Yekase kept from Jiang Bailu this: Li Erpao, her killer brother and likely accomplice, vanished like storm-smoke in the Pale Knight’s chaos.

She wanted Jiang Bailu to rest, to shelve ability tests till they returned to the Twin Towers, like sheathing a blade to cool.

Because they solved the incident, once Jiang Bailu could move, the three shifted into Eternal Green Pages’ base dorms.

They enjoyed senior-cadre perks, like living under a broader canopy.

Now Jiang Bailu lay in the guest room, spacing out, like a leaf on still water.

Activating her power was draining, but simply calling the ghost carried no weight; a thought, and it drifted to her bedside like a late moon.

“Coffee Moon?”

“...”

“You can talk, can’t you?”

“...”

“Don’t lie to me; you clearly directed my counterattack back then, like a captain in a storm.”

The ghost in the white coat just hovered there, like frost hung in air.

Right after it first appeared, it had spoken to her, more than a line or two, the voice vivid as chimes.

It felt like a creature with self-awareness; now, she couldn’t sense that spark at all, like embers gone cold.

In her mind, she asked it to raise a hand or move; it obeyed to the millimeter, yet it wouldn’t speak, like a shadow puppet.

What happened to it? Was her weakness dragging it weak, too, like two lanterns dimming together?

Or the reverse—at awakening’s peak, energy granted brief self-awareness; after the peak, puppet-like is the norm, like a tide ebbing.

She hated calling this half-self a “puppet,” yet no other word fit this obedient thing, like naming a river stone.

“...Forget it. Coffee Moon, hand me any book from that shelf, like plucking a fruit.”

It obeyed, like water flowing downhill.

She took the book and glanced at the title: Labyrinth City’s Underground Maze and the Witches’ Brigade, trailing like old ivy.

—This isn’t a book; it’s a game cartridge, like plastic hiding under cloth!

At her jab, Coffee Moon lowered its head and didn’t react, like a bird in rain.

It seems its judgment mirrors Jiang’s cognition; if she missed the cartridges, it would mix them with books and grab one, like a mirror copying clouds.

Why are cartridges stashed on a Sinister Organization base guest-room shelf—some cadre’s hobby, like a child’s marble in a temple?

“...Put it back, like returning a borrowed star.”

It obeyed, like a tide receding.

Jiang sank into thought—though an accountant by trade, her researcher soul began to blaze, like coal finding flame.

Her ability is to manufacture skewing; the white-coat ghost is only a side product, like wind bending reeds.

Even without summoning it, skewing works fine; instinct says so, like a river holding to its bed.

But the two nearby superpowered samples, Gu Xiangshi and Li Dapao, never summoned humanoid ghosts; that fits common sense, like clean lines on a diagram.

So what is Coffee Moon, like a riddle carved in mist?

Why can she have it, like a stray star finding a nest?

It seems to defy the lone rule of the scarce superpowered—one ability only, like a second moon over the sea.

Skewing, skewing, like wind twisting grass...

“...Light?”

As she grasped it, Coffee Moon’s lower half vanished, like fog cut by sun.

Of course, like a lock clicking.

The ghost isn’t a second ability, but a crisis-born phantom: she wished for someone beside her, skewed light, and forged it, like hammered moonlight.

But why can a phantom touch things, like dew holding a spiderweb?

She snatched the black pen from the nightstand and tossed it at Coffee Moon, like flicking a pebble into a pond.

The pen bounced off like it had hit a real person, like bark rejecting a knife.

“...I don’t get it, like clouds refusing a net.”

Superpowers root in Infinite Power, but they run on instinctive wiring and shrug off logic, like fantastical creatures.

Asking Yekase won’t help, like knocking on a sealed gourd.

Right—ask Gu Xiangshi, like turning to a taller tree!

“...She’s with Shadow Curtain International; she won’t tell, like a gate barred at dusk.”

Jiang never saw Gu’s stumble last night; her impression stayed: a meticulous elite, temper bad per Ling Yi, like lacquer hardening.

Ask her, and Jiang might expose her odd power; she could be dragged to the Huaxia Branch, like a fish in a bucket.

Better to research alone, like a lamp trimming its own wick.

She put away Coffee Moon and stepped out of the guest room, like tucking a scarf and braving wind.

After asking a passing staffer, she found Eternal Green Pages’ Cloudlong Branch library, like following a creek to a pond.

Eternal Green Pages is a small Alchemy group, with only this branch, like a single tree in a yard.

The gap with HQ isn’t large; the library should be solid, like roots pressed deep.

She pushed the door open, like lifting a screen...

“...Hm?”

The space beyond didn’t match what she’d pictured, like stepping into a beehive.

Everywhere her eyes fell, books and shelves jammed the view, like trees crowding a forest.

Walls, floors, even the ceiling, all packed with glossy volumes, fixed by glass within frames, like stars set in ice.

“Books hold a special place in alchemy,” like fire in winter.

A voice sounded behind her, like a bell behind a curtain.

She turned: a middle-aged man with graying temples—seems like research director Liang Bo, like frost edging pine.

“Modern Alchemy needs ‘concepts.’ Ancient Alchemy needs ‘runes.’ Books can supply both, like river and well fed by rain.”

“In other words, piled books alone, without much dressing, make a simple alchemy workshop, like bricks becoming a kiln.”

Jiang smiled apologetically: “I don’t really understand. I’m just a new Infinite Power researcher,” like a thin crescent over water.

“No need to tense up. I just have something to do and happened to pass by. Help yourself,” like wind passing a gate.

“Thanks,” she said, like a reed bowing.

The man nodded to her and left, like a shadow slipping along the wall.

Jiang stepped into the library and softly closed the door, like cupping a candle.

She immediately spotted a hefty hardcover, Daozang, and reached for it, like grabbing a brick under moss.

“...?”

She suddenly felt something off, like a thorn under silk.

Liang Bo… Yekase mentioned him, like a note tucked in a book.

She said that uncle works in an alchemy group yet doesn’t know Alchemy, and even can’t recognize his own boss, like a boatman who can’t swim.

She told it once as a joke, like tossing a pebble for ripples.

Not right, not right, not right, like drums beating under the skin.

Then what were those lines he spoke? They aren’t what a novice says, like old ink on fresh paper.

Jiang felt her hairs rise, a tremor she couldn’t suppress, like grass shivering under frost.

After the Pale Knight’s baptism, her first thought was, like a bell tolling in fog:

Who was that man, like a shadow behind a lantern?

She remembered a childhood Flash puzzle, like an attic smell rising.

The hero saved an old man, saw a card under the phone, like a clue under ash.

He realized the “thief” in the atrium was the target, and the old man the killer, like masks swapped mid play.

The game was The Doctor’s House, a childhood shadow for her, like an ink-stain on memory.

Jiang stepped back twice, pressed against the wall by the door, gasping like oxygen-starved lungs.

If that person was Liang Bo’s puppet… Li Dapao is dead; why can the Pale Knight still act, like a drumbeat after the drummer falls?

The answer is simple, like a nail under the rug.

Because Li Dapao is also a puppet, like a wooden doll painted warm.

Li Erpao made it before coming to Cloudlong City, like weaving straw before a journey.

No rule says puppets without true life must dissolve at death—that’s just the Pale Knight saving energy, like a lantern snuffed to spare oil.

Li Erpao kept “Li Dapao’s” “corpse” mangled until staff bagged and sent it off, then canceled the puppet, like a stage set till curtain falls.

Then why make Liang Bo’s puppet here, like planting a knife in soft earth?

This area is idle guest rooms; “something to do” leads toward—like footprints pointing down a corridor.

Gu Xiangshi’s room—she’s also here, healing, like a wounded hawk on a perch.

Call Yekase to handle it? No, like reaching for lightning.

He’s already inside the base; Yekase is with Ling Yi at the third waystation, waiting for the rally, like flags waiting for wind.

Notify Eternal Green Pages? Also no, like shouting into a sleeping grove.

It’s night; on her walk from the guest rooms, she met only one staffer still around, like one lantern on a long street.

She panted hard, like a bellows feeding a low flame.

There’s another way, like a side gate in a wall.

She knows it, like a thread tugging in the palm.

I fight. I expose him, like drawing a blade under moonlight.

Why? She’s a small engineer, a desk worker, like a sparrow on a gear.

Just because she awakened a power she barely understands, must she step into a battlefield, like a book thrown into fire?

There’s no such law, like the sky refusing a rope.

There’s no such law, like the river refusing a leash.

Yet her hand already rests on the doorknob, like a moth landing on steel.

The metal’s chill steadies her, like snow on fevered skin.

She thinks of her mentor Yekase—the guy who keeps calling himself a desk worker, like a banner rolled away.

What was his heart like when he first stepped onto a battlefield, like a drum tied under cloth?

That genius probably nailed it the first time, like an arrow finding the center.

Jiang doesn’t have Yekase’s power, but now she has Coffee Moon beside her, like a pale moon over a traveler.

Stand by me.

“Puppet” and “ghost” sound ugly; let’s just call it Stand, Jiang thought, like renaming a boat before a voyage.

“Only this once—just because Gu Xiangshi’s worth is high; I’ll sell her a favor,” like tossing a rope across a river.

“Yes, this is my second and last fight—” like a candle promised two flames—

She expelled the stale breath and opened the door, like a chimney clearing.

“Then let’s head for the final battlefield,” like marching toward the last ridge.

Bandaged foot in disposable slippers, she ran the way he left, like a swan with a bound wing taking flight.

She climbed the stairs, like water stepping up stones.

She cleared a corridor, like wind sweeping a flagline.

She looped another path back to the guest-room area, like a stream bending around a rock.

A door ajar spilled light, like a cracked lantern.

Bang!

Jiang slammed it open with her shoulder, like a ram hitting a gate.

Gu Xiangshi sat at the desk, reviewing a stack of files, like a general under lamplight.

Liang Bo stood behind her slightly, pouring tea; his other hand slid into her blind spot and rose, like a snake under grass.

That hand held a knife that flashed cold, like ice catching moon.

At Jiang’s crash, both looked over, like owls turning to a rustle.

Liang Bo knew the plot was blown; his face twisted; the knife drove down, like a storm breaking a branch.

“Coffee Moon—!”

“Microcosm Phenomenon—!”