The first time it happened, Luo Feng had assumed he'd simply drunk too much.
One moment, he'd been wiping down the bar, the familiar weight of the Void Emperor's repurposed throne-stools beneath his palms. The next, the wood grain under his fingers had rippled, the lantern light shifting from warm gold to an eerie, electric blue. The air itself tasted different—sharper, like licking a battery.
Then the singing started.
"~Welcome to the Frostbloom Tavern, where the drinks are cold and the hearts are colder~"
Luo Feng's head snapped up. Behind the bar, where Li Qing usually stood with her customary icy glare, was... well. Li Qing. But not his Li Qing.
This version of her wore a frilly apron over her usual robes, her hair styled in twin buns with delicate silver charms that tinkled as she moved. She spun a cocktail shaker with theatrical flair, sending a spray of glittering frost into the air that settled over a crowd of enraptured patrons. When she noticed Luo Feng staring, she winked—actually winked—and blew him a kiss that crystallized midair.
The Death Queen, seated at the bar with a drink halfway to her lips, slowly set it back down. "What," she said flatly, "the fuck."
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the world lurched. The Frostbloom Tavern dissolved into swirling mist, the sound of idol-Li Qing's bubbly laugh cutting off mid-note. The tavern reassembled itself with a sound like a deck of cards being shuffled—same building, same furniture, but wrong.
The first clue was the decor. Where before there had been the Death Queen's venom-etched No Gods Allowed sign, now hung an ornate plaque reading "Celebrating 500 Years of Void Matrimony!" Beneath it, a portrait of the Death Queen and the Void Emperor stared back at them—her in a lacy black wedding dress, him looking vaguely nauseous.
Luo Feng turned slowly to the actual Death Queen, who had gone pale beneath her usual pallor.
"Absolutely not," she whispered.
The Void Emperor chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen, an apron tied around his waist, holding a tray of what appeared to be heart-shaped cookies. "Darling," he began in a sickeningly sweet voice—then froze as he took in the scene. Their eyes met.
Both the Death Queen and the Void Emperor turned and vomited in perfect unison.
The world lurched again.
By the fifth reality shift—this one featuring a version of the Fox Spirit who had apparently become a tax accountant ("You must declare your interdimensional income, Luo Feng!")—they had established the pattern. Every midnight, like clockwork, the tavern tore itself free from its foundations and tumbled through the multiverse.
The Fox Spirit—the real one, tails twitching with irritation—pawed through a pile of Luo Feng's old mission scrolls, their edges charred from various near-death experiences. "Okay," she muttered, "if we treat these like cosmic fishing weights—"
"Fishing weights," the Death Queen repeated, still looking vaguely traumatized from the wedding timeline.
"Shut up, poison-tits, I'm science-ing." The Fox Spirit began weaving the scrolls into an intricate net, her claws leaving faint glowing trails in the air. "These are all tied to you," she said to Luo Feng, "and by extension, to this version of reality. If we anchor the tavern to them—"
The floor beneath them trembled. The lanterns flickered.
"—we might be able to stop this dimensional hopscotch before we land somewhere really terrible."
Luo Feng thought of the wedding portrait. "Define really terrible."
The Fox Spirit grinned. "Ever been to a universe where you're the responsible one?"
The Death Queen actually gasped in horror.
As midnight approached, they worked frantically—hanging scrolls above doorways, tucking them beneath floorboards, even stuffing one into the Void Emperor's mop bucket for good measure. The Fox Spirit's claws traced shimmering sigils in the air, threads of golden light connecting each scroll like a spider's web.
When the hour struck, the tavern shuddered—but held. The walls wavered like a mirage, the air buzzing with pent-up dimensional energy, but the floor remained firmly under their feet.
The Fox Spirit wiped her brow dramatically. "And that's how you cheat the multiverse."
From the kitchen, the sound of shattering glass. Then the Void Emperor's voice, strained: "Why is there a scroll in my mop water?"
Luo Feng sighed, reaching for a drink. Some problems, at least, were gloriously, reliably consistent.
END OF CHAPTER 104