawk waiting to swallow its passengers.

"Brother… I don't have a good feeling about this," Wang Xueying muttered, her footing half-lost beneath the roar.

She hopped in and tugged her brown wool scarf tighter, as if it could shield her from déjà vu.

"Last time you put me into a helicopter randomly… we went underground into Hollow Earth and almost died. Wasn't this supposed to be a date?"

She looked mournfully at the white Pagani parked behind them, the romantic plan she had prepared, abandoned like a puppy left at a gas station.

Wang Xiao only chuckled. "Treat it as a vacation."

She immediately strapped her seatbelt, because one learns from trauma.

Inside, Isabelle gave a polite nod.

Yuriko sat beside her, expression cool as always, with Ning Xue asleep against her shoulder, golden hair spilling like a soft halo.

They were only waiting for the last pair to arrive.

Yuriko finally spoke. "Shouldn't you be rushing? Why choose this slow method?"

Her eyes, though calm, carried curiosity.

Wang Xiao smiled faintly. He couldn't tell her everything, yet.

Whoever took Aisha wasn't looking for a hostage.

They had chosen the weakest, not the strongest, an invitation, not a threat.

They didn't want to force him to hunt them down; they wanted him to step forward on his own.

Negotiation… or a test?

He needed time to understand what they were thinking, why they would lure him this way.

So he chose a mode of transport that gave him exactly that... time.

"You seem very curious about her," he teased, noticing Yuriko's gaze on Ning Xue's hair.

"…" Yuriko ignored him.

Wang Xiao tilted his head, "I don't understand you. You don't look like someone who cares for children. When you imprisoned Aurora, you could've kept her daughter with her. Mother and child, locked together, does that not... tempt you?"

Yuriko shot him a silent, utterly ridiculous glare, as if saying: Not everyone shares your hobbies.

Then she spoke, softly: "Did Aurora not tell you?" 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Tell me what?" Wang Xiao frowned.

Yuriko sighed, eyes drifting toward the night sky outside the aircraft.

"That woman is clever beyond salvation. She sought a child with you. Did you never wonder? Someone at our level… if she wished to experience motherhood, she could easily create a child alone."

"Maybe she just wanted to feel my body?" Wang Xiao shrugged.

Yuriko's lips twitched, almost a smile, almost a scoff.

"Long ago," she said, voice lowering, "we made a vow. No bloodshed among us, and that there would be only one heir. Whoever bore that heir first… would decide everything. That child would belong to all of us. And the rest… could never bear their own."

She met his eyes.

Confession? Surrender?

Suddenly many things made sense.

Why would Aurora, of all mothers, entrust her child to Athene… a woman who had hostility toward Wang Xiao?

Why Athene raised Ning Xue with such possessiveness.

Why Velkhara Umbra, who hid from the mortal world for ages, would appear for the girl.

Why Yuriko herself let the child go instead of eliminating her.

Because Ning Xue was not just Aurora's daughter.

She was their heir.

Claimed by a vow made in a time when mountains still bowed to gods.

Wang Xiao rubbed the back of his neck. "…Damn. That woman and her plots. Does she really enjoy getting beaten that much?"

He laughed softly, half bitter, half helpless.

Of course Aurora never hid anything.

She simply waited for him to ask.

And if he didn't… then it wasn't her fault, was it?

The logic was so infuriating he wanted to find her and beat her again.

Meanwhile, Yuriko had quietly begun playing with a strand of Ning Xue's golden hair, her pale fingers handling it like a delicate relic.

Before Wang Xiao could comment, the last two passengers arrived and Aurora's impending punishment would have to wait.