Katyusha only walked them to the guest hall door, then stopped. She said she wasn’t qualified to dine with them.

The hierarchy among dragons hit hard, like a mountain’s weight on the chest. Yekase noted it, then pushed the door first.

The room was wide by human scale, like a pond laid flat.

Landscapes in gilded frames lined the walls, each like a window cut from distant skies.

A huge crystal chandelier hung from the beam, casting light like rain through diamond facets, soft and even.

The far wall was all rosewood wine shelving, a red forest. Yekase recognized some famous seals, and many she didn’t.

A round table of tree root sat at the center, rings visible under clear varnish like ripples in a lake.

It looked carved whole from a stump thick as several people’s arms joined.

True value pulsed in the grain, but the style felt wild, like wind in a silk parlor, mismatched against the room’s refined luxury.

Takeout sat on the table.

The plastic bag wasn’t even opened, like a cocoon still sealed.

Aurora sat behind the table, spinning a bottle of red in her palm like a desk fan.

…?

What are you doing?

Playing the bottle? Gonna crown someone with it? And lunch is takeout!

How do you even get delivery in this frozen nowhere?

Yekase had braced to speak with a dragon sovereign wrapped in thunder.

Now her mind went blank, like snow swallowing sound.

They took their seats inside a silence that felt slightly crooked, like a tilted horizon.

Aurora lifted her chin, nudging them to open the bag themselves.

“Cheap KGB burgers. Pair well with brandy.”

……

…KGB?

Yekase forced a new topic, steadier than frost on steel. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Aurora. You and these dragons speak very fluent Chinese.”

“Mm. We used to be closely connected, so I studied it. As for the dragons, their biology doesn’t support tongue trilling.”

Aurora set the bottle down with the dull thud of a drum. She pinched the neck with two fingers, snapped it clean, and poured herself a glass.

“I remember you, Sandryon’s disciple. ‘No one here understands Ancient Alchemy’—that line was refreshingly blunt.”

“Eh? Eh?”

Ling Yi slipped out of her depth, like a fish into cold current.

“Ah, it was my first time on stage,” Yekase said, humble voice like warm tea. “I wanted to leave an impression. Good or bad, at least people would know me.”

“That’s why I remember you.”

Aurora drank from a beer-style stein, a big cylinder.

Red wine bubbling in it looked like orange soda, a bit of sacrilege, like painting on silk with mud.

Given that entire wall behind her, this level of ruin was probably survivable.

Could I cadge two bottles to take home? Yekase pondered with a smile tucked away.

Aurora’s first impression was full of dissonance, like brass in a snow hymn.

Her movements carried a commander’s poise; her gaze had the rank-and-file standing straight.

If Luzhixing was a defiant swordsman, and Sandryon a hidden hermit pleased with the world, then she was a general, banners high, aura spread like sun on the steppe.

Yet she spoke solemn nonsense, and spun her bottle with stately hands, like a judge juggling fruit.

Serious and funny, without meaning to be funny—she truly thought this was normal.

Was this that Slavic thing… the born madness of a Slavic dragon?

It felt… a feral kind of beauty, like frost flowers on glass.

Yekase had heard that Russians drink vodka like water, dance knee-killing Cossack, and wrestle bears on weekends.

Maybe true, maybe stereotype—snow stories grow antlers.

She herself was Huaxia, couldn’t even use Mind Energy, let alone kung fu.

But Aurora definitely had a knack for warping common sense; that felt nailed down, like iron in ice.

Under Aurora’s repeated eye-nudge, Yekase and Ling Yi opened the takeout.

Two burgers, popcorn chicken, a pair of wings, fries, and two colas—standard for two, like a recipe written on a stone.

The colas were frozen solid, like glaciers in cups.

Delivery in this frozen fortress. Truly a dragon lord’s hospitality, stranger than aurora glow at noon.

Yekase ate a half-cold burger and watched, silent as falling ash.

Aurora, at least one-eighty tall, leaned forward with both arms braced, pressure like a cliff face.

Platinum-gold waves of hair draped her shoulders, spilling across the table like sunlight on straw.

Chiseled cheekbones carved her into something sharp, a neutral beauty with steel.

She wore a silver-gray military coat, red embroidery along the edges, twin rows of gold buttons gleaming like stars.

A cylindrical fur-lined leather cap tilted on her head, silver-gray as a winter cloud.

“—Then, I, Dragon Lord Aflresgosa, welcome you to the Sidonia Dragon Fortress.”

She lifted her glass, a brief salute like clinking ice, then drank with impatience like wind.

At least half a liter went down in a single breath, not a drop left, cup set soft as snow.

“Siberia has three dragon clusters. Besides us, there’s the black-dragon ‘Unclean Three Towers,’ and the spiritwing ‘Halfway Final Journey.’

You’ve probably noticed Sidonia is the only mixed-race fortress. So don’t be stiff.”

“Thank you again for the hospitality, Dragon Lord,” Yekase said, wearing a shopfront smile like a lacquered mask.

Ling Yi’s mouth was packed with beef; she could only nod, cheeks round as buns.

“Sweet mouth,” Aurora said, amused, like fire under frost. “I wonder what those little alchemists you stunned at the press conference would think, seeing this side of you.”

“That’s called speaking human to humans, dragon to dragons.”

“Interested in dragon-tongue?”

Yekase shook her head fast, like a sparrow in rain.

Memorizing alchemy runes had almost killed her; another language would be a death wish.

“And you, little sister…” Aurora turned to Ling Yi. She didn’t yet know Ling Yi’s name.

“My name’s Ling Yi.”

Aurora nodded, words steady as drumbeats. “Humans have their path; dragons have theirs. Cross both, and you must…”

“Pay a price?”

“Face a trial.”

Ling Yi quietly exhaled, relief like warm air on cold glass.

She thought Aurora wanted trouble over that deception with the dragons.

“The trial arose from the first human–dragon exchanges. It’s called ‘Walk the Path of the Ancient Dragon.’

Only by passing it can you earn rightful identity and honor among the dragon flocks.”

“What if you fail?”

“Failure forbids any form of dragonization arts. Break that, and the dragon flocks will hunt you.”

“Uh.”

Better try, then, like rowing before the storm.

Ling Yi had zero interest in role-playing among dragons—Aurora: ?—but banning a hard-won new form felt wasteful as throwing jade in a well.

“Her lifeform hasn’t turned into a dragon,” Yekase said. “It’s armor imitating a dragon’s look. She still needs the trial?”

“She does.” Aurora lifted a finger, tapping the table, a single snowflake knocked loose.

“How do you define dragon? Are big lizards with wings dragons? Were the extinct eastern dragons dragons?

Are legless wyverns dragons? Are humans turned into dragons still dragons?”

“I… didn’t study draconic morphology.”

“You should. It’s a core of Ancient Alchemy. If that old scoundrel Jiejing won’t teach you, go ask Alice.”

Why not ask you? You know dragons best.

She curses the old scoundrel, but may be no better—Yekase grumbled inwardly, like thunder behind clouds.

“Alice, the crescent-moon dollmaker? She’s not easy to talk to.”

“She’s the final disciple of Isaac Newton, the ‘Pioneering Alchemist.’ Pride comes with that mantle, like thorns on a rose.

Go sincerely, and she will teach.”

So, don’t come to you.

Yekase almost laughed, held it back, and kept asking.

“What’s the trial, and how long? We flew here by accident. We have something tonight we must do. If it takes too long…”

“It won’t. As for content, not convenient to say.”

With the line drawn in ice, Ling Yi could only nod and accept.

It’s probably a fight or bearing dragon pressure—classic dragon image, like smoke over old tales.

They finished the burgers, the wings, the popcorn chicken.

Aurora asked Katyusha to accompany Yekase to the fortress library, then stood, moving to the wine rack Yekase had eyed all meal like a fox at a hen-house.

She pressed a hand on a plain bottle, turned and pushed it in, like turning a key in stone.

The whole wall cabinet rumbled, heavy and mechanical, like a glacier shifting.

It split slowly to both sides, revealing a stair that descended, like a river running under ice.

“Whoa, a hidden passage!”

Aurora led first. Ling Yi followed.

The shelves closed behind them with quiet finality, yet the corridor didn’t darken.

The walls themselves glowed faintly, like moonlight trapped in clear ice.

They were smooth as mirrors, crystal-like or resin-like, reflecting Ling Yi’s shape with lake-calm clarity.

Her touch found coolness like spring water, not the bite of true ice, but a gentle chill.

They walked a while before Ling Yi realized they were on a spiral stair, turning down like a conch shell.

“Where does this lead?”

“To the ice-dragon lineage’s homeland, a sub-world called the Ice Barrier.”

“If it’s the ice dragons’ homeland, is it rude for me to enter?”

“No. You only need a place to receive the trial. Ice Barrier or Dragon Slumber Temple—same effect.”

Ling Yi nodded, eased by the answer, like wind settling after a gust.

As the steps sank deeper, the crystal walls changed, smoothness giving way to angles, like mountains rising under sea.

Color shifts crept in, facets showing, closer to natural crystal, a rawness breathing up from earth.

Deeper meant more primal, like roots thickening in rock.

Soon, gradient-hued polyhedral shards filled the view, and the corridor became a hall of mirrors.

It felt like countless Ling Yis walked with her, each from a different angle, like stars crossing in water.

Dizziness rose, a slow swirl like mist in a gorge.

She tried to call to Aurora. “Miss Aurora, I’m getting turned around—”

…

…But where was Aurora’s silhouette?

Silence fell, vast as winter night.

In a space gorgeous and untrue—flowers in a mirror, moon on water—only Ling Yi remained.

Her countless reflections wore the same confusion, like reeds in wind moving as one.