For days, Tang Ke lay fallow like a field after frost, resting and tuning herself in the hush between breaths.

Four nights slipped past like dark fish, and she finally moved freely again, though her Anomaly Power sat mute like a dry well.

She let the calm settle first, like silt in clear water, and didn’t rush the river.

Night draped the roofs like ink, and Tang Ke watched the near metropolis glitter like spilled stars.

A sigh rose like mist before dawn. “Time to find a job,” she murmured, voice a thin reed in the wind. “Can’t live on air, right?”

The thought stung like cold rain. “I’ve got no money, and I can’t lean on those kids forever.”

These days, the food had come like contraband fireflies, smuggled by a few little kids with brave eyes.

It wasn’t much, just crumbs like embers, but it kept life breathing like a banked flame.

She stepped out of the old building, leaving dust like molting feathers behind.

She followed a narrow path toward the road, her shadow long and thin under the yellow streetlamp, like a lone reed by a canal.

She walked slow, each footfall a stone dropped into still water, and neared the corner where the night pooled deeper.

From the small road’s shadow, four men detached like rats from a gutter, bottles tilting like dull knives in their hands.

One with thick glasses peered, his voice sloshing like cheap liquor. “Hey, Biao, there’s a chick up ahead.”

The one in a backward cap grinned, his smile a rusty hook. “Yeah? Lemme see. Well, well, a little chick. Been a while on this lane. Come on, boys—fun’s on.”

Tang Ke watched the tide roll toward her and didn’t step back, her calm flat as winter water.

She didn’t run; she wasn’t built to flee, even now in a woman’s skin, and a bold plan flickered like a spark in dry grass.

“Little chick, where you heading at night?” another man said, his words a greasy smear. “Clothes look torn-up. Serve us right, and I’ll toss you a bone.”

Tang Ke’s mouth tilted like a knife-edge catching moonlight. “Oh? Sure. Got money though?” she said, voice light as a drifting leaf. “You look broke as stray dogs.”

“Not bad,” a middle-aged one chuckled, laughter like a can kicked down an alley. “Come on, let grandpa see your face.”

She obeyed like a door opening on oiled hinges, fingers tugging her collar down a touch, the move slow as falling snow.

Her face bloomed out of shadow like a moon over water, a sudden brightness that bent the night around it.

All four stalled mid-step, frozen like scarecrows in a windless field.

“Holy—she’s… she’s perfect,” the short-haired one stammered, words tripping like pebbles on a slope.

Glasses and Biao stared, their eyes hooked like fish on a line, breath growing hot as a street grill.

“Didn’t expect this grade of goods tonight,” one hissed, hunger crawling like ants up a tree. “Heh, we’re in for a treat.”

They edged closer, their boots scraping like dull saws, while Tang Ke’s smile deepened, thin as frost at dawn.

She wanted this—chaos blooming like a firework—so she could cut it off at the stem.

Her Anomaly Power slept like a stone, but the old fighting forms still lived in her bones like coiled springs.

This body wasn’t the old blade, but against four drunk men, it was still a hammer on soft clay.

She’d shown her face to turn their minds to steam, and with liquor fogging them, the fight was a stack of falling dominoes.

By the roadside, a small shop glowed like a lone lantern, the only one in the neighborhood’s hush.

A shabby girl slipped in like a shadow crossing paper, and it was Tang Ke, dusting her hands of the alley.

She picked an oversized baseball cap and a black mask, choices neat as folded paper cranes.

As for money, it came warm from the four men’s pockets, spoils lifted like fallen fruit; she counted a little over eight hundred yuan.

The shopkeeper, an old granny, looked up with eyes bright as dew. “Girl, you’re truly pretty,” she said, voice soft as cotton.

“Thank you, Granny,” Tang Ke replied, her gratitude a bow like a willow branch.

She lifted her gaze and saw display glasses on the shelf, frames and lenses plastic like toy moons.

She thought a breath, then bought a black pair, the decision clean as a brushstroke.

She stepped into a corner outside where the wind gathered like a cat and suited up, piece by piece.

The tinted lenses blurred like fogged glass and hid her bright eyes, and the mask veiled her face like a cloud over the moon.

Even face to face, her beauty vanished like a koi in dark water.

She flagged a taxi, its roof light a wandering firefly, and rode toward the city’s pulse.

Ninghai City’s night was beautiful, neon rising like lotus blooms and streets flowing like braided rivers.

Cars drifted past like schools of fish, chrome flashing like scales under streetlights.

The driver watched her in the rearview, his glance a flicked pebble on a pond; she was wrapped tight, clothes shabby as old canvas.

He stared a couple times, then let it go like smoke out a window.

She got out beside a billboard, the paper skin pasted with shouting colors like a flock of parrots.

She studied the ads, eyes slicing through them like a clean wind, hunting something that fit.

Most wanted servers whose faces must smile like open flowers, which didn’t suit a mask and a shadow.

Then she saw a hotel hiring temporary cleaners, a higher-tier place offering 300 yuan a day, the number sharp as a bell.

She tucked the address into memory like a seed under soil and waved down another cab, already rolling toward her next step.