Epilogue

 Years later, in a quiet bookstore built between stone and sea, a girl ran to her mother with a book in hand.

"Mama! It's about a girl who marries a devil!"

AiLi smiled, brushing hair from her daughter's face.

"He wasn't really a devil," she said. "He just didn't know how to love. Until he met her."

"Did she teach him?" the girl asked.

AiLi kissed her forehead.

"No," she whispered. "She reminded him he could."

And from across the store, Zhou watched them — the ring still on his hand, the war finally behind his eyes.

Not a devil.

Not a king.

Just a man who loved a girl brave enough to burn down fate and rewrite it in her own name.

The End.