After that, calm days stretched like a quiet river under a pale sky.

For nearly a month, nothing happened, aside from Ling Yi stepping in to stop a few alley brawls like a brief summer storm.

The Bird Studies Club and the Film Club filled with unfamiliar faces, strangers flocking like starlings. Yekase stopped going, her shadow thinning like dusk.

The Bird Club locked its windows, said it was to keep their room-kept birds from bolting like sparks. They brought in pricey ornamental breeds, feathers like painted leaves.

The Film Club scrubbed itself spotless. It became a tidy theater that screened classic films from many countries, no more ketchup-splatter schlock clogging the schedule.

Those four were nowhere, their footprints blown away like tracks in dust.

When Yekase finally chose to leave, she glanced up at the projector’s crown, a reflex like checking a weather vane.

A tiny golden mechanical bird perched there, dulled like a coin buried in sand.

It hadn’t been charged. It slumped, spirit leaking like stale air.

...

Professor F’s underground hero bar finished renovation, ready to open, like a torch lit in a tunnel. She said the year of war had stirred many heroes. Their activity grew frequent and fierce, a drumbeat that bolstered her confidence and pushed her to open the bar.

In many cities, small hero mutual-aid groups began to sprout like mushrooms after rain.

They could only move in the dark. If exposed, they’d be shut down at once, like candles snuffed by a cold hand. Still, having them mattered.

After school, Yekase went straight to the cramped shop tucked in a broken alley of Tianshin District. The sign read “Valhalla,” letters like frost on steel.

“This name feels unlucky. A nice word for the underworld’s gate is still a gate to the underworld.”

“You’re just too gloomy,” Professor F replied, voice like a dry breeze.

She stood behind the counter in a supermarket apron worth ten yuan, wiping a glass until it shone like iced quartz.

Yekase sat at the long counter, feeling like a special patron, a lone gull finding a mooring. She’d often gone to bars before, but without friends, she’d chat with the bartender like rain tapping a window.

“So, can you mix drinks?”

“...It should be similar to preparing solutions, right?” Her tone drifted like a slow cloud.

“Don’t ask me!”

So, she couldn’t. And Yekase—also couldn’t. Two clueless alchemists staring at a shaker like a puzzle box.

“Can this bar really stay afloat?” Her doubt crept in like fog.

“Fang Tang said she’s got a base. But cross-city part-time’s a pain. Once I finish the portal from here to the base, she’ll hold the fort.”

“Fang Tang?”

“Dragon-Lion,” she said, a nickname that roared like a festival banner.

Oh, that voice-changer girl whose mech head kept getting snatched by Crimson Field to fire finishing moves like stolen thunder.

“Get me a drink—whatever. As long as it’s got alcohol.”

“Are you of age? Can you drink?”

Yekase wagged a finger, a playful twig in the wind. “Huaxia doesn’t follow Japan’s rules. We fully guarantee minors’ right to drink.”

Out there, she kept the persona of a seventeen-year-old girl. Whether others believed it or not, she had to maintain her own mask, like a silk veil over a mirror.

Professor F held a suspicious booklet with “Bartending Manual” on the cover, a pamphlet like contraband notes. She read, “I’ll make you this Blue Fairy. Pretty name. No clue about taste.”

“Free sample?”

She made it anyway. The flavor hit like a fall from height, skull-first, shock ringing dull and icy. Not what Yekase liked.

“That’ll be 80 yuan.”

“You’re doing this too?”

“Too?”

“Nothing.”

She couldn’t say she’d met that person in a two-day dream, like walking through fog and waking with dew in her hair.

Back then, she broke the illusion and snapped back before Lalabel. Returning home, she found the Alchemy scroll lying safe on her desk, a leaf preserved in glass. She couldn’t figure it out. Sandryon was also a net friend in the real world, someone she’d met after dismantling her “Goddess Aruru,” enemies turned acquaintances, lines crossing like threads.

In any case, Yekase was not paying for this drink.

“Forget it. You and Fang Tang were going to help run the place anyway. I can put this on the tab. No problem.” Professor F spoke like adding another pebble to a balanced cairn.

Yekase looked at the glass as if eighty shining coins sat piled inside, their faces glaring. She rubbed her temples, a wave pressing on shore. “Lately, you’ve grown a greedy trait. Your persona’s starting to overlap with someone else.”

“If you had a well-equipped private island you’d run for years, and it sank overnight till nothing remained, you’d become like me too.” Professor F’s face stayed smooth as lacquer.

“Ha...” Yekase’s laugh thinned like a torn ribbon.

Guilt pricked her like thorns. She hid it by taking another sip. Still didn’t like it. The taste sat in her mouth like cold iron.

“When’s the grand opening?”

“In two days. I’m not asking you to work daily. Just swing by and watch the place. When I posted on the dark web, I threw in a ‘Mechbreaker might show up’ hook. If you’re willing, help me handle it.”

“Uh, I’m not some star you can book.”

That identity, Mechbreaker, might be accepted as a hero now, but she’d dismantled plenty of hero-side mechs. She’d crossed wires with many. Not a good fit for a bar where sides mingle like oil and water.

The more she showed her face, the more she’d be forced to pick a side, like a compass pinned by a magnet.

“I’m heading out.” Yekase emptied the Blue Fairy in one go, like tossing back a shot of winter, and stood to grab her bag.

Professor F took the glass, her expression steady as stone. “I can turn the basement into a lab for you.”

...

You want to bribe me with a private lab?

That’s an insult—

“I’ll also build a teleporter, so you can summon Luciferin from the hangar anytime, anywhere. You pick the look.” Professor F tapped the bar, a Morse beat.

Yekase lowered her gaze, then lifted it like a dawn breaking.

“I can cover shifts every night, after dinner till dawn.”

“Thank you, Dr. Yekase.”

If this woman belonged to a Sinister Organization, the world’s evil meter would jump a grade, like an earthquake pushing a needle.

Yekase fled Valhalla like a cat from a bath and returned home, heart thudding like a drum in a box.

Liu RuoYuan was cooking, steam rising like silk scarves.

“Uh...”

“Dinner’s almost ready. Don’t start a game.” Her voice nudged like a spoon against a pot.

...

Uh-oh. This felt like being penned and fed, a warm cage with scented straw.

Yekase drifted behind Liu RuoYuan, awkward as a fish out of current, peeking over her shoulder at the simmering pan.

Stir-fried okra gleamed like green stars in oil. Beside the stove sat finished plates: sweet-and-sour ribs shining like lacquered wood, green pepper scrambled eggs as bright as spring fields, and a dish of braised pork whose cut wasn’t obvious—heat curling up like incense.

“Smells amazing.” The words floated like a sigh into evening.

“These years, you haven’t been eating right, have you? Living alone in this shabby rental, just a few new clothes. Every month, you wire money home...” Her tone was gentle as rain.

“Wire what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yekase’s voice stiffened like a creased map.

Her sister knew who she was, and she knew her sister knew. But she wasn’t ready to lay the mask down. Preparation matters, the way a bridge needs pilings.

“Fine, fine. If you don’t understand, you don’t.” Liu RuoYuan didn’t press. She flipped the okra one last time. It shimmered, then slid onto a plate like a small green river.

“Help me carry the dishes. Dinner’s on.”

“Okay.”

Yekase took two plates, set them on the low wooden table. The room was too small, so the table doubled as coffee table and dining table. They sat on the floor, cushions soft like moss under knees.

“This meat was air-shipped from Hainan. They say a portal to another world was found there. The first prize the survey team brought back was this. They named it ‘Dudu Bird.’”

“That handle’s probably taken. Also... a portal to another world? You’re saying it like a weather report.”

“Not dodo. Dudu. A bird with a huge belly that rolls along the ground to move.” Her hands made a circle, like a moon belly.

Liu RuoYuan didn’t sound very sure. The intel felt like something she’d Googled at the stall, or something the vendor told her, facts tied like loose knots.

“That other world might be smaller than Twin Towers City. These mini-worlds pop up on coastlines and wastelands, like mirages. At most, they’ve got a few new plants and animals. A world with a primitive civilization was found only once, three hundred years ago. A few years later, the Spaniards wiped it clean. Damn white folks.” Her scowl flickered like heat lightning.

That part was definitely from an article. Yekase had read similar pop-science writeups before. They were fun, like postcards from strange shores.

“A few new species just expand the dinner table. Not that useful. If we find a world where physics differ from Earth, we could study new materials...” Yekase sighed, regret like a cool wind.

“Research, research! New species have research value too! All you think about is eating. Biologists would cry.” Her protest puffed up like a pufferfish.

They each picked up a piece and slid it into their mouths, chopsticks moving like swallows in spring.

...

“Let biologists cry.”

“I’ll eat them to extinction.” Their banter sparked like flint.

The first bite felt like squirrel fish—fibers tender overall, yet locally springy. Juice spilled like a small tide, with chicken-like aroma and a red-wine undertone that lingered.

Their chopsticks became afterimages, carving the plate like European powers slicing colonies on a map. The meat vanished fast, a continent divided.

“At this rate, it’ll be endangered in under a month...” Liu RuoYuan murmured, a cloud of worry.

“Buy more before prices surge. Stock up.” Yekase’s eyes glinted like coins.

“I agree.”

Moments like this made Yekase grateful for her nonexistent eco convictions. Humans are like this, aren’t they?... No, that’s a bit harsh. She winced like a reed in wind.

The other dishes were cleared soon, plates shining like empty lakes.

Full and warm, Yekase exhaled, body tipping back, sprawled on the soft mat like driftwood.

Liu RuoYuan stowed the pots and bowls in the sink, then returned to the table and sat, watching Yekase lounge like a defeated general.

“Yekase, little one.”

“Mm?” The hum lifted like a moth.

Ever since Liu RuoYuan “knew,” she’d avoided using Yekase’s alias, defaulting to second person. Calling that name while knowing the real one felt off, like wearing the wrong shoes. But now she used it, and even added “little one,” a ribbon tied on a branch.

“Show me your Magical Girl form.”

“...Why? Also, how did you know—” Panic jolted Yekase. She flailed in the beanbag like a carp in a bucket. Her waist was too weak to sit up. She just splashed once, ripples fading.

“Your nine-grid phone input. You typed ‘Magical Girl’ more than ten times right in front of me. And spelled it out fully.” Her grin curled like a cat’s tail.

“Uh...” Sharp eyes. No wonder she’s my sister. A bead of cold sweat slid down Yekase’s temple like meltwater. She still tried to bluff. “Actually, I’m just a Magical Girl nerd...”

“Magical Girl Icarus, right?” Liu RuoYuan’s words landed like a pebble in a still pond.

“...” Silence stretched like silk.

“‘Justice of the East Asia Front is here. Everyone, rally to Luciferin’—that kind of line.” Her elbow propped on the table. She held her chin, smiling like candlelight.

“Sounds like ‘Mobile Suit Gundam: The Demon Boy of Mars,’ Season 2? That season got panned, if I recall.” Yekase’s voice tilted like a kite.

“...Can’t fool you.” She raised both hands in surrender, palms pale as petals.

Anyway, transforming for her wouldn’t cost anything. This form had lost the second-generation Magical Girls’ power. What remained was Ivaris’s Infinite Power manipulation skill, and the ability to change appearance, a mask made of light.

“Uh... ‘I feel you by my side.’”

Red and silver swirled up in the tiny rental, a vortex like a pair of comets spinning in a teacup.