The next day, Cloudlong City boiled like a wok of oil.

TV crews and papers flooded in like migrating birds, hunting the heiress of Shadow Curtain International who’d lived through the chaos. Gu Xiangshi stood behind a makeshift podium, words flowing like a calm stream, but her dark circles seeped through the makeup like charcoal under frost.

“Ms. Gu Xiangshi, how do you view this incident?”

“A brazen, illegal strike,” she said, voice steady as a blade laid flat on stone.

“Witnesses saw a giant, woman-shaped robot step up to face Li Erpao. Did you know about it? What’s your take?”

“I piloted it,” she said, eyes cool as winter glass. “To protect the people in the camp. It was a privately built prototype, and it died on the spot.”

Her face didn’t ripple, a lake under still moonlight.

“Then the black, dragon-shaped lifeform that closed the case—”

“That one…”

She snapped her fingers—snap—and a chain of black cubes bloomed over her palm like obsidian beads, head to tail forming a ring.

“I summoned it by burning my lifespan,” she said, like a torch held to night.

The crowd under the stage erupted, a surf of cheers pounding the pier.

“She actually… actually!”

Ling Yi was bouncing with fury in the room, her stomps drumming the floor like thunderheads.

Yekase sat by the window like a crane on a branch, watching the ant-swarm crowd below. “It’s just a name,” she said, voice a quiet fan. “She’s sheltering us. Think about it. If those big organizations knew it was the two of us who made that thing, would they let us roam? Even if we say it was one-off, that we forgot the golden ratio, who’ll believe it once wolves smell blood?”

“But—”

“Don’t forget where she stands.”

Yekase cut in, smooth as a knife through silk.

“She’s with Shadow Curtain International, and she’ll be a lord someday. The fact we can still sit here means she knows the lines. The rest is the machinery of the organization grinding along.”

And from a brief brush, Yekase had felt it too: Gu Xiangshi wasn’t a pure backstabbing villain, not a blade dipped only in poison. She carried duty—albeit a cadre’s duty—like a banner in wind, very much like the upright nobles of old tales. Not fellow travelers, but at least worthy of a nod across a river.

Ling Yi fell silent, like snow settling on eaves.

Jiang Bailu was still burrowed in the covers, sleeping like a lazy cat; a hush pooled in the room like cool tea.

Knock, knock.

“Come in!”

The door swung, and the one who stepped in… was Luzhixing.

She carried a travel bag tough as the Hulk’s shorts, but the weapons inside had been eaten away by continuous fights; the bag sagged like a snowfield scoured clean by wind.

“I witnessed your methods,” she said, voice like flint striking steel.

Starting with that!

Was she here to extort them? Miss Yekase, you wouldn’t want the public to know you made that one-shot ouroboros, right?

In Yekase’s eyes, Luzhixing warped in an instant, a demon mask over a pretty face. Because of Lu Yao, wariness had already been coiled like a spring; now old grudges and new slotted together like arrows. Her hand flashed to the Polaris Staff, grip tight as a trap’s bite.

“…What do you want? I’m not handing over this staff, no matter what,” she said, hackles like frost.

“With heaven and earth as the furnace, with oceanic sorcery for an anvil, I hammered six-color Infinite Power,” Luzhixing said, every word a tempered ring. “You widened my eyes.”

“…”

…That sounded like praise.

Half classical, half street—Yekase didn’t catch every curl of the phrasing, but the wind blew warm. She scratched her head, trading glances with Ling Yi like sparrows talking on a wire.

“I haven’t forged for others in a long time,” Luzhixing said, leaning on the doorframe like a resting sword. “But after last night, if I don’t strike while the iron’s hot and leave something behind, when the glow fades I’ll regret it for life.”

“So… you’re going to make us weapons?”

“Exactly.”

“I can forge you a dagger,” she said, eyes on Yekase like a whetstone’s kiss.

“You’re that set on putting me back on a dagger? Fine. I’ll keep it as a hidden card,” Yekase said, a grin like a streetlight. “Out in the world, carrying an extra blade never hurts.”

Luzhixing turned to Ling Yi. “And you? Given your habit, how about a tachi?”

“I’ll pass,” Ling Yi said, shaking her head like a willow. Her fingers toyed with the key, its edges cool as ice. “I’ve got Sky Striker. Bringing a restricted blade home with nowhere to stash it will scare my parents.”

Luzhixing looked at her deeply, gaze like a needle. A thin tremor ran through her tone. “…I’m rarely refused. To be refused for that reason—this is a first.”

“You ask me again, there’ll be a second,” Ling Yi said, clean as a bell.

After that walk through the ice barrier, she felt sharper, more decided, like steel quenched in snow. Yekase didn’t know what trial she’d faced inside, but growth was a spring breaking ground.

“I won’t ask twice,” Luzhixing said. “Then Miss Ye’s dagger will be delivered to your organization’s door.”

She gave the two a small bow, hands like folded blades, and turned to go.

“—Hey, wait.”

“What is it?”

Yekase called her back, shifted on the bay window like a cat choosing a sunspot. “Letting her free forging voucher go to waste is a shame, especially from the Iron-Flame Aspect Swordsmith. How about you trade it for an answer?”

Luzhixing looked at Ling Yi; Ling Yi glanced to Yekase and nodded, a lantern bobbing assent.

“Ask,” Luzhixing said, voice flat as a slate.

“Why did you betray the Beast King Squadron?”

—!

Cold, knife-edge killing intent erupted from the doorway like a winter squall, sweeping the room.

Ling Yi flinched, sensing the air snap taut like a bowstring; she gripped the key, ready to move like lightning.

Jiang Bailu didn’t stir beneath the quilt, a lump of quiet snow.

Yekase stayed lounging, calm as an old monk, legs crossed, eyes on the press sea below like a hawk circling its field.

“There’s always a reason,” she said, words slow as falling ash. “Profit, fame, power. Dreams breaking. Team rifts. Anything. I’m just curious which answer is yours.”

On the surface, nothing showed; Luzhixing’s face was a lake without ripples. But the Mind Energy inside her was one-tenth of what it had been the first day—where she’d been a flood-swollen river, now she was a drought-cracked riverbed, the channel intact but in need of rain.

Yekase wouldn’t waste this rare ebb tide; she used the lull to cast the hook that would draw out killing intent.

That old incident, a secret bloodstain inside a hero team, was near impossible to chase from the sides—so she asked the mountain head on.

“You can break your promise and refuse,” she said, a smile like a thin blade. “Even if you don’t speak, I’ll dig the answer out with my own hands one day.”

It was bravado, a paper shield in a storm.

It was like a murder ten years ago in a village without cameras—no witnesses, no evidence, no preserved scene—and being told to pull the killer from thin air. Where do you even start? It’s a bridge to nowhere.

“Not only did you join the Sinister Organization, you even entered the Kengan Tournament,” Yekase pressed, words like pebbles in a sling. “Then you kept fighting, year after year, like a beast hooked on strength and money. But you don’t feel like that. Where did your money go?”

She didn’t fear the cliff; she stepped harder.

“Even if you tell me you’re addicted to power and cash, fine,” she said, voice low as ember-glow. “I’ll carry that answer back to the one who’s been waiting for you to come home.”

“…”

Yekase even put Lu Yao on the altar; if Luzhixing still locked her jaw, then it was truly severed, and an outsider’s knock would never open that door.

“I did it for her own good,” Luzhixing said.

…Huh?

So not severed, but the most classic riddle-answer, a fog in place of a road.

Heat flared in Yekase’s chest, a wildfire through dry grass; she dumped her prepared finesse like a broken fan and nearly jabbed a finger at Luzhixing’s nose.

“Do you know how messed up that woman was when she first met us, and you call it ‘for her good’?” she fired, words like slaps. “She didn’t turn antisocial only because her will’s iron! And your three teammates you betrayed—what about them? If they knew, if they heard you killed them for your sister’s sake, would they be moved to tears by your sisterly love and forgive you in the dark?”

Maybe because it touched her sister, Luzhixing’s tone softened a half-step, like a blade sheathed an inch. “You don’t understand.”

“Of course I don’t, or why am I asking?” Yekase pressed, relentless as rain. “Are you saying it or not? Give it straight!”

“Not saying.”

The softening was a summer mirage; in a blink, her temper was back, hard as flint. “A word of advice,” she said, hand on the door, “this isn’t your business to meddle in.”

She slammed the door, a thunderclap in a small room, and was gone.

Yekase looked at Ling Yi and shrugged, a feather flicked by wind.

So this “unruly swordswoman” wasn’t all thorns—at least, she was a die-hard little-sister loyalist.

She shelved it for now and turned her gaze downstairs; the press conference rolled on like a river.

“After this event, I feel deeply that our current organizational management laws still fall short,” Gu Xiangshi said, voice clear as a bell. “For example, the allocation of responsibility in emergencies and so on. Therefore, after discussion with the family head, our Shadow Curtain International Huaxia Branch will take a new step.”

“In today’s society there are many heroes, fish and dragons mixed together, truth and lies tangled like reeds. From now on, whether you’re an organization member or an individual, you can register with Shadow Curtain International as an Official Hero. The duty remains to protect the people and resolve incidents. This will standardize and professionalize heroes, leaving no place for clout-chasers to hide; and the public can support heroes through channels more reliable and transparent.”

Yekase was listening, and her expression froze, ice creeping up glass.

No. No, you can’t, she thought, heart dropping like a stone into a well.

“I knew it,” she hissed, breath sharp as a cut. “At the end of the day, she’s an organizational cadre.”

“What’s wrong?” Ling Yi asked, brows knitting like crossed twigs. “This ‘Official Hero’ thing sounds sketchy. We just don’t register, right?”

“If this goes through, the word ‘hero’ becomes Shadow Curtain International’s product,” Yekase said, words like iron beads. “It’ll be no different from traffic idols and clickbait clowns. Its meaning will be shortened, diluted, scrubbed clean until nothing’s left. It’ll become a harmless statue to help the organization manage the people. Then the fighters the public sees are them, and the heroes the public sees are them.”

“Wha…?”

“Then a perfect hero molded by Shadow Curtain International will fire the organization’s gun, take the people’s money, and go on the news to declare Flashblade Red colluded with foreign forces,” Yekase said, gaze like a knife point. “How do you prove yourself then?”

Ling Yi stood stunned, a kite with its string cut.

Yekase pressed her face to the glass, eyes wide on the human tide.

“I know the water that carries a boat can also overturn it,” Gu Xiangshi said below, voice like sunlight on steel. “And I’m willing to do real work for the people. Therefore, I, Gu Xiangshi, will register as the first Official Hero. Yes—”

She wore a white coat over a sharp suit, a clean line against the sea of cameras; she lifted her head, sensing the gaze, and somehow met Yekase’s eyes across the air like two stars touching.

Her smile looked warm as the sun, friendly and bright with youthful competence.

But Yekase felt only cold, a mountain wind through wet clothes.

This daylight stratagem was obvious, a net cast in clear water, yet it could drown the newborn spark of civilian heroes.

And what could she do? Charge down and shoot Gu Xiangshi on the spot? Behind that woman stood the whole machinery of organized society, a mountain built of bones and rules; how does one person shake it?

Gu Xiangshi kept smiling, spring sunlight on snow.

Then, with a near-devout tone, she spoke the last line of the conference.

“Yes—here and now, I will become a hero.”