Yekase pinged the main console, unlocked the door, and hauled Lu Yao from a room dark as an ink well.

“What are you doing?” Her voice snapped like a dry twig.

Lu Yao thrashed like a netted fish, breath ragged as winter wind.

Back in her hometown, Yekase uncorked her real skill, a storm finally loosed from its bottle.

Usually she was the one shaken off; this time no one could shake free of her iron grip.

She pinned the allegedly delicate woman like a sparrow under a cat’s paw, fierce and gleaming.

“It’s New Year’s Eve. Even the Sinister Organization won’t stir trouble tonight. Stop surfing those data waves in a cave.”

“I go out and there’s nothing to do. I’ve got no family for the New Year’s Eve dinner.” Her words fell like cold rain.

“We saved you a plate,” Yekase said, warm as a kitchen lamp.

“Don’t need it!” The refusal clinked like a snapped chopstick.

…She’d turned down help just like this recently; that time, Yekase’s answer was a stone in a stream.

“But it’s necessary.”

“…”

Gurgle— Her stomach spoke, a drumbeat in an empty hall.

“I’ve wondered for a while. You’ve lived here half a month, never joined meals. How do you handle basic needs?”

“I have reserve rations,” she muttered, voice thin as paper.

“I don’t police you most days. Today, you come out and eat one proper meal.” Yekase’s tone was a ladle on iron.

“Even if it’s leftovers.”

Lu Yao couldn’t beat Yekase’s current, and got carried like driftwood to the ground floor.

Liu RuoYuan had already piled the leftovers in one bowl and heated them, steam like low fog.

She caught Lu Yao stepping through the portal, set bowl and chopsticks in her hands, then slid her a small stool.

“Sweet-and-sour fish. Belly cut, sauce-side down; lamb braised with glass noodles, abalone, green beans… If it’s not enough, there’s vinegar radish.”

Lu Yao stared at the colorful bowl, eyes reflecting lantern hues.

Street-stall level cooking, no plating, but warmth rose like hearth fire and the aroma curled like smoke.

Pop—! A sharp bloom cracked outside, a fire seed in night soil.

Lu Yao flinched, alert as a deer, and lifted her gaze to a sky clean of ads and glare.

A single firework speared up and spread into an iron tree blossoming silver flowers.

Then a second, a third—fairies scattering petals, pearl-chain bursts, meteors in a brief rain.

Lingering sparks stitched letters, a handwriting in the dark wind.

“A great person once said: humans invented gunpowder; foreigners made guns; Huaxia used it for fireworks.” Yekase drew ritual into her tone, like incense smoke.

Biased or not, if gunpowder for war all burned as flowers, the sky would be a river of light.

Like using a battle-squad robot to plow fields, a strange romance hides in that stubborn faith.

“The city bans fireworks. Good thing it’s lax out here. The Organization won’t bother with the towns.”

“Are these the cross-year fireworks?” Liu RuoYuan asked, eyes like twin mirrors.

“Should be. Welcome to 2022. Sadly, the world didn’t get better.” Her words fell like ash.

Plop. Not outside—a large tear struck the bowl rim like rain on stone.

“Ah…” Lu Yao swiped her face, a sleeve clouding the moon.

“Even if the world didn’t improve, no need to cry.” Yekase laughed, heartless as a stray wind.

Liu RuoYuan pinched her cheek, fingers like bird claws. “Ow! Cry if you want! I’ll cry too!”

Yekase yelped, dodged that witchy grip, and scooted her stool beside Lu Yao, a raft to a raft.

She kept her eyes on the fireworks, river-light spilling over her lashes, not on Lu Yao.

Only the sound of rice being scooped remained, soft as sand in a tide.

On the year’s first morning, Yekase holed up with the Downflow Loop, a hermit beside a mountain spring.

How did it end up like this? The thought swirled like smoke under a beam.

Back as one of the family, her heart felt full as a brimming bowl, her name finally rooted.

She’d always said she needed no one’s approval, but a thread to the world tugged tight.

As a 17-year-old with a home, she ought to savor youth like sweet tea.

Wear a pretty skirt, paint a bright face; instead, PVC gloves under the fume hood, feeding a circuit like a careful gardener.

“Flow rate’s wrong… is the scraper the issue?” Her mutter crawled like an ant along wire.

Flash Energy should glide steady as a river; a grit in the current made it drag.

Twice she checked, twice the reeds showed nothing; then she shoved the boat into the current.

I figure we crank the output. Her resolve struck like a flint on steel.

If Flash Energy clung to the loop, more force would peel it off like bark.

If the issue persisted, more force would at least keep the stream from stalling.

Perfect solution, a coin glinting in muddy water.

Except the chip couldn’t bear the flood; the shell creaked like ice.

So she swapped in a flagship core with stronger load, a heart drum beating harder.

Stronger core meant a host of boosted traits; old functions turned cannon against flies.

Then add two flashy new features, fireflies in a jar.

New features needed matching mechanics, more transform joints, more control lines like vines.

More control lines meant safety in fierce use shook like a reed; install full water-cooling, thicker shells, a turtle’s carapace.

—Done!

She looked up; the date blinked to pre-dawn of the fourth day, frost on the window.

She remembered she’d started to fix a flow snag, a thread turned net.

…Wait, three days gone? The question rang like a bell in mist.

She blinked. The number didn’t budge. Fourth day of the first month.

Seventy-two hours, rooted to that stool like moss to stone.

“So I don’t need food anymore?” A joke flitted like a bat.

Goblin-headed, ghost-faced, barely human, she sniffed and laughed at the mirror.

“…Damn it. Sleep!” Satisfaction hummed in her bones, a new tool almost born, and she drifted away.

After a while, Lu Yao checked the pinhole cameras she’d installed the first three nights, little eyes in the banisters.

Liu RuoYuan had viewed them, then tucked them back; the house breathed like a sleeping beast.

She confirmed Yekase asleep, then slipped out, a ghost in a ruined hall, silent as mist.

She floated downstairs and slid into the lab, a shadow crossing a lantern.

Who locks doors on their own sky-island? The question fluttered like a moth.

No one; Yekase didn’t either. So Lu Yao walked into the cutting edge like dew onto grass.

She pulled gloves from a cabinet, slipped them on, and reached into the fume hood’s glass cave.

She lifted the chip that had just met brute-force miracles, a little moon in her palm.

It snagged her gaze, a magnet to iron; she couldn’t look away, breath shallow as a reed.

Typical mechanical circuits try to command Infinite Power, flattening it like dough, forcing it through molds.

This loop yielded to Infinite Power’s nature, giving it freedom, easing the pressure like a sluice gate.

It was tailored for Flash Energy, a Downflow Loop fitted like silk; swap any other Infinite Power, and it fails.

Flash Energy’s will is Evolution; it won’t meekly follow carved paths, it burrows into the chip’s grain.

The flow-rate issue’s core was clear: the missing Flash Energy had bonded with the chip, like roots into clay.

…! Jiang Bailu had sketched the seed; Yekase sat three days trying every rain and sun.

She was a hair from success, a bridge one plank short; her clever fix drifted into a side channel.

Lu Yao used to be a battle-squad member; after the team scattered, she maintained mecha and armory, oil on her hands.

Only then did she begin learning Infinite Power research, books like mountains, steps like stones.

Her grasp of Omega Ray lagged behind Jiang Bailu’s of Flash Energy; she knew the what, not the why.

Synthesis was a distant shore. Yet standing before this chip, dawn brushed the horizon of understanding.

That tiny gap was vast as sea; matter never outruns light, and Infinite Power with mass can’t dodge interaction.

So—what if we use Infinite Power to make the circuit? The thought rose like a kite into wind.

She didn’t know what “if” would birth; she’d climbed on Yekase’s shoulders to the summit ridge.

Ahead, no elder trail markers, only black pines and snow.

But she didn’t fear the unknown; all known began as unknown, fire from dark stone.

Yekase had walked that wild, lantern in sleeve, feet on frost.

Lu Yao sat at the fume hood, calm as still water, and had the armory conjure a pen-shaped airbrush.

Its tip was needle-thin; case and channels were Omega Ray, a silver river in glass.

A circuit carved by it would be pure Infinite Power, no earthly dust.

What was she about to do? The silence asked like an owl.

Inject Omega Ray into the loop, replace every alloy in the chip, steer Evolution with the will of Order.

If she wrecked the chip, Yekase would be angry; let anger be a summer storm.

Do it now. Her breath steadied like a pond at dawn.

After one sleep, Yekase walked to the living room and drank the first water in four days, cool as spring.

She tapped the console; a biosign glowed in the lab, a firefly in the dark.

She set the cup down and chuckled, a lazy breeze through reeds, then strolled into her courtyard.

XiaoLei had swiped rapeseed from the hometown warehouse and planted them, green spears in brown soil.

She’d left Yekase one row, a quiet kindness like a ribbon on a door.

Yekase stretched, arms like willow branches, opened the sky screen, and leaned on the rail.

She peered at the miniature ground below; only huge spectacle buildings pricked the map, steel mountains.

C-class organizations’ headquarters, Shadow Curtain International’s branches, grim teeth on earth’s jaw.

“Why’s it all cursed eyesores,” she muttered, a cloud crossing sun.

She shut the sky screen, letting blue fold like a fan.

She opened a portal back to the ground; her family home was locked, big aunt’s crew already gone.

She wore a rumpled lab coat, slept in and wrinkled, hair a crow’s nest riding wind.

She wandered the patchy stone road, steps slow as a cat in warm light.

Hit the corner shop for some latiao (spicy snack sticks). The idea fizzed like soda.

She remembered being tight with the shop kid; he’d be late twenties now, years stacked like bowls.

She’d spook him, maybe score a few free bags, mischief a spark in straw.

Plan set, Yekase followed the route carved deep in memory, a river channeling her feet toward the shop.