Ruyu’s temper runs a bit hard, but her heart is soft as spring rain. Last night she fussed over me like lantern light, and I bounced back fast. I do owe her.

The price bit like frost. She forced me into all kinds of mascot suits, eyes shining like a crazed magpie. That look scared me stiff. Women in berserk mode are wolves.

I finally get it. Serenemoon’s the same when she goes off—clings to me like ivy and rubs her cheek against mine. Still, Ruyu’s worse. Cute suits on a boy? That’s trauma.

I couldn’t refuse. Debt weighs like a river stone. She cooked with her own hands and gave me a place to bathe and rest. I had to repay her.

So I became her dress-up doll, a puppet on silk strings. Tragic, but I swallowed it like bitter tea and kept my head down.

Enough babble. Day one at Ruyu’s place slipped by like mist. Day two dawned bright and sharp—the day the game starts. The day of a wager.

Today decides our win or loss. Win, and I step onto the fourth floor like crossing a ridge. Lose, and I stay by Ruyu’s side for life.

That thought hit like cold water. I had to rally every shred of spirit. No—this isn’t a game you win by “all-out.” I need even more. Several times more.

“Ruyu will repeat it,” she said, voice crisp as chimes. “When the game starts, stand before that big tree. Close your eyes. Count sixty.”

“In that time, Ruyu will find a place to hide,” she added, pointing where the leaves glittered like scales. Simple rules, but the forest breathes tricks.

“When you finish counting, you can come find Ruyu,” she said. “Use any means. If you find Ruyu before midnight, you win. If not, you lose.”

“By the way,” she smiled like a fox under moonlight, “the Enchanted Forest’s plant-type beasts might attack while you search. Steel your heart. How about it?”

“No problem.” My mouth said it, but my throat clicked. Finding a hidden Ruyu in this maze of green? Confidence felt like smoke in wind.

“Good. Then the game begins! Go count,” she said, ruffling my hair like a sparrow pecking grain. Her excitement rang bright. Loneliness had gnawed her bones.

On the third floor, it’s just Ruyu—one girl, same age as me by the look, guarding this forest like a lone lantern. Plush dolls keep her company.

If I could, I’d stay a while and play, ease that winter hush. But Hill is waiting. I must bring the Ice Dream Lotus back to heal her.

I answered once, then walked to the massive tree she’d picked. Bark like old armor. I shut my eyes and began to count, heartbeat steady as drum.

“Hehe, this game is Ruyu’s win,” she laughed, voice drifting like wind chimes. “It’s my turf. I won’t let you find me so easily!”

Her presence vanished like a fish slipping into deep water. Teleportation, most likely—a ripple gone before you touch it.

“One, two, three, four…” I counted, and my mind narrowed like a blade. I gathered focus like drawing a bowstring. Peak state, or I bleed time.

A minute is a spark in dry grass. It burns and is gone. “…fifty-nine, sixty!”

At once, I flared my Sword Intent, full surge, like a tide breaking stone. In the Enchanted Forest, without Sword Intent, even walking is a mire.

“Mm…” The spread sharpened my senses like frost on glass. I felt the ants under a blade of grass, thirty-one meters northeast, tiny lives ticking.

But Ruyu’s presence? Nothing. Not a breath, not a shadow. Which way? I pushed more Sword Intent, pain ringing in my skull like hammered iron. Endure it.

After a moment, I caught a thread. A direction where her trace thinned, like scent fading downwind. Weak, nearly nothing. But enough to place my feet.

“Whew… this way?” I opened my eyes. The bracelet in my palm flashed, then unfolded back into the Shattered Light Sword. Steel hummed like a cicada.

I had a feeling this road would be thorns and roots. I turned and stepped forward. For me, hide-and-seek only starts when your blood runs hot.

I walked who knows how long. Trees marched like soldiers. Distance stretched like old taffy. Still no sign of Ruyu, not even a sleeve’s edge.

Even with my Sword Intent sensing that faint, dying ember of her trail, it didn’t help much. You can’t catch smoke with fingers, no matter how tight.

“How big is this Enchanted Forest, anyway?” I muttered, pushing aside a wall of flowers like a painted screen. Keep this up, and I’ll be chasing ghosts.

Direction slips here like sand through a fist. Illusions knit with reality, luring the mind like will-o’-wisps. If not for steady Sword Intent, I’d already be lost.

Unless you’re Ruyu, who knows this place like her own breath, walking out is hard as walking on wind. Finding her? A needle in a sea.

Rustle, rustle. Rustle, rustle. The grass behind me stirred like a snake in reeds. Something wanted out. The air tightened like a noose.

“?!!” A spike of danger stabbed my spine. I turned on instinct, Shattered Light Sword sweeping with a silver arc. The swing sliced the hush.

Crack. Branches snapped like dry bones. Branches? My eyes narrowed. Not just branches—arms. I’d been surrounded. Trees closed in like a ring of spears.

No—tree demons. Bark a sickly white-purple, eyes skewed and all-violet, no pupils. Rot gaped in their trunks, fanged with thorny spikes like a jaw.

They moved on branch-arms and vine-legs, pace steady as a drumbeat. A single one was mid Sacred Realm, stronger than last night’s rabbit pack.

And there were over twenty. A whole grove come alive, creaking hunger. Trouble bloomed like storm clouds. Time and stamina are my coin. I can’t spend them.

Swish, swish, swish—vines lashed out together, studded with poisoned thorns, hissing like snakes through leaves. The net fell to pin me to the earth.

“Sword Qi Storm!” I roared. I must not get hit. I met them head-on, steel singing like rain, wind carving a spiral of blades around me.