“Should we buy one and take it home as a keepsake?”

Ling Yi lifted a single-handed longsword, red from pommel to tip, like a strip of sunset caught in steel.

“Crimson Gale. What a cool name.”

Ling Ya cut off her plan to show off with a regulated blade at home, like snuffing a candle before it drips. “Pottery, scrolls, gems—every one’s got more souvenir value than these toys!”

“Ugh…”

Yekase wanted one too. Desire burned like a coal, but she knew it would just gather dust on a shelf, clashing with her frugal creed. So she hesitated.

She struck a brilliant compromise. “Let’s just hold them and play a bit, then put them back when we leave…”

She led by example, hugging a two-handed sword as if it were a log from a winter river, and walked out of the forge.

“Sis Yekase… ay…” Ling Ya sighed, wind through bamboo. “She’s reliable most days, but when she goes offbeat, she’s three times more off than you.”

“Am I that off?”

“You’re offbeat as a baseline. Stable, sustained.”

“Boohoo.”

Scolded by her little sister. Ling Yi put on the belt that came with the single-handed sword, face scrunched like rain-soaked paper, and walked out too.

Pottery and gems… none of the three felt a spark. They skimmed past and stepped into the room painted with scrolls.

“These are… magic scrolls.”

“Swords and sorcery!” Ling Yi whooped, reaching for the pile like a sparrow diving for grain.

Her hand halfway there, a long staff slid in and barred it, like a branch across a path.

“Magic’s essence is what-you-see-is-what-you-get. No previews.”

They followed the iron-colored staff upward. A girl lounged on the beam, legs crossed, peering down like a cat on a temple eave.

She looked barely ten-plus. Wild hair, tied into a low ponytail that drifted like smoke. A navy pointed hat straight out of Western fantasy perched on her head. Her features held a hint of Euro lines, maybe mixed-blood. She wore a mage robe heavily reworked, dozens of pockets sewn up and down like little mouths, more workwear than wizardry. Below, a playful short skirt, tights, and tall boots, like frost over spring.

“What do you need with me? The register should sit at the entrance.”

Her voice carried the weight of old wood and old words.

Yekase had noticed how magic stories loved loli characters who dressed and talked like old souls, set to be centuries old but acting their apparent age. It always felt like the authors couldn’t write older women, or that a ‘hidden granny’ loli drew more fans. She hadn’t expected to meet one in real life.

“Are you the owner of this witch’s mech atelier?”

“I am.”

“What do we call you?”

“The Crystal Witch, Sandryon.”

Self-intro with a title. Of course.

Yekase’s composure almost cracked.

“I heard you can handcraft glass dolls. Is that true?!” Ling Yi asked from behind Yekase, eyes shining like lake ice.

“True.”

“Last time you took action, you froze a rampaging test piece that threatened the city into a statue…” Ling Ya mused, voice low as moss.

“Mm.”

Sandryon answered every fangirl line from the sisters, but her gaze stayed on Yekase, steady as a night lamp.

She waited for Yekase to speak.

“The [Aruru Goddess] casting circuit is bloated. It’s interfering with the power structure’s normal flow, so the runtime tanks. My fix? Give it a staff.”

…

“So you are the Singing Wrecking Lady.”

“Don’t call me that nickname, please.”

“What should I call you?”

“Yekase.”

“…Sis Yekase, you two… know each other?”

“Just online friends.”

Yekase’s face hardened, steel under silk. More serious than when she fought brawlers in the restaurant. Nothing like the happy chance of meeting a net friend in person.

“I need to talk with Sandryon. You two go browse the other sections.”

Authority poured off her like heat from stone, and the sisters, surprised, obeyed without thinking.

Thud.

The wooden door closed. Two people remained.

Sandryon still didn’t come down from the beam, a swallow on a ridge. Yekase sat on the table, chin tipped to a comfortable angle so their eyes met.

“In-game I only saw your mech. First time seeing you in person… Didn’t expect you’d look pretty whimsical.”

“That’s a rude word.”

Sandryon didn’t get angry. She matched Yekase’s impression—serene, self-possessed, like tea steeped just right.

“You sent those two out. Got something urgent?”

“Yeah.”

Yekase picked up a scroll, smoothed it open. Inside lay an alchemy array, elegant and incomprehensible, like frost-script on glass.

“Bait and switch, huh. Sandryon, you told me you back up your memory yearly, crystallized and stored. That wasn’t just bragging, was it?”

“I never brag.”

“Good. I need a keyword checked. The term is—Dual Kings Arsenal.”

Yekase lifted the plastic takeout box dangling off a sword hilt. “Share?”

“No. I don’t eat spicy.”

She tapped her staff on the floor.

Clang.

From the darkness high above, hundreds of hexagonal crystals dropped on thin strings, like frost bells hanging from the night. They bumped and chimed, a bright tinkle and clink like winter rain on jade.

“I’ll look.”

Sandryon poked the crystals with her staff tip, sorting dew from dew. After nearly a minute, she found the one she wanted.

“…Hoh.”

“Found a contradiction?”

Sandryon lowered her head. Her face tightened, like clouds before snow. “You don’t do backups. How did you beat me to finding this?”

She trusted her craft. When her brain and the crystal differed, she chose the crystal first. She immediately thought—did Yekase plan for that, and come because of it?

Yekase kept smiling, feeding herself a wasabi moon-beast tentacle with disposable chopsticks, like tossing driftwood into a fire.

“I don’t have backups, but I’m smart. A true genius is a genius in any field.”

“Alright then, big genius. Why ask me to check records?”

“Because you’re a genius too, you Renaissance Monster.”

“You really do listen to every rumor.”

Yekase ate another bite. “Hearing every rumor, and finding the truth inside—that’s genius work.”

“The you in my records wasn’t this cocky, throwing ‘genius’ around.”

“Then I should cherish this confident stretch all the more.” Yekase didn’t care. “So? What do the crystals say?”

“Dual Kings Arsenal is yours.”

“Figures.”

Why did Yekase build a secret room she didn’t know? Why did she have a body trait she didn’t know? Why did she open a shop she didn’t know?

Simple. She used to know. Now she doesn’t.

Her memory was altered.

No—more precise—everyone’s memory was altered.

But why did Sandryon’s crystal backups survive? Like the secret room and the sticky notes, were they judged to be objective things? Where does the edit end?

“Can you find the cause?”

“You think I’m a prophet? What’s unseen won’t show up in records.”

“Then go outside. You squat at home for centuries, gaming or crafting from dawn to dusk. Don’t you feel even a flicker of emptiness inside? I finally get why Longlifers keep yelling they want to die.”

The staff reached over and knocked Yekase’s head, a woodpecker peck on bark.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll turn you into a doll?”

“If I get a few hundred more years out of it, I don’t mind being a robot. Give me three days of free time every week, and we’re good. I’d welcome it—so long as you’re not afraid of prison.”

“Forget it. I can’t out-chatter you.”

…

“Just that one question?”

“Add one. Can you teach me magic?”

“I’ll send you a reading list in-game tonight.”

“Boring. I want you, a beautiful teacher, one-on-one, hands-on.”

“That’s pricey. Turn you into a doll and have you work for me three hundred years, and it still wouldn’t cover it.”

That much? Yekase sighed, regret rolling like low mist. Their friendship forged in mech duels wasn’t strong enough to spill into real life… Well, getting her to check the backups was already grace.

“I’m done. Heading back.”

“Leaving already? On my whole street, nothing caught your eye?”

Sandryon stowed her staff and shifted on the beam, leaning out, curious as a fox. From her collar, one could see a chest flat as a calm pond.

“Mm?”

Friendship did exist, a thread of red string. Yekase accepted the goodwill and hugged the two-handed sword. “Then I’ll take this one.”

“Pay at the door. Six hundred yuan.”

“Not a gift?!”

Yekase put the sword down.

Sandryon wagged a finger. “A gift? In business, that word doesn’t exist.”

“The grand ‘Crystal Witch,’ ‘Renaissance Monster,’ the last Ancient Alchemist, owner of a witch workshop—are you really short a mere six hundred?”

“Short. Very short.”

The witch squinted and smiled, a crescent over water. “Don’t look if you won’t buy.”

“What an attitude! Isn’t the customer god?!”

“Alchemy’s the tech for taking humans beyond gods.”

Yekase was so annoyed she laughed, like sparks out of flint. “Nice words. But wasn’t it born from wanting to make gold and get rich?”

“You’re right. So, as an Ancient Alchemist, ‘liking money’ is proper and true. It honors the lineage.” Sandryon shrugged, breezy as willow.

It made such sense…!

And since she’d asked for a favor, walking out without buying felt wrong. Yekase checked her e-wallet balance, bit down like biting through bitter root, and picked up an introductory Ancient Alchemy scroll—handwritten by the witch herself.

She hugged the twine-bound parchment. From one of the pockets on Sandryon’s robe, a tiny voice floated out: “Received 450 yuan.” Yekase felt her heart weep, drop by drop, like rain off eaves.

“Thanks for your patronage. Come again!”

With money received, Sandryon’s tone turned light. She flipped lazily, back toward Yekase.

The plain beam under her acted like a divider between worlds. Her figure vanished above, and never appeared below.

“Sigh…”

A nonhuman drifting through modern life, not trying to change anything, living her own carefree days…

“…Still, that mech pilot contract with four days on and three days off—I’m serious about that.”