Shangjing City, six a.m.

Late April pulled dawn like pale silk across the eaves. In an alley of the old quarter, an old chef lifted the rolling shutter like a lid on a steaming pot, then planted his sign like a flag at the door.

“Master, one bowl of pork wontons, no scallions.” The voice rang bright as a bell. A bench scraped behind him with a splashy clatter, like a paddled oar in a narrow canal.

“Got it—” His answer rose like kettle steam. He set a pot on the burner, flame licking up like a fox’s tail, then glanced up.

The girl by the table wore her hair like a waterfall, with a rebellious red flick in her bangs like a spark in ink. Her skin was milk-white, almost glass; her features still soft, yet carved clean as jade, beauty budding like spring. The tracksuit didn’t drown her youth; it framed it, like a ribbon on a kite that wanted sky.

She hung a long, black nylon bag on the wall like a sheathed shadow. Left hand propped her cheek like a petal on water; right hand drummed the tabletop like rain tapping tiles. She flashed him a sweet smile, sugar on warm dough.

Age dulled his blood but sharpened his eye; he thought she looked familiar, pleasing as a lucky red envelope. He tipped a few extra wontons in the bowl, like tossing coins into a well.

Morning stirred. Neighbors drifted in like swallows, and the greasy, tight little shop swelled to bursting, a pot at a rolling boil.

A man with a shirt of inked peonies shouldered in. He ordered a bowl of wontons and two baskets of soup dumplings, then ate like a gale stripping leaves, and turned to go like a stray dog slipping a leash.

“Young man, you haven’t paid,” the old chef called, voice thin as steam across a courtyard.

“Huh? I gotta pay to eat your scraps?” His voice snapped like a bamboo stick. “Go ask my organization, they’re on the next street!”

The old man clutched his stained apron like a shield. “I…”

“You know why I’m tired to the bone?” he spat, spittle flying like rain. “Those so-called heroes keep stirring trouble! We move to protect you nobodies from those freaks, got it? You should be paying me, you clueless grub!”

His curses crackled like oil in a wok, but the diners didn’t flinch. Their eyes burned like banked coals, and the heat turned toward him.

“Eating free and calling it righteous, huh?”

“Saw you dine-and-dash across the street yesterday. New shop, same stunt today!”

Five or six people rose like a ring of standing stones. They hemmed him in, and their quiet pressure weighed like a mountain.

“You—you dare—”

At the back, the girl who’d cleaned a plus-sized bowl stood, light as a leaf on updraft.

She flashed the paid screen to the old chef like a seal stamped in red. As if the doorway drama were a TV on mute, she shouldered her nylon bag and walked past the knot of bodies—

Then caught the tattooed man by the collar like snagging a carp in shallow water.

“The Sinister Organization’s ruled the world for decades,” she said, lifting her gaze. Their eyes met at arm’s length, a blade crossing a throat.

“And you use it to freeload breakfast?”

“—?!” His pupils shrank like scorched ink. Between neat bangs and clean temples, her eyes were twin wells dark enough to drown him.

“R-red eyes… you’re—”

Yekase didn’t bother to answer. She hauled him into the street like dragging a sack of rice, then hammered him to the ground and painted the cobbles red.

“Shameless or not? Shameless or not?” Her fists fell like hailstones on ripe melons.

“Ugh! Uwaa—y-you won’t—ah!” His strength bled out like a punctured wineskin. For all his bulk, he had no claws; his pleas scattered like sparrows.

“Shameless or not? …Mm? Almost done.” Her breath steamed the morning air. Mercy, like a thin veil, passed across her face. She wanted it quick. She slid a dagger from her tracksuit pocket, a moon-blade from a cloud, and pressed it into his throat.

…

“This knife’s name is Yanwu,” she told the cooling body, voice flat as winter water. “Means I put you combatants to bed—permanently.”

She gave the diners a wave, a lantern swaying on a night boat, then dragged the corpse away like hauling driftwood.

She found a trash heap and tossed it in like tossing out last night’s ash. Then she crouched, the alley smell rising like damp earth, and pulled out her phone.

She opened the map app and searched Huaxia Branch.

Shangjing is Huaxia’s capital, and the Huaxia Branch of Shadow Curtain International nests here. Yekase had lived twenty-eight years and had never set foot in the capital; her first thought landed like a feathered arrow: everything’s expensive, even the old bricks pinch.

Her second thought flicked like a switchblade: even in the capital, the combatants dine and dash, same as gutter rats.

She locked the route on the map like fixing Polaris, then flew toward the Huaxia Branch.

From the sky, the detour felt foolish. The Huaxia Branch base—Huaxia Tower—rose like a gilded spear. Its latticed facade glittered with gold and silver, not LED fakery like that Twin-Tower Alchemy Association. In sunlight it blazed like a shard of noon, the priciest tooth in the skyline’s smile.

Yekase unzipped the nylon bag on her back, a night river parting. Left hand drew the Polaris Staff, right hand drew Dawn of Eden. She crossed them like setting chopsticks, and a no-charge Heavenly Divide snapped awake.

—BOOM!!

A cerulean shield rippled like a lake in wind and drank the sky-splitting shot.

It was a test shot, a flare in daylight. A calling card, loud as thunder. Yekase dropped the stance in one breath. She slung Polaris Staff over her shoulder like a yoke and dragged Dawn of Eden, a cold comet, straight through the Huaxia Branch doors.

One guard rushed. He got cut and fell like a wheat stalk.

A squad rushed. They got cut and carpeted the floor like toppled dominoes.

Yekase flicked the blood from Dawn of Eden in arcs like plum blossoms in snow. She planted a boot on the reception desk, a flag on a ridge. “I’m here. Tell your boss to come arrest me.”

Two early-twenties receptionists, pretty as vases on a shelf, took one look at the blood-draped storm she was and broke into tears. They tumbled together on the floor like frightened quails, shaking and squeaking, “Murder! Murder! Who… who are you?!”

“What kind of front desk are you, can’t even recognize the person your top boss publicly wants?” Her voice was a slap of cold water.

They had no fight in them. Yekase had no taste for killing civilians—working for a Sinister Organization didn’t make you a sacrifice. If they didn’t go crazy and throw themselves on her blade, she’d let them be.

They were useless to ask, so she left them curled like snails and walked to the elevator.

She pressed “up” and leaned on the Polaris Staff like a pilgrim’s pole.

Ten seconds. An elevator dropped to the first floor. As the doors opened like sliding shutters, Yekase snapped two shots inside—pop, pop—and dragged out a plump, slick middle-aged man in a suit, a fish hauled from a glass tank.

“Hi. I’m here to make trouble for the Huaxia Branch. And you are?” Her tone was honey on a dagger.

The man blinked, stunned like a pig under a butcher’s lamp, and began a high squeal. Dawn of Eden kissed his jaw like frost, and silence fell like snow.

“I—I’m the deputy director of Finance!” he stammered, fat trembling like jelly. “You stray brat, how dare—”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she said. “You’re not even the real thing. You’re a deputy.”

“You—you kill me in HQ, it’s provocation!” He rattled like a bamboo windchime. “The leader won’t spare you. He’ll chop you to pieces! You can’t run! Let me go, I’ll beg for you, he might keep you as a concub—”

“What’s your leader’s name again?” Her voice turned idle, a cat flicking its tail.

“Gu Rongsheng! Ring a bell?!”

“Gu Xiangshi’s dad,” Yekase smiled, winter sunlight on ice. “You say if I kill you, he won’t spare me. If he chops me to pieces, do you resurrect on the spot, or what?”

“—?!” His courage crumpled like wet paper.

He wasn’t a combatant. The city had been a nest of hornets lately, so he’d taken leave to hide at home. He’d been humming down the elevator, then a lunatic netted him—inside his own base?

What kind of hell-luck was this?

No—if she came alone, she never meant to leave.

“Relax. I don’t like killing,” Yekase said, voice calm as a cold spring. “Work with me, and you’ll clock in smiling and head home safe.”

He looked at the guards piled by the door, strewn like fallen logs. The stink of blood rolled over like low tide. Don’t like killing? What a joke.

“Your leader here? How many cadres in the base?” Her questions fell like stones in a well.

“H-how would I know… I’m Finance… a deputy…”

“Fair.” She nodded once, a swallow dipping. “I’ll check upstairs myself.”

She shoved him toward the lobby with a push and a kick, and he scuttled off like a crab.

She hadn’t even hit the call button when a woman in heavy makeup slid in from the side like a perfume cloud.

“Hello, Yekase!” The woman’s voice sparkled like a stream under sun. She lifted a phone, cam red as a lantern. “I’m Ruohan from Shark Live. Can I get a quick interview? Did you come to the capital ready to die with no way back? No wonder you’re the month’s viral hero. So brave!”

Yekase glanced at her, eyes cool as a winter pond, and didn’t answer yet.

“Ah! Thanks to ‘Host Has Guts’ for the Rocket!” the woman squealed, clapping like cymbals. “Thank you, big bro! Yes, the host does have guts!”

“You do have guts,” Yekase said, a nod like a stamp.

The elevator chimed like a bell. She stepped in, waved at the lens like waving at a departing boat, and hit the top floor.

Huaxia Branch had more floors than a rice terrace. After three or four floors, alarms wailed outside like wolves. The battle staff of Shadow Curtain International—untouchable most days—finally noticed the intruder.

Yekase punched every floor button like stringing firecrackers.

The doors opened straight onto each floor. She didn’t care what lay beyond. Each time, she lobbed a handful of Flame Burst Spells. Fire bloomed like peonies; doors shut; the car slid up.

Five or six floors later, the building’s guts howled louder, a storm in steel. Shouts and running feet beat time like drums. The base fell into chaos, a kicked anthill.

Around the teens, the doors parted on something new. A woman in a black pencil skirt stood waiting like a spear at the gate. She raised her voice like a banner: “I am Second-Class Cadre, Fitzlad the Frostbound! You’ll go no furth—”

Looked like a mage. Yekase didn’t let her finish. She tossed Polaris Staff upward like a torch into the night, calling it back to its satellite roost. Her freed left hand stabbed the air. “Nightlight Torch!”

Then she strode out and swung the Gunblade at the woman’s head, a comet dropping. The cadre reached for ice and found only bare air; her aura guttered like a blown candle. She kicked off her heels and fled, hands over head, a rabbit tearing through grass.

“Ahhh! I just took office! Spare me! I haven’t killed anyone! I swear!” Her voice cracked like thin ice.

“I have,” Yekase said, and her blade answered like thunder.

“What’s that got to do with me—ahhh!” Steel found flesh. One cut, then another. Each stroke fell like a blacksmith’s hammer, and on the fourth the woman pitched forward and didn’t rise.

Just a second-class cadre. Dress it up and it’s a super-soldier. The capital has a regiment of them, inside and out, like beads on a string.

Yekase walked back to the elevator, boots ticking like metronome beats, and kept climbing.

It felt like a tower-run game. Be a real man and reach the 100th floor—well, she was a woman now, and the rule still stood.

Huaxia Branch had 100 floors. This car only reached 50. She’d have to transfer, like changing rivers midstream.

She thought it through in a breath, then, as the doors opened again, flicked seven or eight more Flame Burst Spells outward, fireflies turning into firestorms.