Yekase found the hotel room, confusion swirling like damp fog in her chest.

The two who arrived first had dropped their luggage, anchors on a quiet pier. Ling Yi lay sprawled on the sofa asleep, a curled cat. No sign of Jiang Bailu’s shadow.

But the bathroom light burned like a small sun.

Yekase leaned at the doorway, voice drifting in. “You’re washing? Don’t we need to talk action with the organizers?”

“Mm. They just called. Said rest up. We’ll discuss tomorrow...”

No water sounds—maybe changing, maybe on the toilet. With stray thoughts flitting like moths, Yekase turned, ready to swan-dive onto the untouched bed, a field of fresh snow.

A hand shot from the bathroom door and caught her arm, a hooked fish.

“Eh—”

She was yanked inside like a kite on a sudden gust.

The heat-lamp glare stabbed her eyes. When she blinked them open, Jiang Bailu stood nearly bare—two pieces left—and was stripping Yekase’s clothes with brisk, practiced fingers.

“What are you even doing?!”

“Unlocking you.”

Jiang looked perfectly matter-of-fact. “Flight’s exhausting. Not showering?”

????

Shock and confusion knotted under Yekase’s ribs. “Do we have to shower together?”

“Isn’t that a bargain for you? Got complaints?”

“You’re really asking if I have complaints?!”

Yekase tried to slip out, but Jiang scooped her up like a kitten.

Her brain was the same; her body, shrunken—doll-sized in strong arms.

In short, no escape—bars and wires tightening in air.

Her short legs windmilled a few times, then drooped like flags in still wind.

She felt her authority sinking like dusk, and not just from her size. She sighed. “Just don’t do anything weird...”

“What weird thing? I don’t get it.”

Playing dumb, Jiang moved fast as a blade, shedding Yekase’s dress and underthings like silk snake skin, leaving only locked gloves and stockings.

She pressed a fingertip to the tiny iron ring atop the silk gloves. The lock clicked open with a dew-drop snap.

Hands sealed from the world for a day and a night met the exhaust fan’s breeze. Yekase shivered, a reed in cool current.

“Doctor, took a lap around. How’s this city?”

“...Dead as dust,” Yekase shrugged, a pebble rolling off her shoulder.

“Like any 21st-century county town. But the brown rice stir-fry was good.”

She hid her encounter with Luzhixing, a blade tucked up a sleeve.

Luzhixing was a bomb that could remake the board, shockwaves rippling through sand. But strong hands come tied to thick webs, especially when they bear a whole banner.

If Luzhixing had designs on the rally—what designs? Cars aren’t weapons—Swordforging Manor would get dragged in, like tents in a sandstorm, willing or not.

Because she was “Luzhixing of Swordforging Manor.”

Yekase voiced her doubt. “Why pick this shabby little city for a rally? If you want Gobi terrain, there’s Goldsilver City to the southwest. Way more developed.”

Jiang tested the bath with her hand, then lifted Yekase and set her into the steaming pool, white snakes of vapor curling up.

“This rally, called ‘Cloudlong Night,’ has run five times. The sixth is coming. Five teams, two drivers each. They alternate, racing a thousand kilometers of complex tracks. Sounds simple.”

“Sounds.”

“If it were that simple, we wouldn’t be here, right?” Jiang smiled, working shampoo into Yekase’s long hair, strings of foam like pearl garlands.

Yekase realized she’d bathed with several different people by now. Some ritual to strengthen bonds? Steam-borne mystery she couldn’t grasp.

“But racing... never really watched before.”

Yekase launched into anecdotes. “As far as I know, modern street racers mod cars like it’s the space age.”

“Since you’re one of them, doctor?”

“Nope. I just watch. My own mods are conservative—maybe a bit more displacement, optical camo, and two machine guns.”

“Conservative...”

Guns for looks? That’s... conservative.

“Those death-chasing street racers shove second-hand mecha engines into cars. Six thousand RPM on flat ground, easy. The bold pour blended Infinite Power straight into the cylinders.”

“???”

“But the boldest is now scattered across the road.”

“Uh...”

Her sweet-soft voice delivered madness in a flat lake tone. The absurd doubled, like a mild psychic smear, honey spread over knives.

“His mix was Mind Energy Omega-Neptune, six-to-three-to-one. He dosed it in front of us. Seconds later—full self-ignition. Sparks and lightning skidding hundreds of meters. Only the shell left. Man and car, ashes fused into asphalt.”

“So gross...”

Yekase consoled her. “At least his soul stays forever with the car and the road he loved, stitched to that long gray ribbon. Isn’t that... something.”

Jiang pictured it; her stomach heaved like stormy seas, almost puking into the tub. She finally understood how accurate Yekase’s “conservative” was.

“So the racers this time might also...”

“No idea. Not our problem.”

“...Right.”

They were only here to pluck thorns from the trail.

Honestly, who strikes at a plain rally? Even if you do, what profit? Steal a few modded cars? Leaves scatter; no pattern forms.

After washing Yekase’s hair, Jiang drained the foamy water, snowmelt sliding away, then turned on the shower.

They rinsed for a while, then wrapped towels and stepped out, cloud-cloaked.

Ling Yi slept head-in, feet-on, in a bizarre balance like a crane on one leg.

Yekase poked her cheek, a dragonfly’s touch. “Ling Yi? Shower, then sleep?”

“Mm... mmmhmm...”

Ling Yi struggled up, face fogged with sleep. She ignored the steaming duo and burrowed into the bathroom, a cub into its den.

“...She okay?” Jiang asked.

Jiang and Ling Yi hadn’t really met; at most, she knew the girl wielded Blade Armor. This was their first mission together, two streams just merging.

“She’s fine. High-schooler. Half-asleep in class all the time. She can sleep and shower at once.”

.........

Yekase sat on the bed, pulled her laptop, and searched Cloudlong City and the “Cloudlong Night” rally, keys pattering like rain on tiles.

She skipped the known, clicked through to page six, and finally sifted out a glint.

Sixty years ago, Cloudlong City was a one-line industry chain—oilfields, steel mills, aircraft bureau—cranes against a rising sun. Oil ran dry; policies shifted; rust crept in.

What about the steel mill and the aircraft plant?

The aircraft plant was abandoned, wind in hollow hangars. The steel mill changed hands and, twelve years ago, sold cheap to a private group named...

...Eternal Green Pages.

What?

Eternal Green Pages... aren’t they into Alchemy? Those chimneys belched black smoke at dusk, bruised clouds over the river. Expanding into iron-forging now?

Yekase frowned, sent Sandryon a message for confirmation, a sparrow flying into the night, and kept reading.

Cloudlong Night Rally.

A biennial rally in Cloudlong City. The track runs in the Gobi on the outskirts, dunes like waves. Prizes are rich, bait that draws entrants nationwide, but only five teams get in. The qualifiers are fiercer and longer than the main.

...So far, seems normal, a still pond.

“‘Cloudlong Night’... one night... one page... Wait, who’s the organizer?”

Yekase looked to Jiang Bailu, lanterns in her eyes, seeking an answer.

“Don’t know.” The cleanest cut.

Yekase blinked. She felt she’d spotted something odd, yet the shards wouldn’t lock into a coherent pattern, broken jade scattered in sand.

Eternal Green Pages... buys a steel mill... then hosts a car rally?

...Heh.

Even Yekase was amused, a crescent smile.

Everyone knows Eternal Green Pages bleeds money yearly. Earnings from alchemical goods get sunk into new experiments; members plug gaps from their own pockets. Their lead enforcer, Xiaoyuan, even moonlights in competitions. How could such a group fund a “generous-prize” rally—five times running?

Impossible. Absolutely impossible. A door slamming under thunder.

But speaking of Xiaoyuan...

Yekase remembered that drink with him beneath the Emerald Pool, green water a still mirror.

“No matter skinning, tendon-tearing, or radiation rot—even if the flesh melts and only bone remains,” Chaoliangqun had said, words like cold wind.

Being a test subject for that kind of experiment must pay well, silver coins like frost.

Then that pay—what did it fund? A stream diverted to a hidden lake.

“...Uh... no way.”

Then—

What is Eternal Green Pages seeking through this rally? A hook cast into deep currents.

Why did Mira take interest, sending both former and current heads of Development—not Combat—across half of Huaxia to investigate? What is she after? A hawk circling the dunes.

The more Yekase thought, the stranger it felt—thoughts pooling like dark water—until she almost feared to think.

Bzzz bzzz bzzz—

“Oh!”

The sudden phone vibration startled her like a struck gong. She lifted it. A reply from Sandryon, screen glow like a firefly.

[Glass Witch: I’m not close with the kids at HQ.]

...Then never mind. Yekase hadn’t hoped much. If that five-hundred-year-old hag were chummy with the youngsters, she’d suspect granny was faking youth, an ancient pine wearing blossoms.

[Glass Witch: But I did hear they want to develop a perpetual-motion machine.]

Perpetual motion already? A wheel turning without wind.

What else would an Alchemist group chase? All day it’s Philosopher’s Stones or perpetual motion. That tracks—and their yearly deficits too, gold dreams fading like morning mist.

Yekase took it as a joke and reached to boot a game, mind a taut bow ready to relax.

Suddenly, her password-typing finger halted, a bird frozen mid-flight.

Then she picked up the phone again, a pebble lifted from a stream.

[King of Breakers: What do you mean by “recent”? When?]

......

[Glass Witch: A dozen years ago, give or take.]

......

Ha. Knew it. A small laugh, candlelight flickering.