By the fourth day, only two teams were left, like two candles stubborn in a storm.

Four days ago, five cars rolled out of the starting camp, engines like spring thunder, life bursting like shoots after rain.

In four short days, had this ground become their burial sand, a desert swallowing bones like a tide?

Yekase lay on two Oz Floating Discs set in an L, arms behind her head, eyes on the moon over the Gobi like a silver coin.

Polaris Staff and the Gunblade rested on the other disc, like two sleeping wolves beside her.

Li Erpao… where did he go, a stone dropped into a well without a ripple?

That big a man—did he evaporate, mist under the noon sun?

She had considered he might be a puppet, but it seemed pointless, like baiting with dry straw.

Near ten o’clock, she lowered her gaze toward the midway camp; Gu Xiangshi still hadn’t arrived, an empty chair at a banquet.

Did she oversleep and forget the race, a sparrow late to dawn?

Same back‑to‑back battles drained them both.

Yet Luzhixing showed up like nothing happened, asking to borrow the Gunblade.

Yekase didn’t lend it.

The difference in their level was stark, like cliff versus plain.

Just when Yekase thought the Chimera Flagship would run the course alone, a lone ship on a black sea—

On the horizon toward Cloudlong City, a white dot flowered, a seed sprouting on the edge of dusk.

It was Gu Xiangshi’s white suit, a banner in moonlight.

She was flying—yet no record showed she’d trained Sorcery, like a ledger missing ink.

Only when Gu drew close enough to see her face did Yekase catch it.

Black cubes cracked into being underfoot and behind her, like basalt stepping stones bursting from air.

She drove herself skyward with vector thrust akin to the Levitation Spell, springing along like a catapult of night.

…Huh.

Yekase had underestimated her, a sailor misreading the wind.

Gu Xiangshi landed at the midway camp, said nothing, slid into her car, and began warming the engine, heat like dawn in a kiln.

Then Yekase’s comm chimed; Jiang Bailu called, a voice like rain on tin.

“Doctor, the real esper is Li Erpao!”

“He made puppets of Eternal Green Pages members to ambush Gu Xiangshi.”

“I met him on the road, and he bluffed by reciting an encyclopedia entry on Alchemy.”

“Luckily I caught it fast, and Gu Xiangshi wasn’t hurt!”

“Classic switch‑the‑prince ruse from a puppet user.” Yekase rubbed her temples, calm as a stone in a stream.

“You keep yourself safe first—don’t rush in.”

“Luzhixing’s holding the city, and we’re holding the camp, like two hands on a gate.”

“I get it…”

“Also, if you feel idle, check the Eternal Green Pages library for me.”

“I’m curious what treasures they hide, like pearls under silt.”

“Uh… I’m already doing that,” Jiang said, a smile like light through leaves.

Yekase blinked, then laughed, warmth like tea in winter.

“What are you laughing at!” Jiang laughed too, a bell answered by a bell.

“Nothing—just that you’re becoming more like me… which isn’t great, like two foxes in one den.”

“Destined to become you?”

“No, no, we’re not that kind of thing.”

“Right. After all, Doctor already has someone in her heart.”

“Forgetting her nine years, then remembering all at once—what is that, a heaven‑sent childhood sweetheart? Not bad, huh.”

“I wouldn’t go that far—”

Jiang finished in one breath and hung up, the line cut like a ribbon.

She knew Yekase, before and after the change, never carried feelings beyond comrades, heart locked like a lacquered box.

That tongue‑skilled, many‑faced fox would never hand her true heart bare, not on any altar.

So even with no chance, Jiang Bailu stayed steady, mind like a lake without wind.

As for now…

“…Damn it, read,” she muttered, a spark in dry tinder.

Jiang Bailu lifted Volume I of the Daozang.

Each book was larger than a brick and heavy as a barbell; her arms felt like cracking ice.

A sudden idea; she summoned Coffee Moon to hold it.

With that black aide, it was lighter, like a kite taking the wind.

Daozang is the ancient Daoist canon of Huaxia, a forest of scrolls and paths.

Beyond Daoist texts, it collects works from other schools; in recent years, researchers rebuilt lost books from its roots.

But why does Eternal Green Pages keep it—does Daoism touch Alchemy, like herbs touching fire?

Elixir‑making, maybe.

Jiang liked xianxia novels; she let Coffee Moon act as a stand and flipped pages, leaves fluttering like sparrows.

She happened to open short dialogue records, livelier than solemn scripture, market talk under temple eaves.

Skimming a dozen pages, she saw the main writer was a Tang official, a reed pen recording cultures flowing in like rivers.

He worked in the assimilation office of the day, and he exchanged widely with foreigners who came to court, bridges across tides.

One term snagged her eye—“Gerlin‑Feierde,” modern gloss should read “Greenfield,” an old name seen through dust.

Records said they were a European scholarly group, persecuted at home; a run‑away faction fled to the Great Tang, arriving only three or four survivors, embers in ash.

Those scholars studied “drawing in air to trigger anomalies,” doors painted in wind.

Isn’t that Ancient Alchemy!

Yekase had performed it with that keyboard, lines in air like constellations.

The Tang official also wrote their words: “Truth must be simple, unified, and beautiful. We must approach truth, closer than anyone.”

Hmm… huh? Jiang paused, a kite tugged by an unseen gust.

Grand unification? Are they talking about that?

Back then there was no foundation, yet the vision itself felt ahead, a lighthouse before a harbor.

“We will use science to kill God; the universe has no place for him.”

…What?

…Holy—

Now she knew why they were persecuted, thunder under church steeples.

More than ahead—were they time travelers, footprints crossing rivers?

The records listed Greenfield studies.

Though filtered by the recorder’s eyes, painted like ghosts, they still read as solid Sorcery, stone under mist.

They even knew sorcery streamlines, and built simple devices for Sorcery, lanterns in fog.

They guessed Sorcery’s origin too, proposing a “mag core” at Earth’s center, guiding streamlines like a heart pumping blood.

Jiang pictured it: under religious pressure and the dark Middle Ages, Alchemy stood as cutting‑edge magic, a blade under a cloak.

From the Tang’s tenth century, it endured to the fourteenth and fifteenth, until European courts accepted magic, winter yielding to spring.

Such a long‑rooted, fruitful school should be in world history, a bright page in the Middle Ages.

Yet she had never heard of it, silence like snow covering tracks.

Someone erased their deeds, hid them under reeds.

Yekase would enjoy this flavor—tell her when she gets back, a secret like plum wine.

It was past eleven; the race should be well underway.

Jiang had Coffee Moon shelve the Daozang and left the library, steps like leaves down a path.

A whim; she tried having Coffee Moon carry her to Yekase.

The black humanoid, surface etched with glowing formulas, drifted behind her like a shadow lantern, then princess‑carried her in a silent cradle.

It leapt from the open window and floated into the night, a moth with no wings.

Support pressed at her back and knees, but there was no warmth, no texture, like sitting on moonlight.

She felt like a maglev train, held by a mysterious repulsion and hung in midair, iron singing without rails.

What skew pulled at this posture?

It was more than bending bullet paths, more than a hand on a reed.

From her link with Coffee Moon, she glimpsed a wordless clarity, as if skipping all theory and seeing the cosmos naked.

Maybe that was what the Doctor felt entering the horizon of causality, sea meeting sky in a line.

Her gut said her power’s essence tied to gravity, a tide under stones, but details stayed clouded.

A gravity assist, maybe.

It would explain turning attacks, but was that all, a fish in a pond mistaking the sea?

Her eyes fell to her right forearm, a branch holding fast.

To keep balance, she wrapped her right arm around Coffee Moon’s neck, a climber to a tree.

She saw her arm—skin turning outward like a peeled fruit.

Where it touched Coffee Moon, a thin layer of skin went blood‑red; fine subcutaneous flesh flipped out, displayed like threads on a loom.

—?!

No pain—no blood—just a cold mirror.

She let go; the skin returned as if nothing happened, smooth water over a stone.

Pressed again, she saw the under‑skin, crimson reeds in a pool.

Skew… the answer was skew, a compass turning.

As Yekase liked to say, flip your thinking—reverse the wind.

It wasn’t the bullet that skewed—it was the space it traveled, the riverbed bending.

She caught another memory: when “Li Dapao” made two puppets and both swung at her, their fists turned mid‑flight at an impossible angle.

They smacked each other’s cheeks, thunder meeting thunder.

Their punches had full force—hence both puppets broke—if arms had simply folded like sticks, the force would have bled away.

Or they would have vanished with broken limbs, smoke after flame.

Jiang hovered and made a small skew point before her, a ripple in glass.

She swallowed and pushed her hand in, courage like a leaf on current.

It didn’t break.

Her finger flipped upward ninety degrees, a comic L in the air.

The other hand reached from another direction to touch that finger; it connected, but the whole hand rotated ninety degrees, a wheel on its axle.

In sight, it looked severed at the base; she could see a smooth bone cross‑section, ivory cut clean.

As expected.

It was space—space itself had skewed, a tapestry twisted.

This gentler skew, unlike a beating, guides passing objects to adapt a local frame, a village with its own map.

It doesn’t tear the object’s continuity, like the moon in coffee—the stir distorts the image, yet the moon stays whole.

But don’t mistake it for a tame convex lens; when an object fully traverses that region, its vector doesn’t auto‑correct, compass needle still turned.

Only if you pass through completely—whole ship through the strait.

In the end, the handiest use is still deflecting bullets, a reed bending wind.