Ling Yi tossed the rowdy fighters out in five minutes, like sweeping fallen leaves off a stone step.

Then she spent ten more smoothing the staff’s nerves, like calming ripples on a teacup pond.

Five minutes after that, Yekase finally sauntered in—as Mechbreaker—like a shadow slipping under a door.

She gave Ling Yi’s “new armor” a stagey once-over, then propped one arm on the counter like a lazy spear, and glanced at the server.

“Looks like you’re short on security, huh?” Her voice tapped the air like a knife on glass.

She looked exactly like some black-hearted vendor doing a two-man act with the fighters, a storm cloud selling rain. Yekase was black-hearted enough, sure, but Mechbreaker had a name in Twin Towers City, and the wind had been steady at her back lately, so she dared talk like this.

That steady tailwind came from showing up with Flashblade Red again and again. In the online alleys, rumors climbed like vines: people guessed they knew each other, maybe even worked together.

“The Mechbreaker who’s famous for stripping any mech on sight didn’t tear down Flashblade Red—must be true love!” With lines like that, her hero image got a bit jester-colored, like a tiger painted with clown stripes. She even found shipping fic when she vanity-searched the other day.

“Gently Unbolt Your Private Armor”—something like that. As for the contents, yeah, it was very much that, blush like a sunset behind a screen.

The server didn’t seem to surf much, didn’t recognize Mechbreaker, and got spooked by that villain getup, like a sparrow under a hawk’s shadow. She looked to her coworker for help, only to find empty air—they’d bolted.

“Uh… um…”

“If your guards can’t handle that kind of riffraff, why keep them?” Yekase’s smile was a thin blade. “Save the wages. I’ve got an invention perfect for storefronts like yours, a lock made for this lonely door.”

The server stayed lost, a boat without oars.

“…Forget it. Call your floor manager. I’ll talk to them directly.”

On voice channel, Yekase told Ling Yi to withdraw. She had other business.

[Luminous Infinity: Other business is pitching security gear?]

“Yeah.”

[Luminous Infinity: Taking advantage like that? That’s awful…]

The scolding stung like cold rain, but Yekase’s bank balance was a dry well. “You don’t know how heavy rent and rice hit till you run a house, you pampered thing.”

[Luminous Infinity: Fine… I’ll head back first.]

Ling Yi sighed, then drifted away like a paper kite on a tired breeze.

When the server brought the floor manager, Yekase sat with her at a tea table near the entrance, steam curling like little ghosts.

The manager was a woman in her forties, classic dark officewear, collar corners sharp as blades. Her aura was meticulous, like a ledger with every box ticked.

“First, thank you for protecting our staff… Miss?” Her voice carried a hint of weariness, like dusk light, but she still pushed out a service smile.

Yekase balked at saying “Mechbreaker” to someone this serious, like a kid about to get scolded by a homeroom teacher. This was business, solemn as a seal. For moments like this, she’d prepared a new alias.

“Jingzhe.”

A seasonal name stolen from a wall calendar, like plucking a date off spring.

“I’ve got a simple, self-developed security system. It’s perfect for high-traffic places like this. Easy install, striking results, low maintenance,” she said, voice steady as a metronome.

She flicked her wrist. A camera-shaped gadget popped into her palm, a crow-feather sheen of oil still on the shell.

“I use my own lightweighting patent. Volume stays under one cubic decimeter. It detects and reports Infinite Power within twenty meters. If needed, it can manually emit a person-targeted hypnotic sound wave—also my patent—to dissolve malice and bring on a sense of happiness.”

The manager nodded, like a reed testing wind. “Sounds promising. But how do we verify it works? ‘Dissolve malice’… that phrasing feels a bit…”

“I’ll show you live.”

Yekase set the unit on the table, hooked it to a power bank. A light blinked on the base like a firefly in a jar.

She picked up the remote and let the manager see it, then crook-fingered her, a cat inviting a game.

“Come on. Throw a punch at me.”

Puzzled, the manager blinked, then clenched her right fist. Seeing Yekase’s nod, she stood and swung across the table.

It was very slow, very weak, a leaf-lazy punch that didn’t even require a dodge. The thought drifted in, soft as ash.

Yekase pressed the button.

The fist slowed and stopped ten centimeters before her grinning mask, like a stone rolled uphill that suddenly forgot to be heavy. The clenched fingers loosened on their own, a flower uncurled by morning.

“…Huh?”

The manager stared at her hand, then sank back into her chair like settling silt.

“Well?”

“It’s effective… I’ll recommend it to the general manager. I’ll get you an answer within thirty minutes.”

“I should remind you, the effect doesn’t last long. It’s enough to stabilize the scene. Of course, if someone resists the hypnotic sound and even gets angrier, this system won’t help.”

“…And at that point, we should…?”

She was still under a wash of Flash Energy audio hypnosis, her mind tilting to accept and agree, like a compass nudged by a magnet. That was the real reason for this “trial,” a little bridge-building trick.

But some words had to be said.

“At that point, you should expect a hero.”

…

…

Yekase left the bathhouse and slipped into a side alley to change, peeling off jacket and mask like shedding a skin.

Ling Yi had already gone home—said go and went, not even a minute on the curb, a breeze that didn’t linger. Yekase pinged her a message, then caught a bus, the city lights passing like fish scales.

[Luminous Infinity: Sold it?]

[Rift King: Three-month trial. If they’re happy, rollout to other branches. Six-figure deposit.]

[Luminous Infinity: ?????]

For a high schooler, that number was a mountain—Ling Yi didn’t even know the Flashblade System on her back cost more—but for a research project it was a few months of oil for the lamp. Still, it was the biggest order Yekase had ever signed.

A deal that was hers alone, money that was hers alone, a little fire she’d lit in the dark.

Black market sales moved fast; useless trinkets, if clever, could fetch sweet prices like candied haw on a stick. But even the best retail margins couldn’t beat a formal contract with a proper company, a river vs. a rain barrel.

Then she could file a few patents on side results and lie back on the current, collecting royalties like fallen leaves.

There were plenty of ways to make money. Her lips curled, a crescent moon. Keep stacking like this, and her own secret base seemed to rise on the horizon, a silhouette against dawn.

Back home, Liu RuoYuan had eaten and was sprawled on the sofa watching TV, a cat in a patch of afternoon sun.

“Did you watch today’s Kengan?” Yekase called the moment she stepped in, voice bright as a bell.

Hearing her, Liu RuoYuan turned with a smile, then took that line full in the face like a wet towel. “Can you not open with hitting and killing every time you walk in?”

“I’ll try next time.”

“You’re in such a good mood it’s a little gross… That bathhouse legit? You wouldn’t drag your high school friend to that kind of place, right?” Liu RuoYuan frowned, a crease like a drawn string.

“What are you thinking?” Yekase tapped her forehead, a sisterly flick. “I just closed a deal. We’ve got money now.”

“When I first came to Twin Towers, you said that too…”

Uh.

She remembered promising a big house back then, and here they were crammed into forty square meters of rental, two people sharing air like two birds in one cage. She hunched her neck and looked away.

“There’ll be bread. There’ll be the big house.”

For a moment, the room filled with a tear-twang mood, rain pressing low. Luckily, Yekase produced a strawberry mini-cake she’d bought on the way, and tucked it into Liu RuoYuan’s arms like a warm bun.

“See? Not just bread. Cake too.”

Liu RuoYuan snorted, a little laugh like a popped bubble.

Yekase watched her sister and felt a tide rise. This twenty-two-year-old had been born in the same ordinary home—well, Dad might not have been ordinary, but he never told them much. For over twenty years she’d never brushed against the Sinister Organization’s filth. She’d become a teacher, taken a civil post, barely exploited, living like someone inside a fairy tale’s glass bell.

If someone high up took a shine to her and tried to snatch her as a concubine, could Yekase protect her? The answer tasted bitter.

What should she do then?

She should,

expect a hero…

…No.

When she’d been cornered in a weak, unaugmented body, she had expected a hero. Ling Yi showed up, like lightning splitting a night cloud.

Then she realized there aren’t heroes. There are only people who want to become heroes, flints striking until they catch.

“It’s okay. I’ll make a lot of money, a lot, and we’ll carve out our place on this land,” she said, voice low as banked coals.

She didn’t know her face then, but Liu RuoYuan smiled sweetly, sugar in tea, and booped her nose with a finger.

“I know. Yekase’s been capable since she was little—and anyway, we still have a home to go back to.”

Yekase gave the tiniest nod, like a leaf agreeing with the breeze.

She remembered the ragged magic primer they’d found as kids. She’d dragged her sister up the big tree at the village gate to learn the Levitation Spell by jumping—nearly broke a leg, a fledgling falling from the nest.

She remembered stacking seven or eight bricks and baking eggs and sweet potatoes with dry straw inside, smoke curling like gray snakes. They cooked half the day and still didn’t cook through, then both squatted behind a dirt mound with stomachs roiling like a bad tide.

She remembered tearing down Second Uncle’s tractor engine, losing the spark plug, and swearing with her sister that Big Yellow Dog ran off with it. That night, they had dog stew, steam rising like guilty ghosts.

Shameful little things the city had sanded off, but now they surfaced like overwritten memories suddenly re-inked, glittering in her mind like fish in a clear stream.

“Alright, why are you crying? Go shower.”

“Crying? Who’s crying…”

She blinked, surprised, and swiped her hand across her cheek.

Sparkles shone on the back of her hand like dew.

“Uh… I’m gonna shower.”

She grabbed her change of clothes and a towel, and darted into the bathroom like a swallow into its nest.