Thirty-eight servants were spread across Fu Xuan's plot of land. Amongst them, more than half of them were Awakened retainers, with three Masters within their ranks. The estate consisted of five floors, with two of them being above ground while the other three were below. Sunny suspected that there was a sixth one, as well, considering how his shadow sense was being actively blocked below the fifth. His shadow helpers couldn't find anything either.
The first hints of daylight crossed their way through the window of the guest room — which Sunny had spent an hour looking through before deciding to close it. At this point, he was... mostly free to do as he wished. He could properly kill himself, hunt down Firefly, or simply go about his day.
The first two options came with too many downsides. He didn't particularly want to die, even if dying might be better than being a slave. At first, he had been in so much distress that he hadn't even hesitated to choose the most dire path of escape — even if the chains around his neck wouldn't allow him to.
The second option was just unrealistic. Even if he did manage to succeed, he'd only leave himself vulnerable to another person wrapping him in chains. Despite everything, Sunny at least knew how far Firefly would go...
...Did he? The woman was clearly mentally ill. What if all the torment she inflicted on him was just the surface of her demented mind?
...Still, there was not much he could do about that. He just had to endure it.
Pathetic. He couldn't even fight back. Wouldn't fight back, really. All because he was too scared of what would happen should he try.
...Obviously, he wasn't going to go about his day as if nothing happened. He needed to get to work, and fast.
The Nightmare Spell was an ancient thing, and by now, it must have created trillions of Memories. Was it too much to hope that even one of those Memories had the power to save him from this predicament? And of the billions of Awakened, did none of them have an Aspect that could bring him salvation?
He had to try, at least. If he couldn't use brute force to slip his chains, then he needed to find a way to cheat.
That was what he was best at, supposedly.
Sunny watched as the servants made their rounds. Although the estate was large, he believed that it was quite modest for a Saint, of all people. He imagined that the homes of Saints were far vaster and grander, with many square kilometers of land and multiple separate facilities. A good example would be the grounds of the White Feather Clan in the Sanctuary of Noctis...
Remembering his eccentric friend, Sunny nibbled on his lower lip, still perplexed about how a Nightmare's creation could be aware of their state of nonexistence.
Moving on, it seemed that Fu Xuan preferred something of a more... smaller size.
Speaking of, Sunny had sent the Creepy shadow into her personal chambers, hiding in a corner of darkness. She was asleep.
Having nothing to do until she woke up, he decided to just watch her.
And watch.
And keep watching...
Until it was almost noon. Sunny frowned, beginning to feel impatient.
Up until now, Sunny had never been to a world that excessively irregular day and night cycles. Jarilo-VI had eight hours of daylight, and thirteen hours of night — though, that may change after the effects of the Eternal Freeze dissipated. The Luofu, on the other hand, seemed to share the same hours as Earth.
It was an artificial world, after all. His thoughts soured when he thought about what the IPC was attempting with his home planet.
Why would they invest such a complex and expensive megastructure on a backwater world like Earth? Was there something there?
He was pulled out of his thoughts when he — or rather, the Creepy shadow — heard the rustling of Fu Xuan's sheets. The pink-haired woman moaned as her petite form crawled out from under her thick blankets.
Naked, as it were.
Fu Xuan rose from beneath the blankets with an unhurried grace that made Sunny freeze for a single, treacherous moment. He had expected many things when the rustling of sheets reached his shadow's senses: an immaculate morning routine, an immediate return to paperwork, perhaps even the Master Diviner already dressed with impossible precision.
What he had not expected was for her to sleep without a single stitch of clothing, the soft morning light pouring through the narrow gaps in the curtains and tracing elegant contours across pale skin that looked almost sculpted from polished jade. There was nothing careless about her appearance despite the intimacy of the moment. Every measured movement carried the effortless dignity that had always defined her, as though even complete vulnerability bent itself into something regal beneath her composure.
Sunny's thoughts stalled so abruptly that he nearly forgot he was seeing everything through the Creepy's eyes, caught completely off guard by a sight that no sane servant of the estate should ever have been fortunate — or unfortunate — enough to witness.
His gaze betrayed him before his reason could recover, lingering far longer than his better judgment approved. There was an undeniable softness to her figure that stood in striking contrast to the disciplined strength hidden beneath it, the gentle curves of her body refusing to diminish the lean definition earned by her own trials, eventually culminating in Transcendence.
It was the sort of physique that balanced refinement with unmistakable capability, beautiful without ever appearing fragile, elegant without surrendering the quiet power that surrounded her every waking moment. Sunny felt heat rise uncomfortably to his face as the absurd realization settled in that the demanding Master Diviner — the woman who could likely crush him beneath a single palm if she wished — slept like this every night. His first instinct was sheer disbelief, his second one far less respectable, and by the time shame finally caught up to him, he had already committed the image to memory with a clarity that promised to haunt him for far longer than he cared to admit.
As her delicate feet made contact with the smooth wooden floor, the Creepy shadow swiftly merged into her own.
'Should I be doing this? Yeah, I should.'
Through his shadows eyes, Sunny watched closely as she stepped into her connected bath chambers. He wasn't being perverted — mostly — he genuinely just wanted to stalk Fu Xuan.
For normal reasons.
In the corridor separating her room from the baths, Fu Xuan stopped before a tall mirror. To the side were plenty of odd items Sunny couldn't quite recognize, all strewn across a counter with a wooden chair placed beside it.
Fu Xuan stared into the mirror, revealing the striking golden eyes that Sunny never really gets the chance to see — besides that one time at the Divination Commission. Her pink hair, long, messy, and undone, framed her features in a different, more homely light.
For a long moment, Fu Xuan simply gazed at her figure, a long scowl drawn into her face as she pinched her chest. Then, she huffed, turning around. Her head still faced the mirror as her eyes trailed down...
She squeezed her butt. The corners of her lips rose smugly.
"Mhm~ Flaw has nothing on these puppies."
Sunny pursed his lips. At this point, he usually would have choked on the air or started laughing at the scene...
But you know what? He was just going to enjoy the show. The Spell knew exactly what would happen when giving him such an Ability, and he was not above abusing it.
The Creepy shadow followed soundlessly, melting deeper into Fu Xuan's own shadow as she crossed the threshold separating her chambers from the bathing room. Sunny did not spare even a passing thought for whether this was right or wrong. Those thoughts still existed somewhere within him, buried beneath exhaustion, humiliation, and the lingering memory of twelve failed attempts to end his own life, but they remained stubbornly silent.
The bathing chambers were unlike anything he had expected to find within a private residence.
Rather than polished marble or gilded extravagance, the room had been fashioned into an imitation of a secluded mountain hot spring. Great slabs of dark stone surrounded a broad pool fed by crystal-clear water that released gentle ribbons of steam into the air.
The walls themselves had disappeared beneath an elaborate projection, replacing enclosed architecture with towering cliffs, distant forests, and an endless midnight sky where stars shimmered beyond drifting clouds. Hidden vents carried a cool breeze through the chamber with uncanny precision, causing loose strands of pink hair to sway as naturally as if she truly stood beneath the open heavens. The quiet murmur of flowing water echoed somewhere beyond the illusion, accompanied by the occasional chirping of unseen insects.
Had Sunny not known he remained inside an estate buried within an artificial world, he might have believed the illusion entirely.
Fu Xuan approached the edge of the stone pool without the slightest hesitation, lowering herself into the steaming water until only her shoulders and neck remained above its gently rippling surface. The rigid expression she habitually wore throughout the day softened almost immediately, her eyelids drifting closed as warmth dissolved the tension hidden beneath countless meetings, calculations, and impossible responsibilities. She rested against a smooth stone worn by years of flowing water, allowing the quiet atmosphere to envelop her while steam curled lazily around her silhouette.
Sunny simply observed.
He found, somewhat to his surprise, that the tightening in his chest had almost nothing to do with what he was looking at.
His mind kept returning instead to cold chains around his neck, to a woman who had appeared without warning, beaten him to death again and again before restoring him only to repeat the process, and to the sickening realization that even death itself had ceased to belong to him.
Compared to that, quietly watching someone enjoy a moment of peace barely seemed capable of stirring much guilt at all.
Perhaps that realization disturbed him more than anything else.
Fu Xuan lingered in the steaming water without haste, as though every passing minute carried away another fragment of the burden resting upon her shoulders. The gentle ripples spread lazily across the stone-lined spring each time she moved, disappearing into drifting curtains of mist before returning as perfect stillness.
Her eyes remained closed while the artificial night breeze stirred loose strands of pink hair across her cheeks, the projected stars reflecting across the water's surface with uncanny realism. For perhaps the first time since Sunny had met her, the Master Diviner looked entirely removed from duty, prophecy, and endless calculations, allowing silence to exist without demanding answers from it.
The woman who habitually carried the weight of an entire flagship appeared, if only briefly, like someone who simply wished to exist without the future pressing against her thoughts.
Eventually, he leaned back against the wall of his own room and let out a slow, weary breath.
If only he could feel a fraction of the relaxation she was feeling at the moment.