Go back. I told you—this is my problem.

The two in front kept their heads down like wilted reeds, and Yun Shi’s temper sparked under the ice, which was rare.

She’d dragged the two shadowing her into the open, then snapped at them to leave, her stance firm as a cliff in stormlight.

They’d only followed for her sake, feelings deep as a river under frost.

But Yun Shi wouldn’t allow it, because what she had to do was a knife’s edge over an abyss.

“Miss, I’m not going back.”

“I’m not going back either.”

Stubborn as roots in rock, the siblings wouldn’t budge, even under Yun Shi’s voice like a cutting wind.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Then, Miss, do you know what you’re doing?”

“I do. I know the weight of it like a mountain on my chest. But you’re different. If you’re exposed, you’re in even worse danger.”

“If we make it out, your sky won’t be any brighter than ours. A skilled hand at your side is a lantern in fog.”

“But…”

“Miss, please hear me out.”

The night wind thrashed like restless grass. Both sides fell silent, and the moon poured a pale road onto the dark.

“My life was pulled from the river by you. I belong to you, now and always. Without you, every room is a cage.”

“I’d rather search for a way in the dark with you than hide out a dull life in a dead world.”

“Me too… I’ll follow you, Miss. Whatever comes, it’s fine. I’ll stand on your side like a wall in rain.”

“Idiots, why must you be like this!”

Her shout cracked like thunder, yet a small warmth flickered within it like ember under ash.

To have someone walk with her at her most dangerous hour—that was a first. Not in her past life, not until now.

Mia and Eil looked ordinary as pebbles. But when Yun Shi leapt, they gripped her hand like iron and faced the storm.

“This is desertion. It’s a desperate dodge of an engagement. Count how many blood-kin of the Flamebu Family survived it.”

“I’m pushing myself off a cliff. Do you have the grit to follow me into hellfire?”

“I do. Even if I never return, it’s fine!”

“I’ve written my farewell letter. My regrets are ashes on the wind!”

No matter how Yun Shi persuaded or scolded, they stood like stakes in the ground and chose to walk her road.

There was no help for it. They faced the whole Four Pupils Clan, a forest of blades in the dark.

She’d pored over the Flamebu Family’s histories, dry as bone dust. Blood-kin cast aside as political tools rarely survived desertion.

Even if they slipped out, few could stand steady in the Underworld. The luckiest lived their lives as nameless shadows.

To gain fame after fleeing the Clan Head? No one. And even if someone did, the name “traitor” was carved like scars.

Former comrades and enemies alike would spit them out, like a thorn in the tongue.

So Yun Shi’s plan was simple as winter: if she escaped, she would never return to the Underworld.

“So, nothing I say will change it, right?”

Facing their unwavering eyes like stars fixed in frost, Yun Shi found no refusing words. Their legs shook, but they didn’t step back.

At this point, the die felt cast, heavy as iron.

“Fine. But hear me first. It’s dangerous as a storm cliff. If you’ll regret it, now’s the last heartbeat.”

Mia and Eil didn’t flinch, their resolve a tight knot.

Night slipped its cloud veil. Moonlight spilled across the earth like water over stone.

…

Yun Shi spread a map on the ground like a sail. Mia and Eil leaned in, curious as sparrows. She circled several points with a pen.

“These are all internal positions of the Four Pupils Clan. If we’re escaping, we can’t avoid crossing swords.”

She spoke calmly, voice like a plumb line.

“So we fight the main house and the branch houses head-on? Real steel, real blood?”

“Of course. The Four Pupils Clan won’t spare me. Go unprepared and we die like moths. I lack experience, but I know how to fight.”

“…”

Mia and Eil swallowed, throats dry as sand. A frontal clash was a hammer on their ribs.

“If we leave their jurisdiction, we can get out. But slipping past under their tight eyelids isn’t easy.”

Truth was, someone like Yun Shi needed permission to step out. As an escape, the wall was twice as high.

“But if the guards loosen their grip, the gate opens a crack. Their guards are elite, drilled like ironwood.”

“You can’t swagger through, and you won’t crawl through either. But we can make them open the door for us.”

“How?”

Mia doubted, her brow a small knot. What trick could Yun Shi pull to do something so wild?

“A bluff.”

“Huh?”

“If I can birth chaos, the guards will panic and rush to the blaze. It’s only a mirage.”

“While they sprint to the ‘accident,’ we’ve already slipped through the front like a shadow at noon.”

“Just a mirage isn’t that easy…”

“So we repeat it. We tire their nerves like a drum, then we walk out while every eye looks elsewhere.”

Mia didn’t quite grasp it, but the idea felt sharp as a hidden blade.

Yun Shi didn’t say it aloud, but in her last life she’d read the Thirty-Six Stratagems like a prayer book. Tonight she’d trace them.

The night was still as a held breath when the shift-changing guards took their posts. A streak of fire climbed the sky like a comet.

“Something’s up!”

That was their first instinct, sparks in dry grass.

They rushed to the fire, only to find a single firework tube, smoking like a joke.

Maybe some bored fool, they thought, and they trudged back like tired oxen.

Soon another streak scratched the night. They ran again. Another firework, hissing out like a spent match.

“Fuck! Who’s setting off fireworks at midnight? Come out! I swear I won’t beat you to death!”

After a dozen loops, their vigilance sagged like a slack rope.

“Good. About time.”

Yun Shi checked her watch, the minute hand a thin blade, and moved to the next step.

Another fire rose, and this time the guards sat like stones. Minutes later, a small bomb clinked onto the ground.

Boom—thunder in a barrel, the earth shivering.

Then sparks rained from the sky like meteors, lashing the Four Pupils Clan’s warehouse. Smoke coiled up in dragon twists.

“Enemy attack!”

The main house alarm howled like a siren wolf. Dreamers jolted awake and ran toward the blaze.

“What happened?”

“The main house warehouse is burning.”

“I heard it’s arson. Maybe enemies. Could it be a Witch?”

No one knew the fire wouldn’t swallow the warehouse. It would only char the skin. Yun Shi’s control was a tight rein.

“The chaos is seeded. Now we make them point at someone else.”

Yun Shi pulled a communicator, her whisper a thread, and gave orders to Mia and Eil at a distance.

Gunfire cracked over the earth like dry branches. People felt invasion in their bones.

Fire bloomed in the sky, carrying ripples of Mystic Power like heat over stone.

They were sure an enemy had come to die against the Four Pupils Clan.

“Bastards! Bold and brainless! You got a death wish?”

“Up! Go put down this pack of suicides!”

Voices flew like thrown stones. Someone wanted blood for this prank.

Yun Shi smiled in the dark, a knife sheathed in velvet.

“The clumsiest trick works on the most professional, if you touch the heart.”

Her read on people was precise as a needle. She knew which tactic to lay down like a trap.

Now the Four Pupils Clan was in an uproar, like a henhouse kicked open. Everyone wrestled “outside” ghosts.

No one had time to count how many heads had vanished into the grass.

The Four Pupils Clan was hailed among the strongest under any Clan Head, yet history had seen brazen raids on a main house.

Given their weight in the Underworld, few dared strike. On a night this messy, they’d first suspect the Magic Institution or the Church.

They would never think of Yun Shi.

So if not now, when.

While the shouts swelled like surf, Yun Shi met up with Mia and Eil and slipped toward a hidden tunnel.

“Miss, you’re amazing. You flipped the main house like a table!”

“Hush. Take the window while it’s open. Once we’re beyond the Four Pupils Clan’s reach, it might get worse.”

“Hey, Miss, are we going to the Outer World?”

“Mhm. Of course.”

“That free world… I never thought I’d see it. I’m so happy I could fly.”

“Then listen. We’re going out now. Don’t rattle the madmen upstairs.”

She saw the shine in Mia and Eil’s eyes, like lanterns, and she smiled. She could read what the outside meant to them.

A place with no brawling, no shadows tugging at sleeves, no knives under silk words.

A place of freedom and light. And someone was finally crossing over.

After so many years, the road rose underfoot again. Yun Shi planned, once in the Outer World, to leave the Underworld’s web behind.

She wanted only a quiet life, like sunlight on still water.

Hide her name, bury her past. Survive tonight’s storm, and it would be enough.

The exit grew brighter, dawn edged in silver. Hope opened like a flower, and her smile was the brightest in ten years.

While Yun Shi’s trio slipped toward escape, the main and branch houses still hunted shadows. Shino Shitou, seated in the main house, received a report.

“Madam, we still can’t find the enemy. We’re at a disadvantage.”

“I see.”

“Rest assured. We’ll locate them quickly!”

“No need. It’s… too strange. If it’s truly an enemy, where did they find the nerve to face us?”

She stood. Fire speared the sky like a red banner, and a shard of cold slid into her eyes.

“The Four Pupils Clan is vast. Not even the Magic Institution, not even the Church, would be this brazen.”

“And the timing doesn’t fit for anyone to cross us. The only likely answer is this is a child’s game within the main house.”

Murder tightened her gaze, hard as ice, as she stared into the fire.

And Yun Shi, who had found the exit, knew nothing of the net drawing tight behind her.