The Ninth Prince’s residence was still a skeleton of beams and dust; in a half-finished workshop, order sat like a lantern in fog.

“You folks in the palace are a maze,” Yiyi shrugged, helpless as a bird shaking off rain. “Every kind of weird shows up.”

She truly couldn’t deal with that twisted family, like vines choking a ruined wall.

“Uh… Mr. Eli, that’s not exactly fair,” Hilriad muttered, his mood heavy as wet snow on a branch.

Yiyi watched his face and smiled, light as a cat in a sunbeam. “Oh-ho, got something to talk back with?” ╮(╯▽╰)╭

Hilriad opened his mouth, then shut it like a shell in cold tide, and looked away, gloomy (#｀-_ゝ-).

“Haha, I’m just saying,” she laughed, wind-bell easy. “Don’t stew in those pointless thoughts.”

Yiyi slipped a notebook from her clothes, casual as a fish flicking a fin. “Alrighty, lemme take a look.”

“...You… forgot your lines?” Hilriad asked, his voice thin as paper.

“Oh-ho… you don’t know a damn thing,” Yiyi arched a brow, a hawk cutting sky, then snapped the notebook shut. She tossed it to him like a pebble skipping water. “I’m just checking if there’s anything to tweak. Plans never beat change.”

“Huh? For me?” Hilriad froze, a deer in frost.

“Yep, for you,” Yiyi clapped her hands, her smile a sliver of moon on dark water.

Her eyes, though, pinned some point beyond the wall, sharp as a needle through silk. “There. It’s yours now. Go read it well, then come back and decide.”

Hilriad followed her gaze through stone and timber, blind as a man peering into mist. He still nodded, steady as a cairn. “Alright. I’ll read it carefully.”

They traded a few more empty pleasantries, like leaves skimming a pond—have you eaten, how’s the stomach, annual income—trivial dust blown by wind. Then they left the room by different doors, like swallows parting at dusk.

Long after, a black shadow burst from a deeper shadow, a raven arrow from a thicket, and fled the Ninth Prince’s estate at knifeblade speed.

Yiyi watched that direction and smiled, soft as dew on bamboo.

Liqianyu stared at Yiyi’s sudden odd grin, baffled as a child in rain. She touched Yiyi’s forehead with two fingers, cool as jade. “Fever?”

Yiyi: “...”

First Prince’s residence.

First Prince Reagan Osborne cradled a teacup, breathing the steam like mountain mist. He looked at the endless snow peaks beyond, a white ocean without shore, and sighed, heavy as dusk. “Hear anything?”

A gloomy man’s voice seeped from the shadow, slow as oil through cloth. “No. Only that there’s a notebook, and it seems…”

“...Fine.” The First Prince set down his cup, the porcelain clinking like a pebble in a brook. “So, that mage Hilriad brought in isn’t seriously hurt anymore, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Find a time and erase him,” the First Prince said, casual as dust brushed from a sleeve, the words light as ash.

“At once.”

Second Prince’s residence.

Second Prince Andra sat in the sitting room, restless as a caged hawk, staring at the old mage before him. “Sir, do you have no advice at all?”

“Your Highness, what’s there to worry about?” The old mage’s tone was flat as slate. “The Ninth Prince told the old king nothing.”

“But—but why hand power to Third Brother now? What does Father mean?” Andra slammed the table, thunder under his palm, anger flaring like sparks.

The old mage frowned, a fine line like a crack in ice. “Your Highness…”

Andra exhaled, irritable as wind rattling shutters. “I know, I know. Noble bearing. Noble bearing.”

“His Majesty hasn’t formally named Kait as heir,” the old mage said, his gaze like a pond gone still. “He’s likely only testing the waters. You still have a shot.”

When he set his aim back on the Second Prince, his eyes turned mild with a thread of mockery, a thin blade under silk. “If you stay this hasty, you’ll fail sooner or later.”

Third Prince’s residence. Kait Osborne was the calmest of them all, quiet as a pine under snow. He only looked at his book and shook his head in secret.

“I can’t stand it,” he murmured, voice smooth as warm tea. “Father even pulled away the strong guards at his side.”

He turned a page like a leaf caught by breeze. “So many people walked out of Father’s palace with intel, and those fools still didn’t see his plan. Even a hint would do. How could the Empire of Snow’s palace ever be trespassed at will?”

“That’s why you’re the one who fits the throne,” Perry said, gazing at him with sorrow thick as rain, hating iron that won’t turn steel.

Why should that rabble seize the crown, a bauble in dirty hands?

Why should his wise prince be denied the highest power that steers the Empire of Snow, the polar star on a winter night?

Kait gave a light laugh at his most loyal and favored aide, the sound a bell behind gauze. “Fool. What nonsense are you brooding over?”

“...Nothing. Please rest, Your Highness.” Perry sighed, a reed bowing to wind.

Kait nodded, thinking a heartbeat before speaking, the pause a ripple on clear water. “Perry, the things I had you arrange—are they done?”

Perry blinked, then answered, firm as a knotted rope. “All set.”

Only then did Kait show a charming smile, warm as sunlight on ice. Perry asked, puzzled as a traveler at a fork, “Why did you have me keep an eye on the Fourth Prince?”

Kait rubbed his brow, weariness a shadow under his eyes. “Just a bad feeling. Better to prepare than pray for rain.”

“Yes!”

As for the Fourth Prince Evan Osborne, he lay on his bed, face bruised blue-purple like storm bruises on cloud. Despair glazed his eyes as he stared at the beauty seated beside him.

He forced a rasp from his throat, dry as sand. “Who… are… you!”

The beauty crossed one leg over the other, languid as a cat on a wall. “Dull little human. Still didn’t notice?”

She smiled sweetly. A single horn bloomed on her brow like a black crescent; a half of a black wing unfurled, a night sail in a windless harbor. A cigarette hung from her lips, ember a red firefly. “How about now?”

The Fourth Prince’s eyes went wide, round as moons. “N-no way… you… can’t be…”

“Eh. Right. You humans call us… mm… Fallen Angel?” Her tone turned playful, water on tiles. “Don’t quite remember. Anyway, we’re the Demonic Lord’s First Special Unit. Well, I’m just a leftover.”

“Ugh.” Evan’s skin darkened like wood burnt in a slow fire, a corpse-stench rising like swamp gas. He clutched his throat in agony, a fish snagged on wire.

“Now why struggle?” The Fallen Angel blew a smoke ring that drifted like a pale halo. Her smile tilted with mockery, a knife under a petal. “Didn’t you want the throne? Die nicely here. I’ll let your corpse take the crown.”

“Wh…y. Your Demon Race… weren’t you… extinct. What… do you want… with my country…”

“Oops. Sorry,” she said, tapping his cheek with her fingers, light as a moth’s wing. “Judging by how my body’s changing, the Demonic Lord seems revived. For our rise, we need a base, like roots in dark soil.”

“Urgh… ah.” Evan’s eyes rolled back like shutters in a storm. The Fourth Prince of the Empire of Snow left the world, a candle pinched out by cold fingers.

“Hehe. This is only step one.” The Fallen Angel hefted the corpse one-handed, easy as lifting a bundle of reeds, and smiled.

............................................

“Sir. No—milord!! I was wrong. I won’t do it again… don’t—don’t kill me. This… this is our little savings.” The bandit glanced at the wrecked buildings behind him, smashed like clay pots, and at his comrades strewn like scarecrows. Trembling, he offered a small cloth pouch with both hands.

A handsome man with water-blue hair sighed, the sound a tide drawing back. He flicked blood from his long sword with a wrist like a willow. “Come on, don’t be so polite.”

He pushed the pouch back, grin turning silly as a jester’s mask. “Do I look like I need your spare change?”

“S-sorry.” The bandit’s fear was a cold river up his spine; he didn’t even notice the man was joking, the humor a lantern no one saw.

“Hey, why apologize?” The blue-haired man shrugged, shoulders light as gulls over waves. “Did I say I cared about you trying to rob me?”

Seeing the man ignore his laughter, he looked a bit awkward, face a cloud without wind.

No choice—he put on the fangs. “I didn’t even break their hands. I left them breathing. That’s already generous, like a wolf that only nips.”

Watching the bandit grow more terrified, he could only sigh in his heart, a reed flute in autumn. Why be a bandit if you’re this timid?

“Relax. If I said I didn’t kill them, I didn’t. Best believe me and walk away like grass after rain. If you don’t, it’ll get worse.” ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ

He slid his long sword back into the scabbard, the click neat as a bead. “Now, question time. Have you seen a pretty girl about twenty, with hair the same color as mine, like lake-water?”

He pointed at his own water-blue hair, bright as a glacier stream.

The bandit stared at that rare color, thinking hard, face scrunched like drying fruit. He shook his head fast. “N-no. Haven’t seen her.”

Seeing the man’s face dim like a clouded moon, he rushed to add, words tumbling like pebbles. “Really! Moon City, in Moon City, there’s no one like that. I’ve been hanging around the city every day for half a month.”

The long-haired man raised a brow, the arc a bow in twilight. “Oh-ho. Nice. You know the ground that well so you can find easy marks later?”

The bandit flushed, shame a blotch like wine on linen. Then he seemed to recall something and blurted, hope a spark in ash. “S-sir… I know this. A while ago, a group left the Alfred Great Snow Range. I don’t know where they went. If you can’t find her, check their tracks.”

The long-haired man rolled his eyes, the motion lazy as a cat’s tail. “Alright, alright. I’m going. No objections, right?”

The bandit wanted this storm gone faster than wind. “Please, be my guest.”

The man hesitated, then chopped the bandit on the neck, clean as a hand to a drum, and caught his money pouch. “Ahem. Well, consider this punishment for being a bandit. Tell your friends to chip in and pay you back. I won’t take the others’ pouches. Ahem.”

He hugged his long sword like a friend and walked away, footsteps easy as drifting snow.

“Ah. Little sis, little sis, you’re making this hard,” he sighed, voice a thread in the wind. “Where’d you die off to, you brat?”

“Father too—stubborn to the bone,” he added, shaking his head, a pine shedding powder. “Maybe everyone in my family’s crazy, except me.”

His long sword hummed, a bee in summer grass. He laughed. “Right? You think so too. You’re the best, Xiao Qing. I’ll find the finest sword oil soon and give you a proper spa.”

The sword went silent at once, quiet as a pond at night. He smiled and slung it over his back again, the motion smooth as flowing silk.

On the green hilt, three small characters were carved like moss on stone: Li Gongxuan.