That afternoon, Yekase finally noticed Professor F had pinged her ten thousand times; her phone had slept like a stone at the bottom of a river.

Professor F wasn’t angry, which only honed Yekase’s guilt like a frost-edged blade. On the fifth day, the moment the match ended, she hauled Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu onto a flight back to Twin Towers City, a silver bird cutting through dusk.

They set a date to hit KTV that night, letting neon wash over them like a tide.

The long-missed Beast King Squadron, plus Ling Yi, Yekase, and Jiang Bailu—nine in all—filled a mid-size booth, a ring like a campfire warding off the weekday chill.

“Remember that U.S. team with nine members? We’re almost there.” Crimson Field, clearly tanned from Hainan according to Ling Ya, raised his glass, his grin bright as seaside sun.

“More isn’t better. Five members and the professor is perfect,” said Dragon Elephant—Wang Zhewei, a big-hearted youth with shoulders like gentle hills.

“More people, more fun! We’ve got red, green, blue, white, yellow. Let’s add a black bonus warrior—cool on the surface, secretly into sweets…” Crimson Field pouted, eyes glinting like midnight candy wrappers.

“That’s your kink? Beware workplace romance. Do you know how many hero teams collapse over internal disputes, and how many of those start with romance?” Dragon Tiger tapped him with a plastic mallet, a carnival thwack that made the air giggle.

“This isn’t a workplace!”

“Close enough!”

Yekase, Jiang Bailu, and Professor F sat aside, watching the ruckus churn like a warm pot of soup. Smiles flickered and were hard to hide.

Jiang Bailu hadn’t wanted to mix with this hero crowd at all. But Professor F’s classic barrage of gifts fell like spring petals—hard to refuse—so she came.

Beast King Squadron blew up an island and got broke, yet still loved gifting… wait? Wasn’t the island’s culprit sitting right here?

Yekase whispered that into Jiang Bailu’s ear. Her face whitened like paper in a gust. She tried to bolt, but Yekase, silk gloves off, held her in place with a calm tide.

Yekase said lightly, “Professor, we’ve taken too many favors from you. We’ve been wanting a chance to pay back. This trip, I brought you something.”

She reached into her teleport case and drew out a basketball-sized metal sphere, a cold moon in her palms, and handed it to Professor F.

“What’s this?”

“Payment Eternal Green Pages gave me after the incident—core remnants of the Silver Star Forge.”

“…!”

“I took a quick look. There’s an Ancient Alchemy framework inside, but most of the circuits are paved with Omega Rays to stabilize mixed Infinite Power. I figured it might spark ideas.”

“This… this is too precious!”

“Not more precious than Luciferin.”

Yekase pressed the sphere into Professor F’s hands. She didn’t refuse again. She received it, face solemn as a shrine, then teleported it away in a soft shimmer.

“I’ll make sure it’s used to its last ember.”

Professor F smiled, gentle as the older sister next door.

“Professor, pick a song?” Dragon Tiger, in a move much like Yekase’s, tucked a mic into her hand. “I can’t take Crimson Field’s banshee wail anymore.”

“Eh? I can’t sing…”

Dragon Tiger fetched the song tablet, glanced at Yekase and Jiang Bailu. “You two want a track? Oh right, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Lin Yuqing, deputy captain on paper.”

“On paper?”

“Crimson Field’s too reckless, so I usually command on site.”

Crimson Field was crooning Under Mount Fuji—his voice wasn’t professional; it was battlefield collateral. Hearing Lin Yuqing’s jab, he lunged straight into Love Transfer like a drunk taxi change.

Wang Zhewei cut his track and skipped.

The next song was A Little Sweet, queued by Fang Tang. The shy girl’s voice rose like morning sugar and finally found confidence. The first lines were rain on our battered eardrums after a long drought, and hands clapped without thinking.

“Doctor, what do you want to sing?” Jiang Bailu asked, tablet in hand.

“Ah? I don’t want to sing.”

Jiang Bailu had expected Yekase’s non-cooperation. She pinched Yekase’s nose, playful thunder. “You started again. You did fine last time—the Three Calamities.”

“Micro-controlling my vocal cords is tiring.”

“Then stop talking.”

“…………”

She really stopped.

Jiang Bailu, somewhat impressed, picked a song herself. After she sang, she tucked the mic into Ling Yi’s hands.

Yekase remained a silent island.

“Okay, no more forcing you. You—”

Jiang Bailu turned and froze.

Yekase had curled into a corner of the sofa like a frost-bitten kitten, trembling. The skin on her arms and face flushed the color of boiled water, heat haze rising like faint steam.

“Doctor? What’s wrong?”

Yekase only shook her head, a quick, panicked shiver.

Sandryon had given her Oni Serum and warned of side effects, but never what kind. After the fight, she felt fine. She’d thought she’d tanked it on constitution. She hadn’t. It had waited, then pounced.

Flash Energy grows feral when it touches metal and other energies. She’d clamped it with Omega Rays, but the reaction coiled inside her like a snake, waiting—now it struck.

Her body felt like a cauldron in hell, oil roiling. Infinite Force Perception, bound closely to the Flash Energy, whiplashed and stole her sight in an instant. Darkness flooded back in, thick as ink.

Seeing her small, pained shape, Jiang Bailu’s mind buzzed like a struck bell.

“Restroom…” Yekase whispered into the dark, words thin as soot. “Let some blood… out… it’ll be fine.”

When in doubt, bleed—a classic medieval cure. For her, it fit. Let the rampaging Flash Energy run out with the blood; the symptoms should ease, like pressure vented from a kettle.

Her eyes lost focus under her knit brows, staring at the floor in confusion. Twin red lines spilled uncontrolled from her sockets, startling Jiang Bailu. Even the tears gleamed with Flash Energy, faintly luminous like fever fire.

So that’s it—she needs to purge the excess Flash Energy. That’s why she asked me to bleed her. But Jiang Bailu couldn’t bring herself to cut Yekase, even knowing such wounds would seal within an afternoon.

A light flicked on in her mind.

Her right hand settled on Yekase’s lower belly, feeling the girl’s tremor, then slid along skin into the deep of denim, like a stream slipping under a rock.

“—?!”

“Body fluids carry Flash Energy too. No need to bleed. I’ll help.”

“Don’t… no… ah!”

Yekase’s brain felt roasted, thought crackling and breaking. She couldn’t muster a scrap of resistance. Her hands scrabbled, and she grabbed a loose strand of Jiang Bailu’s hair like straw on a flood.

Their sounds drowned in the booth’s festive music, like whispers under fireworks. No one noticed the corner and its electric storm.

Close to Yekase’s ear, Jiang Bailu breathed, voice soft as velvet. “I know I’m being insatiable… but these days, I tried so hard.”

“This isn’t… about that… mm!”

“I thought for a long time. I still can’t accept it. Late by a few years? Or am I lacking somewhere? I’ll change. I’ll learn—like back then, when I learned machines under you…”

“I don’t… have that anymore… I just… have to bring them… home, that’s all… mm!”

Yekase melted in Jiang Bailu’s arms, boneless as moonlight on water. Her whispers blurred like dream talk. Without leaning close, you couldn’t catch them. Even then, a filament of resolve ran through them like steel wire under silk.

“…have to bring them home.”

Jiang Bailu looked at the trembling small animal in her arms, voice low and soft, finally understanding. This wasn’t friendship versus love, nor childhood sweetheart versus fated arrival.

It was simply someone named Yekase, tethered to a promise whispered to the dead, turning herself into the answer.

There was no room for Jiang Bailu to intervene.

She understood. She fully understood. And yet—

“…still making excuses.”

Her hand moved faster, waves rising under a red moon.

Half an hour later, Jiang Bailu used the teleport case Yekase had gifted her to collect all the fresh Flash Energy, bottle-clear, not leaving a single drop on the sofa’s fabric sea.

Yekase’s eyes, clear again, watched Jiang Bailu with a mist of grievance, a winter pond catching a shadow. Jiang Bailu felt guilty. A little.

Unaware of the storm, Ling Yi smiled and passed the mic over. “Doctor, pick one? Even the professor sang.”

Yekase’s lower body was still soft, a willow in wind. Sitting straight was hard. Everyone’s eyes turned, and her first thought was relief—thankfully she’d passed the peak and settled into a calm interphase. She wouldn’t moan into the mic.

“Uh…”

Then she wanted to slam her head against the big screen across the room like a desperate moth.

“Let’s… do ‘Friends.’ Anyone else know it?”

“Me, me!”

“Which ‘Friends’?”

“Cantonese?”

The backing rose like waves. Yekase cleared her throat, and sang:

“Starlight, drifting—”

“With you, same road—”

…

…

Stepping out for air, Yekase found Professor F at the corner window ledge, eyes on night-swept Twin Towers City.

“The night view’s not bad, right?”

“Ah, Doctor. It’s far busier than Liudong City. I got lost in it without noticing.”

Professor F smiled apologetically and shifted to give Yekase space. The glass breathed neon like a shallow sea.

“Busy… yes—busy,” Yekase said, and the scene tugged a string in her heart.

She remembered arriving here for school, a small-town girl stepping into a quasi–first-tier city, stunned like a country aunt wandering into a palace garden. The neon that once dazzled her now felt like familiar lanterns.

Back then, her first thought wasn’t “I want in,” but “damn, rich folks,” a rough laugh under her breath. Even with some memories blocked, the spirit of the barefoot who don’t fear those in shoes still sat bright in her bones.

“Professor… what do you think of Huaxia Branch’s Official Hero program?”

Professor F rubbed her hands at her chest and breathed out heat like winter fog.

“They won’t fool the old heroes. The lost rookies might bite. But it’s a professional overhaul they refuse to call ‘professional.’ They call it ‘official’ instead—clearly meant to smear the existing grassroots heroes.”

“It’s easy to see the playbook—PR and steering to paint us as unofficial and unreliable, while they hard-push their new security service. Selling guns on one side, bulletproof vests on the other. Great business.”

“Inside their ranks, they’ll compete for limited resources from above. They’ll spiral, chasing event metrics, until it’s fully commercial—scrambling for slices of cake.”

“And over time, people will forget heroes were born to raise the fight and topple the Sinister Organization, not just play city vigilante. Our legitimacy will be sanded down.”

“…”

Yekase stared at the neon outside, brows knitting tighter, each knot a thorn.

The November night wind slid through the window seam and bit her cheek like a thin blade.

“…Winter really is coming.”