Shen Shanshan had reserved the booth long ago, like planting a flag before dawn.

Only now did Yekase realize she’d planned everything after the meetup, like a stage manager moving scenery in the dark; she sighed, how many girls has she dated?

While they waited for Jiang Bailu, Shanshan didn’t idle; she seized the song console like a raider taking a hill and started tapping away.

Yekase watched those fluent moves and felt her nerves smooth out like calm water—there’s a mic hog here, so she could drift like a lazy cloud.

A familiar intro rose around them, like smoke curling from a match.

“Magnet.”

Then a microphone poked at Yekase’s lips like a cat’s paw.

“Come on, duet.”

“I don’t sing Japanese. I’m from Huaxia.”

Yekase refused at once, voice flat as a closed door.

“What a pity…”

“If you wanna sing, then just—”

“Then we switch to a Chinese one.”

Shen Shanshan axed “Magnet” a beat before the first line, then queued the next track like flipping a blade.

“Shaohua Weiji.”

“I don’t sing gu-feng ballads. I’m a modern soul.”

“You’ve got way too many rules!”

“I just don’t wanna sing. You sing it.” Yekase pushed the mic back like sliding a chess piece.

But Shanshan wouldn’t let go: “Nope. You came, you sing. No foreign songs, no gu-feng, so at least a Chinese pop, right?”

“…Fine, fine. Do ‘The Night of Ulaanbaatar.’”

“…”

Shen Shanshan gave her a delicate look, cut the backing like killing the lights, and the room fell silent like a stopped clock.

“W-what?”

“Showing off, huh? Opening with that high a difficulty?”

“It’s… not that bad? I hum it sometimes…” Yekase’s voice shrank like a candle in wind. “And I never said I’d sing it well.”

She’d often hummed it alone, like tracing a path in sand; never practiced, just hoped to keep in tune, nothing more.

The prelude floated up, a night breeze over steppe grass.

Time to brew the mood. There were many versions; her favorite was the one sung to a dead father—though she’d lost no kin, and maybe to that “home” hundreds of kilometers away, she was the one who’d vanished like a star slipping behind cloud.

Even so, she thought of her sister, the one she’d gotten along with, a steady light in the window.

When she left, her sister had just gotten into a normal school, like a sprout breaking soil. How was she now—did she become a teacher like dawn finally arriving?

…

“You left… so many years—”

At the first line, Shen Shanshan cursed silently beside her, like a kettle seething with no whistle.

“You’re still… right by my side—”

Yekase’s cords, polished by a master like jade turned on a lathe, rang clear as glass; yet when she defaulted to her former male register, the lowered timbre added a velvet grain, like shadow under light.

“That day, your smiling face—”

“Now when I close my eyes,”

“I can still see it.”

You call this not singing? Shen Shanshan’s look shouted it, bright as a billboard, but Yekase, sunk in the song, sailed past like a boat in fog.

Jiang Bailu pushed the door and peered in; she saw the Doctor holding a mic and singing earnestly, and her surprise burst like a popped balloon.

She ducked out, checked the number on the wall, closed the door, reopened it, then finally believed she hadn’t walked into the wrong room.

“Through the wind on the open plain, please, slow your pace…”

And it sounded… good, like clear water over stone.

No, wait. She’d never heard the Doctor sing all these years; maybe she’d always been good, like a blade kept sheathed.

No, is she really the type to spare time to practice this, like tending a bonsai?

In that blink, she realized she didn’t know the Doctor as well as she’d thought; her mind opened like a window to rain.

Shen Shanshan waved her over, a small tide of fingers, and only then did Jiang notice there was another woman in the room.

A pretty twentysomething in casuals, like a weekday commuter; is this the “strong external support” the Doctor mentioned?

Given the mission, maybe a fellow weapons researcher, here to lace the ground with traps; but the strike power problem still hung there like a storm cloud.

When Jiang sat, Shen leaned close and murmured, breath light as moth wings: “Hi, I’m Shen Shanshan. I’m a mercenary.”

“Eh?!”

A mercenary? With that frame, like a reed in river wind?

“Shh, keep it down.” Shanshan gestured, then pointed at Yekase, like tapping a sign.

What are you two even doing…

“The details are messy, like knotted string. All you need is this—I know the enemy well.”

“We’re not discussing with the Doctor?”

“Even the wind can’t be heard, can’t be heard—”

It’s you who can’t hear the people next to you!

Jiang had already been stressed to be dragged out the day before war, like a drum stretched tight; without “external support,” she wouldn’t have come. And now the support sits here while they start from zero, and the Doctor just… sings?!

“Drifting cloud to the sky’s edge, please, slow your pace…”

Though, to be fair, it was lovely, like a bell in dusk.

“Uh… I’m Jiang Bailu, Development Director of Unrecognized Consortium X… thank you for your help…”

“She told me. So, what do you want me to do? Guard your leader?”

That says nothing!

“No. We plan to rig our base into a battlefield, bog down Triple Calamity’s forces, and meanwhile send a surprise team to seize their leader.”

“Oh. So you’re going for a base trade.”

Shen thought it over, the idea weighing like steel; it was the only workable route. They couldn’t win head-on—though with her defection, the scales tilted and maybe a straight fight was possible, but set traps shouldn’t go to waste, so fine.

“I know their place well.”

“Oh, that’s great!”

Shen watched Jiang’s smile bloom from the heart, soft as spring light, and didn’t answer at once.

Yekase had complained to her for ages about the organization’s overtime and wage delays, like rain that never let up; she’d called it “a friend’s organization,” but it had to be the same one.

That rickety outfit that drove Yekase to bolt, after which she brightened like a washed sky—how is it another person’s beloved home?

Shen couldn’t parse it; the thought knotted like bamboo roots.

“The organization matters a lot to me. With you, our odds rise like the tide.”

“What’s so important?” She couldn’t help asking, voice cool as a blade.

Jiang hadn’t expected the question; she blinked, scratched her head like a shy sparrow, and said, “Maybe… because it holds the Doctor’s notes and results? Until the Doctor comes back, I have to protect them.”

“But your Doctor is right here.”

That only made Shen more baffled. What is this—fetish for artifacts?

“It’s not the same…”

Jiang’s face flushed red, quick as a struck match. “She opens the road ahead, and I follow her shadow. That stretch of bright time—we have to get it back, no matter what. Our R&D is a big part of it.”

“…Oh.”

So that’s it; devotion like a lantern kept lit.

“Our world—what have we changed—”

“We have changed quite a bit.”

Shen smiled too, a small curve like a crescent moon.

“I’ll help. But you two have your frictions, right? Don’t drag me into it.”

“Of course.”

“Our world—what are we waiting for—”

And you, chaser of yesterday’s flickers—what are you waiting for?

Shen lifted the second mic, and their voices braided like twin rivers.

“Our world—what is left behind—”

“Our world—only a desert left—”

Yekase glanced back at the sudden harmony, and only then noticed Jiang had arrived, her eyes bright as stars.

“Through the wind on the open plain, please, slow your pace.”

Only two lines remained, like the last embers; finish first, talk later.

“The one who sings—now and then—sheds tears.”

They set the mics down; the sound died like ripples on a pond.

Shen applauded with heat like crackling fire. Jiang clapped twice, soft as feathers.

“Sorry, got a bit carried away.”

“Doctor, you can sing?”

“I didn’t think I’d get through it either… Alright, let’s talk about tomorrow’s plan.”

“We already did while you were singing.”

“Uh.”

“Anyone besides me on the backdoor squad?”

“There’s also a humanoid the Doctor built, Roze, a dark-aspected Sky Striker weapon.”

“Sky Striker… Right, got it.”

“Roze is an early model. Its AI might wobble, like a drunk on stairs. I’ll have it handle breaching. You use the openings to go for the leader.”

“Copy.”

“Bailu, you stay on standby beside the crazy hag.”

Jiang nodded, crisp as a salute. “Got it.”

“Who’s the crazy hag?”

“The head of the Consortium.”

Damn, that grudge runs deep, like salt in a wound.

“And me… I’ll sit at home and wait for good news.”

“You’re not coming!” Shen shot back, as quick as a snapped twig.

Yekase frowned, lines cutting like knife marks. “You want me storming the walls with you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“The Doctor’s already done a lot. I don’t want her risking herself.”

“Fair. She’s admin staff.”

Shen leaned on the last four words, heavy as iron.

Yekase turned her head aside like a door half-closed.

Jiang restated the rules of the swallow-and-merge: “We start at eight sharp tomorrow night. No one engages before that. Beat their leader and we win, though he’ll be wrapped in layers of guards like rings of bark.”

A thought struck Yekase like a spark. “Shen Shanshan, what orders did they give you?”

“Sadly, a straight assault.” Shen knew what she meant. “Their stay-behind curse-god is named Ma Wei. He’s got a turtle-like transformable armor, can switch tank mode and fortress mode, with defense thick as city walls for no sane reason.”

“Can you punch through?”

“I don’t know.” The truth fell like a stone.

“Mm…”

Transform armor… A two-person backdoor squad might be too thin, like a thread in a gale. And Roze’s AI won’t improvise much…

“But if we had the Mechbreaker, it’d be nothing. Too bad we can’t reach her.”

Jiang was practical. “A figure like an urban legend—probably out of reach, even with the Doctor’s contacts.”

…

“Tonight.”

Yekase bit down on the words like a cold blade.

“I’ll find her. I’ll get her to help.”