“What’s this?” Her finger speared his chest like a dart of ice, her chin tilted like a drawn blade.

A weirdo who looks down on you the moment you meet, like a hawk glaring from a high branch.

Hearing that answer, Menglan paused, still as frost settled on pine.

On first meetings, she’d point at someone’s chest without a word, ask only, “What’s this?”—a heaven‑sent trick from otherworld lore, neat as a hidden blade under silk.

She loved it for one simple reason, bright as a lantern in fog: it let her gauge empathy and thought in a single breath.

The question carried no named subject, hollow like a reed flute on a night wind, and that was on purpose.

If they answered “me” or “myself,” then they were stepping into the other’s shoes, seeing the finger’s direction like a compass needle.

If they said, “You’re pointing at me,” then they put themselves at the center, seeing only a hand aimed at their sky.

By the answers, the first showed empathy like warm firelight; the second leaned self‑centered, hard as dry clay in drought.

Four light words, a clever snare hidden like a pitfall under fallen leaves—and that was why Menglan cherished this little trick.

Even so, she mostly admired the craft, like a jeweler admiring a cut; anyone who reached the Elf Empress usually had decent grace.

Across Menglan’s long years, stretched like a river through valleys, most who met her answered the first way, or some gentle variant like drifting snow.

In fact, this young one at their first meeting—if she remembered right, only a first‑reincarnated Hero of the Nacha Tribe—was the first to give her the second answer, sharp as a thorn.

And the way she said it was anything but polite, rough as gravel underfoot.

“I see…” The word left Menglan light as a falling petal.

Called a freak, she didn’t bristle like her guards, whose faces darkened like stormclouds; she even let a smile bloom like spring plum.

“It’s fine.” Her voice fell like calm rain on tense armor.

She tilted her head to stay a subordinate’s outburst, a feather‑light hand on a reins, then looked back at the girl called the Lionheart Hero; the girl’s cute round ears twitched, lion‑cub timid under watchful eyes.

“Trying to remember my name?” The girl’s voice was a thorned vine, sarcasm curling like smoke. “It’s fine. You’re the immortal Empress; you can’t be bothered to recall a short‑lived nobody like me, right?”

“Well, if you flipped your name plate over, you might really stump me.” Menglan’s eyes never dipped to the card gleaming like a white shell on the table.

Instead she smiled, sunlight through leaves. “A pleasure, Miss Varie. You’re not quite like the rumors. You’re an unusual, interesting Hero.”

Varie let out a laugh that cut like a thin knife. “And your body odor isn’t as foul as the chief said,” she added, skipping over the chief’s tea‑spray and stitch‑your-mouth glare like a stone skipping a pond. “Thanks so much for the praise.”

Now, looking back, that was our first meeting, a memory like a shard of mirror catching dusk.

It wasn’t the harmony she’d imagine, no zither by a brook—more a stage slap in full view, loud as a drum, and it reminded Menglan what a direct insult felt like, stingy as nettles.

Of course, someone who’d lived this long wouldn’t hate a youngster over a splash of muddy water.

In a way, Menglan felt pleased, a spark in banked coals; a thorny Hero meant extra hours to mend the diplomatic weave, but time was what a First Generation Elf had like an endless sea.

And that bristling, adorable sharpness meant she finally had a reason, in that unchanging council like a millstone, not to feign attention through yawns.

So Menglan took no offense; the hot‑blooded youth took the yielding as her victory, and the air stayed as clear as after rain.

If a grudge sprouted, it was at their reunion the next year, a seed finding cracked stone.

The chief had buzzed in Varie’s ear for a year, a mosquito at dusk; her “victor’s” momentum was half‑spent, like a banner sagging in damp wind.

She planned to apologize a little when Menglan came over like last time, a fig leaf ready in her hand.

But her abacus clicked into air; Menglan didn’t come at all, didn’t even glance her way, cold as a lake under ice, and it made Varie fidget like a cat in a cage.

What the hell is this—like she forgot me, like mist swallowing footprints!

F***—so I was right, she thought, rage writing itself on her face like red ink: these long‑eared freaks are all high and aloof, eyes on the sky.

Just then, Menglan herself announced, with a bell‑clear tone, that to reward the day’s toil, she’d prepared the Elf kingdom’s highest‑grade feast, bright as a banquet under lanterns.

Food? Varie’s ears twitched like grass in wind; curiosity over new tastes washed over her foul mood like a warm tide, even smothered the danger her Hero nose carried in on the scent like smoke.

It looked odd, a gourd slice ugly as a toadstool and smelled ominous, like damp cellars; still, it was top grade in an Elf banquet, a crest on silver.

She’d tried Elf morning tea before the council—small portions like raindrops, but she’d liked those delicate pastries, light as clouds.

Maybe it’s one of those things that smell awful but taste good, she thought, a gambler’s flicker like a moth to flame—pfft.

Varie lifted a slice on a bamboo skewer, a green leaf on a twig, and popped it in; her face went green, a storm rolling over wheat.

Sour, spicy, bitter—like every element life rejects gathered as a locust swarm, mixed with care to maximize disgust, and detonated in her mouth like a mine.

Every taste bud screamed, tiny bells tolling despair.

For a heartbeat, her gut surged like a river in flood; she almost couldn’t dam it.

The chief’s fingers pinched her thigh under the table, a crab’s claw from the deep, and she remembered where she was; she clenched her jaw like a locked gate and forced the demon gourd down against every instinct.

Only then did she see it, clear as sun on water: the plates at the neighboring table brimmed with the tea pastries she’d had that morning, even more refined, like jade to pebble.

She couldn’t name the differences as a Nacha outsider, but even without a Hero’s eyes anyone could see it—her plate alone held that single cursed gourd, a black dot on snow.

“I f—”

She wanted to swear, lava under ice, but she had to keep swallowing, gulp after gulp like a fish out of water, or her stolen morning tea would arc into a rainbow on the spot.

Just then, her Hero ears caught a faint chuckle on the breeze, willow‑soft.

She looked, an arrow finding its mark; the sound came from the host seat—who else?

That one was watching her—for the first time since the council began—and at a moment like this, like a cat watching a mouse with cream on its whiskers.

The Empress hid red lips behind a sleeve, a peony behind silk, but Varie heard every note, clear as chimes.

The thought of that stolen laugh flushed her green‑blue face with red, a sunset crashing into a storm.

Forget me, my ass, she burned, the words blazing like torchlight. That bitch did it on purpose! F***! You and I can’t share the same sky!