Yekase sprawled on the newly bought beanbag like a cat in sun-warmed moss, waiting for Liu RuoYuan to finish her shower, the steam curling like low cloud beyond the door.

Accepting reality felt like laying down your sword, yet reality was a millstone you still had to shoulder across a river of days.

At least, like she’d promised, she didn’t police Yekase’s late-night gaming or undone homework, a brief furlough in a jail of routine, a breath of wind through iron bars.

Though she had tried to sneak a look at Yekase’s in-game ID, a kitten pawing at a shadow.

News from Professor F arrived, cold text like a steel memo. Given how Yekase and Ling Yi handled hero work, the nearly finished frame “Dragon God Eden” would be refit, per Yekase’s schematics, into Luciferin.

“Efficiency and cost,” the note claimed, words like pebbles in a dry gourd. That base islet sinking must’ve hit Beast King Squadron’s coffers like a storm tide; they couldn’t bankroll a second mech from zero.

Yekase got it, the thought settling like quiet rain; even if you put Ling Yi in a cockpit, she’d stall the engine and eat an orbital kinetic strike, a third-rate pilot dodging like a leaf in a gale.

“I’m done.” Liu RuoYuan came out with a towel like a soft cloud on her head, heat rolling off her like a sauna vent.

“Oh. I’ll shower now.” Yekase picked up her change of clothes, hands steady like a practiced ritual.

“I wonder how my brother’s doing, if he’s off work, if the park’s got good food,” she said, her voice a pebble tossed into still water.

“…”

Was that serious, or bait dangled like a hook for Yekase to bite?

“Ms. Liu,” Yekase led with the pulse before the step, voice slow as dusk. “Do you have… special feelings for your brother?”

“Mm? He’s irreplaceable blood. Seven billion on Earth, five-plus million on the Lunar Front—only three are my closest kin. Isn’t that special enough?” Her words rang like temple bells in cold air.

“I see. I’ve got a little sister too, but we’ve drifted,” Yekase said, a shoreline pulled back by tide.

“You’ll make up,” Liu RuoYuan replied, light as spring wind over reeds.

“Uh—yeah…” The knot in Yekase’s chest loosened like a fist uncurled, and she headed for the shower.

Liu RuoYuan waited for the lock to click and the water to start drumming like summer rain, then her eyes flicked bright as sparrows, and she moved like a shadow slipping under a door.

First, the wardrobe. If that impossible guess was real, she’d find familiar clothes there, many pieces like tree rings marking stalled years—his body hadn’t grown since junior high, so his shirts would fit across seasons.

She reached for the drawer—pulled—locked, a thorn hidden under velvet.

So, the cabinet up top…

Also locked. A blank face with a hidden bite, a door wearing a mask.

This wasn’t aimed just at her; she couldn’t know that. Yekase had once developed stealth latches and tested them at home, turning every panel from wardrobe doors to desk drawers into ghosts with invisible fingerprint locks.

“Damn it, then…!” Her breath flared like a match in the dark.

The desktop!

If he’d ever been a man, there’d be spoor in the hard drive, nameless grime tucked in corners like mold under floorboards.

She nudged the mouse, coaxing the screen awake like a pond skin shivering—then froze, caught by a flare.

Yekase’s wallpaper was a giant, high-res NSFW pinup, colors ripe as summer fruit.

If you wanted “spicy,” it was certainly “spicy”—a lantern blazing in a quiet lane.

“Ehhh?!” Her yelp fluttered like a startled sparrow.

The mouse picked up an unregistered finger; Yekase’s privacy system snapped the screen shut like a trap, and the moment popped like a bubble.

But there was hope yet, a last ember in ash!

His birthday. If the password was his birthday, a key under the mat.

Input—19941214.

—Wrong. A cold beep like sleet on tin.

Input—941214.

—Wrong. Another pebble into a dry well.

Try with initials tacked on? Still wrong, the door a blank stone.

Final warning flashed like a red eye. One more try, or five minutes of lockout and a shrieking alarm.

If Yekase heard it, she’d smell the smoke and tighten every bolt. Five minutes was survivable, but who knew how long a shower would last, water running like a river with no clock?

Right. What if… her own birthday?

Yekase’s offhand “special feelings for your brother” hovered like a moth. Did she like her actual little sister? Scary thought—yet what if the moth found flame?

Input—19990214.

…

“Beep-beep-beep-beep!!” The alarm slashed the quiet like a kitchen knife on porcelain.

She lost, a castle toppled by a single lever. Against Yekase, who’d waded six years through society and a Sinister Organization, her little recon was a baby deer on ice.

Liu RuoYuan went slack and folded to the floor, a kite with a cut string.

Yekase was a quick shower, a summer storm done in minutes; she heard the alarm from the living room, toweled off in streaks of lightning, and stepped out.

“Room inspection, huh?” Her voice was a dry spark, a half-smile under night.

“I was wrong…” Liu RuoYuan lay like a puddle, eyes wet as rain. “Yekase… are you him? We haven’t met for years. I just want to know…” Her plea trembled like a reed in wind.

Old autumn blew through Yekase’s mind, leaves skittering along a station platform. At seventeen, he left for Twin Towers City to start college, cold war with a mother who forbade Infinite Power, father swallowed by overtime—only Liu RuoYuan came to see him off, a small lighthouse by his suitcase.

“Bro, do you really have to go? That… limitless power, you could learn it in secret, right?” Twelve-year-old Liu RuoYuan squatted by his case like a sparrow by a basket, looking up.

“It’s called Infinite Power,” he’d said, correcting her gently, a hand on a compass.

…

Yekase’s lips moved, words pried out like a nail from wood. “When the time’s right, I’ll tell you.” The promise hung like a lantern—bright, and basically a confession.

Liu RuoYuan rose and hugged her, soft and warm as a shawl in winter.

Again, it turned to this. Twice now, a “siblings reunited” act had rolled in like fog and blown away in a rush, plans scattered like leaves.

Blood ties ran like underground springs—maybe that was it.

At least there was no Ling-family circus here, no moths around that flame—maybe because they hadn’t gone home to see their parents.

“So that makes me the older sister, right?” Her tone skipped like a pebble on water.

“Huh?”

“Little Sister Ye. Hehe, Little Sister Ye.” The tease spun like a paper pinwheel.

“You can… let go now,” Yekase said, a cough of wind.

…She let go. The obedience landed like a feather. It felt odd, like wearing a new coat.

Her pitiful act evaporated like dew in sunlight; she strolled the room humming, a finch on a wire.

Yekase narrowed her eyes and savored the long-lost quiet like warm tea—until her phone buzzed, a hornet behind glass.

New message: Citywide precursor signals for mass Exoforms, including one elite-class unit. Full manifest in thirty minutes. With just me and Wendao, we can’t cover all lanes.

So fast? The thought struck like thunder, and Yekase shot to her feet, a spring released.

“What’s wrong?” Liu RuoYuan’s concern glinted like a fish-scale.

“Gotta go solve a problem.” Yekase rose on tiptoe and ruffled her hair like a breeze over wheat, grabbed a jacket, and was out the door like a drawn blade.

Notify Ling Yi and Ling Ya first… “Mass” meant numbers, so maybe add Shen Shanshan to bulk the line? But her kit was anti-personnel, sharp as a needle against humans and dull against Exoforms, so forget it.

Ten-odd minutes later, the team converged on the field—a derelict factory in an urban-village maze, concrete like old bone.

“Exoforms are black, fluid-like mechanical lifeforms,” Ling Nuo Si briefed, her words a chalk sketch on slate. “Hive-mind behavior, good coordination. You kill them by breaking the core.”

“What’s the core look like?” The question cut clean as a scalpel.

“A fist-sized golden sphere.” The answer shone like a coin in mud.

Yekase scanned the layout, eyes gliding like a hawk over dry grass, then waved the four to spread out like a net.

A cold ripple brushed their faces like night air off a lake.

“They’re here!” The call rang like a bell.

The factory ceiling was ragged, and moonlight spilled through the rents; dust rose into Tyndall beams like a hanging curtain of silver threads.

In that silent curtain, a single golden eye opened, a cat’s eye in the dark.

Then a second, a third, a fourth—stars pricking a storm front.

“Flashblade Activation!”

“King of the Sea, Dragon God Shark!”

“Weigh Anchor!”

“If you crave the blaze, cast every grudge into the fire!”

…Yekase didn’t move, a rock in a river of special effects.

“Uh… go?” Her tone fluttered, momentum thin as paper.

“Ma—Machina-Breaker Cant!” She forced the shout like pushing a door in wind, and her mask and jacket slipped on like midnight, her knife flashing out like a thin crescent.

By the time she dressed and drew steel, only Ling Yi—who’d fast-tracked her effects—was ready; the others’ sequences still bloomed like fireworks.

She waited a beat, then all five finished blooming, and each chose a target like dancers pairing off.

Ling Ya punched the nearest Exoform; her fist sank in like a hand into jelly. “Yikes!” She hopped and snap-kicked the core, and the body slumped to glittering pellets like spilled grain.

Zhang Wendao was support, a healer’s lantern; Yekase had her block and herd, funneling Exoforms toward Ling Nuo Si and Ling Yi. Ordinary ones weren’t strong; a few cuts and they fell like wet paper, the fight flowing in neat channels.

“Elites incoming!” Yekase’s tuned senses felt the shift in the air like pressure before lightning. She shouted high and clear.

The trash mobs were nearly dust; everyone raised weapons, a hedge of steel catching moonlight.

A huge black hole irised open in the factory center, a well with no bottom.

“…!” In its depth, a golden eye the size of a human head lit up, a lamp in a cave.

“Elites hit hard. I’ve got it!” Ling Nuo Si charged like a breaker wave, fist hammering toward the eye.

Her punch never met the camera-eye; a mechanical claw caught it clean, a vise of moving oil, and pressure climbed like ice.

“Tch…” She twisted her wrist like a snake slipping a snare, wrenched free, and moved to strike again—but the Exoform had hooked both liquid claws on the mouth of the hole, and its body oozed out like viscous slime, a nightmare flowing downhill.

Yekase saw it and felt a cold hand rake her scalp; a memory-shadow stood up inside her like a ghost. “Make it quick. Go straight to finishers!” she called, words sharp as flint.

“Got it!”

“On it!”

They split left and right, power gathering like storm charge.

Ling Yi now ran the Flashblade System smooth as a river; her first new Blade Spell triggered clean, silver-white light pooling along her blade like moon on water.

Ling Nuo Si drew a blue card from her changer and slotted it back in reverse, motion crisp as a sword cut.

“Dreamshift Constellation—Right Wall of Heaven’s Market, Seven!” A few golden add-on plates snapped onto her suit like comet fragments, bulking her frame; her right foot slid back, and she launched like an arrow off a taut string.

“Blade Spell—Luminous Infinity!”

“All under heaven dissolves into Sea-Color!”

——!

For a heartbeat, time held its breath like a lake under frost. Silver radiance and cerulean ripples swept the world like twin tides, and when night settled again, the remaining Exoforms were nothing but metal shrapnel glittering like frost on the floor.

“Nice work, everyone,” Yekase said, her voice the quiet after rain, the air tasting clean as pine.

Yekase walked to the heart of the battlefield, smoke thinning like silk at dawn. She checked the outcome, high‑fived the four returning, and declared the fight ended clean.

Relief softened her chest, like cool rain on scorched earth. So far, so smooth.

Alidaus hadn’t taken advantage of the chaos, a shadow that stayed beyond the flames. That alone felt like good news.

Maybe she has nothing to do with the Outer Entity, threads fraying instead of knotting. Next time we meet, I need to pry something out of her.

While she chased that thought, the others already dropped their transformations, light peeling off them like falling scales.

Yekase took off her mask; the five traded glances like passing lanterns, ready to head home.

“Sis.” Ling Ya tugged Ling Yi’s sleeve, a small bird pecking at fabric.

“What is it? Anything feel off?” Ling Yi asked, voice calm as still water.

Ling Ya scanned the area with wary eyes, then tucked behind her back like a kitten. She whispered, “That guy over there… who is he?”