On Lunar New Year’s Eve, the three of them—Yekase, XiaoLei, and Liu RuoYuan—rode a long-distance bus home, the steel beast groaning like an old ox over a gray ribbon of road.

XiaoLei tried to soothe her: fewer relatives this year, probably just the Eldest Aunt’s family—yet “Eldest Aunt” only dredged up a foggy middle-aged silhouette in Yekase’s mind; even the audio track was gone.

“Your older cousin’s only a few years ahead of you. Her daughter’s already in middle school. Look at you,” XiaoLei sighed, a breeze through dry reeds.

“What about me?” Yekase bristled, a cat with fur up. “Didn’t I conjure you a daughter?”

“What kind of conjuring is that?”

Liu RuoYuan clapped a hand over Yekase’s mouth, pulse quick. “Keep it down. If the villagers hear, how do we explain?”

“Easy. Say the Liu family’s son married in the city and has a girl now… might salvage my reputation.”

“Where’s the wife? Where’s the daughter?”

“Wife’s late twenties. Hire Shen Shanshan to play her. As for the daughter, I switch to seven-year-old mode—perfect fit.”

XiaoLei shook her head hard, like a sparrow flinging off rain. “How did I raise someone with no shame?”

Liu RuoYuan cut in, firm as a drawn bow. “Don’t. Too many settings cause contradictions. Even if family rarely sees us, it leaves hidden cracks. If not necessary, don’t add entities.”

“Fair.”

A prickle ran under Yekase’s skin—so the worry wasn’t ethics, just whether the lie holds? The thought landed like cold ash.

XiaoLei’s pupils trembled, words snagging on her tongue.

They gave up on the “my daughter” plan. The three walked the newly poured cement, a pale river running into the village. Eight years gone; the place still matched her blur of memory, yet up close it wore new seams and stitches.

The Xu house at the gate had been refaced, white as peeled bamboo. Wang the Cripple, whose place bordered the paddies, had a new fence weathering like old bark. Little changes, long sighs.

“By the way, didn’t my older cousin marry into a big city? How’s she back home for New Year?”

“She divorced two months ago,” XiaoLei said, voice low as dusk. “Came back with her girl.”

“Oh…”

Her memories of that cousin were school breaks and games in the yard; after marriage, the thread snapped. The leftover image was thin as paper.

“When you see them, don’t poke the sore pot,” Liu RuoYuan warned, tension tight as wire. If the reason touched the Sinister Organization, who knew what Yekase might do.

“I know. I’m not Rice Rice.”

She shrugged it off like wind shrugging leaves.

They reached the familiar courtyard; even the old house had new paint, walls washed to a clean dawn.

The door was half-ajar. A girl in a pink down jacket, twelve or thirteen, crossed the main hall toward the inner room, leaving a neat back like a brushstroke.

That had to be the cousin’s daughter. Middle school. What was her name again?

“So that’s my niece?”

“Last time you saw her, she was six.” XiaoLei smiled, pushing the door. “Jianqin, is your mom behind the stove? Where’s Great-Grandpa?”

“—Ah, Auntie, you’re… he—re…”

The girl turned with a sunny grin—then froze like a sparrow caught mid-flight.

Yekase, stepping over the threshold, froze too. She almost stumbled; grabbing Liu RuoYuan’s arm steadied her like catching a tree root.

“Ma—”

“What a coincidence, really, really, really!” Zhou Jianqin blurted, forced cheer like a paper lantern in wind. She hustled up, wrapped Yekase, and dragged her toward the guest room—she was absolutely using Spiral Force; otherwise how did Yekase get spun so easily?

“You two are close?” XiaoLei blinked, surprised.

“We used to hang out a lot! We’ll catch up—no eavesdropping!”

Jianqin threw a wild lie, shoved Yekase into the guest room, and hooked the door shut with her heel, a quick flick like closing a fan.

Only then did she exhale and let go.

“…What’s with you?”

“What do you mean?”

Yekase almost laughed. She sat on the bed, springs creaking like old snow. “Didn’t expect your ‘hometown’ to be the same as mine.”

“I didn’t either!”

Jianqin leaned on the table, brows knotted like tangled twine.

“What, seeing me again is that depressing?”

“I don’t want heroes or the Sinister Organization anymore,” she said, voice small as a moth. “Right now I’m using Spiral Force to help Mom braid hemp rope.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m dragging you back to be a hero. How did it end? Did that instructor trouble you?”

Jianqin shook her head, a quiet ripple. “He’s my dad. When I’m MAYA, I have to call him Instructor. After we got back from Emerald Pool, he locked me in for two days… I heard he was assassinated during my confinement.”

“Dead?”

But you said divorce…

“The killer left a note on his desk—followed me to trace the organization’s address. Pressed a hundred thousand cash under it, said she took half as commission from the safe… signed 333.”

“…Her.”

Yekase scratched her head, a restless bird. That woman vanished after Emerald Pool—turns out she went meddling.

“And you, Icarus? You and Auntie…”

“I’m her son—no, daughter, Yekase. Liu RuoYuan’s sister. Your Eldest Aunt!”

“Isn’t Great-Grandpa’s surname Liu?”

“Adopted. Adopted. Fostered, got it?”

“Oh…”

Jianqin looked half-convinced, eyes a little keener, like a blade re-honed since hero training.

Yekase softened. “I know the city left you bad scars. I won’t force you back. We’re just here for New Year. Let’s pretend we met by chance at Twin Towers, okay?”

“…Since you put it that way,” Jianqin murmured, voice a shy ember.

They shook hands, made peace, and walked out.

XiaoLei and Liu RuoYuan came from the kitchen with dishes; an old man already sat behind the wooden table.

Her grandpa, Hu Kerong.

He’d been the production team’s cook in youth. Self-taught in civil engineering, he pulled together a village crew, built a bridge across a river, smashed a land temple—decades carved him into a local name like a carved seal.

Nearly eighty now, yet bright-eyed and solid. White hair stood bristling in a clean crew cut; his face was dark with healthy color, like sun-warmed clay.

He’d trained—must’ve trained. Yekase had thought so as a child, and still did.

“Grandpa!”

Hu Kerong pinched a ceramic cup with three fingers. He nodded, spare as winter speech. Only then did they sit. His voice rolled over them like a bronze bell:

“You’re the child XiaoLei adopted?”

“Yes.”

“Look me in the eye.”

Without moving her head, Yekase lifted her lids and met his gaze, two flints striking.

“Yes.”

“You’re young, but your edge isn’t small.”

He set the cup down, reached back to the long counter, and grabbed a bottle without looking—old habit, like knowing your field by touch.

No label. The mouth wrapped in three layers of plastic. Village homebrew. He twisted it open; dense fragrance spilled into the hall like warm mist.

He reversed his grip and poured a full cup. From empty to full, the bottle never trembled; every motion clean as an order executed.

“My son-in-law, Liu Qizhou, was at least easy on the eyes. He’s gone. I lack a drinking partner.”

“You may be young and female, but entering my family isn’t simple.”

Click.

He set the cup lightly before Yekase.

“Drain it, and I’ll accept you.”

……

An old drunk pressuring a girl who looked seventeen? Of course he would—

Yekase glanced up and caught the set of his gaze, the ghost of a smile at the corner—iron wrapped in silk.

“…Heh.”

She smiled back, lifted the cup, and knocked it back in one swallow.

About two shots to her—not even a blur at the edges. As a test, it was child’s play.

“If you drink out of fear of elders,” Hu Kerong said, voice steady as a plumb line, “you’re one who suffers obedience—no great vessel. If you refuse on principle, you have spine, but little force to carry it.”

“And if I down it?”

He pulled the cup back and filled his own. “Downing a cup straight makes you half a drunk.”

“That option has the lowest ceiling.”

XiaoLei, Liu RuoYuan, and older cousin Hu Jianfeng took their seats then, the table filling like a tide.

XiaoLei flicked Yekase’s head. “This rascal has no respect. Dad, don’t mind her. I’ll fix her later.”

“Entrapment!” Yekase protested, grin sharp as ice.

“It’s fine,” Hu Kerong said. “A little edge suits the young. This girl’s eyes—twelve points like her sworn brother’s back then. She’s fated with your family. Don’t shortchange her.”

Sworn brother—wasn’t that just… her?

A laugh pressed at her throat; respect pinned it down.

She suspected the old man had sensed a thread leading to a certain twenty-seven-year-old who never came back to light New Year firecrackers, but his world’s horizon cut off the rest.

XiaoLei and Liu RuoYuan knew, of course, and quietly enjoyed the scene.

Hu Jianfeng and Zhou Jianqin were in the dark. Jianqin, knowing Yekase’s nature, weathered it. Jianfeng, as the older cousin, had only one thought: this girl was sharp as a winter gale.

…………

After dinner, Liu RuoYuan tugged Yekase into the kitchen to wash dishes. Steam curled like white vines.

“Since you’re our daughter now, you take on chores.” She handed a sponge and a towel.

“Gender bias much? Men get a pass?”

“I don’t see you doing chores at home!”

“Before you moved in, it was all me.”

“That’s why the room was a disaster!”

“That’s called dynamic balance.”

Jianqin quietly picked up a bowl to wash, head pounding from their sparring, like a drum under a storm.

Yekase swept a little hand. “Use what we have. Ambition Divine Ship!”

The portal’s coordinates snapped into place. A bright blue ring hummed into being in the unplastered kitchen, sparkling like a lake under moonlight.

“W-what is that?!” Jianqin nearly lost her bowl to air.

“Good thing I had foresight,” Yekase said, cheerful as a spring wind. “Had the craftsmen install a dishwasher on the ship. We’ll load the dishes and be done.”

“You’ve perfected laziness,” Liu RuoYuan said, half a smile, half a sigh.

They left Jianqin gaping, kept chatting like nothing, and carried stacks of bowls into the portal’s glow.

“Eh? Eh—?”