Sandryon spotted Yekase too, like a sparrow catching a flash of silver in the reeds.

On her face—ten years old at most—an adult’s instant-collapse flickered, like paper lanterns snuffed by a sudden gust.

Labyrinth City was far more at ease, like a cat stretching in sun: “Yekase, huh. You’ve been on the sky-island nearly a month. How’s it feel?”

“Pretty great. White Silver City’s sky-island really is number one,” she said, buttering the words like warm light over steel.

She hadn’t flown other brands, so part of it was flattery; yet her love for the Ambition Divine Ship was true, steady as a harbor light.

Hearing them, Sandryon threw dignity to the wind like confetti in rain, and blurted in shock: “You… you can afford her company’s sky-island? Did you rob a bank?”

“I rebuilt her demon statue,” Yekase said, voice calm as a plumb line.

“Oh, that heap of junk…” Sandryon clicked her tongue, like pebble against glass.

Labyrinth City bristled, headlights pinching Sandryon’s head and kneading hard, like a vise chewing on chalk; Yekase flushed and turned away, heat rising like steam.

Xiaoyuan shrugged, lifted the wall intercom for a few murmured words, then strolled back as if wading in tidewater, and took an empty lounge chair.

Yekase swallowed her snark, like a bitter seed under the tongue.

After a moment, staff in French maid outfits rolled in two carts, wheels whispering like moth wings; they parked them before the group and ghosted away.

On the carts sat porcelain plates traced with gold, gleaming like frost lines: platters of fried meat slices and arquebus ham steaming rich as a forest after rain; there were also neat fans of sea cucumber, steamed abalone shining like shells at low tide, and some shellfish sashimi Yekase couldn’t name, glinting like moon slivers.

Down on the lowest shelf, each cart nestled an ice bucket, bottles inside familiar as faces glimpsed on passing trains.

“I’ve always wanted to try sashimi,” Sandryon said in that mock-court tone, silky as brocade.

Is this a tongue twister, or a fan dance? Yekase’s thoughts tangled like kite string.

Labyrinth City lifted chopsticks with surgical care, hands hovering like dragonflies; after a bit of fumbling, she failed, then—when no one looked—her index nail extended, skewered the clam-flesh, and flicked it into her mouth, slick as a lizard’s tongue, retracting in a blink.

Splash—Aurora surged up from the pool like a kaiju rising in Tokyo Bay, platinum hair dripping down her back like wet silk, water pattering from her like summer rain as she strode to the carts.

“This meat smells good,” she said, voice warm as a campfire.

She lifted the big tongs hanging on the side and clamped a steak, chomping like a wolf on winter snow.

“A Russian’s a Russian…” Labyrinth City covered her mouth, brow knotting like storm clouds at Aurora’s barbaric feast.

“You not eating? Then we’ll split it,” Aurora said, teeth flashing like blades.

There were exactly five steaks on the platters. Xiaoyuan picked up knife and fork and started on Labyrinth City’s share, calm as a surgeon on a clean table.

“I never said I wouldn’t eat!” Labyrinth City snapped, words sparking like flint.

Beside the steaks lay the arquebus ham; whether from the Association’s gaudy taste or a joke of the kitchen, it glittered with gold dust like mica in riverbed sand.

This gold dust works as an Alchemy reagent, the four of them thought at once, minds aligning like migrating geese.

This gold dust makes great conductive ink, Yekase thought, eyes bright as a lit fuse.

All five—each with at least one sky-island and a mech to their name—set down their food, and, with little basting brushes, coaxed the gold off the ham into an empty bowl, sharing it out like thieves of starlight.

“This one’s from Aurora?” Sandryon fished a bottle from the ice, glass beading like dew. “Tsar’s Select. Last time anyone opened this was that grand ceremony seventy years ago, right? Back then no Xiaoyuan, no Yekase.”

“I’m seventy-seven. I was around,” Xiaoyuan said, grin crooked like a crescent.

“I’m twenty-seven. I wasn’t,” Yekase said, as flat as a pond at dawn.

“We know you weren’t.” Sandryon snorted, a popped seed in a pan. “You haven’t come play with me lately. Wings grown hard, eh?”

“No, just… lots going on,” Yekase said, guilt pricking like nettles.

Then she remembered: shopping sprees, dinners, piloting a mech to rob someone for fun—self-made trouble, scattered like dice. She hunched her neck like a turtle.

Sandryon didn’t let up, pressing like steady rain: “I planned to ask you to this gathering only if you came to see me. You didn’t even send a message, and came with someone else. Elbow turning outward already? Kid grows up, can’t be managed.”

“My bad, my bad… Wait, why do you sound like my mom? You never managed me. Oh, except tossing words to block me when I was deconstructing Alchemy?”

Sandryon only shook her head, quiet as falling ash.

“I’ve never heard the Crystal Witch take a disciple,” Xiaoyuan said, lifting a strand of sea cucumber like jade ribbon.

“Do you folks at Eternal Green Pages really call each other by nicknames? Feels like an anime studio,” Yekase said, smile crooked like a paper cut.

“Just a personal habit. If you like, I can call you ‘Mechbreaker,’” Xiaoyuan said, eyes glinting like foxfire.

“God no! Please don’t!” Yekase shook her head so hard her ponytail snapped like a flag.

Only after did she realize she hadn’t told Xiaoyuan about that identity. She froze for a heartbeat, like a shutter click, then let it go with a shrug. Must’ve been Sandryon or Labyrinth City who told her… She’d assumed Xiaoyuan said “Crystal Witch” because they weren’t close. But this was a private gathering; that theory sank like a stone.

“I’ve noticed something,” Aurora said at last, after slicing, chewing, and devouring every hidden backup steak on the second cart, then chugging half a bottle of aqua vitae like it was lager; her mouth finally free, her voice rolled out like distant thunder.

“I thought Sandryon’s disciple—meeting me once, then meeting Xiaoyuan through Eternal Green Pages—still wouldn’t reach Labyrinth City. Yet she’s thick with each of you. So does that mean—”

Does that mean…? Her serious tone should’ve hooked them like fish on a line—but it didn’t. Her boy-who-cried-wolf at symposia had trained them to expect pratfalls, like farmers reading weather they no longer trust.

Only Yekase felt pressure coil around her like a dragon’s shadow, breath hitching as Aurora’s aura pressed down.

“—you’re a Jedi?” Aurora asked, eyes bright as nebulae.

“…Uh? Why?” Yekase blinked, thoughts sparking like crossed wires.

How did we jump straight onto a Star Wars set? Still tense, Yekase kept it honest: “If we go by color, Flash Energy’s more Sith…”

“Because your pull is strong,” Aurora said.

Xiaoyuan supplied the gloss, voice mild as tea: “She means you have a strong knack for getting people to help.”

“…Huh?” Yekase’s surprise popped like a soap bubble.

“Seems true. I got sweet-talked in a few lines into upgrading that demon statue instead of just fixing it,” Sandryon said, smile thin as a blade.

“You’re the one who asked for ‘best condition’!” Yekase shot back, hands flying like startled birds.

“For the record, I didn’t teach her that. I only sold her a set of Alchemy starter scrolls,” Sandryon said, palms up like empty plates.

“Oh, now you start distancing yourself?” Yekase said, words biting like frost.

“And she used a custom controller as an excuse to cozy up to me,” Labyrinth City added, eyes narrowing like slits.

“If you don’t want the controller, give it back!” Yekase snapped, chin up like a spear tip.

Stare—

Four big shots formed a half-moon and stared at Yekase, their silence heavy as a storm shelf.

Sweat slid down Yekase’s neck like cold rain. “W-what? Using a mechanical craft to build connections—this is called industrial diplomacy…”

They traded looks like cards and, one by one, nodded and went back to eating, the tension dissolving like mist.

Only Sandryon stayed lounging on the chair, eyes warm as embers. “I worried you couldn’t blend into the alchemists’ circle. You’re good at it. As expected of my disciple.”

“Now you stress ‘disciple’ again?” Yekase said, a laugh like a cracked bell.

Ever since Yekase caught that decadent scene, Sandryon had let herself fly like a kite cut loose; the faint scummy aura had cranked to full, gaudy as neon.

“As your master, I have to give you a warning…” Sandryon leaned in, voice like a silk thread in the ear.

“Hm?” Yekase tilted her head, heartbeat tapping like rain on tiles.

“With your type, it’s easy to get taken advantage of,” Sandryon whispered, words cold as well-water.

“…” Iron crept into Yekase’s stomach like ice.

“First, you’re a cocky brat who rides her brains and forgets herself. After your Flash Energy runs out, you get even smaller. If one day someone pins you to the ground and has their way… I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“…………” Yekase shoved scallop sashimi into her mouth, chopping the silence like a cleaver.

“Drink?” Xiaoyuan handed over a beer glass, foam lacing like sea spume.

“As long as it’s not aqua vitae…” Yekase said, breath settling like dust.

So Xiaoyuan poured a full glass of German dark beer, the liquid deep amber as old honey, the foam faintly yellow, malt tones clinging like dusk to eaves.

Labyrinth City and Aurora were already in the surf pool, hand in hand, tumbling like otters. Yekase didn’t recognize the shapes; they looked like some efficient water-combat art, their pushed wakes sharpening almost into blades, carving the water around them.

But their movements were also graceful as synchronized swimmers, slow-seeming yet swift, complex and orderly, like snowflakes in a pattern. Watch long enough and you’d think you could grasp a special footwork—no way. This isn’t some cultivation novel.

“Do you think they trained a style that only works in waist-deep water?” Xiaoyuan sipped Tsar’s Select, light catching the glass like winter sun.

“…I figured. Nobody would develop something that weird,” Yekase said, shrugging like a willow branch.

“Labyrinth City’s race is gargoyle. Aurora you know—frost-dragon hybrid. Wildness and Sorcery run in their veins like wildfire in dry grass. Their combat instinct, wrapped in bodies born tough as stone and ice—even playing in water, they bring a battlefield mood,” Xiaoyuan said, words flowing like a creek.

“I see…” Yekase nodded, the picture settling like silt.

Xiaoyuan was talking more; that meant her engine was warmed and humming, the prelude to takeoff, like propellers biting air.

Ha, with that tolerance, she wants to duel me? Yekase grinned, bright as a struck match, and toasted Xiaoyuan again.

“Mmph…” Xiaoyuan’s reply was a small sound, soft as a plum.

Seeing her almost drunk, Yekase sprung the ambush-question, like a fisher casting at dawn: “Xiaoyuan, you’ve lived long in Huaxia. Ever seen an Eastern dragon? The records say they’re extinct. But a powerful, roaming, sapient species—can they really be hunted to zero?”

“Mm… who knows. Dragons aren’t zoo animals; cages can’t hold storm and cloud,” Xiaoyuan said. “If any wild ones exist, they’d be in deep mountains or ocean trenches, places people rarely go,” her words drifting like fog into pines.

Mind Energy seemed to ignore alcohol poisoning; after that glass, Xiaoyuan’s cheeks bloomed red as peaches, and—like during that U.S. Gold Brick incident—she started stammer-bragging about childhood glory, tales tossing like sparks.

Driving the production team’s tractor into a ditch then hauling it out by hand; riding a pig boosted by Mind Energy to elephant size into the county to accept a commendation; brick-throwing with village brats, her aim too true, sending one to the hospital… Yekase listened, feeling outclassed, like a paper boat in a flood.

“You know the rules—”

“And so do I!” the two in the pool sang, arms slung like old comrades.

An Italian gargoyle and an Eastern European dragon singing English songs in Huaxia’s Alchemy Association—now that’s global, like flags snapping on the same mast.

Meanwhile, Yekase and Xiaoyuan debated whether the Black Spider or Yellow River toy gun hit harder, their talk earthy as furrows in spring.

Sandryon played by herself, a lone cat batting a ribbon.

Poor master.