The sixty-year mark approached like a shadow at dusk. For the citizens of the country, it was the end of an era.
The legendary Feng Yuan, the man who had reshaped the global economy and turned the Feng Corporation into an unshakeable monolith, had officially retired to his private villa.
He had left the sprawling empire in the capable, albeit terrifying, hands of Feng Shi.
In the villa, the atmosphere was quiet, filled with the scent of expensive sandalwood and the soft, rhythmic rustle of peach blossom leaves outside. The villa was no longer a cold fortress; it was a sanctuary of memories.
Every hallway held a photograph of their travels—Nan Si laughing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Feng Yuan holding a sun-drenched Nan Si on a yacht in the Maldives, and a toddler Feng Shi trying to pull his father's tie.
Feng Yuan sat in a custom-built recliner in the center of the glass-roofed sunroom. At sixty, his body was a map of a life lived at full throttle.
The old injuries from his "blackened" youth—the scars from assassination attempts and the sheer physical toll of building a kingdom out of nothing—had finally come to collect their debt.
His breathing was shallow, and his once-powerful frame had grown thin, his hands translucent enough to see the veins beneath.
Yet, the moment the heavy oak doors creaked open, his dull eyes sparked with a familiar, possessive light.
Nan Si was fifty two years old in human terms, but because of her being a demon princess, she looked exactly as she had the day she stepped out of the ocean.
She was a timeless masterpiece of silver and jade. She wore a simple white silk dress that flowed around her ankles, her hair a waterfall of starlight that reached her waist.
To any outsider, she looked like his granddaughter, but to Feng Yuan, she was the only woman he had ever seen.
"Ah Yuan, look," she whispered, her voice still sounding like the chime of silver bells.
She held up a small, blooming peach branch. "The trees you planted for our wedding... they're blooming early this year. Even the flowers are impatient to see you."
Feng Yuan reached out a trembling hand, and Nan Si immediately caught it, pressing his cool palm against her warm, flushed cheek.
His skin felt like ancient parchment, but to her, it was the only touch that mattered in the Three Thousand Worlds.
"Sisi..." he rasped, his voice a ghost of the magnetic baritone that used to command boardrooms. "Come here. Sit with me. Don't waste your time with the flowers."
Nan Si climbed onto the wide recliner, curling into his side just as she had when she was a little fox.
She rested her head on his chest, her ear pressed against his chest.
She listened to the slow, irregular thud of his heart—a heart that had beaten with a single-minded obsession for her for over four decades.
[Host,] Baby's voice was uncharacteristically gentle, devoid of its usual snark.
[His life force is at 1%. The fragment is preparing to return to the void. The physical shell is failing. Do you want to initiate the soul extraction sequence now?]
[Wait,] Nan Si replied mentally, her throat feeling like it was filled with glass. [Just a few more minutes. Let me hear him one last time.]
"Sisi," Feng Yuan whispered, his fingers feebly stroking her silver hair. "I've been thinking... about that final one percent. Do you remember what I told you?"
"I remember," she sobbed, a single tear falling onto his silk robe, darkening the fabric.
"You said you were saving it for the next life. So you could find me. So you'd have a 'deposit' in the underworld."
Feng Yuan let out a soft, wheezing laugh.
"I was always so... paranoid.Even at the end, I'm worried. I'm worried that once I'm gone, the underworld will be too vast, and I'll lose your scent. I'm worried you'll get lonely and find someone else to buy you spicy strips."
"No one else, Ah Yuan," she cried, clutching his robe.
"No one else could ever be you. You've spoiled me so much that no one else in this world could ever satisfy me. You did it on purpose, didn't you? You turned me into a spoiled princess so I could never leave."
Feng Yuan's eyes clouded with a deep, peaceful clarity. A smirk touched his pale lips. "Yes... I did. I wanted to be your only world. If I have to leave first, I want to leave a hole in your heart that only I can fill."
He looked at her—his beautiful, eternal fox—and felt a profound sense of triumph. He had spent his life protecting her, doting on her, and building a world where she never had to see a day of suffering.
He had won.
"I'll wait for you," he murmured, his eyelids growing heavy.
"In the underworld... or the next world... or the stars. I'll wait at the entrance. Don't make me wait too long, Sisi. You know I have no patience when it comes to you."
"You won't have to wait at all," Nan Si whispered, her eyes glowing with a sudden, fierce jade light.
She looked at him, her voice a vow that resonated through the room.
"Ah Yuan, I have told you countless times that I came to this world because of you.
Without you, this world is just a collection of cold marble and empty snacks. I'm not staying behind to watch the flowers fade without you."
She closed her eyes and whispered to system.[Baby... extract my soul. Now.]
[Are you sure, Host? You have so much spiritual energy left in this body—]
[DO IT.]
[Initiating Soul Extraction.
Soul extraction successful.]
As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and burnt oranges, a strange, absolute silence fell over the villa. The birds stopped singing, and the wind ceased its rustling.
Feng Yuan felt a sudden, overwhelming weight on his chest—Nan Si had leaned her head down, her breathing stopping in the exact same second his own heart gave its final, weary beat.
In that transition between life and the void, he felt a fleeting sensation of her spirit brushing against his—a spark of jade meeting a wisp of darkness.
He laughed softly in his mind, a final thought echoing as the darkness took him: 'Silly Sisi... how can you be so silly as to follow me?'
He used his last ounce of strength to tighten his arm around her, hugging her tightly just as he had in the ocean so many years ago.
Outside, the peach blossoms fell in a sudden gust of wind, covering the glass roof in a blanket of pink.
Three days later...
The news of the "Double Passing" of the Feng power couple sent shockwaves through the global community. The media called it a "medical miracle" and the "ultimate romance."
They had passed away in each other's arms, appearing to have simply fallen asleep in the sunroom. There was no sign of pain, only a deep, abiding peace.
Feng Shi stood in the garden, dressed in a black suit that looked identical to the ones his father used to wear. His violet eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but he didn't cry in front of the cameras.
He looked at the two urns placed side by side, carved from the same piece of dark jade.
As the evening faded,Nan Hu appeared beside him in a swirl of violet mist.
The Demon Prince looked older, his flamboyant robes replaced by a heavy, charcoal-colored silk. He placed a hand on his nephew's shoulder, his gaze fixed on the sunset.
"They're gone, aren't they?" Feng Shi asked, his voice cracking.
"They were never truly of this world, little nephew," Nan Hu replied as he sighed. "Your mother was really.....even I didn't knew she will also end her life."
Nan Hu reached into his sleeve and pulled out a handful of Demon Realm seeds—eternal blooms that never withered.
He scattered them over the garden, and they took root instantly, turning the villa's backyard into a forest of silver and violet. "I'll stay for a while. To help you manage the 'human' troubles. And when you're ready, I'll take you home to the Demon Realm."
Feng Shi nodded, looking down at the heavy signet ring on his finger—the symbol of the Feng Group.
"I'll keep his empire strong, Uncle. I'll make sure that when people hear the name 'Feng,' they still feel the fear he spent sixty years building."
As the two most powerful beings in the world stood in the silent, blooming garden, a thousand miles away in a different dimension, the soul-stream shifted.