Bubbles rolled across the broth like tiny moons surfacing through steam.

Yekase kept dropping greens into the pot. Jiang Bailu stayed listless, chewing the first mushrooms at a snail’s pace, like a clock that refused to tick.

“Fine. If you’re that impatient, let’s talk about how we fight.”

Yekase set her chopsticks down, fingers laced, chin propped like a bridge over still water.

“How are the officers?”

“On standby.”

“How many ‘Zec’ mass-production units?”

Jiang Bailu lifted her left hand.

Five fingers opened like a fan.

“That’s plenty,” Yekase smiled. “Eat. Another minute and the meat turns to leather.”

Jiang Bailu glared at the floating slices, grabbed three or four in petty defiance, and shoved them in.

“Huff… huff…”

“Careful. It’s hot.”

Yekase fished two slices herself, but didn’t eat. She pulled paper and a pen from a drawer, slid the empty plate aside, and spread the sheet like a map on a calm sea.

Jiang Bailu paused with chopsticks still in her mouth, frozen mid-bite like a bird mid-flap.

Yekase drew clean horizontal and vertical lines. “The weak fight like the weak. The not-so-weak fight their own way. To set tactics, we answer three questions first.”

She finished in strokes. Jiang Bailu lifted the paper. It was the layout of Unrecognized Consortium X’s base, rendered in quick bones and arteries.

She’d been gone so long, yet she knew every artery and vein. Had she studied the place? For what storm?

“First, where we fight. We’re outnumbered, so the main field must be ours. If the whole floor turns into a battlefield, the choke points we hold are…”

She circled three spots like eclipses.

“The north and south stairwells. And the junction by the water cooler. There are unrelated groups above and below us. They won’t roll in heavy weapons. That’s something.”

Jiang Bailu nodded. The logic flowed like a straight channel.

“Second, how we fight. The Consortium doesn’t have many valuables. Move the active projects and key data out. Then indoor guerrilla warfare becomes easy to breathe.”

The stream kinked.

“In… indoor guerrilla? How would that even…”

Alley fighting? No—by this tone, she’d let the enemy walk right into the base.

“If you’re them, would you expect bombs at the cubicles? If we line up on open ground, their numbers bury us like a sandstorm. Use home-field. Ditch scattered skirmishes. Lure them in. Wear them down with traps.”

Jiang Bailu’s thoughts snagged like cloth on thorns.

She knew they couldn’t win head-on. But letting them into their own house? And… bombs? These were modern Mind Energy fighters—

Could it be?

Light returned to her eyes, like coals catching wind, as she looked at Yekase. Small bombs that worked even against a Sinister Organization… was the Doctor coming back?

“As for the keystone traps—hey, I’m not heartless. Let’s say you found new blueprints in Dr Ika’s old computer.”

Yekase winked, a sly you-know grin flashing like a fox’s tail. The sudden brightness stunned Jiang Bailu on the spot.

“And third… how we win.”

Yekase didn’t give her time to digest the look. She cut into point three like a blade through paper.

“Triple Calamity’s visible top force is the three Curse Gods—thus the name. We have your mass-produced units. They pull our grunts’ floor up to officer level. Add the original officers. To steady their odds, they’ll send one… maybe two.”

Jiang Bailu nodded, the air thick as rain before a storm.

“The main field will be brutal.”

This base was as good as ash. Five wearing ‘Zec’ against Curse Gods—grim odds. If both lines fell too fast, even the boss might wade in… and that madwoman’s strength again?

Yekase shook her head, scattering messy clouds, and spoke with a sunbeam of hope. “But if we win, we swallow Triple Calamity’s assets. Today’s losses get wiped ten times over.”

Win—how? The management law was clear: mergers or purges, anything about interests ends the instant one leader loses combat ability or gets captured.

Same small pond. Most folks are here for money. Faces repeat like seasons. Driving it to blood-feud helps no one.

“That’s our opening. Our tactic. Simple and straight, obvious as a door—yet most won’t dare push it. For that, we need—”

Jiang Bailu snapped her head up, voice burning like kindling catching. “We need a strike team no one knows about,”

“to swap houses with Triple Calamity.”

…

The rental room went quiet again, like a lake after a stone sinks.

Jiang Bailu was stunned by the Doctor’s precise forecast and bold, elegant plan, savoring it like slow tea.

Yekase realized she’d analyzed all night, only to boil it down to two words—swap houses—and shame tugged her tongue silent.

Five minutes crawled like five years. Then, together, they ate.

The potato slices had gone too soft.

They shattered into the broth before chopsticks could lift them.

“Doctor.”

“Mm?”

“If I give you a mass-production unit, will you join the fight?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Yekase glanced up, cool as dew. “I’m non-combat. Not wearing armor is the thickest armor.” She skimmed the ladle for broken potato, like fishing moon shards from soup.

Silence folded around Jiang Bailu again. The refusal blindsided her. She’d thought the Doctor would agree first, get the unit’s data, then decide later. Instead, a clean no like a guillotine.

Was it distrust of her? Or that the unit’s gold content was so low she could copy it without the source?

“I don’t fight, and I can’t show my face inside the Consortium. Why give me a unit? You’d only thin your line.”

“Give me three days, I can build another…”

“Then issue six. Two at each junction. They’ll buy time like sandbags.”

“All right…”

“When it starts, report live over the earpiece.”

“Got it.”

“For traps… timed, pressure, infrared—three kinds of bombs. Optical-camo caltrops and bolts, spring blades, high-speed wire… plus a short-range teleporter for splashing sulfuric acid. I’ll teach you later. How’s that loadout?”

Hearing that girlish voice recite killing tools like a grocery list, Jiang Bailu felt something odd twist in her chest. “We won’t need Triple Calamity. Your traps alone could take the Consortium apart twice…”

“That’s why you win, then move into their standalone HQ. Inspirational, right?”

“It is.”

Her mood lifted a notch like a kite catching wind. They cleared the rest fast. Yekase tossed pot and pan into the sink with a splash, then pulled out—

A cardboard box painted with citrus.

“Schrödinger’s Inventory. Lifetime license.”

She set it in Jiang Bailu’s hands like placing a talisman.

“Lifetime…”

Jiang turned it over, found no mystery—just like 3333 did back then. Yet in a few days, the Inventory had evolved again.

“Use it with this authenticator. You can transmit whatever’s in the box to wherever the authenticator is.”

Yekase lifted the upgraded authenticator—no longer a wristband—from its charging case and placed it in Jiang Bailu’s palm. Slimmer despite the new auth module. Ring-sized, neat as a seed.

“I’ll set you as its sole user. Even if the authenticator isn’t on you, you can send items to its vicinity.”

Jiang Bailu stared at the ring in her palm, dazed like a moth before a lamp.

Settings done, heat breathed from the inner ring. Three characters etched themselves: Jiang Bailu.

“Even liquids. Before the fight, tie the ring to the ceiling. Pour concentrated sulfuric into the box, and it appears over their heads like rain.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Huh?”

“I want to wear it. Always.”

“Uh… that works… but you’ll have to get close. Is that safe?”

Jiang shook her head and clutched the authenticator like a keepsake, hiding it behind her back like a squirrel with a nut.

“Fine, your call. You’ve got enough without it.”

She’d swallowed words since apprentice days. Yekase wasn’t good at reading hearts, so she let the current flow.

“As for that assault team—got candidates?”

“For now… none.”

“It has to surprise them and hit hard. Triple Calamity’s leader isn’t as strong as his three Curse Gods, but he’s no pushover. Our internal roster might be leaked. Best to hire mercs. Mercs…”

Mercenaries?

A face rose in Yekase’s mind.

No—a mask.

“…I might be able to call one.”

“Doctor, your network…”

“One’s not enough. We need at least one more.”

Knowing Jiang Bailu, she’d buried herself in research these months—like modding the Flashblade System—no time for mingling. Asking her to find help out there was a tall order.

Not that Yekase was much better.

In that case…

“In that case, we can only restart that.”

The unstable, mothballed first-gen Flashblade System. The AI mounted on the “Zec.”

Roze.