Lian Hua’s posture finally settled, like a silk fan closing at dusk; a rare seriousness cooled her face like frost on a still pond.

From what Yun Shi knew, Asagi Renka was a woman stitched from velvet and knives; a beauty like a lacquered mask, with a bite that left no bones.

Resentment rose first, like smoke in a sealed room; then memory bit like ice. She’d almost been eaten alive, and being made to cry had ground her pride like salt on a wound.

Shame burned like a red brand before the thought landed. Why the hell was I the one underneath? The ceiling spun like a drum.

Awooo—I'm not the bottom! Her heart kicked like a trapped beast, and the words tore like cloth.

“Hmph. You never answered,” she snapped, voice like a blade on porcelain. “Asagi Renka—what are you, exactly?”

The name tasted bitter, like old tea left overnight; her eyes stayed cold as winter glass.

Not long ago, Yun Shi had learned that Asagi Renka was blood of the Clan Head line; the fact fell like a stone into a well and sent up cold ripples.

It shocked her first like lightning, then set her nerves crawling like ants; this woman had even spoken the name she’d thrown away for two years.

Four Pupils Yun Shi. The syllables were a ghost-lantern on black water, the proof she’d once been kin to the Four Pupils Clan.

It shouldn’t be possible, she thought, fear coiling like a snake; that name should’ve drowned in the sea with no bubbles left.

So enmity bloomed, dark as ink in snow; it rose from the root of her heart and refused to fade.

“Hehe, don’t stare at me like that~” Lian Hua’s laugh rippled like warm wine, and mischief lit her eyes like foxfire at night.

“Hmph…” Yun Shi’s glare was a thrown dagger, small and stubborn; somehow that fluffy fury looked absurdly cute, like a kitten pretending to be a tiger.

“My name’s Asagi Renka. You know that,” she purred, wrist propping her chin like a white lotus stem. “Anyone from the Underworld knows what the surname Asakura means.”

She said it lightly, like a fan tapping a wrist, but meaning coiled under it like a hidden hook; Yun Shi’s guard climbed higher like a paper window layered in winter.

“Why are you a person of the Underworld?” Yun Shi tightened the blanket around her like a shield of felt; her stare tried to be a knife, but it was more like a butter blade.

“Is that strange?” Lian Hua’s smile curved like a crescent moon. “In the Outer World, people from the Underworld wear many masks. Like you—Witch there, student here. Rare?”

Her words were simple as rain on tile, and they rang true like a bell; the Underworld wasn’t kind, yet its people all had faces in daylight.

But that wasn’t the thorn lodged in Yun Shi’s heart; the worry crawled like ivy, and her voice thinned like wire.

“No. What I’m asking is—how do you know who I am? I—I… I hid it well.” The last word fell like a broken bead; a thin terror leaked in like cold wind through cracks.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lian Hua rose, smile gleaming like oil on water. “The Asakura Family is famous for digging up secrets. It took effort, but we found yours.”

She watched Yun Shi tremble, the sight sweet as a sugared fruit; delight bubbled in her chest like a spring.

“Witch Night Specter,” she recited, voice lilting like a string plucked in an empty hall. “Whereabouts unknown. Origin: the darkest quarter of the Clan Head. Details unclear. Strength beyond doubt. One of the rare heavy-hitters in the Underworld.”

She drifted from her seat like incense smoke, talking as she walked; every sentence was a petal falling with a hidden thorn.

“As for Yunshi Bianqi—my findings were holes stitched to more holes. Before you entered Rakuyoku High School, your file was a blank field after snow. Age noted. Nothing else.”

“No previous school, no family, nothing,” she said, and the words clattered like dry beans. “You live alone. You never go ‘home.’ I’d wager you don’t have one.”

She stopped in front of Yun Shi and leaned in from above, her face calm as a winter lake; the chill in her eyes spread like frost on glass.

“I’m suspicious,” she said, cold as iron. “How can a student like you slip past the Asakura Family? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that I can’t peel you open.”

“I found another name,” she murmured, a blade of light under paper. “Four Pupils—”

“Shut up!” The shout ripped loose like thunder from a clear sky; Yun Shi lunged and grabbed Lian Hua’s collar, knuckles white as bone.

“Don’t say that in front of me,” she yelled, breath ragged like wind in a broken flute. “I’m not Four Pupils. I have nothing to do with that heartless clan. Don’t. I don’t want to hear it!”

Rage burned to ash, and pain showed through like a crack in glaze; Lian Hua saw struggle there, and grief deep as a well, emotions she’d never seen on that face.

Her intel had said Four Pupils Yun Shi was a cast-off of the Four Pupils Clan; the word “cast-off” fell like dead leaves in a gutter, strangely soft.

In the darkest quarter of the Underworld, blood kin get tossed aside like dull blades; most castaways end as corpses, swept away like gutter rain.

Yun Shi had lived by hiding her name like a firefly in cupped hands; that alone was something like a small miracle.

“Alright. I won’t say it.” Lian Hua’s voice smoothed out like silk laid flat; maybe there were depths her intel hadn’t touched.

Slowly, Yun Shi let go; her body sagged like a tent without a pole, head bowed in a hush like snow.

“Do you know why I chased this thread?” Lian Hua adjusted her collar with neat fingers, each motion tidy as origami; a smile flowered again like a night-blooming cereus.

Yun Shi listened in silence, her breath steadying like ripples fading from a stone’s splash.

“I first heard your name from Mizuki,” Lian Hua said, gaze distant as mist over a river. “When I started digging, all those blanks opened up like sinkholes.”

“Later I found a blood kin of the Four Pupils Clan. You.” Her eyes half-lidded like a cat’s. “Then, not long ago, I noticed something else. Witch Night Specter shows up when you vanish. Too neat. Too loud.”

“So I wondered if you might be her—the woman behind that mask.” Her smile sharpened like a crescent blade. “Turns out, I was basically right. You were once blood of the Four Pupils Clan.”

She pressed the last two words like a seal in wax; Yun Shi’s palm curled tight, her nails biting like thorns.

Truth was, the past was just a shed snakeskin; she’d been Four Pupils, then thrown away like broken clay. Surviving the cull felt like crawling out of a grave.

Now she was Yunshi Bianqi, and she could be a Witch hated by her own companions if needed; she’d weathered colder shoulders than winter rain.

What she hated was the sky she’d been born under; that place was a pit that stank of iron and night.

“But,” Yun Shi asked at last, the question heavy as wet cloth, “in the Clan Head’s darkest quarter, there are so many abandoned blood. Why pick me?”

“You’re right. If this were just procedure, I wouldn’t need to chase you,” Lian Hua said, words even as measured rain.

“Then why—”

“Listen.” Lian Hua’s voice settled like dusk. “In the darkest quarter, leave the Divine Ling Family aside. Their blood count’s small, and the famous name there is Shen Ling Zou.”

“As for the Flamebu Family, their blood is plenty, but those who complete the secret art are few; offhand, I only know Yanbu Junichi.” Her tone clicked like beads, each name a weight.

For years, the secret art had been a locked gate in a maze; even the three darkest clans bled to open it like flint on steel.

Shen Ling Zou did it, a rare star in a murky sky; Yanbu Junichi did it, another spark in the long night.

The rest failed like rain that never reached the ground; many were discarded like spent arrows, no place in the quiver.

“The Flamebu Family has the most failures and also picks the most wolves from the litter,” she said, eyes narrowing like a blade’s edge. “The Four Pupils Clan is like the Divine Ling Family, but they cast off plenty too.”

“By logic, I should’ve started with Flamebu,” she went on, voice soft as a lantern glow. “Witch Night Specter comes from the Clan Head, but she moves like someone thrown out. Flamebu culls the most. Perfect hunting ground.”

“But I let it go.” Her finger tapped the air like a plucked string. “My gut said the river bent elsewhere. I started with the Four Pupils, and I found the name Four Pupils Yun Shi.”

Cast off. The word rang again like a bell in fog; Yun Shi’s chest ached like a bruise under armor.

She had been Four Pupils blood and then a discarded tool, tossed toward the grinder like waste; she ran, dodged death like arrows in late rain, and learned the secret art with hands that still shook.

But the art was a lantern she kept hooded; she didn’t light it in the Outer World, because light draws moths and knives alike.

There was no warmth left for the Four Pupils Clan; that house held no incense for her, only smoke.

“This castaway caught my eye,” Lian Hua said, voice like a fingertip tracing frost. “Then I saw Yunshi Bianqi—same given name, different surname. The threads tied themselves.”

“How’s my work, Yunshi Bianqi?” Her smile lifted like a paper crane in a breeze.

“...Excellent,” Yun Shi said, a thin laugh like ice cracking on a pond. “It dug up memories I’d rather leave buried.”

Right—what family throws away a child for its own hunger? That house was a cold shrine; she owed it no bow.

Only one face in that past could still stir her, faint as a lantern seen through rain; when she thought of that shadow, sorrow slipped in like evening fog.