Three days after the Lantern Festival air raid, Fang Tang stepped out of Gear Street like a shadow leaving its alley, and was taken into custody.

The head of Shadow Curtain International’s Huaxia Branch pronounced her crimes himself, thunder-calm and storm-cold. She’d be hanged that afternoon, the whole of Huaxia watching, a warning like a knife held up to the sun.

They said his daughter tried to work the wires in secret, but rage moved faster than mercy. His decision fell like a bolt, and the execution went ahead on time.

Before the rope, Fang Tang said nothing. She just gave the camera a small smile, like a candle flickering before dawn.

That night, only one rebel cell scattered like birds flushed from reeds. The rest burned brighter, like kindling taking flame, beat the local giants under a hero’s lead, and walked straight into city halls. The mid and small gangs, not eager to be beaten for nothing, played dead like turtles in the mud.

That same night, every channel between the Moon Frontline Base and Earth went dark without a ripple, turning a churning sea into a whirlpool.

Three days later, the lines came back. The first packet from the Moon was a five‑minute video.

In the Moon Frontline command room, Luzhixing stood like a blade of red dusk, gripping the terrified head of the acting lunar governor. She announced she would found a movement on the Moon against Shadow Curtain International—“Red of Defiance.”

Shadow Curtain cadres, watching from near‑lunar orbit, caught a full‑crimson mech crouched on the main command tower’s roof like a hunting cat—Peace Walker’s missing chest, the Beast King core unit Lu Yao had believed destroyed.

Most transit between the Moon Frontline and Earth was cargo in and out. That decades‑old research base had grown into a mature urban cluster, a closed loop that fed itself like an oasis sealed under glass—time and terrain aligned. Luzhixing chose the Moon for that very reason, to raise a banner—or rather, to take the banner that fell.

Word of “Red of Defiance” set Huaxia’s rebels ablaze like a prairie fire.

Luzhixing’s image flipped like a coin in a magician’s hand. The ex‑hero who lived under the Sinister Organization’s thumb, who fought bouts but refused to kill, was suddenly cast in steel and sunrise.

From some forum whisper, a name took wing—“Red Moon King.”

The title spread hot as street steam, side by side with “Mechbreaker.”

It was as if, in a breath, people remembered that the Sinister Organization was an offense against the world’s bones. Those who knew and those who didn’t, all at once felt a shackle of Reverse Meme fall away like rusted chains.

They had been waiting, like sleepers listening for thunder behind the mountains.

They waited, and at last someone fired the first shot; and in the iron house, everyone woke like frost cracking at dawn.

But the one who fired still died.

Even though the one who fired had already died—

…

…

High above, after watching the rest stop bloom into fire, Yekase linked up with the three who rushed in, and laid out what she’d seen and heard, bead by bead.

Xiaoyuan sprawled on Aurora’s long dragon neck, hands tucked behind his head, and said lazy as wind over grass, “If you want, we can take a drop‑of‑a‑hat interstellar trip. Go skate the Martian plains?”

“No—uh, okay, that actually sounds kind of fun—” Yekase considered for a full heartbeat. “Wait. Why do you sound like you’ve been?”

“I have,” Xiaoyuan said, face unmoved, like a pond without ripples.

“…”

Mind Energy is really something…

Alchemy is truly mighty…

Longlifers make your bones go cold.

“Master, what do you say?” Yekase turned to Sandryon, feeling the question rise like a swallow.

“We can go.”

“Eh? I thought you’d be allergic to sci‑fi projects. You feel so traditional.”

“You’re saying that to an astronomer?”

“Oh.”

Right—this one’s a Renaissance monster. A polymath, a many‑stringed lute. She’s got even the “mere” talent of an astronomer.

Aurora felt Yekase’s gaze tilt her way and answered like a north wind, “I can’t. Huaxia’s in turmoil. I fear the Sinister Organization will fish in muddy waters and slip into Siberia.”

“Oh… right.”

Huaxia in turmoil… is it.

These days Yekase had holed up in the Cosmic Bubble, not going out. Hiding her trail was one thing; ducking reality was the deeper truth.

She knew Shadow Curtain would soon trace the true culprit. Fang Tang’s odds were a candle in the rain. They wouldn’t stop there; they’d announce Fang Tang was just Mechbreaker’s right hand, then keep hunting her.

She could hide, sure. She had an alchemical floating island with optical camouflage, and allies and lines she’d tended like vines. She could hide anywhere. Time was thick as fog; uprisings across the map would hold the line like scaffolds.

But hide for ten, twenty years? A whole normal life?

Yekase could live for a very long time. She could plan for a century or two, chatting breezily with Longlifer juniors a hundred years her junior, turning these sharp days into a distant campfire tale.

She feared she’d rot without noticing, become a damp log that never catches flame again—too much time breeds too much weighing and wanting. Fang Tang’s act shoved her out of that soft moss.

Now, she’d set her heart.

“…”

From the side, Sandryon saw Yekase’s face sink into shadow like a moon behind clouds, and knew she was thinking about throwing her head on the block again. She pressed her staff, nudged their flight path to cut Yekase off from her vehicle, pushing her a little into the open air.

“You know—”

Then Sandryon thought again. Yekase’s Flash Energy was a super‑system Infinite Power to match Mind Energy, a heart‑driven blaze. Compared to their first meeting, she’d grown far more emotional, likely under its tide.

But what’s wrong with that? Maybe, like Xiaoyuan back then, she needed to follow her heart down this road to break the last thin wall.

Idealist warriors are trouble, that’s all.

“What’s up?” Yekase asked, mind half elsewhere like smoke.

Sandryon smiled and shifted the stream. “You were curious about that one before. Want me to tell you about her?”

That one? Oh, the 2,400‑year‑old.

Yekase was indeed curious. Sandryon’s tone held a rare respect; anyone who could earn deference from this old, short, flat‑chested gremlin had to be a legend.

But it was odd. No “Jixia” ever showed up by name in the histories—

“Two thousand four hundred years ago, on the North China Plain, there stood a social academy that gathered scholars from under heaven.”

“Which era? Let me think—”

400 BCE. Hey, even Jesus would call her grandma.

“…Spring and Autumn, into Warring States? That academy?”

“Some say she truly founded it. Some say she was an orphan left at the gate. Some say she was the academy’s spirit given shape. Her origin and true name are lost to time—after all, there’s nothing older walking Huaxia.”

“At least the first two make her human, right? What kind of Infinite Power is hers?”

“Colorful.”

“Colorful?”

…Uh?

“The Hundred Schools.”

“That’s what ‘Hundred Schools’ means?!”

Don’t. Don’t shatter my rose‑tinted dream of the Warring States academic scene! Yekase clutched her head and shivered.

“After Qin unified, she devoted herself to gathering scattered folk writings, protecting them from the fire. That became her obsession. Later, long or short, right or wrong, she collected all things written. It grew into a vaster and vaster library, called the Alexandria Archive. Your paper might be in there.”

“Oh! I’d be honored.” Yekase said it from the heart. “But why the Western name?”

“Because the original site stood by the Wei River, on Mount Alexandria.”

“…”

Not bad. You’ve learned Xiaoyuan’s cold‑joke essence.

“Can I meet her someday? Or at least see her archive?”

“We don’t know where she is.”

“Uh.”

“She lives in every instant of the timeline, in each 10^(-43) seconds of breath. There’s no trace of her in past or future. So those who read the past can only find her footprints, and those who pierce the future can’t sight her path. Right now, she’s probably teaching history in some mountain village. Every decade or so, she moves on. You can’t track her.”

“Can the archive move too?”

“She has too many books. The shelves cover too much ground. Even folded by millennia into three layers, it’s about five Twin Towers Cities in size—and conserving the books is a nightmare. So she hand‑built a time‑frozen subspace, shoved the library inside, and travels with a dimensional curtain.”

“…Uh, there’s a Lin Xiaomo at the Twin Towers Theater. Do you know her?” Yekase asked.

“Which one is that?”

“She’s got a move, [Stage Apparatus]. It feels like the dimensional curtain. But when I use Infinite Force Perception on her, she reads as a normal human.”

Sandryon thought for a spell, then said, “Mm. An ordinary who wandered into the library by chance. That one is kind and broad‑minded. If she meets someone studious, she likes to arrange a little adventure. Learning a trick from her place is normal.”

What about me? Yekase thought. I’m pretty studious too. Guess I just had bad luck. That’s a living immortal for you—now you see her, now you don’t.

“Some seek her their whole lives and never meet. Some live at her side and never know her face.”

“What about us?”

“Our odds are better. Live a hundred years, and you’ll run into her once.”

So there’s a pity rate?

Sandryon reached across the air and ruffled Yekase’s hair. “Didn’t you stumble into me and Fae in the crowd? Believe in miracles.”

“—Fair. Wavefunctions do spread.”

Yekase shook off Sandryon’s hand.

“Too much info today. I’m heading back to the Dragon Keep for a soft bed. Call me when there’s a new mission.”

“Got it.”