His Best Friend Was Far Too Easy to Placate

Wuma Xiu felt a deep pang of guilt.

He had gotten carried away petting cats and tigers earlier, and the little tiger, his elder brother the Sun God's avatar, had sent his best friend's avatar, a little silver-white cat, flying with a headbutt.

At the time, he had just thought it was far too cute.

So he hadn't stopped it.

Then his younger and elder brothers had given him gifts, and afterward he had given them a bow and arrows, smiled apologetically, and changed the subject. After all that, he had actually forgotten the most important thing.

And his best friend, the Night God, had vanished from his sight after his brother's avatar headbutted him away.

How long had it been since Night was sent flying?

Wuma Xiu didn't know.

All he knew was that Night had been huddled in that corner the whole time, without coming over to compete for his attention like the Sun God and Star God.

He had just been crouching there, watching him.

Wuma Xiu walked over to the Night God and crouched down to his level. Only when he got close did he see the Night God's tightly pressed lips, lowered lashes, and the hurt filling his dark eyes.

"My only best friend, what's wrong?"

The Night God lowered his head even further, his chin nearly disappearing into his collar. The shadow of his hood covered his eyes and brows, leaving only his thin, slightly pursed lips visible.

"Moon, you... ignored me."

In the Night God's heart, the vines of unease had long since grown rampant.

He had asked himself the same questions over and over in the darkness.

Was Moon tired of him? Had he gone too far when he turned into a cat earlier, or had he clung too tightly these past few days and worn out Moon's patience? If Moon really had started to hate him, what should he do?

His thoughts grew darker and darker.

What made it even harder to breathe was that, despite having known Moon for so long, he had never given him a single decent gift.

The Sun God and Star God always brought armfuls of things when they came, yet he alone had nothing.

There was nothing but darkness in his Night God Palace, not even a single presentable object.

He had truly failed as a best friend.

The guilt in Wuma Xiu's heart surged even more fiercely.

His best friend wouldn't even raise his voice to reproach him, keeping even his hurt so subdued.

Wuma Xiu stood up and held out his hand to the Night God.

"Night, I didn't mean to. You know I would never ignore you on purpose. I was thoughtless earlier. I'm sorry."

The Night God moved the moment Wuma Xiu held out his hand.

As soon as the hand reached him, his fingertips went after it, like a moth that had spent too long in the dark finally spotting a glimmer of light and rushing toward it without a thought.

The Night God took Wuma Xiu's hand.

Whenever Moon held out a hand to him, he would always take it. It was his instinct, and the one certainty that had never wavered throughout his long life as a god.

"You don't need to apologize to me. As your best friend, I've never even given you a gift. I should be the one apologizing."

"I've never collected those things. I'll keep an eye out from now on." The Night God looked around. "All I have right now is this Night God Palace. Do you like it? I'll give it to you."

"Night, I haven't given you anything either."

"So there's no need to apologize."

"The Night God Palace is your home. I won't take it. You've always been the one to visit me at my Moon God Palace, but from now on, I'll often come to the Night God Palace to see you."

Wuma Xiu reached out with his other hand and pulled back the Night God's hood.

As the hood fell away, the Night God's face was fully revealed.

He saw that Night was no longer curled in on himself like before, and that his eyes had even lit up at his words.

Wuma Xiu's lips curved upward.

See?

His best friend was the easiest god in the world to placate.

This time, however, the Sun God and Star God uncharacteristically refrained from rushing over to interrupt.

It wasn't that they had suddenly become magnanimous, or that they had fully accepted this dark, gloomy nuisance.

They were simply out of moves.

They had used every method they could.

They had played every trick they could.

They had even resorted to turning into a tiger and knocking him away.

And the result?

The guy crouched in a corner, pulled up his hood, and kept giving Moon those lingering looks, and their younger/elder brother went right over to him of his own accord.

The Sun God stood with his arms crossed, his golden eyes fixed on them and the curve of his lips somewhere between displeasure and resignation.

No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't understand why his younger brother was so easy to fool.

That guy wasn't even hurt.

He had just crouched in a corner like a mushroom for a little while, without shedding blood or tears.

Yet his younger brother had actually left him, his elder brother, behind.

And gone over there of his own accord!

The Star God stood beside the Sun God, looking somewhat calmer, though a hint of resentment showed in his purple eyes as well. He lowered his gaze and thought:

My elder brother is far too easy to fool.

All that nuisance has to do is crouch down, purse his lips, and say, "You ignored me," and my brother's heart melts like that.

Fortunately, there's only one Night God in the world.

And my brother only has this one best friend.

If my brother were like the Goddess of Beauty, with a whole swarm of admirers chasing after him...

If one played pitiful today and another pretended to be hurt tomorrow...

Just watching would give me a headache.

The days passed one by one.

Wuma Xiu returned to his Moon God Palace, and the Sun God and Star God still came every few days, always bringing strange and unusual things with them: freshly brewed wine one day, ore mined from some star the next...

During that time, Wuma Xiu praised the Starry Sky Beasts he had encountered to the Star God. The Star God promised to pay them a special visit when he returned and give them a reward.

Wuma Xiu also began visiting the Night God Palace more often. Whenever he stepped into that lightless, soundless darkness, the Night God was always the first to notice.

Sometimes, the pitch-black figure would already appear at his side before he even reached the entrance.

There was just one thing Wuma Xiu found strange.

He couldn't find Shadow.

The little black cat usually loved to dart out from all sorts of unexpected corners, rub against his ankles, roll over to show its belly, and ask to be petted with those red eyes.

But now, there wasn't a single cat hair to be seen in the Night God Palace.

Once, unable to contain his curiosity, he asked:

"Where did Shadow go? I haven't seen it the last few times I've been here."

The Night God was pouring tea for the Moon God. His wrist paused at the question, but he promptly passed the teacup into his hand.

"Shadow went out to play. I don't know when it'll be back."

In fact, Shadow, who was always trapped by the Night God's divine power at times like these, was saying:

Meow, meow, meow~ Damn main body, you don't play fair!

That day, Wuma Xiu was reclining on a couch when a notification suddenly sounded in his mind for the first time in a long while.

[Host, I have good news.]

The system, which hadn't been seen in a long time, had finally surfaced.

Hadn't the host complained that it was noisy before?

It had done some reflecting these past few days. Since it wasn't allowed to make a sound during the live broadcast, surely it could just watch quietly.

So the system had quietly kept to itself.

While following the live-action serial drama, it had turned into an octopus and furiously churned out fanfic in its database.

Before it knew it, it had accumulated tens of thousands of ship fics about the host.

They covered every perspective and a variety of styles.

Fluffy, angsty, explicit, clean... It had everything, enough to constitute a massive library of Moon God ship fic.

Tsk. If I hadn't sometimes gotten so excited watching the host interact with those others that I couldn't resist stopping to fangirl for a while, I think I'd have at least twice that many.

The system shook its head, temporarily pushing those distracting thoughts aside.

There was no rush to write more fanfic. There was plenty of time ahead.

Something else was more important right now.

[Host, you can draw your second card now!]

When it said the word "card," it couldn't help raising its tone a little.

A new card could be unlocked!

After all, unlocking a card required maxing out the role-playing value of the current card.

Its host was amazing to have done it in such a short time!

After hearing the system out, Wuma Xiu didn't immediately respond to the matter of drawing a card. Instead, he lowered his eyes slightly.

[If I draw a new card, what will happen to the current Moon God?]

He asked the question seriously.

If drawing a new card meant abandoning the old one, he would rather not draw.

The system froze for a moment, then hurried to explain.

[Don't worry, host. As a professional alternate persona role-playing system, how could I possibly have overlooked something so important? Go ahead and draw without worry. After drawing a new card, you can simply split your consciousness in two and control both personas at once. The Moon God won't disappear.]

The system added another sentence, anticipation nearly spilling out of its voice.

[Host, go ahead and draw.]

The system couldn't contain its simulated heart, which was pounding with excitement.

This was the first time in this world that it had a host survive long enough to draw a second card.

It could hardly wait to see.

What kind of new identity would be drawn this time?

In short, the system was looking forward to it.