After that, Yekase tried on outfits of every stripe, half coaxed, half complicit, while shopping bags bloomed like paper lanterns in her hands. Every time she figured they were done, Ling Yi’s candy-colored praise drifted like confetti and spun her a little dizzy, and they wandered on until the sky turned ink-black.

A prickle of caution rose, then she steadied her heart. Fine—call this research, material to play the part that matches my face. Once Flashblade Red starts moving for real, I’ll be her support; the chance of exposure swells like a rising tide. I should tend my everyday disguise like a garden. We’ll call it that.

“Doctor, what do you want for dinner?”

“Uh?” Yekase glanced around like a sparrow on a wire. “I’m easy. Got any recommendations?”

“If I had to recommend… how about that beef bowl? I tried it once—felt pretty solid.”

Ling Yi pointed at a shop called [Cow & Liuliu Flute], its neon pulsing like a firefly.

“Liu & Liuliu Flute—no… Cow & Cow… cow girl cow… forget it.”

A poster by the door showed an adorably drawn pig, carrying two people on its back like a little ferry. Why a pig?

Ling Yi started reading the copy aloud. “Fat beef out-competes fat pig, which means—”

“Stop, stop!” Yekase dragged her inside like a gust scooping up a leaf.

It was prime dinner hour; a tide of people filled the tables, chopsticks flashing like a school of fish. Yekase did her habitual quick scan, eyes sweeping like a lens. No familiar faces. A quiet breath loosened in her chest.

They took a corner seat and scanned the code, their phones chiming like tiny bells.

“Heard they’ve got a new dish… wonder how honey mustard would hit.”

“Honey mustard! You’ve got taste.”

The young guy sitting beside them caught her murmur and chimed in, voice sparking like a match. “Speaking of the latest dish, I tried it yesterday—really good. It’s sea-return beef raised under lunar gravity; the meat’s fluffy and soaks up broth and dips like a sponge, and it pairs crazy well with honey mustard!”

“Oh!”

Ling Yi lit up and ordered a portion on the spot, eyes bright as twin stars.

Yekase peered past Ling Yi at the youth whose friendliness rivaled hers. Clean features, a red tracksuit bright as a maple leaf, headphones looped at his neck, early twenties at most, energy shining from his brows like morning sun.

She remembered being about his age—night after night in the lab, wrestling a micro transforming joint until dawn. Well then.

“Your M78 Space Beef Bowl!”

“Thanks!”

He pulled the bowl close, left hand shaking pepper like rain, right hand squeezing honey mustard with a wet psssh, both bottles dancing. He kept pouring until the meat’s color nearly vanished, then set the jars down and stirred with his chopsticks, the sound soft as wind in grass.

He solemnly lifted a piece and slid it into his mouth.

Ling Yi watched, taut as a bowstring.

“Delicious! Beef bowl after a day’s work is delicious!”

“Oh! That face is pure bliss!”

You don’t need to holler about food. What classical hot-blood protagonist are you?

“I was raised by my granny, and she always said, ‘After you sweat, everything tastes twice as good.’” He lifted a finger like he was raising a flag. His mouth was full of meat and rice, yet his words came out crisp, which felt oddly mystical.

“I’m Crimson Field Sōba, a wandering ronin! And you two?”

“Japanese? No foreign accent. Your Chinese is solid,” Yekase said, one brow quirking like a bird’s wing.

“Yep! I’ve been in Huaxia for a long while.”

“I’m Ling Yi, she’s Yekase,” Ling Yi said, tossing out their real names like petals on a stream.

“Hey, you—”

“Yekase? That sounds like the Japanese word for ‘doc—’”

Yekase shot up and reached out her right hand. “Nice to meet you!”

“Oh—oh!”

Not sure why she reacted so strongly, Crimson Field clasped her hand, then let go, confusion flickering like a moth.

…?

He felt something new in his palm when he pulled back, a weight like a feather. He lifted it—there was a black slip of paper.

On it, white ink had scrawled three hurried characters, messy as rain.

“—?!”

Crimson Field snapped his gaze to Yekase, but she’d already turned away and started chatting with Ling Yi. “By the way, Ling Yi, check out the new toy I picked up yesterday.”

“A memo pad? Why’s the paper black? That can’t be good for writing.”

“This isn’t an ordinary memo pad…”

Yekase tore off a note, showing both sides like a street magician. “See? Blank from edge to edge.”

“Black from edge to edge.”

“…Black from edge to edge. I fold it, hold it in my palm. One, two, three… okay, open it.”

Ling Yi took the strip and unfolded it, breath held like a caught kite.

A string of white letters bloomed across the black. [I’m going to buy milk tea. What do you want?]

“M-magic?! Doctor, you can do magic?”

Ling Yi kept folding and opening it, then held it to the light like a leaf to the sun, and still couldn’t find the trick.

“Strawberry Yakult. Thirty percent sugar, no ice.”

“Ok.”

Yekase pushed open the door with a faint whoosh and stepped out.

Crimson Field tucked his paper into his tracksuit pocket and smiled, a line of meaning like a brushstroke. “Doctor…”

He cleared his bowl in a flash, set it down with a soft clack, said a brief goodbye to Ling Yi, and headed out.

Left, right—his eyes skimmed like swallows. Ten-plus meters away, he spotted Yekase at the milk tea counter, her silhouette outlined by glass and light.

She really went for milk tea…

He drifted to her side and spoke low, voice like a shadow under eaves. “Could I ask for your help, Doctor?”

Yekase took the receipt from the clerk, stepped back two paces, and leaned against the glass railing looking down into the atrium like a moon over water.

“Thanks for the invite. I’ve already got a master.”

“Flashblade Red?”

She didn’t answer. She turned, forearms on the rail, eyes quiet as a lake.

“…You’re sharper than the team captains I pictured.”

Crimson Field chuckled, scratching his cheek, a little sheepish, like a fox not used to compliments. “Our brains, Dragon-God Tiger, once said, ‘Hot blood alone can’t get things done.’ So I walk and think at my own pace. At noon, heading back, I figured Flashblade Red’s debut was here—maybe I’d catch a glimpse. In short, intuition wins.”

“Thanks for today.”

“No way! Happy to help.”

Yekase thought a moment, her gaze steady as a plumb line. “How about this—though I can’t join you, I’d still like us to be allies, working together. I can provide… some tech support on the gadget side.”

Super Squads carry tech like mountains strapped to their backs. Their standard is almost always a giant combining robot roaring like a thunderhead. And as a half insider, Yekase knows those plain-looking tight suits are actually high-tech shells—strength boosters, life support, energy conduits—woven like silk into skin.

The special energy that drives those robots and suits belongs to the same family as Flash Energy under Infinite Power. Its name is Omega Ray, a beam like a sunrise lifting steel.

She could trade her rough research on Flash Energy for even rougher knowledge points on Omega Ray. That’d be enough to skirt her current bottleneck—no way to harvest Flash Energy—and reinforce the Flashblade System like adding ribs to a ship.

More importantly, every known Super Squad runs hot with justice like a brazier in winter. Cities under their watch have civilian death rates among the lowest nationwide, a shield like a forest against storm. Being their ally is all gain, no burn.

“Thank you! I’ll look forward—”

“Why not tonight, after I send her home.”

Yekase handed Crimson Field a card, its surface matte as river stone.

“The ink on the back points toward my place. If it leaves my hand for more than two hours, it’ll self-burn. Don’t let it scorch you.”

“Order 080: Passionfruit Double Boom and Strawberry Yakult!”

“My milk tea’s up. See you tonight.”

Yekase waved, then slipped back into the shop, the door sighing shut.

Ling Yi had waited herself into impatience, her beef mound obviously missing a cap like a shaved hill. Still, she posed as if she’d been obediently waiting.

“Took forever…”

“It’s summer break. The lines snake like dragons.”

Yekase sat down, and caught Ling Yi lifting the honey-mustard squeeze bottle in a very familiar pose—

Psssh!

She plopped a yellow blob on top, glossy as a puddle.

“Ugh…”

“Doctor, wanna try?”

“Absolutely not.” Yekase shoved her bowl out of splatter range, waited till Ling Yi gave up, then picked up her chopsticks with relief like a breeze.

The ceramic bowl, bigger than her palm, brimmed with rice like fresh snow. Dark brown beef slices, oil glinting like lacquer, piled into a little hill dotted with onion moons and thin threads of nori. Nudge aside the top layer and a fried egg lay hidden in the middle, the yolk half-set like amber; prod the white and gold ran gentle as honey.

She lifted a slice and chewed; sure enough, as Crimson Field said, there was a soft, sweet aroma the usual beef didn’t have, like a fruit note in the meat. A sip of miso soup later, the meat’s particular umami rose like steam and settled back, woven perfectly together.

He’d mentioned cattle raised on the Moon—sea-return beef… you can’t call it “sea-return” if it never crossed any sea.

“Moon’s ecological front line…”

“They say it’s got a vertical city up there? One day, I want to ride the Earth–Moon elevator and stand on that terrace.”

“Not interested.”

“Eh?”

“Genetics and architecture—no interest.”

“That’s scenery we’ve never even seen in dreams. Isn’t that reason enough?”

“My dream is living safely till I die of old age.”

“Ah, Doctor, seriously.”

If that were true, you wouldn’t have built the Flashblade System, would you?

Ling Yi stopped pushing, her smile a touch unsettling, like sweetness hiding a thorn.

She suddenly pictured traveling outside battle with this strong, intelligent girl who sometimes shows endearingly fragile edges, the one who rewrote her life the instant she appeared, two figures crossing landscapes like cranes in flight—

“Back to the point, I think you should accept Pulu’s feelings. If you reject her, you might lose a friend; and on the flip side, I’m not leaving anyway.”

Yekase’s suggestion came after careful weighing, like scales balancing gold and feather. Hearing it, Ling Yi, who’d been staring at her in a daze, showed a look caught between laughing and crying, eyes shimmering like rain.

“Doctor, saying it like that just makes it harder on me…”