When Yekase got back to the bar, Crimson Field had already soothed Wang Zhewei. The two were hunched over a phone, cackling at short clips.

“Crimson Field, I need a favor.”

“What is it?” Crimson Field followed Yekase outside.

She spotted the Stalker in motorcycle mode at the door. Her eyes lit up like a cub sniffing fresh meat.

“Sweet ride!”

“Hop on. We’re going to talk to Ling Yi.” Yekase slid into the front. The engine rumbled like a caged animal.

She didn’t know how tight the Official Hero surveillance net was, so she didn’t dare just fly. In theory, she could tweak the Sky Island portal coordinates for a long blink. But the main console showed the energy cost spiking, and the portal could destabilize. Not worth it.

That left one move: take the Stalker and slip through with optical camo.

She’d planned to jack into Luciferin’s cockpit these two days, soak in a Flash Energy bath, and revert to seventeen. Then this mass transformation hit, and time evaporated. Now on the bike, her feet barely reached the ground. With a loli Crimson Field on the back—who looked her age from the outside—traffic cops would blast them off the street. But optical camo covered all sins. Long live optical camo.

Rice Rice hopped into a makeshift trunk the size of a basketball and sat.

Yekase whispered a thread of Celestial Speech. Oz Floating Discs unfurled ahead like invisible lily pads.

It wasn’t deep night yet. Traffic swelled like a tide. She chose to pave a transparent road three meters up and drove there.

Crimson Field didn’t flinch. She even let out a bright, excited laugh.

“Ever street-raced?” Yekase asked.

“Ah, I wandered across Huaxia for years before I became a fighter. Never raced, but I’ve had plenty of equally risky moments.”

With that childlike voice, it sounded absurd. Yekase had no standing to tease, so she said, “Impressive. Tell me sometime…”

“For example, that person on the big screen. I fought her.”

“Who?”

Yekase glanced up at the giant display on a tower. A match was on. Before she saw who it was, the commentator boomed:

“Beloved by kids, Yu Yunxiu loses to Xiaoyuan yet again—”

Fine. All acquaintances. Xiaoyuan she knew better. Yu Yunxiu she’d only seen once, on a battlefield.

Been long enough. She should ask Xiaoyuan if the controller fits his hands. If possible, ask if there’s a scientific way to develop the Infinite Power physique. Maybe use Flash Energy to reproduce the self-heal of Mind Energy…

The bike rolled to a stop in Ling’s Eden Hope Park.

Yekase took Crimson Field to Ling Yi’s window and tapped the glass. Ling Yi opened a passage at once.

“How is everyone?” Ling Yi asked.

Crimson Field stood properly by the window. “Sorry to intrude. Aside from some trouble at Wang Zhewei’s home, everyone’s fine.”

“Professor F went back to the quarry to urgently retune the Beast King Cubes, add size-adapt functions. Might take a while,” Yekase said, vaulting into the room like it was hers.

Ling Yi brought two cushions, then realized Crimson Field was still planted outside.

“What’re you doing? Get in.”

“No, um… habit.”

Crimson Field scratched her head with a shy smile, slipped in neat as a cat, and shut the window behind her.

Ling Yi turned to Yekase. “Doctor, what do we gain from a three-person huddle? I can’t think up any puzzle routes.”

“That’s not the point. Once we beat the Official Hero, we’ll just ask if it was their trick,” Yekase said, cheerfully handing down the Official Hero’s fate. “Right now we only need to make sure the three of us going out can’t be quietly swapped.”

“Swapped?!”

“That’s honestly possible!”

Crimson Field knelt seiza on the cushion, solemn. “Like, they kidnap the real me and Wang Zhewei. We’re puppets holding the originals’ memories. When the time comes, we get triggered and turn coat…!”

“Puppets. Puppets…”

The word alone gave Yekase a headache. She shook her head fast. “No, no. They’re not that deranged.”

“How can you be sure?”

“If you two were puppets, then with everyone asleep, Professor F wouldn’t have survived the night.” Yekase said it like a law of nature.

“…!”

“At least they don’t have a hero specialized in assassination. So it’s small-time tricks at best.”

Crimson Field hugged the rose-red curls that fell to her waist, sweeping them into her chest like armfuls of cotton. She gave a bitter smile. “We turned into this, and it’s still ‘small operations’…”

“You cooled down fast.”

Yekase rubbed her crown. It felt soft and addictive.

“How about a career shift to Magical Girl? In our Magical Girl company, counting me, the three still alive all retired nine years ago. We can’t rely on a certain Schrödinger’s-cat person who’s both dead and alive. We need fresh blood like you.”

Crimson Field shook her head, then gripped Yekase’s wrist with both hands. That slender wrist held weight like a mountain. She couldn’t pry it off.

Yekase was channeling Flash Energy—just to keep petting her.

Grapples failed, so she issued a solemn protest. “No way! My mission as the Beast King Eagle isn’t done!”

“With your natural cute-weapon, Magical Girl is your true calling…” Ling Yi quipped.

She never showed it, but Ling Yi’s shelves told the tale—she loved TS. Ever since Yekase saw those shelves, she’d guarded her own gender issue around Ling Yi like a fortress. The only reason she’d dared to self-detonate at Valhalla was that Ling Yi wasn’t there.

But Crimson Field had met Ling Yi as a man, and now she was a loli, and now she couldn’t change back. Ling Yi’s gaze carried a shred of new-toy excitement she herself didn’t notice, leashed only because Yekase mattered more.

“I feel you by my side.”

Yekase sat on the floor and transformed. Then she summoned the black Beast Claw she’d borrowed from Carol and showed off her morph effects and skills.

“Well? Interested?”

“I—I can’t abandon my team!”

Stubborn as bedrock. Stiffer than Lu Yao’s jaw. Yekase shook her head and dropped the pitch.

“Then forget it. One more thing—”

She paused.

“—Is my emotional intelligence… really low?”

…

If you can ask that, it’s obvious, both reds thought at once.

“I pissed off Wang Zhewei at the bar. I thought about it. Surviving alone is vital, sure. But just like how a genius like me sucks at Mind Energy, you can’t make it a given. I’m not apologizing, though.”

Please just apologize, both reds thought at once.

“Little dissatisfactions silt up when you’re not looking. One day they’re a rift you can’t bridge. I tore down my past self with my own hands and rebuilt. If I had to do it now, I don’t think I could—because now I have you. I’m slowly becoming… unable to live alone. So I guess it’s time to learn how to live with people. Research already eats my hours. What a hassle.”

She smiled while she complained, rain on a sunlit window.

The doctor’s being prickly-cute… Ling Yi thought.

Was this person really a guy before… Crimson Field thought.

“Meow.” Rice Rice chimed in, as if her words were too syrupy, and turned its face away like a little person.

They played on Ling Yi’s console after that, till the hour grew heavy. Then they headed out.

Crimson Field apparently rented alone in Liudong City. These two days she’d been commuting via Valhalla’s kitchen teleporter. Yekase rode the bike and dropped her at the bar.

They threaded through neon three meters up, like fish in an electric river.

“Hey, Crimson Field,” Yekase said.

“Yeah?”

“If you all can’t change back, what then?”

“At first I couldn’t accept it. Now it’s fine. This body can use Mind Energy. Once I adapt, my combat won’t drop much. After that, let it flow.”

She said she’d drifted jobless for years. But why a Japanese woman roamed Huaxia, and what of her home and family—she’d never said. That sunny red-leader trait she wore, a touch more seasoned than Ling Yi’s, shone all the more mysterious.

“If the Beast King Squadron disbands one day, like the first gen, will you keep wandering?”

“Of course.”

They rode on in silence after that.

Yekase watched Crimson Field slip into the bar, then prepped a portal back to the island to sleep.

She hopped off, and with Sorcery at her left hand drew a recall array in the air, rolling the bike through.

Liu RuoYuan was crouched by the flowerbed. Trowel in her right. A booklet in her left.

She heard Yekase and stood. “I checked the main console. Sky Island’s constant temp and humidity might ignore seasons. I’m thinking of planting a row of scallions for Mom before she moves in. Then a row of water spinach…”

She stepped up to Yekase. Her voice broke off. She stared.

“What is it?” Yekase asked.

She dropped the booklet and trowel. She reached both hands toward Yekase’s head and pinched at “something.”

…

“…Who are you?”