William Sherman hadn’t had a chance to speak before Darrin Grant leapt onto the windowsill, his fur bristling, and loudly declared, “I want a guest room too! I want a suspended cat bed! The kind that swings!”

“Get lost,” Logan Sullivan said mercilessly. “Suspended? With your size, you think you can jump up there? Let the people downstairs have a few days of peace, will you? Besides, I wasn’t asking you. Can’t you see I’m trying to have a romantic moment here? Why do you always have to poke your nose in everywhere? Remember, you’re a cat, okay?”

Darrin Grant: “My jumping skills are just fine, way more agile than you! You’re the dumb dog here, you blind fool!”

Logan Sullivan didn’t even lift his eyelids. “Fatty.”

Having been wounded yet again on the topic of his weight, Darrin Grant was furious. He jumped straight onto Logan Sullivan’s shoulder, both paws digging into his hair, scratching wildly.

Darrin Grant: “Let me show you what a fat cat can do!”

Logan Sullivan: “Damn it, if you mess up my hair, we’re enemies for life, you fatso!”

Man and cat quickly became a tangled mess.

William Sherman slowly exhaled, gently leaning against the window. The warm afterglow of the setting sun bathed him, even bringing a touch of warmth to his usually pale face. He quietly watched the chaos in the living room, and couldn’t help but smile softly.

Just then, a shadow flickered from his sleeve. The smile at the corner of William Sherman’s lips instantly faded. He frowned, lowered his hand, and with a twist of his fingers, the black mist turned into a letter. William Sherman unfolded the paper and glanced down. It read: “Black clouds rise in the northwest of the Thirty-Third Heaven, a great omen of misfortune. My lord, please return at once.”

William Sherman crushed the letter into a ball and clenched it in his palm.

“Yunlan,” he suddenly said. Logan Sullivan and Darrin Grant both turned to look at him. “I have some urgent business and need to go out for a while. If you’re on break and have nothing to do, spend more time at home with your parents. They take care of you, and that puts my mind at ease.”

Logan Sullivan frowned slightly. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure yet. It’s just that a puppet delivered a message from the Underworld, saying black clouds have appeared in the Thirty-Third Heaven. It’s probably something big. No matter what, I have to go back.” William Sherman gently reached out and smoothed the furrow between his brows.

“Black clouds?” Logan Sullivan was taken aback.

Thinking he didn’t understand, William Sherman briefly explained, “Clouds from the mortal realm can’t reach the Thirty-Third Heaven. The clouds there are usually only of two kinds: either auspicious purple clouds from the east, or ominous black clouds pressing down from above.”

Darrin Grant licked his paw. “It’s been a long time since black clouds appeared. As far as I know, the last time was eight hundred years ago.”

Logan Sullivan immediately asked sharply, “What happened last time?”

Darrin Grant replied, baffled, “How would I know?”

But William Sherman hesitated, unconsciously avoiding Logan Sullivan’s gaze.

Logan Sullivan’s ability to read people was nearly unmatched—especially with someone like William Sherman, who rarely hid his feelings from him. Sensing something, he blurted out, “Is it related to Spirit Mask? Was it last time too? Just what is he, anyway, to be so powerful?”

Darrin Grant asked, even more confused, “Spirit Mask? Who’s Spirit Mask?”

The bit of color the sunset had brought to William Sherman’s face vanished.

Logan Sullivan couldn’t bear to see him like this. He lowered his eyes and shot Darrin Grant a warning look, then let it go. “Go on, then. Be careful. I’ll leave the door open for you tonight—come back early.”

With Darrin Grant present, William Sherman didn’t say anything more. He just looked at Logan Sullivan deeply, and in three steps, disappeared into a swirl of black mist.

Logan Sullivan walked out onto the terrace, looking up at the sky as the afterglow faded to gray, and lit a cigarette.

Darrin Grant jumped onto the railing, asking anxiously, “Do you really know Mr. Sherman’s background?”

Logan Sullivan nodded silently.

Darrin Grant tilted his head. “What are you worried about?”

“A lot of things,” Logan Sullivan exhaled a smoke ring, squinting through the haze. “Hey, Darrin Grant, let me ask you: why is it that in so many classics, all the gossip about the gods is recounted in detail, but there’s not a single word about one particular person?”

Darrin Grant asked, “Who?”

Logan Sullivan paused for a moment. “Warden of Highspire.”

Darrin Grant opened his mouth, then closed it again after a moment. Then, as if sighing, he walked along the windowsill to stand in front of Logan Sullivan. “Plants and animals aren’t like humans. We’re born without intelligence, and it takes a huge stroke of luck to even start on the path of cultivation. Only as our cultivation deepens do we slowly begin to understand human affairs. Warden of Highspire has existed since the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He was already a saint of the Great Wilderness before Buzhou Mountain fell, and then disappeared from the world. It’s been at least five thousand years. I was around back then, sure, but it’s like how a human can’t remember their own infancy—do you remember wearing split-crotch pants as a baby? Honestly, even when you left me, I was just a kitten who only knew how to eat and sleep. You overestimate my cultivation.”

Logan Sullivan irritably lit another cigarette.

Darrin Grant lowered his head slightly and said softly, “If I knew, I wouldn’t lie to you. We’re not like humans. We’re all a bit dumb and slow, and even after thousands of years, we barely grow a brain. We just recognize our master, and having you as my master is enough for me.”

Logan Sullivan flicked his cigarette ash and suddenly said, “Actually, I once saw a portrait of Warden of Highspire somewhere.”

Darrin Grant looked up.

Logan Sullivan didn’t elaborate, but Darrin Grant could already tell from his expression.

“Kitty,” Logan Sullivan was silent for a moment, then exhaled a smoke ring. “How many years have you been a kitten…? Where in the world could a cat’s growth be halted?”

The summit of Kunlun Mountain was once the source of all the gods, and the burial ground of countless ancient deities and demons. The snow never melted year-round. There was a flower that bloomed once every thousand years, its gnarled trunk stretching from time immemorial to the present, each ring in its wood filled with endless, untold stories.

At that moment, Darrin Grant’s unease grew even stronger—ever since Logan Sullivan uttered the words “Warden of Highspire,” it had been lurking in his heart, as if an invisible hand was pushing everyone toward a predetermined fate.

Just like when chaos shattered at Pangu’s hand, Buzhou Mountain collapsed under Gonggong, the man of Qi worried about the sky, Kuafu fell at Yuyuan, and Houtu’s soul scattered in the underworld…

Darrin Grant was suddenly gripped by a chill, his fur almost standing on end.

Human affairs rise and fall, with no distinction between past and present. Looking back, even just five thousand years, countless gods have risen and fallen, no different from the fleeting lives of mortals. In this world, nothing can remain forever above all else.

Did Pangu really split the chaos? Or did chaos simply take on a new form?

Darrin Grant’s emerald eyes were filled with unspeakable fear. For him, memories of kittenhood were almost gone, yet just as he could still smell the scent of that person’s embrace from his earliest life, some things had already been buried deep in his bones and blood.

Warden of Highspire, the mountain god of the Great Wilderness, as noble as the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors—why did he vanish without a trace for thousands of years?

Darrin Grant vaguely recalled that green robe as lush as distant mountains, the scent of new snow and bamboo in his sleeves, the unrestrained laughter, the warm hands gently lifting his body—could he really be…

Just then, a piercing bird cry suddenly rang out nearby. Darrin Grant and Logan Sullivan turned their heads at the same time. The university district was one of Dragon City’s greenest areas, and even in winter, many hardy birds made their homes there. After that almost mournful cry, countless crows suddenly took to the sky, their black wings nearly blotting out the heavens.

When misfortune descends, the crows know first.

Amid the mingled wind and cawing, Logan Sullivan suddenly turned serious and asked Darrin Grant, “I want to tell you something. Can you keep a secret?”

Darrin Grant turned solemnly, meeting his gaze. “What goes in doesn’t come out. Go ahead.”

Logan Sullivan said lightly, “William Sherman is Soulwarden. I’m a little worried about him right now.”

Darrin Grant staggered, as if he’d had a stroke, missed his step, and fell straight off the windowsill.

Chapter 69: The Merit Brush …

Darrin Grant, rolling around on the ground in a most undignified fashion, bounced thanks to his layer of fat. The first thing he did after getting up was roar at Logan Sullivan, “You’ve got some nerve!”

Logan Sullivan absentmindedly grunted in response.

“You… you, you, you…” Darrin Grant was almost at a loss for words. He’d roamed the world, thinking he’d seen every kind of bizarre thing, but this was the first time he truly understood what it meant to be “recklessly bold for beauty’s sake.”

All those stories—King Zhou digging out his heart for Daji, King You lighting beacons to amuse his concubine, Emperor Xuanzong neglecting court for love—suddenly seemed perfectly reasonable. These foolish men really would do anything for a beautiful face!