“What’s going on with Xiaoxue?” The so-called dad still pictured his girl curled up in her room, but the SWAT swept through like a cold tide and came out empty-handed.

“Reporting, sir. The room shows traces of things being packed.” One SWAT snapped a salute, crisp as steel under frost.

“Packed? Don’t tell me—!” The so-called dad burst through the door. The bed was a lonely island; the girl who should’ve been pouting there had flown like a sparrow. “She… she was right here!” His disbelief shivered first; then a chill breeze brushed his face. He followed the draft. The window gaped wide like a mouth in the wall.

He didn’t know his daughter’s secrets. One thought hammered like a storm—Xiaoxue jumped? He lunged to the window and looked down. No golden-haired body. No blood fanning the concrete. “Hah… gave me a scare.” Relief washed over him like a receding wave.

He steadied, returned to the living room, and faced the SWAT. “You’re saying my daughter’s a killer? Are you kidding me?” His voice was a blade banging on a shield.

“We have orders from above, and her classmates’ testimony. The evidence is clear.” Their words marched like ranks under a gray sky.

“She’s a kid that small—who could she kill? You or me?” Rage flared in his eyes like kindled coals. The so-called mom shrank into the sofa, stiff as a statue under winter light.

“Sir, please come with us.” The SWAT didn’t waste breath; their tone was dry wind across stone. “Fine, I’ll go. I want to see how laughable your ‘evidence’ is.” He and the so-called mom followed, shadows towing behind them like long ropes.

Switch to Little Loli’s side. Anxiety beat first, fast as drums. “By the timing, SWAT should’ve hit my place.” She checked her watch, then sprinted rooftop to rooftop, a gold streak threading the concrete forest.

“Battle Mode entering cooldown. Countdown: 30 seconds.” The metallic voice rang in her mind like a bell in a hollow temple.

“Hey, hey! Since when is there a cooldown?” Frustration spiked, bright as lightning. If she could keep this state, leaving the city would be a breeze.

“29s.”

“28s.”

A system is a system—unyielding as iron. The ticking sank into her skull like dripping water, and she stopped asking. She scanned for a good perch, eyes moving like hawks over fields.

“This one.” As the last ten seconds bled out, the golden-haired girl found a building with an elevator on the top floor, a silver spine in the sky.

She snagged her suitcase and slipped into the elevator, quick as a fish into shade. The doors slid closed like lids over a secret. Her scarlet eyes cooled and returned to clear gold as the countdown fell silent. “Battle Mode entering sleep. Countdown: 5 hours.”

“At least explain it!” Her voice rang in the elevator, a tiny bell echoing in a metal well.

“If Battle Mode is entered within twenty-four hours, and the first runtime is lengthy, a second entry triggers forced cooldown.” The system’s reply was clean as a carved tablet.

“What the hell! What are you, a hair dryer, cooling now?” Her irritation sparked, playful and sharp, like a cat’s flicking tail.

“This is the system’s mechanism.” The answer was stone, not sugar.

“That’s not funny at all.” The joke died like a fire in rain.

She was on the run; fear tightened first, then resolve hardened. If she turned back into a cute, soft Little Loli right now, game over. “Whatever—hit the station early and get out.”

Downstairs, Little Loli flagged a taxi, playing the part of a child on a day out, sunlight on a hat brim like honey.

“Kid, why’re you out alone? Where’re your parents?” The driver watched the middle-school-looking girl slide in, her rare golden hair catching light like wheat. “You foreign?”

“If I were, how would I understand you?” She rolled her eyes, dry as sand. She nudged her suitcase aside. “South Station.”

“Got it.”

The in-car radio crackled, then cut sharp as a knife. Urgent news: citywide manhunt for a girl with golden hair, middle-school age… Her face fell; the words were arrows aimed straight at her.

“Hey, that sounds a lot like you.” The driver glanced back, casual as a cat. “Even if it’s her, so what? Reporting doesn’t benefit me, right?”

Little Loli went quiet, moon-cool. She took a hat from her bag—and a dagger that glinted like a thin shard of night. The broadcast droned on: tips with detailed addresses would earn 1 to 5 million yuan. The girl was suspected of murder and extremely dangerous. Use caution.

The car jolted. Greed punched the driver’s chest like a drum. “Five million—that’s lottery money!” His heart raced, desire flooding him like a spring river. The warning at the end sank without a ripple; Battle Mode made her a storm, but now… it didn’t matter to him.

“Is it really okay to report a middle-school kid?” The thought flickered like a moth, then burned. “Five million! With that, why drive a taxi?” Reason drowned under golden waves.

His left hand ghosted to his phone. He glanced at the golden-haired girl in the back. His face was nothing, his eyes were everything—oily as a smear.

Little Loli finished braiding, pulled the hat low. She lifted her head and caught that look—a sly fox’s grin, even a touch lecherous. “Uncle… what are you doing?” Her tone turned sugar-sweet, a ribbon around a knife.

She unleashed that trump card: a voice sweet enough to rot teeth, a look soft as mist over a lake. Her golden strands hid under the hat; only a few glowed against her pale cheek like threads of sunlight.

“Ah… nothing, just feeling a bit hot.” Sweat rolled from his forehead in heavy drops, breath rough as saw-teeth, smile thin as paper. Under gold hunger, nothing else could sway him.

“Tsk. You really want to court death? Don’t blame me.” Her judgment settled cold as frost. He unlocked his phone, ready to tap 110.

“Uncle, look! What’s that?” Little Loli pointed out the left window, voice bright as a bell.

“What?” Habit turned his head, a reed in the wind.

A scream tore the air. Blood fanned across the windshield like a red spray of plum blossoms. “You—!” He clutched the slit in his neck, life spilling hot as rain.

“Who told you to lie to me?” Her smile was sugar over steel. “If you’d behaved… Forget it. The station would be a bigger mess now.” A dot of blood on her cheek turned her beauty strangely eerie, like a flower in moonlit snow.

Little Loli drew back the dagger, eyes flat as winter water, and watched him die with a twisted mask. “Blame whoever put a bounty on me. None of this had to happen.” She wiped the blood from her face, opened the door, and stepped out of the taxi that reeked of iron—and a driver dead as stone.

He’d driven into a spot this deserted; irritation flared, then faded. If she hadn’t moved first, with this body… the ending was written in shadow.

She rolled her suitcase. Her lone silhouette stretched long under the sun, a slender line pulling farther and farther across the pavement.