After the dinner wrapped, Yekase watched Labyrinth City and Aurora vanish in a blink, like ripples swallowed by night.

Turned out the Alchemy Association offered teleportation—no wonder they’d gotten takeout in Siberia, like hot soup arriving through frost. Yekase still wouldn’t ride a quantum hop; a flight from Huaxia to Europe is half a day, like skimming a calm sea under dawn wings.

The other three from Twin Towers City drifted home, lanterns returning to their docks. Yekase sat on the night bus, thoughts fluttering like moths around a streetlamp.

Near the end of dinner, Aurora—fresh from the pool, water beading like fish scales—brought something up.

Around the Tunguska blast site in Siberia, a subspace wormhole might’ve opened. The Russian authorities call it a Cosmic Bubble; Huaxia calls it an Otherworld—small, strange, a pocket sky in a bottle.

Do Otherworlds just pop up like that? The feeling hit first, a wry puff of steam. She knew the answer was “yeah, they do,” and still the snark fizzed like soda.

Along coasts and no-man’s-lands, one subspace blooms every two years, like a tide pool pulled open by the moon. They last as long—or as brief—as a summer storm. The outfits that develop them, once they win full rights, can monopolize the native species inside. Risk like cliff edges, profit like buried gold.

Aurora and her dragons run that trade, ledgers and scales gleaming like twin blades.

They had first-water advantage, a balcony over a spring. They bought the Tunguska Cosmic Bubble and sent an advance team in, torches stepping into mist.

No, there wasn’t a cheesy squad wipe. The report said it’s a Jurassic world. If they extract dinosaur DNA and sell it to zoos, cash will rain like monsoon on iron roofs.

“You Western dragons and dinosaurs are cousins, right?” Yekase tossed the pebble and watched Aurora’s glare ripple like a hawk’s shadow.

Then Aurora invited the four of them to go “have fun” in that Otherworld—officially, to serve as the escort for the survey team, a shield walking beside a measuring rod.

Yekase felt only boredom, a dry wind skimming stone. A tech-free, raw-bright world didn’t charm her. Jurassic meant steam heat, wet air, mosquitoes clouding like smoke. Then she saw Sidonia Dragon Fortress’s pay, and her heart flipped like a coin. She agreed.

The bus sighed to a stop. She stepped off, night air brushing her like river reeds.

Her rental had just expired. She shed it like old skin and moved the portal coordinates to a tucked corner of Shen Shanshan’s place, a swallow’s nest in a beam. A half-street out lay a bus stop, handy as before, a drumbeat you know by heart.

She decided to grab a cup of milk tea and head upstairs, sweetness glowing like a small lantern in her palm.

“Miss, how do I get to this address?”

A hand with a phone nudged into view, like a branch touching water.

Yekase glanced at the screen. “Yongle Road, Bieqiao Alley… yeah, I know it. Walk ahead to that sign and turn left—”

…

…Wait.

Her voice snapped off, a string breaking.

She blinked, drew a deep breath that bit like winter, then looked at the person beside her.

Near fifty, skin the color of sun-baked earth, deep lines carving her eyes and brow like riverbeds. Medium height, dusty-gray jacket in this weather, a sturdy neck and forearms standing out like carved wood.

Comrade XiaoLei stood there with a cloth bag on her back, a traveler pausing under a city lamp.

Weren’t there supposed to be a few days left? Panic swarmed like sparrows. Yekase wasn’t ready.

“Alright, thanks. City roads twist like vines. I’ve looped around and around.”

She didn’t recognize Yekase—of course she wouldn’t. XiaoLei set off where Yekase had pointed, her slight hunch like a hill bending in wind.

“Wait!”

“What is it?” XiaoLei turned, curiosity flickering like a match.

She’d stopped her, and now words tangled like wet string.

Head down, the feeling came first, thin as fog. “It’s just…”

How do you even say this?

When Rice Rice turned into her shape to “talk sense” into Wang Zhewei, Yekase had watched, a little gleeful. Now it was her turn, and the floor felt like ice.

“It’s late. A girl alone outside is risky, like walking a cliff. Better head home. I know the place; I can escort you.”

“Uh… well…”

“Auntie’s strong.”

XiaoLei rolled up a sleeve and flexed, muscle like braided rope. Yekase shrank even more, fear flitting like a bat, which made XiaoLei cock her head.

“It’s just… my home… isn’t convenient…”

She couldn’t let Mom take her “home.” No second apartment. One escort would expose everything, and she didn’t even have a working excuse for “why I’m a girl now.”

Seeing her hesitate, XiaoLei’s face cleared like thinning clouds.

“I get it. You ran away, didn’t you?”

“Uh?”

“Kids around ten, there’s always that rebellious streak. Auntie’s not old-fashioned.”

Back then you wouldn’t even see me off at the airport, would you? The thought bit like a mosquito. On the surface, Yekase kept a shy look, cheeks like dusk.

“My two kids bought places nearby. I came to the city to move in with them, birds returning to a grove. How about this: crash at our place for a night, think it through. Tomorrow, when your mood’s lighter, go home.”

“No, really, that’s not—”

“What’s your name?”

“Ye… Yekase.”

Saying this five-minute alias to her own mom felt like chewing glass, but there was no other road.

“Come on! My girl’s only a bit older than you. She teaches at Heavenly Heart High School, a lantern in a classroom. She can even help with homework.”

XiaoLei smiled and took Yekase’s hand. After almost eight years, the old calluses on Mom’s palm felt heavier and rougher, stone polished by river time. Maybe her own hands had turned soft.

By common sense, she should refuse here, a step back from a cliff. But if she refused hard now, she wouldn’t hide it forever. In a few days she’d prepare and confess. Then looking back at tonight would be cringe bursting like firecrackers.

She was stuck. Go or stay, both wrong. Caught between advance and retreat, a deer between two paths.

Her fingers twitched out of habit—

They didn’t move.

Mom’s grip was a vise. Even a Flash Energy fusion body couldn’t pry it open?

Shock and fear hit like a wave. XiaoLei just led her along, step by step, into Bieqiao Alley—the path Yekase herself had pointed out, a snake swallowing its tail.

At the alley’s end, Liu RuoYuan stood outside Shen Shanshan’s door, waiting like a crane by a pond. After reclaiming the deed last time, she honored the promise to give Yekase the side room as a lab. Shen Shanshan made two keys, kept one, gave the other to Yekase. Later, Yekase got a better lab on the sky island, so the side room went back to being a warehouse. The two households became neighbors in practice, doors like twin chess pieces.

“Daughter!” XiaoLei waved as soon as she saw Liu RuoYuan, joy rising like steam. “Finally found it. You sure can pick a spot.”

“This is just a transfer station. In a bit I’ll take you up—”

Smiling, Liu RuoYuan walked forward. Mid-sentence, she spotted Yekase half-dragged, half-walking, eyes unfocused like driftwood. Sharp as a blade, she understood in a blink and blinked back, asking lightly:

“And this is?”

“Picked her up on the road. The girl ran away. I worried about her alone at night, so I brought her.”

“A runaway, huh… By the usual measure, that’s a runaway indeed.”

University as the pivot, then seven, eight years living alone in a far city. Each month sending wages home, barely talking. By common values, that’s a grand runaway, a train that never turns back.

By now, Yekase was stuffed full of breath, almost crying, a dam about to spill. Liu RuoYuan swallowed a laugh and drew a recall sigil, lines flowing like water.

“Ambition Divine Ship.”

Hum.

A pale-blue portal opened before the three of them, light like frost brightening the dim alley.

“Wow, high-tech!” XiaoLei marveled, eyes shining like stars.

Yekase gave up resisting and followed Mom through the gate, steps light as leaves.

XiaoLei had grown up in the countryside, the biggest town a county seat, streets simple as braids. The city felt new everywhere, sparrows of wonder chirping all day. Yet when she saw the sky island, her reaction wasn’t as huge as the siblings—sisters—had imagined.

“It’s a whole other world. Nicely done,” she said, voice warm as a kettle.

She liked the nursery more than the two-story villa at the path’s end. Finally, she let go of Yekase’s hand. Leaning on the rail, she studied the soil Liu RuoYuan had turned, earth breathing like a sleeping ox. She nodded, satisfied.

“You even opened a garden plot just for me. That kid’s got heart.”

Beside her, Liu RuoYuan slid Yekase a stealthy thumbs-up, a feather of praise. Yekase gave a sheepish grin and pretended not to see, face like a paper fan.

Mom looked over the nursery, then the island’s edge, sky like a lake. Only then did she head inside.

She toured the first floor, then sat on the sofa, the cushion sighing like a cat.

Liu RuoYuan sat beside her as if the wind knew the route, calm as tea.

Both of them looked at Yekase together, gazes like twin moons.

“Come sit, girl. Yuan’er, pour her some water.”

“Uh…”

Yekase crept to the sofa, nerves tight like strings. She sat across from XiaoLei, as if instinct planted her there.

Liu RuoYuan didn’t go for water. She just watched, eyes smiling like crescents.

The air shifted into something delicate. XiaoLei noticed it, glanced at Yekase, then at Liu RuoYuan, uncertainty rising like mist.

“By the way… where’s your brother? Holed up in the lab again?”

Yekase bit her lip, staring at the seam between sofa and floor, reading it like a map. She blinked hard, ten quick times, lips parting without sound. She looked down at her hands clenched on her knees, took a deep breath, a lake settling after wind.

Then she lifted her head and met XiaoLei’s eyes, courage like a candle’s first flame.

“Mom.”

…

“Girl, what did you call me?”

“Mom, I’m Liu Jingyuan.”

She spoke those three slightly unfamiliar syllables and fell quiet, waiting for XiaoLei’s response, her small body folding in on itself like a leaf cup.

“Not a same-name coincidence?”

“Not a coincidence.”

“I’m pretty sure my son was a boy.”

“He was. Now he’s not.”

XiaoLei looked lost, a compass spinning. She turned to Liu RuoYuan. Her daughter gave her a little nod, a bell tapped once.

“Why?”

“To avoid a Sinister Organization’s hunt…”

In truth, no one was chasing her hard. Mila was half a friend now. Yekase kept that to herself, truth like a fish under ice.

“What did you do that a Sinister Organization wants you dead?”

“Uh… honestly, not much. Usually we hit their warehouses, kill combatants, sometimes wipe a boss…”

Counting it up, she realized she’d done a lot of black-on-black. She sounded like a rising Sinister Organization herself. Her voice dwindled, a candle in wind, and stopped.

“Look at my eyes.”

The words struck like a drum. Yekase straightened at once and lifted her head. That was Mom’s classic opener before a scolding, a ritual like rain tapping eaves.

“This reaction… heh.”

The wrinkles on XiaoLei’s face softened, dry fields after a drizzle. Yekase saw it then—Mom had truly grown old, time carving her like stone.

“Your eyes…”

“Ah, that’s from fusing with Flash Energy. It doesn’t really—”

“I know. The last photo your dad sent back had those same red eyes.”

“…”

XiaoLei gazed deep at the uneasy girl, steady as a mountain.

No trace of the old face remained. If the flesh had fused with Flash Energy, the blood link might’ve broken too. Yekase had become someone else entirely, a different river under the same sky.

XiaoLei sighed and reached across the coffee table, laying a hand on Yekase’s head, shading a sapling. Yekase wanted to dodge, but didn’t dare.

“So like him. You go by Yekase now?”

“Uh… I guess.”

“Yekase, would you like to be our family?”

“I already am.”

“Good. Then that’s that.”

XiaoLei drew her hand back and patted her chest with the other, a firm thump like a drum sealing a vow.