"Understood," Yanyan said, her crimson eyes drifting over the lifeless horizon. "Then shall we return now?"

Her tone was calm, detached, beautifully bored.

"There's nothing here. No life, no challenge. Not even a scream to enjoy."

She ignored all of Wang Xiao's explanations. The metaphysics, the logic, the divine causality, unimportant.

Only one fact mattered to her:

They were in the past.

Which meant, in her mind:

It was time to leave.

Wang Xiao paused, gazing into the roiling dark clouds.

"…Not yet."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. A flicker of curiosity. "Why?"

He didn't answer immediately.

When she finally understood, it was already too late.

He had reversed time too far.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

He stood at the dawn of Earth's history, and now that he was here, he had no intention of wasting the opportunity.

He wanted to watch.

To witness the birth of the world.

To see the secrets buried in the bones of time itself.

Yanyan said nothing... At first.

But as the centuries passed…

As the world crawled through glacial epochs and volcanic birthing pains…

As not even a whisper of intelligent life stirred…

Her patience began to fracture.

"Dad..."

She stood atop a molten ridge, her dark gown fluttering against an acid wind.

"How much longer must I accompany you in this… empty adventure?"

Her voice remained serene, but the cold in it was clear.

"Even ghosts need stories. Even gods need love."

"I am neither you… nor stone."

She stepped forward.

"So why bury me in this loneliness?"

She stood before him, close. Her breath, warm and sweet like wine, brushed against his lips. Her crimson eyes lips up at him, firm, quivering, angry, and just a little afraid.

"If you want to watch this world bloom…" she whispered, "…then fine. I'll bloom with it. But don't expect me to smile through it."

She leaned in, lips barely an inch away, exhaling hot air.

"Do something. Anything."

Wang Xiao's eyes opened.

He looked at her, silent.

Above them, the moon had just risen, massive, pale, unblemished. A moon that knew no history.

But Yanyan wasn't looking at the sky.

She didn't care.

She was still processing what he told her yesterday.

That they'd already been here for over a thousand years.

A thousand.

Her fingers trembled as she grabbed his robe, a single piece of dark cloth, pressing her forehead against his chest.

"I was twenty when I followed you here…"

Her brows twitched, lips trembling. "Do you have any idea how insane that sounds? When we return, I'll be older than Amelia!"

She looked up at him, face flushed, eyes misted.

"Fix it. You're supposed to be the terrifying one. The god everyone fears. Fix this, damn place, or I would insane!"

She dropped to her knees in front of him, her hands pressing into his thighs.

Her head tilted back as she glared up at him, not seductive, but genuinely furious and distressed.

Wang Xiao blinked.

Of all the faces she could've made…

This one nearly made him laugh.

The infamous Yanyan, calm and unreadable for centuries, now looked like she might burst into tears.

He raised a hand and flicked her forehead gently.

"You're still the same height. Stop being dramatic."

"..."

Yanyan stared at him.

Completely speechless.

Then her face twisted into something ugly, equal parts rage and disbelief.

"You…!"

Her fists clenched, she shook them violently at her sides, like she was about to combust.

Wang Xiao, utterly unbothered, patted her head.

Like she was some sulking child.

That was the final straw.

With a snort, she spun on her heel, kicked the ground.

BOOM!

She shot off into the sky, vanishing into the prehistoric horizon.

"Yanyan, where are you going now?"

Wang Xiao called out lazily.

From far ahead, her voice echoed back: "Going to find something to break! I'm angry!"

"…"

Wang Xiao's eye twitched.

Angry, fine. But why break the planet?

He sighed, rubbing his temples.

They were already billions of years in the past. If she disturbed anything too critical, he'd have to manually correct the timeline again. When they returned, he'd need to reconverge this offshoot timeline with the proper flow, too many changes, and the entire thing could collapse.

And this woman wanted to punch mountains.

A few minutes later.

He caught up.

Yanyan hovered mid-air, hair whipping in the wind, eyes glowing faintly red.

Below her, Cratered hills, shattered ridges. Whole chunks of mountain ranges missing.

She was obliterating ancient geography with her bare feet and muttering under her breath:

"Foolish timelines... arrogant father... I'll show you what is being dramatic…"

Wang Xiao floated beside her, expression calm.

"…Feel better yet?"

She turned, panting slightly.

"No! I want to ruin something alive!"

"…There is no life yet."

"It's your fault!"

Yanyan snapped back instantly, with the kind of reflex only a lifelong headache could provoke.

Wang Xiao's hand reached out, grabbing her wrist mid-air.

She blinked.

"Ah?"

Her voice faltered slightly.

He didn't speak.

Just stared at her.

For a split second, her heart jumped.

Was he angry?

But then, his expression shifted.

He raised a finger to his lips and gently pulled her down beside him.

They both dropped flat against the rock, barely breathing.

"Look." He pointed ahead.

Yanyan followed his gaze, and froze. Far on the barren horizon, something was descending from the sky.

A ship.

No, a floating fortress, black and angular, sliding through the clouds like a blade.

It landed with a dull quake.

Moments later, a gaping hole cracked open in the sky, like someone tearing reality with bare hands.

From it, another group emerged. Not through a ship, but a gate.

Yanyan's eyes widened.

Even Wang Xiao, who had expected this moment… felt a cold ripple stir in his chest.

This was it.

The first time anyone ever set foot on Earth.

They weren't natives... They weren't explorers.

They were miners.

A group of gaunt, chained individuals stumbled off the ship. Their bodies were eerily human, their eyes, dulled by obedience.

Behind them, from the sky crack, came the masters.

Armored in strange alloys, draped in symbols of a civilization long dead. They held tools, not weapons, but with the same arrogance.

Slavemasters.

"What are they doing…?" Yanyan whispered, almost afraid to breathe.

Wang Xiao didn't answer immediately. He watched, silent, then, slowly, he exhaled.

"…Just as Xue Hanqin said."

His eyes narrowed.

"They're here to mine Aether."

They stayed hidden for days.

Watching.

The slaves set up crude extraction tools, stabbing deep into the ground.

But their progress slowed.

Eventually... The sky gate cracked again.

The masters retrieved the slaves and left.

Just… nothing.

"They didn't find it?" Yanyan muttered.

Wang Xiao nodded.

"It's not that there wasn't Aether…" His voice was calm, thoughtful. "…It's just that compared to other planets and galaxies, Earth's mineral pockets holding crystallized form of aether were too small. Too buried, and too inefficient to extract."

"They'll come back eventually. Maybe in a few hundred million years, once they've drained the others dry."

Yanyan frowned. "And what then?"

"Then," Wang Xiao said, "the prisoners left behind will start jumping from one ruined world to another… using scraps… until they land here again... the last remaining source of Aether... hoping to survive and return back..."

He paused, eyes cold.

"That will mark the beginning… of Earth's first civilization."

He had also noticed something else.

The slave masters, their armor, their sigils, the faint stench of corrosion, they resembled the warriors from the Yin Faction.

Or more precisely... A degenerated version.

He'd killed many like them when he descended into the Netherworld.

But these…These might be their ancestors.

Or perhaps... Their creators.

They didn't leave.

Neither Wang Xiao nor Yanyan moved from their position on the ridge.

The alien mining ships had long vanished, the rift in the sky sealed shut. But the silence that followed felt heavier than before, like history itself was holding its breath.

Both of them waited.

Watched.

Wondering if something more would descend from the heavens.

And perhaps, secretly, hoping it wouldn't.

Yanyan lay beside him, her cheek brushing the jagged stone, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Her mind raced with thoughts she rarely voiced.

She didn't notice how close she had gotten... Until her shoulder nudged his.

She flinched.

A faint heat rose to her cheeks.

"Tch..."

She shifted, only slightly. But her body moved again, slowly, almost instinctively… pressing gently against his side. Her skin, cold like starlit obsidian, rubbed softly against his arm.

Wang Xiao noticed.

Of course he did.

She bit her lip, saying nothing, just let her body inch closer, little by little, like a predator pretending to be harmless.

It had been thousands of years.

Yet oddly enough, the two had never once ended up in bed.

Not properly.

Not fully.

Not the way either of them might have wanted.

Because her body wasn't made for him.

Inside her, flowing beneath skin and bone, was something no man was meant to embrace... Dark energy.

The primordial origin of all forms.