Ling Yi and Ling Ya headed back first, slipping off like sparrows at dusk.

The three who remained let the silence hang between them like damp laundry.

“Sorry,” he said, voice thin as paper in the wind. “My little sister showed up from back home. I’ve got no place to put you now.”

“It’s fine. We get it,” someone answered, words dropping like small pebbles into a still pond.

Ling Nuo Si shook his head, gaze drifting like a kite with a cut string.

“I’ll find you a place to rent later,” he said, steady as a worn path. “I lived there before. The landlord’s easy.”

“Since I came back, I’ve transformed three times,” he said, each word clicking like beads on a rosary.

Yekase went quiet, silence pooling like shade under eaves.

Zhang Wendao didn’t dare speak, his eyes tight as a bowstring.

“Dad and Mom,” he said. “And… Ya-ya. That makes three.” The truth stood plain as daylight on snow.

“But that night at my place, didn’t you also…?” Her voice trailed off like a wick in wind.

Maybe change too? Even if she’d asked for it.

“Maybe it only burns through when you fight,” he said, the thought cold as metal.

The thread knit itself without words. Parents could be chalked up to “couldn’t recall,” like fog over a road, but Ling Ya—who’d forced herself to remember that codename like a knot tied in red—forgot her own brother in the span of one breath undoing another. Calling it chance was just covering a cracked mirror with paper.

The curse hadn’t faded. It had only molted into something worse, a snake that shed its skin and kept coiling.

“I… need time to think. That’s it for today. See you.” Ling Nuo Si turned away like a door closing and left the factory.

Yekase couldn’t see his face, only his shadow thinning like smoke.

Zhang Wendao gave her a nod and went after him, a runner chasing a vanishing tailwind.

What else could Yekase do? She went home, feet heavy as wet shoes.

By the time she got in, it was past eleven. She’d just brawled and broke a sweat; the heat clung like steam, so she showered again.

Liu RuoYuan watched her, worry bright as a lamp behind paper, but said nothing.

“You brought bedding, right? This place is too small for a bed,” she said, helpless as a snow fox in a henhouse. “Not sure you can sleep like this.”

“I adapt fast,” Yekase said, cool as a pond at dawn.

She’d said the same line before, and it rang like a bell in an empty hall.

They laid two futons side by side, simple as fields in rows, and for the first time Yekase felt her place was shabby—bare as a winter branch.

Maybe next time she’d rope Shen Shanshan and Jiang Bailu into one big job… and fill the war chest like rain filling a cistern. Robbing the Sinister Organization put no weight on the heart; it was clean thunder.

She slipped under the quilt and turned her head. Liu RuoYuan’s face was right there, close as moonlight at the window.

“Mom will be so happy,” she said, soft as spring rain.

“…”

Yekase couldn’t answer; she flicked the light off, darkness folding like silk.

“Go to sleep. Stop thinking about women,” she added, teasing light as dandelion fluff.

“I’m not!”

“Then men? You’re a girl now.”

“Even less.”

“If neither, then robots?”

“…Yeah, actually.”

“For real?”

“You asked!”

Liu RuoYuan stretched a hand from the warm nest and set it on Yekase’s head, gentle as a palm leaf on water.

“It’s okay. If you like it, you’re still Yekase,” she said, voice steady as an old path. “Boy or girl, liking boys or girls, your teacher will hold you like a big sister.”

“Wait…”

Back to big sister, huh? The seniority card slid in like a fan under a sleeve.

Taking advantage while Yekase couldn’t explain this body’s why, even though, in her heart, she knew exactly who was who?

“What? I’m twenty-two, you’re seventeen. I’m the older sister,” she said, facts lined up like bamboo. “Where’s the problem?”

“…”

Fine. You do enjoy roasting your big brother over a small fire.

“Come on, say ‘sis’?”

“Ms. Liu, you’ve got first period tomorrow, right?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.”

…

After a while, Yekase’s voice floated out, thin as smoke after rain. “But I really do like robots.”

The next morning, the world squeezed her awake like a tight glove.

She opened her eyes and saw the culprit teasing her nose—Liu RuoYuan’s right foot in cotton socks, soft as a cat’s paw.

“…That’s enough.”

“Breakfast is two slices of bread with cheese and a fried egg,” she said, matter-of-fact as a sunrise.

“Thank you.”

She used to sleep till noon and order takeout, days drifting like slow clouds. Now that she had school, there was no time to cook; gratitude rose warm as steam.

Though waking early was a torture rack, plain as nails.

“…Wait. If things are already like this, why am I even going to school?” she muttered, the thought banging like a shutter in wind.

She’d only gone to keep Liu RuoYuan from recognizing her. But a day’s act had gone up in smoke like paper in a brazier. What was the point?

Yekase wasn’t precious about hiding her true self from family or friends. If it blew, it blew, like a fuse on a firework.

“Hm?” Liu RuoYuan bent down, face close as a mirror. “Is our seventeen-year-old peerless genius inventor asking for a spanking?”

“Hold on, now you’re her parent?” The roles slid like masks in a troupe.

“If you’re a self-styled prodigy, high school’s a cakewalk,” she said, confidence bright as noon. “Even if you nap or skip, I’ll smooth it over with the teachers. Any other complaints?”

“Waking up early.”

“Endure it.”

Yekase rolled her eyes so hard they felt like marbles scraping a bowl.

Liu RuoYuan hooked her fingers with Yekase’s and pulled her upright from the quilt, quick as a kite catching wind. “Seeing you sit among classmates like an ordinary girl while I’m your homeroom teacher Ms. Liu… it gives me a strange feeling,” she said, a secret pleasure like a hidden blossom. “I kinda like it.”

“Am I your entertainment?” The words sparked like flint.

“We also need to tell Mom we’re safe—”

“…Uh, I never said I wasn’t going.”

Snared, like a fish biting a silver hook.

Damn it.

Yekase felt the last scraps of her dignity fray like old silk in the hands of this immortal. At this point she even missed Ling Yi’s brand of play.

At least Ling Yi didn’t know what her true body was—an ink blot under ice.

Liu RuoYuan knew too well, clear as a well in winter.

“Ugh… toothbrush.”

She dragged herself to the bathroom, feet heavy as lead. In the mirror, youth bloomed back at her like peach blossoms, and even with a deadpan glare from the corner of her eye, there was a chill elegance, frost on jade.

Yekase couldn’t help thinking: if even family forgot the original her, and this world held only “Yekase,” then what?

She could melt into the crowd like snow into a river—no. Not that far yet.

Her phone lit up with Ling Yi’s midnight message, pale as a fish belly in the dark.

In short: Ling Ya had erased her brother. No matter how they insisted, she wouldn’t believe; no matter how they described, she couldn’t keep it. It was mental aversion, rejection like oil slipping off water.

That tugged up a classified file she’d seen, rising like a carp through weeds. It had a name for this: Reverse Meme.

Could newly awakened exogenous entities already pull this off? She hated where the thought flowed, but the likelier answer was the presence that laid the first curse on the Twenty Second Squad—

The king of exogenous entities, the Cruising Destroyer, a storm-ship that could forge closed pocket universes and cut causality like a blade.

If it had revived too, then the horizon darkened like a brewing squall.

They couldn’t push Ling Nuo Si to fight now; their battle strength was back to embers.

Unless Yekase dug up her activation phrase right now and launched a mech, their odds would only climb a hair, thin as a hair on ice.

“What’re you dawdling for? Breakfast’s getting cold!”

“Coming!”

She wiped her face with a towel, rough as bark, and stepped out.

“You weren’t practicing makeup, were you?” Liu RuoYuan teased, eyes bright as foxfire.

“As if. If I’ve got time to primp, I’d rather panel-line a kit,” Yekase said, steady as a craftsman’s hand.

She picked up the bread and took a bite. The taste was strange and familiar, a road back to a small town.

Back when she was a high-schooler the first time, she’d shuffle from bed half-asleep, wash up, sit at the table. Most days she ate her mom’s bread with egg. She liked the white fried a touch crisp, so it cracked like thin ice.

She’d run away for years, and in another city she was chewing the past under her teeth again.

“…”

“Well? Pretty accurate recreation, right?” The question glimmered like a dropped coin.

“…Yeah.”

Yekase kept quiet and finished the sandwich in a handful of bites, swift as sparrows pecking grain.

They stepped out together, morning air cool as river stone.

Yekase tossed the e-bike key to Liu RuoYuan, the arc neat as a swallow’s flight. Then, under her disbelieving stare, she took off running on the spot, light as a deer.

“Wait?! So you’re not that one?!”

“That’s how you tell us apart?!” The complaint flew like a snapped string.

She flung her bag into the e-bike basket and shot off, a gust skimming along the street.

Thanks to Liu RuoYuan, she had more time than yesterday, minutes fat as ripe fruit. Enough to swing by the Ling place. Say it, do it—like an arrow loosed.

She jogged along the street, breath steady as drums.

Two intersections down, she spotted a familiar back, a reed by the river.

“Isn’t that Ling Ya? Morning run?”

“Y-Yezi Sis?!” Ling Ya looked like she’d seen a ghost in daylight.

“Why are you here? And running? Did the worldline change? Is this the optimistic, upbeat, sunshine timeline of classmate Yekase?”

“Hold up, is your impression of me that bad?” she said, half-laughing, half-sighing, a breeze and a stone. “Where am I not optimistic, upbeat, sunshine, and striving?”

Though yeah—the worldline had shifted, like a train switching tracks.

Yekase didn’t want to haggle over image. She cut to the chase like a knife to a knot. “Ling Ya, if I told you you actually have a big brother, would you believe me?”

Ling Ya frowned, her brows meeting like birds on a wire. “A brother? No way.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Of course I do, but… it feels like you’re saying ‘the world ends in eight hours,’” she said, tone flat as a dry lake. “It just doesn’t land.”

“I see… Did Ling Yi tell you about it?” The question slipped out like a line down a well.

“I don’t think so.” Ling Ya rummaged through her memory like drawers. “She did work hard last night describing something to me, but I wasn’t interested, so I didn’t really listen. I forgot whatever she said.”

…Reverse Meme.

Forgetting and losing interest—the two base notes, steady as a funeral drum. And on top of that—

“Do you remember the two who fought with us last night?” Yekase tried another angle, like circling a mountain.

“It was too dark… but I remember a bit,” Ling Ya said. “There was a girl around ten, right? Brave kid.” Admiration glinted like dew.

“And the other one?”

“The other? You mean… that one is my so-called brother?” The word stumbled like a stone in the stream.

Yekase nodded hard, hope sparking like flint.

She still remembered there was “a boy.” Maybe there was a way through?

“Nope,” Ling Ya said at last. “Honestly, if you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t even notice if they were male or female.” The gap yawned like mist over a gorge.

Failure to be perceived.

For Ling Ya, there was “something,” a smudge on glass. But she couldn’t resolve it. Even told by Ling Yi or Yekase, she wouldn’t believe, then she’d forget and lose interest, as if a tide pulled it away.

“…Okay. Got it.” The words were flat as a blade.

Yekase couldn’t smile. She faked a drop in stamina and started to pant, drawing away from Ling Ya like a shadow slipping behind a tree.

A question crept in, cold as frost along a window lattice:

If the Reverse Meme hit her—how would she keep her eyes on Ling Nuo Si?