Ling Yi flipped open the lunchbox, a layered lacquer box of steam, with ribs, tomato-and-egg, and white rice gleaming like small dunes.

She lifted the tray, and beneath it waited seaweed-and-egg soup, green fronds drifting like pondweed.

Yekase propped her cheek on one hand, watching from the table like a cat at a sunlit window.

“Where’s your sister? Aren’t you at the same school? Didn’t see her this morning.”

“She’s here. She’s got lots of friends, so I don’t intrude, like a sparrow keeping off a full branch. You didn’t see her because she does morning practice.”

Morning practice. The words and Yekase were oil and water, like rain on oiled paper.

That cold, sharp, pushy Ling Ya in her memory, somehow had many friends, and was even sportier than big sis Ling Yi, which twisted Yekase’s sense of the map.

“What about your lunch, Doc?”

“Huh? I’ll skip it. I don’t get hungry easily… I’ll eat back home later, same difference.”

“That won’t do!” Ling Yi shook her head like a bell. “Mom said being a beauty has many steps, and eating well is top-tier, like the keystone in an arch! If you can’t eat right, how do you grow grace?”

Lin Mei, what are you feeding your daughter’s mind with, clouds or candy?

“Don’t really need it…”

Ling Yi suddenly went solemn, nose almost bumping Yekase’s, their breath like two threads crossing. “Doc, you’re born pretty, so you dare say reckless things like that. I won’t let you insult those who fight, day and night, to become and remain beauties!”

“‘Remain a beauty’ is cursed grammar… though I got the point.”

What did her lunch have to do with beauty fans, anyway? It’s not like her stomach acid drips into theirs, like rain leaking through shared roofs.

Ling Yi glared, sparks like flint, then whipped out her phone and typed a storm, keys rattling like hail.

Ten minutes later, heavy dragging sounded below, a dull tide against wood, and the little observatory’s door opened again like a mouth.

“Yiyi?”

A head peeked in, cautious as a dormouse.

“You’re here! Doc, this is my best friend, Pu Lu. Lulu, this is my new friend from two days ago, Yekase.”

“Hi…”

Yekase gave Pu Lu a quick once-over, like a painter sketching lines. She had soft medium hair, sun-kissed brown, bangs almost veiling her eyes, while two hairpins lifted her temples.

The pins didn’t match: a red dot above, a white bar below, like a traffic signal frozen mid-change.

“…”

Pu Lu didn’t answer. Half her body stayed outside, half leaning in the stairwell, wary as a deer at the river.

After a long beat, she finally spoke in a mosquito thread of a voice:

“I don’t want to…”

“What?”

“I’m not bringing lunch to a stranger!”

The tantrum sparked like a match.

Yekase looked to Ling Yi for help, heart fluttering like a loose page, but Ling Yi stayed calm as a winter lake and coaxed softly:

“Lulu, come up first, don’t let others spot you.”

Pu Lu shut the hatch and climbed, each step like a cautious tap on glass.

She went straight to Ling Yi, squatted, hugged her knees, and stared at Yekase, eyes like a drawn bow.

“Lulu? The bread I asked you to buy…”

“Here.”

Pu Lu pulled a pork floss bun from her arms and handed it over, like a squirrel offering one pinecone.

“Great, I’ll pay you after we eat.” Ling Yi rubbed Pu Lu’s hair, her palm like a warm breeze.

Whoa. One beast tames another—nature balances its own scales.

Watching them, Yekase felt a prickle of fear, like shade passing over sun.

In a blink, Ling Yi turned from harmless goof to a trafficker of fools, keeping one in a cozy pen, dangerous and unfamiliar as a masked dancer.

Ling Yi passed the pork floss bun to Yekase with a smooth flip, like tossing a shuttlecock.

“…”

The stare hit like a laser.

No need to check—she knew where those arrows were loosed from.

Yekase pretended not to notice, looked to the other side of the room, and tore the wrapper with a soft rip, like silk.

“…!”

Stronger now, like standing in full noon.

If eyes gave off radiation, a Geiger counter would scream here and now.

On this summer noon, poor and feverish, with only a fan ladling thin cool air, Yekase found herself sighing at life again, like an old reed pipe.

There’s an old saying: if you’re rich, lean on tech; if you’re broke, pray for mutation, like fish hoping gills grow into wings.

Yekase held several core technologies in the palm of her hand, like fireflies in a jar.

Logically, people should pay her for support, rain falling uphill for once.

Yet she’d never had more than ten thousand in her account for even a day; that knot stayed weird as a crab’s walk.

Should she apply to a bigger, uglier Sinister Organization, one with deeper shadows? The idea tasted like rust.

Unrecognized Consortium X is a rickety shop; it can’t stir a real storm.

But big firms grind you 9 to 9, six days a week, forcing you to press down the world like a lid, the pressure a mountain on your ribs.

Then… back up heroes?

Forget it. One day you might “shoot yourself” eight times at home, the wind whispering that it was a suicide.

So it seems this is it.

No hunger to plunder, no iron to change the world.

Stuck in the in-between, living like driftwood, eating a pork floss bun on a stool in a high school’s abandoned observatory with two little girls, cicadas screaming like hot wires.

“…pfft.”

“Doc, why’d you laugh?”

“Just feels… life’s so calm,” she said, like water without ripples.

Yekase finished the bun in a few bites and stretched long, a cat under a beam of light.

“If only we had a bamboo mat. Summer begs for a floor nap.”

“What an old-lady habit! We’ve got old newspapers.”

“Too hard. My back protests like a creaky hinge.”

“Full-on granny… Fine, I’ll buy a bamboo mat next time and bring it.”

“…”

Pu Lu started staring at Ling Yi now, a silent thorn.

As if to say: why cave so easily to that woman’s requests…

“Lulu, any furniture you want to add?”

“Mm… I want,”

She blinked fast, like moth wings.

“I want you.”

“Hahaha, cheesy pickup line. I’m always here; no need to buy me,” Ling Yi said with a smile like a paper fan.

But Yekase almost choked on air, biting back a snark.

She’s serious! That face was dead serious, like a winter oath.

Dangerous girl—she uses an April Fools confession tactic in casual daylight, like a fox laying snares in grass!

A sly, contact-list temptress, pages perfumed and sharp.

Pu Lu sensed Yekase’s shock, turned her eyes for a heartbeat, and curled her mouth in a provocation, a cat showing one claw.

What’s that supposed to mean?

She’s sizing Yekase up as a rival?

That won’t do. Yekase, mentally a 27-year-old dude, had zero interest in Ling Yi that way.

Getting tagged with a phantom crime by a stranger would be a stone in her shoe.

She had to clear this up—fast.

“Listen, Pu Lu, I’m not—”

“Doc, we get out at four today, right? Let’s hit the mall and buy you new clothes.”

…

…It’s over.

“Clothes shopping?”

The air in the observatory dropped two degrees, like a cloud slid over the sun.

Ling Yi missed her friend’s shifting tide. “Lulu, you coming? We need to buy the Doc underwear, and maybe a few outfits she can actually wear outside.”

A shirt, jeans, and a lab coat can’t go outside?

What grudge do you have with engineer chic, clouds gathering over cotton?

Normally Yekase would fire back on the spot, like a spark in dry grass.

But Pu Lu’s pressure pinned her, a silent weight like a storm front.

“Even… underwear…”

Run. You have to run now, like a rabbit from a snare.

“Ha-ha, I’m a bit thirsty. I’ll grab drinks—”

She stood with a strained smile and tried to slip past Pu Lu, light as a shadow—

Slap.

Her right leg got hugged, locked like a root snagging a boot.

Oh, come on…

“I’m thirsty too. Let’s go together,” Pu Lu said, words cool as ice water.

Shiver, shiver, shiver… the spine rang like chimes.

Pu Lu rose behind her and, where Ling Yi couldn’t see, pressed a finger into Yekase’s lower back, a finger-gun cold as a key.

“—Eh?!”

A small, odd yelp escaped Yekase, like a startled sparrow.

Pu Lu leaned to her ear and whispered, breath a blade. “You used that little gasp to seduce Yiyi, didn’t you?”

You call that a gasp? If someone smacked your butt in a crowd, would that count too, thunder called a sigh?

Finger-gun still at her back, Pu Lu steered her away, leaving Ling Yi puzzled in the little observatory like a lantern left behind.

They walked in silence to the drink machine, footsteps beads on a string.

“Look, Pu Lu—”

“Don’t say my name, fox spirit.”

Grass.

Okay, this is past saving, like a cup already spilled.

Ling Yi, look what you started! You harem-protagonist-level airhead!

Yekase rolled her eyes and bought a can of herbal tea, the can cold as river stone, and shuffled aside for Pu Lu.

Pu Lu extended one finger and hit Pepsi, the blue light winking like a buoy.

“You drink Pepsi…?”

The words slipped out and stopped, like a fish jerked by the line.

Pu Lu shot another hostile glance, sharp as sleet.

Okay. At least it didn’t raise her hate any further… probably because there’s no room left in the cup.

To distract herself, Yekase looked out toward the corridor, to the empty playground boiling under the sun, and past it to the housing blocks, heat rippling like a mirage.

From a distant rooftop, something popped out, a black seed flung from a sling.

…?

It drew a clean arc in the sky, untouched by wind, like a brushstroke on paper.

With not-great-but-not-terrible math, Yekase judged its landing spot would be near here, numbers ticking like beads.

Which outfit’s experimental weapon?

But why aim at a school? “No attacking schools” is one of the few rules in the Sinister Organization Management Act that people actually obey, a red line like a river.

Real trouble was seconds away; Yekase ditched the duel and ran, shoes slapping like drumbeats.

“Eh?! Running?”

“No time to play. Get back and evacuate the students! Something’s… coming this way!”

Good thing Pu Lu came for drinks.

Ling Yi was alone now; one call and she could deploy like a hidden blade.

But should she be called?

Such fast response would ping certain shadows, eyes like owls.

Worse…

She’d already fought twice in twenty-four hours.

Some things should be handed off.

Don’t dream of solving everything alone—every hero in this era learns that bitter compromise, like swallowing a stone.

Beep-beep-beep-beep!

“Doc? No need to bring me—”

“Listen, Ling Yi. Whatever happens next, don’t leave the observatory before lunch break ends.”

“What’s happening?” Her voice wobbled, like a wire in wind.

“Someone might attack Heavenly Heart High School.”

“Then shouldn’t I—”

“You shouldn’t. Heroes will protect everyone; if not, other groups will bring the hammer down. But it mustn’t be you.”

“Why? I’m not—”

“If you want to help, evacuate students. If I see Flashblade Red, I’ll confiscate your key when we get back.”

“I…”

Ling Yi dropped to a sit with a soft thump, like a fruit falling from the branch.

“I understand.”