The Grimoire World.

Yueyang had stolen himself a quiet afternoon. He set aside the noise and complications of Beast Valley and let himself simply exist — Xiao Nu’s hands working the tension out of his shoulders, and Pandora’s curious consciousness drifting through his mind like a warm current, easy to tease, easy to delight. No puzzles to crack, no enemies to outmaneuver. In his own Grimoire World, there was always peace waiting for him. Whenever he returned, Xiao Nu was always there to meet him, her bright face carrying a happiness that seemed to glow from somewhere deep inside. Without being asked, there was always food, always hot water, always exactly the right pressure in exactly the right places — enough to dissolve every knot of exhaustion from his bones.

In ordinary times, he also had a spirited little sister to keep him company, an understanding elder sister, a gentle wife. He hadn’t seen them in a while. He hadn’t realized, until just now, how much he missed them.

Once he was through Beast Valley, he would go back. Spend real time with them.

The thoughts drifted through him unhurriedly, woven through his half-present exchanges with Pandora, and gradually everything grew still.

Pandora could tell he was tired. She stopped chattering and went quiet — though she was hoping, when the time was right, to find an opportunity to speak properly with Xiao Nu about her own situation.

That thought had barely taken shape when Xiao Nu was already gently drawing a blanket over Yueyang’s shoulders. Whenever her master came home exhausted, Xiao Nu had always noticed: Lady Wuhen, or Lady Luohua, would come and rest beside him, their arms drawing him close so that even in sleep he would not feel alone.

He was different when he slept.

During the day he was all swagger, confidence, and sharp edges. But when he sank into the deep, unguarded sleep that came with true exhaustion, something else surfaced — something that rarely saw the light. A loneliness that went all the way down. Only then did the innermost part of him let go. He would curl into himself like a child with no one to hold him. And on his face, in those moments, was an expression of pure, undefended softness that never appeared when he was awake.

Anyone who saw him like this would understand, without needing to be told.

He wasn’t naturally combative. He didn’t treasure power and profit the way others imagined. Everything he was in the daylight hours — all of it was armor. A reflex of self-protection, a wall built from long-trained wariness. Only beside those he trusted most completely could he ever rest this way. Only then did the real person show through. Xiao Nu, taking her cue from Sick Beauty’s habit, leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.

“What an impossibly arrogant, insufferable man,” Pandora mused. “And yet asleep, he looks just like a child.”

“Hmm?” Xiao Nu became aware, suddenly, of another voice in her own mind.

“I’m awake. I didn’t die — I only fell into a deep sleep.” Pandora was quick to explain.

“What?!” Xiao Nu caught up a moment later, and a delighted cry escaped her. “Pandora, you’re alive — oh, that’s wonderful! I thought you were gone forever. I cried about it, more than once, when no one was looking. Should I wake the master right now? He’ll be so happy!”

“Don’t — let him rest.” Pandora found, to her own surprise, that she could not stop watching Yueyang sleep. He really was like two completely different people.

“Then tell me everything — quickly!” Xiao Nu scrubbed at her damp eyes, beaming.

“Thank you…”

Pandora was genuinely moved.

Even during her long sleep, she had been dimly aware of Xiao Nu — their sharing of a body created a faint resonance, enough to feel the quiet grief of someone who had cried for her in secret, enough to feel the brightness of this moment of reunion. The purity of Xiao Nu’s heart — that simple, unclouded kindness — had reached something in a goddess whose soul had once been defined by bitterness. She had never in her long existence had a friend quite like this.

She told Xiao Nu the whole story, from beginning to end. She wasn’t entirely certain who had pulled her back from the edge — only that it had been the divine guardian that stood behind Yueyang. Certain details that Xiao Nu didn’t need to know, she kept to herself. And in truth, she had been brought back in the very last instant before her divine consciousness dissolved entirely — she knew only fragments. Had she been anyone other than a Goddess of Misfortune, intimately familiar with the texture of divine force, she would have been completely lost.

Xiao Nu sat on the edge of the bed and took Yueyang’s large hand in both of hers, holding it the way she had seen Yue Yu do when she kept him company — staying near, listening, as Pandora spoke.

When Pandora finally asked whether Xiao Nu would accept a permanent union between them, Xiao Nu didn’t hesitate for even a moment. “Of course. Xiao Nu is usually alone when the master is away — it’s very lonely. If Pandora is with me, I won’t be lonely anymore. And if we’re together, I won’t have to worry so much about not taking good enough care of him on my own. Two people together must be better than one trying her hardest alone. Most importantly — Xiao Nu is weak. I can’t give the master much real help. But if I have Pandora’s strength, then I don’t have to be afraid anymore that someday I won’t be able to stay by his side…”

Pandora heard every word of it. Even as a spiritual presence, she found herself crying.

She was completely undone.

She — a goddess — was being comforted by a half-elf girl.

The two of them talked freely in the space between their minds, trading stories, filling in gaps, gently harmonizing in preparation for a true spiritual union.

“Once your body has fully adapted to the divine power, we’ll be able to merge completely. We’ll share one body — but two souls, each our own. Like two lives born from one source, grown together. Perhaps that is what the ancient gods called immortality — you and I, together, never to be separated. And with him. From this point forward, neither of us will ever be alone again.” Pandora’s voice carried a weight of feeling that years beyond counting had never given her cause to express.

“Then let’s begin! We’ll give the master a surprise when he wakes up!” For Xiao Nu, Yueyang was simply, straightforwardly, first in everything.

“You’re certain? No need to think it over?” Pandora asked.

Xiao Nu tilted her head. “Think over what?”

“Thank you, Xiao Nu. I am truly, genuinely glad to have met you.” Pandora felt something pluck at her like a hand reaching down from heaven, a trembling of the heart born from being unexpectedly, overwhelmingly grateful.

“We’re one person now — no need for thanks. Let’s work hard together. We’re going to make the master the happiest person in the world.” At those words, Pandora turned, almost involuntarily, toward Yueyang. In his sleep, his hand had closed around Xiao Nu’s as though afraid she might slip away. Looking at his peaceful face, something quiet and warm bloomed in her. Yes. Always and without exception — let this man, who lives permanently in my heart, be happy.

“Shall we begin?” Pandora asked, a tremor of anticipation in her voice. She had expected it might take far longer to reach this point.

“Yes.” And Xiao Nu, without quite knowing when it had happened, had already adapted completely to the divine power within her body.

It was precisely this — the purity of her heart, a devotion to Yueyang uncluttered by any other desire, the artless and wholehearted love she carried — that had resonated with Pandora, that had harmonized with the Calamity god-force purified by the Frost Bloom Sword Spirit, and allowed her to inherit divine power without resistance or complication. Unlike the others — unlike Lieyan or Jiang Ying — Xiao Nu carried no inner barriers, and her power was not combat-oriented. She had simply lived her life and, in doing so, quietly absorbed a goddess.

Even Yueyang hadn’t anticipated this.

With the soul-fusion now complete, the two of them became one. A shared body, two spirits — both of them, together, a Goddess of Misfortune touched by joy.

Perhaps the terrible combat power that had once allowed her to curse even gods was gone. But what remained was a depth of Calamity god-force that yielded to no one, and more than enough to protect herself absolutely.

Divine radiance bloomed through the entire Grimoire World.

Boundless. Ancient. Capable of moving mountains and reversing seas.

And yet also — utterly gentle. Quiet as a held breath. Not even the sleeping Yueyang stirred.

When Yueyang woke, he found himself holding a warm, luminous presence — a soft jade warmth pressed close, unlike Luohua, who liked to use his arm as a pillow, and unlike a certain playfully shameless beauty, who enjoyed turning the arrangement around and feeding him a generous view of the snow-white heights of her own architecture at every available opportunity.

Yueyang didn’t open his eyes. He already knew this wasn’t that particular troublemaker.

Whoever this was carried a different quality — something gentle, deeply still, with a particular quality of peace about her. Like a young mother. Nothing like that playful beauty. More like Wuhen, perhaps. Or Yue Yu.

Except neither of them came equipped like this.

He gave a gentle, exploratory squeeze. The person who had been drifting toward wakefulness immediately lost the thread entirely. The sensation was extraordinary, and unmistakably unfamiliar — something entirely new, and wonderful in a way he couldn’t quite name. Who is this?

Yueyang, who was never particularly well-behaved in his sleep to begin with, still hadn’t opened his eyes before his hands had begun roaming with unhurried familiarity. It wasn’t entirely desire driving him at first — more a deep, instinctive curiosity — but the more he explored, the more reluctant he was to stop, utterly charmed by this warm and remarkable person…

When he finally opened his eyes, he found Xiao Nu looking back at him. Her eyes were hazy and half-lost, her breath coming in soft, helpless waves, her entire face the picture of someone thoroughly undone. She was glowing an absolutely captivating shade of crimson from her neck to her ears.

“Master!” Her beautiful face was ablaze. Her whole pale, lovely form had been stained with color by his attentions, and she pressed herself deeper into his arms, trying to hide from his gaze, burying her face against his chest. She had no strength to push away the hands that were making themselves entirely too comfortable, and no real desire to.

“Something seems different?” Yueyang noticed something had shifted.

“Kiss—” And then Xiao Nu surged up and pressed her lips to his. In the space of their joined minds, the merged consciousness of Pandora-and-Xiao Nu pulled him close with both arms and everything they had.

Ah. That explains it.

It clicked instantly. Pandora and Xiao Nu had fused. No wonder Xiao Nu was being so boldly forward — Pandora’s consciousness was at the wheel. One body, two souls: one bold and curious and gloriously unaware of how dangerous that combination was, one shy and yielding and trying very hard to pretend this was all fine. Two entirely different reactions, expressed simultaneously, in a single warm and perfect person. The contradiction of it was more intoxicating than anything Yueyang had encountered before. His blood ran hot in an instant.

He hadn’t originally planned to proceed like this. He had always intended to give Xiao Nu something more deliberate, more considered — a first time that was properly special.

But wasn’t this special? Two souls, one body — had anything like this ever existed in all of history? What could possibly be more singular than this?

Yueyang decided he was done thinking about it.

He gathered his little lamb up and dove straight in.

The experience of one-body-two-souls was something well beyond what Yueyang could have imagined — two entirely distinct responses to every touch, every moment, resonating and amplifying until each peak dissolved into something higher, more tender, more overwhelming than the last. He couldn’t let go. He kept returning, again and again, completely forgetting that for both of them, this was entirely new territory.

When he finally drifted back to consciousness, the next day had already announced itself in warm light.

He threw back the covers and discovered that every trace of the previous night had been quietly and thoroughly erased — he had even been dressed in fresh sleep trousers at some point, and the sheets, which had not been entirely pristine, had been replaced with clean ones. His wonderfully attentive Xiao Nu and her thoroughly oblivious romantic-disaster of a co-occupant — where were they?

He rounded the corner into the main hall and heard sounds from the kitchen. He leaned in for a look, and very nearly let out a howl.

Xiao Nu was in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a small pink apron. The back was completely bare — flawless curves, a breathtaking rear view, every line of her on display for the one person in the world she was apparently dressing for.

“You’re awake.” She heard him and turned her head, immediately dropping her gaze with a look of adorable mortification. “Pandora said to wear this for you. I think it’s very embarrassing.”

“It’s perfect. Keep it on,” Yueyang announced, and crossed the room at speed, wolf-hands already in motion.

“Let me at least finish plating the pastries—” Xiao Nu found a certain wolf was not waiting.

“No time.” The wolf advanced without hesitation.

“I love this — but not this position, oh heavens, this awful man is completely out of control — Xiao Nu, rally, we need to fight back together and defeat this terrible person!” This was the battle cry of a certain goddess of love who had no idea how any of this worked.