The next day, Yekase took last night’s drowsy disaster to heart and dove into an afternoon nap like slipping under warm lake water.

That day, she’d trusted her body clock like a blind sailor trusting the stars. No alarm. Who knew it would—

…

…

“…Mm?”

When she woke, Jiang Bailu and Ling Yi were gone, the room a hollow shell lit by moonlight like cold water poured through half-drawn curtains, with a stripe of neon glinting like fish scales.

“It’s already night…?”

She fished her phone from under the pillow and hit the wake button, a lighthouse flash on max brightness knifing into her eyes. Her mushy brain felt like someone had ripped open a skylight. She yowled and flung the phone, which landed in a clatter like hail on tin.

“Uaaahhh—”

She slid off the bed and scuttled on all fours like a startled gecko, scooped up the phone, and tried again.

Wake button.

“Yow!”

…Another toss. Another clatter like a dropped pan.

Something was off. The thought came like a pebble hitting still water.

Not bragging, but she’d kept a monstrous schedule for six months and still bounced into fights like a spring-loaded toy. Her nap clock hit within three minutes, and she could wake in a blink. When did she start having morning grump?

Don’t tell me someone cursed me…

Or was it the body? The idea rose like fog.

She’d shrunk. Maybe that meant she needed more sleep. Yekase sprawled on the floor and tried to wake the body by force of thought, like stoking a cold stove.

Second stage, second stage… Mountain forest terrain. After the start, racers enter a feral ex-plantation, evergreens knitted into a long tunnel like a green throat. From the air you can’t see the road, let alone a car knifing through at speed.

So if you want to warn them to stay safe, you have to catch them before they launch, like grabbing a sleeve at the gate.

She’d overslept. Jiang Bailu and Ling Yi would try to cover for her, but they didn’t know the second stage’s quirks, and they might overthink it, like birds spooked by their own shadows.

All the staff are around before the start. What if the killer hides among them and eavesdrops?

So they’d plan to wait, fly onto the racers’ roofs midstage, then discover there’s no finding the cars in that green tunnel and fail with nothing but wind in their hands.

You could see that train coming from miles away.

Yekase clawed up from the floor, snatched her shoulder bag and the twice-dropped phone, hefted the Polaris Staff, and shouldered the door like a clumsy wolf, bolting out.

“…Flight spell.”

Her throat was dry with that stale just-woke taste, like paper. Her feet stayed earthbound, body heavy as wet cloth. Right—she wasn’t like Jiang Bailu, a favored one. She had to dial the French arcane hub with Celestial Speech first, like logging on before you fly.

“Celestial Speech, Flight.”

She sat astride the iron staff and shot out like an arrow leaving the string.

…

Ten minutes later she skimmed into the first midway camp like a shadow cutting the floodlights.

Jiang Bailu and Ling Yi were waiting on the open ground. When Yekase wobbled in, they hurried over. Jiang Bailu was ready to scold her for sleeping in. But one look at the bird’s nest hair and crescent-moon eye bags, and her words got stuck like rice in the throat. She just fussed with Yekase’s hair, fingers a quick comb.

“Did you tell them what happened last night?”

Ling Yi jumped in. “No. I wanted to ask the judges to extend the wait time. But Bailu-jie said if the two of us spoke up, we’d just startle the snake. Negotiation should be yours.”

“Fair. Thanks for keeping your heads.”

Yekase hadn’t thought that far while her skull was full of mist.

“How long since they left? I’ll chase along the track.”

“No!” The staffer who’d escorted them last night cut in, a hand like a stop sign. “The second stage is a maze. Hairpins everywhere. Flying won’t be faster. You’ll overshoot the track and eat trees.”

“Then I won’t fly.”

Her vector flight system wasn’t perfect. Better trust the local map-readers. Yekase hopped off the Polaris Staff and handed the iron rod to Ling Yi.

“?”

“Hold this for me.”

She took the internal-channel earpiece, bounced in place twice like a runner testing springs, and sprinted out.

…Sprinted out.

“She’s… running instead of flying?!”

Ling Yi’s gripe hadn’t finished when Yekase’s figure melted into the dense woods like a swallow into leaves.

Yekase has entered the track—on foot!

“So—so fast!”

Two short legs flickered, leaving afterimages like heat waves. Her speed matched those deranged mod-cars—no, she was faster.

Her raw strength was throttled, but her passives still purred. Short steps? Then crank the leg turnover to the limit. The body becomes a sewing machine needle punching cloth.

With this speed, a thrust should hit hard enough to bruise steel. In games, speed builds get low attack by default, but give them a sturdy enough weapon and high velocity turns taps into bites.

It felt like finding a hole in a firewall Jiang Bailu had coded. Yekase grinned, bright as a fox under the eaves—

But she ignored one fact. The final say belonged to Jiang Bailu.

“Not bad, Doctor. Patching power with speed…” Jiang Bailu’s voice drifted like smoke. “Looks like I’ll have to use the control pins.”

“B—Bailu-jie?” Ling Yi felt a dark haze rise from Jiang Bailu’s back like storm clouds and edged away.

On the track, blissfully unaware of the doom brewing, Yekase caught the last car’s taillights, two red coals in the trees.

Thunderbolt.

She’d thought she’d reel in the Chimeric Dreadnought first, the team that dropped four places yesterday. Surprise—it was the brothers.

The two didn’t have a feel for twisty mountain roads. Their speed wouldn’t climb, and they hadn’t lit the Mind Energy booster.

Two big bends later, Yekase drew alongside.

Li Dapao was chewing out Li Erpao for grazing the rear on the barrier at the last hairpin. He glanced out the window and saw a figure pacing them, a phantom by the glass.

A passerby? Weird—

A passerby?!

“Hey there,” Yekase tapped the glass with a knuckle like a tiny bell, then opened the comms. “Got a minute to talk?”

…

…

Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu were flying over Cloudlong City, two shadows skimming the city’s neon river.

After Yekase sprinted off, they’d returned downtown to patrol. The convoy crews had the warning. Everyone was holed up in hotels like clams in shells. They didn’t expect to find anything; they just didn’t want to sit and rust.

“Bailu-jie…”

“Mm?” Her reply rose at the end, a little nasal hook, like the Doctor’s.

Ling Yi had heard Yekase mention her apprentice before. This trip was their first proper meeting. On the plane, Ling Yi had played her Switch instead of sleeping, then turned to see Yekase dozing with her head tilted, soft as a cat in a sunbeam.

Jiang Bailu drifted closer, suspicious aura like a cartoon sneaking cloud, and leaned in toward Yekase’s face.

Ling Yi froze, nearly burying herself in her Switch where the waifu’s headlights were only 480p, stealing glances with the corner of her eye.

She saw Jiang Bailu peck Yekase’s sleeping cheek, a quick sparrow kiss.

Looking back, that moment still hit like a firecracker in a quiet lane.

Ling Yi, eighteen years and three months old, had never seen something so spicy up close. Her hands almost yeeted the handheld.

Wait—aren’t you master and disciple? Teacher–student romance? So the Doctor likes younger? Then I might—no, the Doctor probably doesn’t mean it that way…

From touchdown onward, Ling Yi had kept a stealthy eye on Jiang Bailu’s moves and micro-expressions, like watching ripples for fish. She found this person copied Yekase in a thousand small habits. Yekase was less sadistic and more decisive, but in the dailies they were stamped from the same mold.

That couldn’t be right. Jiang Bailu was twenty-two. Starting from graduation, at most two years together. How do you get that alike in two springs?

Ling Yi’s little brain spun like a windmill in a valley, trimmed off falling-from-the-sky childhood sweetheart tales, and landed on the most likely answer:

They’ve already let the horse jump the fence!

Unbelievable!

The more she thought, the more certain the road felt underfoot. In minutes, her high-school brain storyboarded a whole forbidden romance, growing under the Sinister Organization’s boot like grass between stones, and overheated.

“You okay? You’re wobbling. Tired?” Jiang Bailu’s voice was a cool hand on a fevered brow.

“I’m fine! Better than ever! Okay, not that better, but I’m fine!” Ling Yi wanted to drift away from the woman she’d marked as her biggest enemy. But she feared an ambush like thunder from a clear sky. Her armor flowed and clicked green. She began circling Jiang Bailu up, down, left, and right like a hummingbird fan.

“What are you doing?!”

“Venting heat!”

Meaning unclear…

Jiang Bailu had no idea how fierce a storm Ling Yi had weathered inside. She thought the girl was simply bored with patrol. A bright high-schooler, stuck on midnight rounds—cruel work for young wings.

She tried to comfort her. “Honestly, all the potential victims are in hotels with fighters on watch. The enemy knows last night was too loud. They might not move today.”

“Mm.”

“So we don’t have to circle forever. By the clock, the second stage is nearly done. We’ve drawn enough loops in the sky.”

“Mm.”

“Wanna hit the street for some fun? We just met. We could get to know each other.”

“Huh?”

Ling Yi shot her a wary look, like a cat eyeing a bath. Jiang Bailu’s face was guileless, bright as a clear pond.

Right. This extremely sadistic, control-heavy bad woman must have used this exact honeyed routine to trick the Doctor under the covers.

The Doctor could coach others by the book, sure. But seeing her virgin-like panic at the deep-sea ruins when someone called her “darling,” she’d clearly never dated. And Jiang Bailu exploited that gap like a thief through an unlocked window.

Too evil!

Ling Yi pictured the Doctor with clothes rumpled, curled in a corner hugging a pillow, trembling like a leaf, and Jiang Bailu beside her, smug as a cat. A pulse of envy—no, fury—spiked.

“I heard Cloudlong City’s mala lamb legs are fire. I found a place with great reviews. Wanna try?”

“…I do.”