“…Why are we sneaking around like thieves?” Liqianyu stood in the emperor’s study, dust filming the books like frost on old leaves, her mind sinking like a stone in a well.

Eli stood in the room’s center, his soul sense spreading like ripples on a still pond, searching inch by inch for that familiar thread of scent.

Liqianyu, stuffed full of novels, prowled like a cat, tapping shelves and corners for hidden triggers and secret mouths in the walls.

Eli frowned, his gaze flat as winter water; so far, the net he cast had hauled up nothing.

He’d felt the Memory Crystal’s aura when they entered the capital, a ember glowing under ash.

Had someone moved it in that brief span, like a hand whisking a chess piece in the dark?

Liqianyu ran her fingers over every spine on the shelf, one by one, like counting prayer beads in a temple at dusk.

She puffed her cheeks, a stormy crane ready to peck; she looked visibly vexed.

Eli sighed. “Hey. Did novels rot your brain or what? There aren’t that many secret tunnels. You think this place is a mouse nest?”

Liqianyu rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I’m bored. You gonna stop me?”

Thud.

A palm-sized gray mouse dropped from the ceiling, landing on Liqianyu’s head like a cold pebble from a cave roof.

Liqianyu: “…”

Eli: “…” He quietly plugged his ears, like a monk bracing for temple bells.

“Waaah!” Liqianyu, faster than thunder snapping dry branches, sprouted six arms behind her, energy limbs blossoming like crimson lotus, and grabbed the mouse from every angle.

Eli glanced at the bewildered mouse, drew a cross over his chest like a passing breeze. “Hallelujah. May your next life be kind to you.”

Liqianyu hurled the mouse at the glass, a stone from a sling; it shattered the window, shot into the sky like a spark, then streaked away as a meteor until it vanished beyond the blue.

Eli sighed and walked over to Liqianyu, whose back still bristled with arms like a forest of spears.

“Hey, big girl. Breathe. It’s just a mouse. At your tier, a shout drops a row of trees. Why the panic?” He patted her shoulder, a steadying hand against a gust.

She steadied, the energy-forged arms dissolving like mist under the sun.

Liqianyu panted, eyes wide and fixed on the broken window, like a hawk watching a vanishing trail.

“Dammit…”

Eli smiled, ruffled her hair like a breeze through reeds, then moved to where the mouse had slipped, lifting his chin to study the ceiling.

This mouse… had a bite of interest, like a thorn under silk.

He’d been combing for the Memory Crystal with his soul sense, a lantern casting light in a perfect circle.

With him at the center, three thousand meters drawn like a chalk line; within that radius, he rarely missed a grain of sand.

Yet he hadn’t seen that mouse pop into being above them, not even a shadow.

If it wasn’t a strong one in disguise, then something up there could screen out a Transcender-tier soul sense, a veil woven tight as night.

“Now that’s fun,” Eli said, smiling faintly. He glanced toward Liqianyu and hesitated, a willow leaf pausing midfall.

“…Better let her take a little hit.” He smiled again, voice sheathing itself like a blade.

“Priority’s finding the place that hid from me. Maybe there really is a secret tunnel. Let her trip it herself.” He stroked his chin, the way a fisherman weighs the current.

Meanwhile, Liqianyu, mood cooled like tea left out, focused on hunting the “secret passage” buried in the palace, and returned to the portrait hall.

From the novels she’d dug up here, these triggers tended to hide either in suspicious shelves that creaked like old bones, or in portraits loaded with meaning, waiting for the right touch to set off a chain of clicks.

The Miter Empire was a great realm; it matched that book she’d seen, storm for storm.

Because of some upheaval, the nation flipped, people vanished like dew, and later a crowd of explorers came picking through the ruins.

Liqianyu walked to the center of the studio, where portraits of the emperors of Miter Empire watched like stars in a cold sky.

She was curious; clues are fish, and you watch the water where they swirl.

She stared hard at the faces. When her gaze landed on the first emperor, she froze. “Eh? The first emperor was a woman?”

She didn’t see the last king’s painted eyes twitch, the pupils droop like wilted petals.

Dead gaze fell on the girl below, a weight of rain about to break.

Miter Empire had thirteen emperors.

But fourteen portraits hung here like an extra drumbeat in a song.

Eli hovered in the air, a kite anchored by will.

The spot where the mouse dropped was an oval chandelier, a crystal lamp floating like a moon to light the hall.

The mouse had stood on the crystal globe, slipped like moss underfoot, and tumbled, landing on Miss Li’s head—then got scattered like clay into dust.

Eli chuckled, breath warm as tea; he figured the next beat would be even louder.

He shook his head, set those thoughts aside like stones by the path, and touched the crystal lamp.

He released his soul sense; it slid into the crystal without a ripple, like a knife through water.

“Tsk. This crystal ball… just a crystal ball,” he said, voice dry as paper.

Then what was that? Was the mouse really an old monster in borrowed skin?

“You guessed right… human. Ah, my waist.” A tired voice creaked in his head, like an old hinge.

Eli raised a brow and looked toward the window, where the mouse was rubbing its pudgy waist like a little uncle after a fall.

“Oh ho. What exactly are you?” Eli said, amused, like a fox sniffing a strange scent.

It had been tossed by Liqianyu and ate its share of pain; its fur stood up like thistles, and it looked half-dead.

“Me? I’m the guardian spirit of this patch of land. Call me Lord Mouse.” The mouse lifted its chin, pride swelling like a sparrow puffing its chest.

“…” Eli was speechless, his stare flat as slate.

A strand of force unwound from him, snagged the mouse, and hung it in the air like a lantern; he ignored its squirming. “Alright, little mouse, tell me how you dodged my sense. Otherwise I’ll learn what roast mouse tastes like today.”

“Tch. Lord Mouse died ages ago. I’m an earthbound spirit now, stuck like a nail in wood. I can still hide, human. You’re strong, but hiding’s easy.” The mouse stopped struggling and closed its eyes, calm as a pebble.

About five seconds later, it lifted its left limb, tiny paw clenched like a nut.

“Earth-escape art!”

Eli: “…”

Mouse: “…Eh?”

“Eh, my ass. You think I can’t fix you?” Eli reeled the mouse close, pinching its nose like a crab’s claw.

“Wait, wait! Big bro, I was wrong, I was wrong. I’ll tell you everything. Don’t kill me!” The mouse put on a pleading face, tiny paws wiping tears like a child, misery thick as rain.

“Damn. A rat spirit can be this freaky? How’d you make that face with a rat mug?” Eli’s expression turned odd, a twist of smoke.

The mouse blinked. “Oh, big bro, you don’t like my rat face? Then wait. Uh… loosen me a bit.”

Eli saw it was serious, eased the bind a hair like loosening a knot, but shaped a half-man-sized cage in the air, bars gleaming like iron reeds, and kept the mouse inside.

The mouse stared at him for a long breath, then touched its own face with a paw. “Change!”

Bang.

Smoke burst outward from the mouse like a puff of incense.

Eli snapped his soul sense tight, locking on like a hawk; he wouldn’t let it slip a feather.

The smoke thinned. A gray-haired loli about Edlyn’s height floated in the cage, eyes bright as wet stones. “Eheh, big bro, this way you won’t feel so gross, right? Hehehe.”

Eli: “Holy—!”

Liqianyu walked to the studio’s very center; then she heard a door close, a cold knuckle tapping wood.

She turned back, hesitated like a bird on a wire. “Eli? Is that you messing around?”

No one answered; silence lay heavy like snow.

Liqianyu blinked. Now she was a girl alone in a dim room, walls draped with unfamiliar faces like masks at a festival.

“…” A shiver climbed her spine like ants.

Her hairs stood, a bristle of needles; she watched the shadows, alert as a doe.

She backed toward the door, voice trying to sound brave, shaking like a reed. “Eli, are you there? Don’t prank me. Eli?!”

No answer, only quiet coiling like smoke.

Right then, Eli was squaring off with the rat spirit; he had a rough idea what was happening on Liqianyu’s side, and he didn’t step in, his will resting like a closed fan.

Liqianyu felt ignored; the room was too quiet, a lake without a ripple.

Her courage shrank like a flame in wind; even the light seemed to dim, shadows thickening like ink.

She swallowed. “Wahaha… Alright, stop scaring yourself. Who am I? The daughter of the Li Clan Patriarch, one of the three rulers of the Far East secret realm.”

Her voice trembled like a string plucked wrong; it lent her no shield.

Goosebumps marched out like grains of hail.

“Next time, don’t wander around alone,” she murmured, blinking fast like a sparrow.

The next moment, a long tongue slid onto her neck like a cold snake.

She jolted like a cat with its fur blown; six arms burst from her back again, flailing like windmill vanes.

“Waa!” A terrifying, hoarse, tearing cry rose behind her, a rusted saw on bone.

Liqianyu flooded with red Battle Aura, heat roaring like a forge. “Aaaah! Eat my fist, you coward!”