“Your Sister Gu Wen’s tied up today, so dinner’s just the two of us.” Lu Ke set the steaming dishes down, heat curling up like mist over a pond.

The blonde girl stepped out with a towel coiled around her damp hair, droplets sliding like rain down eaves.

She’d rushed after the message, and the water hadn’t dried; her white robe, mottled with wet, clung like silk to a willow’s slim curve.

“I’m hungry, so let’s eat,” Xiao Qianxue said, her voice a low ripple before it steadied like a lake at dusk.

She drifted to the chair with a knot of feelings in her chest, lifted her gaze like a shy moon, found he wasn’t looking, and sat with her head down.

“Didn’t have time to buy soup fixings,” Lu Ke said, placing a big bowl that smoked like a hot spring. “Seaweed and egg drop will have to do.”

He untied his apron and sat, the quiet settling like evening snow.

“Why aren’t you eating—waiting on me?” He smiled across the table, lantern-bright against her clouded look he chose not to pierce.

“Try the cola chicken wings. I learned it today,” he said, setting the line like a fisherman on a calm river.

“Okay, Big Bro.” At his voice, Xiao Qianxue blinked awake like a bird startled from a branch.

She lifted her chopsticks like a clockwork doll and raised a wing to her pink lips, the moment hanging like dew.

“Why’d you stop?” Lu Ke frowned as she hovered like a stalled swallow.

“I know it doesn’t look pretty, but the taste’s first-rate.” He bit into one himself, crunch and sauce bursting like sun on frost.

“Mm…” The worry came first, heavy as fog; should she say it now and spoil the meal’s warm hearth.

A hand landed on her head, ruffling her wet gold like wind through wheat.

“Say it if you need to,” he murmured, the head-pat a soft umbrella in rain.

“Big Bro… I’m leaving tomorrow.” Relief and fear tangled in her chest like vines, yet her gold-and-crimson eyes met his night-dark ones like stars finding a sky.

“So soon?” Surprise flickered, then relief spread like thawing ice.

Days of walking on thin ice seemed over, yet doubt coiled like smoke—was it really done?

Memories slid by like lantern slides, their shared days dream-bright as a summer river.

“Just got the message.” She finally ate in big mouthfuls, rhythm steady as old rain on tiles.

“What must come will come,” Lu Ke laughed, wild as a bonfire under a dark sky. “So let’s cherish tonight—mwahahahaha!”

She stared, stunned like a deer in a clearing.

“With that reaction, I shouldn’t’ve said it…”

“Eat up. Later your brother’s playing games with you.”

They cleared the table in a few quick strokes, neat as raked sand, then dropped onto the couch before the TV’s blue glow.

“Big Bro, you sure you can play? This is the highest difficulty,” the blonde girl said, doubt fluttering like a moth around a lamp.

“Don’t let my calm face fool you,” Lu Ke puffed, chest out like a rooster at dawn. “I used to be the terror of the arcade, my triple combo made scalps tingle.”

“That’s King of Fighters… this is Halo, you idiot!” Her controller flew and smacked his face like a tossed pebble on a pond.

“No big deal…” He rubbed his cheek, handing the controller back like a peace offering. “Game sense transfers. Let me warm up and I’ll shine.”

Then came the firefight.

With a pig-teammate dragging like an anchor, the blonde girl finally erupted like a storm breaking a dam.

“You’re forcing me to turn on cheats!”

Lu Ke watched a human aimbot bloom before his eyes, cold and precise as winter stars.

Every bullet kissed a head, clean as a needle’s point, and even max-difficulty AI couldn’t so much as graze her shadow.

Before he even saw the enemy, gunfire rattled like thunder, and the map lay swept clean like a field after harvest.

“Man, having a superpowered little sister is bliss.” The “Mission Success” popped up like a banner in wind, and Lu Ke hugged the serious, adorable Xiao Qianxue beside him.

“Hey, you useless, pervy Big Bro, let go!”

“Don’t punch my face! If it breaks, I’m done!”

“As if anyone’s looking at you!”

“Whew, I’m beat…” After the battle, the blonde girl collapsed onto Lu Ke’s bed like a felled wheat sheaf.

“I told you not to clear it all at once,” he scolded softly, but his voice held a smile like afternoon sun.

He’d promised to show her a treasure, then scooped her up in a princess carry, light as a cloud crossing the moon.

“Hurry and show me the treasure, then I’m going back to sleep!” Xiao Qianxue rolled on the bed like a playful cat.

Her pale thigh flashed from the robe like moonlight through bamboo, and Lu Ke swallowed, dry as sand.

“Here.” He lifted a necklace from the box, red beads glowing like pomegranate seeds.

“This is—!” Her eyes lit, and she snatched it with joy bright as fireworks.

“I wasn’t planning to buy it,” Lu Ke said, scratching his head like a sheepish boy. “But something in the dark told me it matched you. Looks like it does.”

Without that strange tug like a tide, he’d never have bought something so plain.

“Big Bro, could you step out a moment?”

Joy flared first, sharp as a struck match; in her mind the system’s whisper rose, faint as windbells. “Evolution Bead detected. Absorb?”

“Oh—okay.” He didn’t understand, but he knew to leave, the door clicking shut like a lid on a box.

The instant it closed, Xiao Qianxue couldn’t wait. “Absorb Evolution Bead.”

A red mist burst from the bead like dawn fog, coiling around her in layered veils.

“Ugh…” Pain stabbed her back like a thorn trying to sprout wings.

“Seriously? Why does evolution hurt every time? Can’t it be like Pokémon—one white flash and done?”

“I have returned, Host,” the system’s cold voice rang, a bell in winter air.

She had no time for joy; the pain swelled like a rising tide, even speech breaking like foam.

“I’ll… deal with you… later…” The words scraped out, and her mind blurred like rain on glass.

Swish—something pushed free from her back, and black feathers spilled through the air like night snow.

Look closer, and their trailing halves burned red, like embers on coal.

“What the… where did these come from?” Sense returned like sunrise.

She felt weight behind her, flexed a little, and swish, swish—the air stirred like a small storm.

“Congratulations, Host. Evolution successful,” the voice chimed, flat as iron.

“Wings?” She turned her head, and saw a pair of black-and-red pinions beating slow as a heartbeat.

They were feathered, but each tip tapered like a blade, sharp as crescent horns.

The feathers weren’t angel-soft; they held an edge, more hawk than dove, each vane a drawn arrow.

Fold them, and they’d wrap her form like a cloak of midnight fire.

“So cool!”