“Jerk, stop right there—let me catch you and give you a beating!” Rage simmered in her chest like a little stove, and Little Loli tore after him.

She’d just walked out of a slaughter; fatigue tugged at her legs like wet sand, so she could only run at three-quarters speed. Even so, she was quick, a streak through shadowed alleys.

The boy ahead ran like a born sprinter, the distance between them taut as a kite string. He yelled over his shoulder, voice flitting like a startled sparrow: “Don’t chase me! I don’t even have cough syrup! And I didn’t mean it—I was trying to warn you!”

“As if anyone would buy that!” Little Loli snapped, breath hot as steam. Behind their pounding feet, the sun slid down the hills like a molten coin.

“Stop!” The boy skidded and turned. She was caught flat-footed.

“Ah!” She crashed into his arms like a thrown pillow; momentum rolled them both, and they hit the ground in a tangle. She ended up straddling him, mortified.

She sprang up like a cat from hot bricks, golden eyes blazing. His gaze seemed to drift somewhere it shouldn’t; her heel came down hard, grinding him like squashed ants.

“Pff… cough, cough, cough—are you trying to kill me?” he wheezed, a pale, ghostly wisp actually drifting out of his mouth like breath in winter.

“Why did you suddenly stop?” Her foot withdrew. Arms crossed over her chest, she looked down at him like he was something stuck to her shoe.

The white wisp wobbled, then zipped back into his mouth before her eyes, like a wayward firefly returning to its jar. “D-Do you even know where we ran to?” the boy asked, voice small.

“You’re asking where—this is just…” Little Loli turned to wave it off, then froze. A dense forest pressed in on all sides, trunks like dark pillars, leaves whispering like silk.

“How… how did we end up in a place like this?” Xiao Qianxue breathed, shock prickling her skin like cold rain.

“You chased me, that’s how. Look at you—so fired up.” He stood, dusting his clothes like beating ashes from a sleeve. He took in the golden-haired beauty in a school uniform, then smiled with ceremony. “I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Lin Fan, from a town nearby.”

“Scum like you doesn’t deserve my name. Hmph.” Chin up like a proud swan, Little Loli pivoted and walked away without a glance.

“Wait—don’t wander here. It’s dangerous.” Lin Fan stepped up and caught her hand.

Softness shocked his palm like a warm peach; in the next heartbeat she tore free, eyes flashing. “What are you doing, you creep? Trying to lure me into the woods for something nasty? I’ll get mad! I bite!”

She bristled like a kitten with its fur on end, fierce and absurdly cute all at once.

“Don’t touch me again, or you’ll regret it.” She smoothed a strand of messy gold like a brush over silk, then turned to go.

“I heard on the news this morning—a bear escaped during transport. Supposedly in these woods.” Lin Fan’s words floated after her like a warning bell.

“Who are you trying to fool? A bear…” she muttered, bluff thin as paper. She took a few steps, then turned back, uneasy shadows in her eyes. “Where even is this? How far from City A?”

“This is the big stretch of suburbs between City A and City B,” Lin Fan said, brow creasing like folded paper. “How’d a princess-tier girl end up here? Kidnapped?”

“None of your business. I’m leaving.” She got her answer, flipped her hair, and strode along the way she’d come.

Lin Fan lingered, watching her slim figure thread the trees like a ribbon. Only when she was almost lost in green did he follow at an easy distance. I’m only out to hunt a… peculiar bear, he thought, a thorn of worry pricking his conscience. But if something happens to her, I won’t sleep at night.

“Ugh… what kind of path is this? It wasn’t this hard on the way in.” Little Loli picked her steps over roots like slick snakes. “And that idiot tried to scare me with a bear. I’m not three.”

She set a small hand on a big tree and panted, breath fluttery as moth wings. Sweat traced her porcelain face like dew on jade. The bark under her palm felt bumpy and wrong.

She turned to look. A ragged gouge marred the trunk—deep, wide, brutal. “This… looks like a claw mark,” she murmured, fingertips fitting the groove like measuring a wound. “Seems like bear.” She sighed, a tiny cloud in the shade.

Still, she didn’t care. If it didn’t mess with her, she wouldn’t mess with it. In combat form, a bear was just another problem to cut. She’d soon wish she’d cared more.

After a short rest, she set off again. A roar rolled through the trees like thunder rattling a drum.

“What—don’t tell me the bear’s really here?” Her scalp tingled cold.

Up ahead, a black mass plowed through the underbrush like a boulder down a slope.

“Damn, it really is!” Little Loli spun and sprinted, feet light as deer. In her mind, a command rang clear. Combat form.

Her golden eyes flushed blood-red like sunrise in water. Her hands narrowed into gleaming claws, ten cold crescents wicked as knives.

“Hmph. Dare to mess with me? You’re dead.” She stopped short, kicked off a tree like a spring bow, and shot back at the charging beast.

The bear saw its prey rushing toward it and bellowed, anger booming like a drumbeat. It lowered its head and thundered faster.

“Know your limits.” Midair, Little Loli’s lips curled, a sly smile like a blade’s glint.

They crossed in a blur, one girl, one bear, shadows scissoring. A fan of blood sprayed the air like scattered petals.

The bear’s scream tore the hush. “This hide’s tough,” she thought, landing light as a cat. “Even my claws only went halfway in. Not an ordinary bear.”

She glanced at the blood on her tips, a thin red thread, then back. The bear was half-collapsed, sides heaving like bellows, a long, ugly gash leaking a steady crimson line.

“Time to finish you, big dummy.” She flicked the blood away like rain from a leaf and strolled toward it, calm as a walk in a garden.

“Raaagh!” The bear roared, uneasy as a cornered ox, holding its ground rather than charging again.

Then the world flipped. A cold, mechanical voice chimed in her skull: “Host stamina insufficient. Exiting combat mode.”

“Eh—hey! I haven’t finished it off!” Xiao Qianxue panicked, but the change was already done. Her body shrank back to normal, power draining like water from a cracked jar.

The bear felt the crushing pressure vanish, and its eyes lit like coals. It roared and lunged, a dark mountain falling.

“H-Help—help!” Her voice tore like paper.

She had no strength left. Against a bear, that meant one road—death. She couldn’t outrun a storm.

Smack. The bear’s paw hammered her slender body like a bat to a drum.

She flew and slammed into a tree with a crack, leaves shivering like frightened birds.

“Puh… urgh.” Her mouth filled with copper; blood spilled over her lip in a hot ribbon. “D-Damn… feels like my bones are powder,” she rasped, face white as paper. “Good thing I reinforced my body… otherwise I’d be mince.”

Pinned against the trunk, she couldn’t move. Pain flooded her senses like black tide; everything blurred at the edges.

The bear roared, triumphant, and gathered itself for the final charge, breath gusting like wind through a cave.

“Am I… dying here?” Little Loli watched the bulk swell in her vision like night swallowing the moon. Regret stung like smoke. “I should’ve… listened to that idiot…”

With the last thread of strength, she tilted her head up. Above the canopy, the night gleamed like lacquer, stars scattered like spilled rice on black silk.

“Tonight’s… really beautiful,” she whispered. “Dad… Mom… I’m sorry… your daughter might never… come… back…”

Clear tears welled in her golden eyes and slipped down, falling onto her blood-smeared, torn uniform like rain on a withered flower.

“I don’t want… to leave this world… like this…”