Yekase took the bag of powder, like ash scooped from a dead hearth, and moved to leave the little kiosk.

Binbin crawled out from under the bed like a startled mouse, saw the carnage stretching from counter to street like a scorched river, and stood mute with lips trembling like winter reeds.

“This whole floor of corpses, just left here like fallen scarecrows? How am I supposed to run my shop?”

“Then don’t,” Yekase crouched and tugged a fighter’s sleeve, wiping Dawn of Eden’s blood like rain streaks off glass. “Mark your stock, sell it to me, take the cash to Twin Towers City, buy a battery scooter, deliver food like a sparrow on wires. It’ll treat you gentler than this. I know a place called Gear Street, old heroes cast shade there like ancient pines. Move in with your dad—rough walls, but the sleep’s steady as stone.”

She finally got it clean, stood, and tossed the Gunblade behind her. The slab of iron vanished midair like a tossed pebble swallowed by a lake.

“As for your mom, folks who chase ‘ice’ have their own tracks, like skates scarring a frozen pond.”

“Please… don’t kill her?” Binbin’s plea fluttered like a moth. “No matter what, she’s my—”

“—What are you thinking? I’m sending her to rehab, like pulling a fish from a mud-choked stream.”

Yekase shrugged, smile easy as morning sun through blinds.

“When I freeloaded snacks at your place as a kid, it was your aunt who slid them over, sweet as dried plums.”

…

Back at the lab, Yekase hand-crafted a sealed steel micro-furnace, its shell gleaming like a beetle’s back, and cremated the bag, smoke coiling like willow branches.

XiaoLei stepped in to say it was about time to head back to the city, told her to go downstairs to greet Grandpa, and froze on entry—Yekase squatting blood-smeared by a smoking little furnace, like a butcher beside a steaming vat—then asked, and heard it was ‘ice’ inside. She nearly fainted like a candle snuffed by a gust.

“You fell in with bad waters… my girl learned the wrong tide…”

“No! I seized it from the kiosk, like netting poison from the shallows!”

“You seize it, then you skate it yourself?!”

“I’m destroying it on the spot, like burning weeds at the root! What, you want me to bring it to Twin Towers and sell it like rotten fruit?”

XiaoLei finally caught her breath, patting her chest like calming a startled bird, and walked out.

Yekase waited for the fire to die like embers going to sleep, packed the furnace, left the lab, tossed her bloodied clothes into the washer like shedding a molting skin, changed, and stepped back out—right as Lu Yao came through the portal, stepping from light like a figure cut from a moonbeam.

“The one by the village gate,” Lu Yao said, voice steady as a spear.

“Thought so,” Yekase glanced back, hands folded behind her head like a cloud at ease. “A country place guarding against thieves, and somehow they built a ring of electrified iron fence like a thunder net.”

She didn’t seem surprised, and strolled toward the portal like walking into a painted landscape.

“Won’t ask how I handled it?” came a soft question, like rain tapping bamboo.

“When you handle things, I rest easy like a cat in sun.”

Her silhouette slipped through the other side of the portal like a swallow through reeds…

“—About that chip,” a voice cut the air like a thin blade.

…

Yekase edged back two steps, casual as drifting leaves.

“I tried to use an Omega Ray to build the base circuitry,” Lu Yao said, each word clean as frost, “and the chip collapsed like sugar in hot tea.”

Yekase turned her head slightly, the back of her skull offered like a stubborn stone. “Of course. Omega Rays can generate metal, but the instant it forms, it’s just ordinary metal, stripped of any Infinite Power traits like a shell with the pearl removed.”

“But generation is reversible,” said Lu Yao, sharp as starlight.

“That’s only a backdoor,” Yekase replied. “Like setting an electric hob under a block of ice—the hob melts it fast; other ways will melt it slow; but you don’t call the ice water just because heat can return it, like mist returning to rain.”

“What is the actual path of mass–energy conversion—”

“That’s as deep as I go. Ask Professor F, like asking a mountain its own age.”

Yekase waved a hand like brushing gnats, and this time she really left.

She met up with XiaoLei at the old house gate, stepped in to bid farewell to Grandpa, and readied to return to Twin Towers City.

Hu Kerong sat in the yard, tea steaming like morning fog, newspaper rustling like a dry field. Hearing light steps approach, his eyes stayed behind old-glass lenses, and he pointed to the stool beside him like tapping a drum.

“Long years apart. Before you go, sit and talk a bit, like lanterns sharing flame.”

“…Okay.”

Yekase sat obediently, quiet as a pond at dusk, waiting for Grandpa to open the topic like a storyteller opening a fan.

“When I was young,” he said, voice like a river carrying stones, “Huaxia had no Sinister Organization. The biggest enemy was hunger, a wolf at every door. Everyone was hurting…”

“Later life eased like spring thaw, and the organization arrived like locusts. They took and took—every season they skimmed their cut, almost a third of a jin from each jin of rice. So, you can’t let the common folk starve like candles guttering. Help them take back what already belonged to them, like returning a lost farm to its farmer. Then many will follow you like geese on a current… then the work you do won’t be castles in the clouds.”

“I understand…”

…Wait?

“‘The work you do’?”

Yekase snapped her gaze up like a hawk catching a glint.

“I’m not planning to rebel,” she said, dry as driftwood.

“Then will you become them?” Grandpa’s words fell like cold rain.

“There’s… a middle path,” Yekase looked aside like a fox weighing the wind.

“For someone like you,” he said, calm as stone, “the times press you to choose, like a tide shouldering cliffs.”

…

“When we get back, soon enough, I’m going to be a teacher,” she said, heartbeat steady like a drum. “Ten years, fifty—however long it takes. I’ll spread Flash Energy until it’s a light even the good-hearted can read and use, like torches passed hand to hand. And I’ll watch them use that strength to lay the foundation stones of a new world, like masons setting granite by starlight.”

Yekase was just a Flash Energy engineer, not a saint. She had only this one path, like a narrow bridge across mist.

Hearing her finally spill a real plan—strange as a comet, maybe—Hu Kerong didn’t give easy platitudes. He blew tea leaves from the cup lip like clearing a pond and listened. After a moment, he spoke softly, like a breeze through old pine.

“Yuan’er is a teacher. You want to teach. That’s good. Our family producing two people’s teachers—saying it out loud puts a shine on my old face like polish on brass.”

Yekase nodded, stood, and made her goodbye like bowing to a temple gate.

“Take care of your mom,” he added, “her lumbar disc is herniated, a stone pressing the river.”

“Uh… got it.”

Her mom swaggered like a tiger, never looking hurt. Maybe she’d taught herself Mind Energy body-forging like iron in a forge. She’d check with Infinite Force Perception when they got back, like peering through leaves at the nest.

After that, the group boarded the Sky Island, gliding toward Twin Towers City at cruising speed like a cloud-ship cutting blue.

Yekase pushed the shattered chip into a corner of the fume hood like sweeping a shard under a shelf, then followed a video guide and cooked mango pomelo sago, pearls spinning in the pot like little moons. While the alcohol lamp heated the sago like a tame flame spirit, she slipped into the kitchen and opened the fridge like cracking a snowy cave.

“Sis, any milk left?” she called, voice easy as smoke.

“By the cabinet,” Liu RuoYuan said from the sofa, eyes on the TV flicker like fireflies. “All moved from home, still boxed.”

Yekase found the milk and went back downstairs like a stream returning to its bed.

“Hey, wait,” XiaoLei called, a hand to the doorway like a sparrow pecking. “You didn’t take your phone. Someone called you.”

“Huh?”

Yekase patted her pocket—empty as a hollow gourd. She took the phone, saw the missed call, a stranger’s number like an unmarked letter.

She set the milk down and stepped outside to dial back, air crisp as a blade.

“Hello? Happy New Year. Who’s this?” Her voice rang like a bell.

[The dagger’s finished.]

It was Luzhixing, voice cool as iron.

Forging on New Year’s—hammers ringing like midnight thunder? Yekase couldn’t quite grasp it, watched the sky-screen project Twin Towers City’s live streets like fish drifting in light, and shaped her answer like a clay cup.

“Alright. Where do we hand it over?”

[No need. I’ll ship it straight to Unrecognized Consortium X.]

“That won’t fly,” she said, words firm as a door bar. “You know I left the organization. If it lands there, the boss might pocket it like a hawk snatching a chick. And with something this valuable, a courier with eyes is safer than a box with tape.”

[…]

In Cloudlong City, she hadn’t raised that detail, saving it like a hidden card until Luzhixing truly finished the blade. As a craftswoman, she knew how hard it was to shelve a piece you poured your soul into, especially a rare one after so many years. Her refusal held water like a well, and it meant Luzhixing—lean on friends like a lone pine—would have to deliver it herself to Yekase’s chosen spot.

[What are you angling for?]

“It’s New Year,” Yekase said, smile sharp as a crescent. “On New Year’s Eve, Lu Yao held a bowl by my stove, watched fireworks like falling stars, and cried like rain. I decided you sisters should meet—if you fight, so be it; it beats never seeing each other again.”

[…I told you not to meddle.]

“The Sinister Organization told me not to be a hero,” Yekase shot back, words flaring like sparks.

After Cloudlong, Luzhixing knew Yekase’s other face. Yekase didn’t bother with masks, tossing the truth like a stone at a drum.

“I heard the leader of the original Beast King Squadron was a man called Omega M. They say he died with those three, a blaze snuffed in one night. But Lu Yao’s eyewitness says he wasn’t there at the scene, and he never showed again like a star gone behind a mountain.”

“I want to know where he went, like tracking a river to its source.”

[You know I won’t tell.]

“I do,” Yekase said, voice calm as a slate. “I’m just giving you my investigation progress and next direction, so your heart’s braced like ropes on a mast. Don’t wait for the reveal and think I knew nothing.”

[Has anyone told you that this way of talking gets people strung up and beaten like a gong?]

“You riled?”

[You use this same routine on Lu Yao?]

“I don’t,” she said, tone low as embers. “After the betrayal and loneliness you caused, even twisted and shut-in, she never forgot she’s a hero, a lantern in storm. I respect that from the marrow.”

“So I’ll bring you to her,” she said, each clause a hammer blow. “By any means. At any cost. Regardless of consequence.”

[You’re dangerous. You shattered the Sinister Organization’s order like breaking a mirror. I didn’t arrest you because of the duty of that one night, a debt in the snow. Duty has limits.]

“Tomorrow at two,” Yekase cut in, brisk as a knife. “After lunch—let it settle like rice. Twin Towers City, Tianxin District Shooting Range. Indoors, wide as a dry lake—good room for you both to play.”

She hung up before Luzhixing could react, like dousing a lamp mid-syllable, walked back inside, and knocked on Lu Yao’s door like tapping a drumskin.

Lu Yao peeked out bleary-eyed, sleep thick as fog. “What is it?”

…Was her sleep always this long? When they didn’t live together, she always seemed drained, like a willow with too much shade. Yekase had thought it was the weight of grief. Turns out she’s just genuinely drowsy, like a cat.

“I’ve got a weapon parcel,” Yekase said, hands pressed together like praying palms. “Tomorrow at two, someone will deliver it at the Tianxin District Shooting Range. Please grab it for me.”

“Using me as errands?”

“Just this run,” Yekase pleaded, voice soft as silk. “I’m busy with circuits, like ants on sugar. No time.”

“…Got it,” Lu Yao said, sealing it like a stamp.

“Great, thank you!” Yekase chirped, bright as sparrows.

…

The next day, Lu Yao came home ragged and torn, like a banner after a storm.

Yekase got punished by Liu RuoYuan to kneel all night, like a penitent under temple bells.