After she got home, Yekase unrolled the Alchemy scroll, the parchment whispering like dry leaves across a quiet desk.

Her general tech class had sketched modern Alchemy: circles like clockwork, turning one substance into another of equal mass, a balance scale etched in chalk. Inside matter stripped and remade, stray storms sometimes sparked; those anomalies were part of modern Alchemy’s study.

But the scroll in her hands spoke of Ancient Alchemy, a beast of a different color, old as fog on the river.

You still prepared materials and a circle, yet the effect had nothing to do with equivalence exchange. It wore Alchemy’s mask, but it moved like… magic.

Not the “learn once, use forever” utility spells of reality, but the kind of “Western traditional magic” she’d devoured in novels, candlelight on a leather tome.

“First, recite the magic runes and… the circle structures…”

Uh.

Doomed.

Parchment fanned across the table like a pale wing; her eyes swept right to left, top to bottom. Two grand configurations, dozens of runes, more than ten link keys—each a jewel, each unlike the next.

Couldn’t she just pull the scroll out and copy it while drawing the circle? She clung to that straw and flipped to the last page of the memorization section—

“The circle must be drawn swiftly at use. The longer it takes, the lower the success rate; if your mind wanders, it will surely fail.”

Uh…

“I’m not learning this.”

She wanted to say it, but the scroll cost too much to throw back into the sea.

So she braced and started with the first symbol, trying to grind it down like memorizing kana. But beyond shape and sound, each rune carried meanings; some carried several. It was a mountain of memory, not a hill.

Today she’d just study configurations, memorize two runes and two link keys, then head out for a walk. A milk tea as a reward, and repetition along the road. Done. Plan set.

She drew a deep breath. Her fingers brushed the rough grain of the parchment, savoring a ritual shiver, and she began to read.

First came configuration. It was the circle’s overall form, the foundation stone. Two kinds: Mid-style (true circle) and Belka-style (triangle), as clean as moon and blade.

Mid-style thrived on stability. The outer ring had four anchor points; if even one survived, it could still fire. The effect would dim, but better a flicker than a blackout. Its upper limit showed in the sturdy frame; hybrid keys let you save Sorcery, and you could launch a long-range “magic cannon” that roared like thunder across open sky.

Belka-style lived on speed. Several small circles (usually three) radiated like sun spokes, each triggering on its own. Link keys balanced Sorcery between them. The structure was simple, so activation was quick, cancellation quicker. The effect was single and couldn’t hold for long, but in close quarters it bit like a hawk.

…

“This is just magic, isn’t it? Does it have any link to Alchemy at all?!”

So Sandryon had finally gone the route of flashy signboards and swapped goods—no, listen to me talk like I was familiar with her.

Fine. Let’s see how she explains it…

“You’re probably thinking: this is straight-up magic! Does it have any relation to Alchemy?! What exactly are you refining?”

“The answer—You’re refining the ‘result.’”

Right, right.

Then taking a dump counts as Alchemy.

“Thus, in the broad sense, every chain from cause to effect is Alchemy. Food passing through the tract and becoming waste is, undeniably, Alchemy.”

…

“I’m not learning this.”

She could almost see Sandryon’s sly grin, and her hand twitched to slam the parchment to the floor like a flap of a wing.

“Ancient Alchemy is the purest, most original magic. The two are inseparable, hard as sinew to cut.”

And the result… still makes it magic!

“Modern magic, invented by Isaac Newton, lets equal inputs and equal Sorcery yield multiple unrelated results to match a caster’s wish. That runs counter to Ancient Alchemy’s strict cause-to-effect ideal, sliding into tool-thinking and losing the pursuit of magic’s essence.”

Hmm… That strict chain of cause to result made her think of a song, old as rainfall.

“Thunder means rain, Leo…”

Warmth rose. She could treat it like a storybook and keep reading, rain tapping on a paper window.

“Choosing a proper configuration for purpose and situation is required of every Ancient Alchemist. Even if a mischoice still fires, conversion efficiency falls. Cultivate good habits in daily practice.”

So far, it left room to breathe. But next she couldn’t dodge those runes and link keys that looked like ghost-scribbles. Fine. Let the rage of four hundred fifty bucks weigh down fear, and take the first step…

Half an hour later, Yekase shrugged on a coat and headed downstairs, the stairwell smelling like damp stone.

Thirty minutes of effort deserved a tall milk tea. There was Liu RuoYuan—Teacher Liu—at home, so drinking was out in the open. Milk tea would soothe the edges.

Cold wind braided through the alley like water after a light shower.

Suddenly, footsteps tangled like threads behind her.

…

“So, you really found me.”

Yekase stopped and looked back as a small pack poured out of the fork in the alley, their shadows stretching like oil.

They’d all worn school uniforms that day; any eyes nearby could follow that trail like crumbs.

“You bled my brother. No way you don’t pay it back.”

The sunglasses guy—who called himself Juncai—came up, butterflying a knife between fingers that flashed like fish scales.

“The wound’s not deep. You’re a student. One segment of your pinky will do. Next time, don’t meddle in adult—”

Yekase vanished from his sight like a swallow dropping out of the sky.

—

Below!

Juncai jerked back, but Yekase had already slid in low, glued to him like wet leaf to stone. She knocked his center off, and her right hand locked on a part of him very important to a man.

“Not that big.”

In the murk, yin and yang split; four lines of pain blossomed like thorns.

“—?!”

Darkness popped in Juncai’s eyes, and a strangled scream scraped his throat.

In that blink, another possibility struck him like hail.

What if this girl in a Heavenly Heart High School uniform—bold enough to humiliate them barefaced—

wasn’t a hero, but a fighter?

You couldn’t feel it from the soft skin and school bloom—how fierce the burst beneath, how tight the clinch game at close range, like coils around a spear.

Yekase followed through. Her legs crossed and snared his right leg like vines. Her nails bit into the inside of his wrist, and she stripped the butterfly knife clean.

Then she hauled him, turned 180 degrees in the air, and swapped places like a pivot of cranes.

Only then did their bodies smack the ground, dust puffing like breath.

His men had tensed to rush in when Yekase launched that cockroach-style pounce, but she’d ceded the top spot to Juncai, tucking herself into his shadow. Suddenly, there was nowhere to grab without cutting him on their own blade.

“Boss!” “This chick fights dirty!” “We said this before we came!” “Pull the boss up!”

Snick.

The butterfly knife’s edge nested against its former master’s chin, silver cold against bone.

Same angle as before. Another push, and it wouldn’t stop at cartilage.

Yekase lifted her eyelids, cool as frost, and looked at Juncai.

His hot breath fanned her bangs and parted them like grass in wind. Her pale forehead showed not a single bead of sweat.

“Don’t— Nobody move!”

He tried to raise his hands to surrender, then froze, afraid of dropping his weight onto the blade. Pain throbbed below his waist like a hive. He held a plank, rigid as board.

“These your only men?” Yekase lay on the ground, easy as water.

The tip skated along his jawbone and drew a sharp angle, a blade sketch on skin.

One against many with no fear, fast on the read, ruthless on the hand… She wasn’t a plain high-school girl. She had to be a secret weapon from some big outfit, a knife wrapped in silk.

Juncai cursed himself in silence. His boys’ sticky fingers were his responsibility too—but of all nights, he’d rammed an iron wall. If he angered the house behind her, it wouldn’t be a weight he could carry.

Even with her body under him, a posture that tugged at thoughts like honey, he didn’t dare move a muscle.

“Y-yeah… I’m just a squad leader…”

“You’ve got loyalty. I won’t kill you today. Next time, don’t strut when you’ve got no grip.”

She pushed the blade up. It pricked Juncai’s skin and called out a single bead of blood, red as a cherry.

“Y-yes!” Juncai didn’t even dare flinch. “I didn’t know which house the young lady serves. Twice I overstepped. A thousand offenses…”

“Take your boys and go. Don’t enter my sight again.”

“Understood! We’ll give you three streets!— Show respect!”

The sunglasses crew were under the knife and their boss had bowed; dragging it out would be dumb. Heads lowered, they chorused, “Thanks for sparing us, young lady!”

“Mhm.”

She kept a killer’s mask, but a laugh sparked under it like a firefly. Watching Juncai try to rise and not dare touch the blade, a cool joy flooded in.

It felt solid, like harvest after rain.

The sunglasses men lined against the wall like punished students. This was enough; stop while you’re ahead. If it turned into life-and-death, Yekase couldn’t beat this many.

She pinched one side of the butterfly knife’s handle, ready to throw a clean flourish, fold the blade, and hand it back.

…

—Oops.

She remembered she didn’t know how to play a butterfly knife.

Her hand froze in midair, a bird caught between perch and flight.

Several pairs of eyes stared, wide and hungry for her to “do something,” the alley air tight like a drum.

“…”

“Young lady, uh… dare I ask… the knife… can you return it? It’s my last captain’s keepsake…”

He even used a pleading tone, soft as rain.

Yekase wanted to hand it over right now, but a straight pass felt lame. They’d sniff it out—What kind of secret-house lady can’t even flip a butterfly knife?

“Mm…”

Dropping it on the ground would be safest, but too much salt. She didn’t like adding hits to someone who’d already knelt.

At this point…

She had to bite down and try.

Time to roll a coordination check.

Yekase clamped the handle with her ring finger and palm and flicked upward like tossing a coin.

The blade drew a neat arc—then kissed her knuckle.

It… looked backward.

“…?”

They started to doubt, their eyes like crows.

“You wanted a finger segment, right? Here—take this one.”

Yekase yanked her ring finger out of the blade’s path and snapped the handles shut. Good thing she’d only given it a light flick, and hadn’t opened her hand like water.

“Young lady jests…” Juncai took the butterfly knife with both hands and cradled it to his chest, careful as if it were an egg.

“Go. Get back fast. Tonight was my private call. Speak of it to no one.”

“Yes!” “Got it!” “Understood!”

The sunglasses crew filed out like kids on a field trip, their shadows strung along the brick like vines.

Yekase folded her arms and watched them vanish at the alley’s far end, the night swallowing them like mist. She finally let out a long breath and turned back home.

Crossed the threshold and slipped into house slippers, then passed my coat to Liu RuoYuan, the back soaked through, rain clinging like a cold second skin.

"...Ah. I forgot to buy milk tea."