Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu even hauled Lu Yao over, like two willow ropes towing a reluctant boat.

Hard to picture how they did it; yet the river flowed that way, so Yekase had to accept.

“They promised me if I came this once, they wouldn’t buzz me like summer cicadas after,” Lu Yao explained to Yekase.

You really bought their ghost talk? Like swallowing fog?

“This is Dorothy? I’ve heard at school how you skipped grades—hi, hi! Huh, why’s your hair cotton-candy pink?”

Seeing Dorothy go a little stiff like a shy fawn, Ling Yi worried she’d be left outside their four-person ring and it’d be awkward. She rushed over and shook her hands, both hands clamped and rattled like a maraca.

Dorothy shot Yekase a SOS look like a paper kite. Yekase ghosted her, so she gritted her teeth and kept her sunny school persona like a paper sun: “Hi! You’re the Huaxia exchange student, right? I’d love to be friends—”

Watching the two chat like sparrows (?), Jiang Bailu slid in beside Yekase and edged Dorothy out like a rising tide.

“Doctor, what do you feel like doing? Want to browse the market? I heard they’ve got Kengan International League merch this year.”

“How’d you know that so fast, like sniffing rain?”

“Checked on the way, like reading clouds on a train window.”

The five of them fanned into three loose clumps, then melted into the tide of people like ink into water.

Jiang Bailu sighed, a wind through reeds: “Shame A-Lu fell out with the org. Her derivative IP got locked. Now you can’t even find her merch…”

Yekase tipped her chin toward Lu Yao drifting at the edge like a stray cloud, and waggled her brows at Jiang Bailu.

“I’m not the type to freak out just hearing ‘big sis,’” Lu Yao said, her mouth tilted like a blade of grass.

“So when’s the Moon duel?”

“None of your business,” she snapped, like slamming a door in a storm.

“I need the timing so I can scoop up your wreck and pour you full of Flash Energy, like priming thunder.”

Why does that sound like corruption infusion? Kind of funny, like black ink in milk.

For some reason, whenever Yekase talked to Lu Yao, a teasing itch rose like cat claws. Maybe it’s that same mean urge that wants Yuanxiang to regret forever, like a thorn left in.

She’d even wanted to call her kid sister along, like adding another lantern to the night.

But Arcane Week runs long and flips day and night like a sandglass. Even the Fog Aberration solved only days ago couldn’t quench the tourists’ fire; every Belgian town that can host events is stuffed like a humming hive, maybe outnumbering locals. Yet you walk half a street and see zero police, a stage with no guards, and safety feels flimsy as paper.

In a festival with the instability dialed to max, if nothing happens, those Sinister Organizations and secret societies are slacking, like archers asleep at the wall. Especially calling out Shadow Realm War—no way they’re off on holiday like ordinary folks, right?

…Uh. Could they really be off, shutters down?

Doubt pooled in Yekase’s chest like cold tea.

After all, it’s Shadow Realm War, a madhouse that even scoops up edgelords in black with terminal chuunibyou, like a net trawling for peacocks. That riddle-spewing leader who repeats himself looks wrong too, a cracked mirror that reflects twice.

A profit-seeking Sinister Organization is predictable, like a chess line. A reckless pilot? Imagine him hysterical, it’s still a track you can map, like a storm front. But one lunatic—or a flock of them—moving together flies beyond strategy into the unknown, like fog over a cliff.

If it’s truly a clown car of crazies, how did it stir Europe’s pot for over fifty years without the Church wiping it out? Impossible; Christianity’s roots run deep, vines in every corner of life, not some “Light God Church” tool-villain that only pops up when plot needs it.

Maybe it’s the Church’s collaborator or a subordinate—cliché as stale bread, and pointless; if the Church wants dirty hands, it can do it straight, like a cleaver on a board.

So only one possibility remains, a single star after cloudbreak.

Inside Shadow Realm War, at least one solid decision-maker leashes these mad dogs.

Then let’s watch with clear eyes, like waiting for dawn.

“Doctor, look over there—a bar glowing warm as amber.”

Jiang Bailu’s voice pulled Yekase from her thoughts like a bell over water. She glanced up; it was that fated little bar they’d hit twice before, a familiar lantern in the dusk.

She figured she couldn’t get drunk anyway; a sip wouldn’t hurt. With that thought like a thin umbrella, she walked in.

A familiar face rose like a fish to the surface.

Behind the bar, in a white shirt and a fresh crop, a woman trying hard to look proper—

“Shen Shanshan!?”

“Well, well, isn’t our great inventor?” Shen Shanshan tossed the line with a teasing lilt, but her face flashed far-from-home joy. She leaned in like a big dog to the seated Yekase. “What’ll it be? This one’s on me.”

Yekase eyed her, suspicion like frost. “What are you doing in Europe? Not the combat division’s No. 2 anymore?”

“Hey, Daxiong, your intel’s rusty as old nails.” Shen Shanshan wagged a finger. “Two months ago the Huaxia Branch chief suddenly dropped dead at home of ‘heart failure.’ His daughter, Gu Xiangshi, mounted the saddle at once. First move: disband everything below Class C on the spot.”

“Uh?”

She’d known Gu Xiangshi would do that, but the speed was lightning, a white line across the sky.

“‘Heart failure’? Even ghosts shrug, like owls blinking.”

“So Unrecognized Consortium X died with a whimper after a short roar. Everything we built—poof, all gone, like ash in wind…”

“There wasn’t much roar to begin with,” Yekase said, like a wet spark.

“Could you at least pretend to sigh?” Shen Shanshan huffed, a theater sob.

“No. With the boss’s temperament, the org lasting this long was a miracle of stubborn life,” Jiang Bailu said, settling onto a bar stool like a leaf on water.

Yekase neither agreed nor denied. “Give me a Piña Colada—just the ingredients. I want to mix it myself.”

“Oh, mood’s good today.” Shen Shanshan obliged, like tossing shells to a beach: a small cup of white rum, a small cup of coconut milk, a small cup of golden pineapple juice, then she thumped a metal shaker in front of Yekase like a drum.

Yekase poured the three liquids in, then shook the tin by feel, like rattling a test tube in a lab storm.

When it felt right, she cracked the lid and poured. Milky liquor, fringed with a string of bubbles like sea foam—it looked the part.

“And this.” Shen Shanshan speared half a pineapple slice and dropped it in. Two drops splashed like sudden rain.

Yekase lifted her self-made drink with ceremonial care, took a sip… then set it down slow, like lowering a flag.

Three breaths later, she half-sighed, half-gave up. “It doesn’t taste the same.”

“Technique changes the tide.”

“Mm. An alien once told me mixing drinks should be just like prepping solutions. Practice is truth; turns out they’re oceans apart.”

“Keep practicing. Last time at Emerald Pool I followed the manual and made a Screwdriver. I got interested after, and during the layoff I self-studied at home, like learning scales. Now I’ve washed my hands of the old trade, and this is my main gig.”

Shen Shanshan flashed the square metal badge on her chest, pride bright as noon:

“BTC Certified, Level-2 Bartender”

“Shen Shanshan”

You never know what your butch bartender used to do, like a knife hidden in velvet…

“Then why are you here?”

“It’s Arcane Week. This place pays well for temps. I came to earn a slice. Plus you being here—I was going to find you when I had time; this is perfect.”

“What about the others in the org?”

“All dispersed. The boss took Carol to join the far-north dragon flock, that development company—pretty famous. Heard their boss is dragonkind. One can turn black dragon, one bone dragon. Should be fine.” Her voice rolled like tundra wind.

Aurora’s clan, huh. Then no worries.

Right—why am I fretting over that madwoman? Yekase shook her head and blew the sentiment off like dust.

The era of Sinister Organizations everywhere ended like a joke fading at dusk.

In a way where Yekase seemed to help and not help, like a hand on and off the rudder.

From here, only one giant conglomerate remains—the final boss at the gate. Clear it, and troubles won’t vanish, but standing still never heals anything; rivers only clean when they run.

Shen Shanshan went to serve other patrons, her tray a silver crescent.

Yekase eyed her not-so-good failure of a Piña Colada, stuck between advance and retreat like a deer on ice. After a heartbeat of thought, she stuffed it into Jiang Bailu’s hand.

“Bad, so you give it to me?”

Jiang Bailu protested loud as a crow, then downed it in one swallow like a wave.

“Hope your bones are as hard as your mouth.”

“Tonight I’ll show you how hard my fingerwork is,” she purred, like steel strings singing.

Dorothy and Ling Yi skipped mixed cocktails. Each ordered a beginner’s fruit wine, sweet as autumn pears.

Lu Yao… Lu Yao ordered a dark stout?!

Was she swapped at the door, like a changeling?

No sooner thought than done—she lifted the boot-shaped glass and drank, like a soldier at a drumbeat.

Bad. If she downs that high ABV stout here, Lu Yao’s reason will burn to ash, like paper in a brazier. Don’t go wild, Lu Yao! If you make a scene, what about Peace Walker? And your Moon duel with your sister? The armory still has spare rounds; survive this one glass and it’s your win!

But even that last reserve had slipped away, like sand through fingers.

Yekase no longer knew why Lu Yao ordered the stout. Maybe the “since we’re here” itch, a moth to flame.

Or maybe she sensed the time left for that pair of sisters was thinning, a candle guttering. To stand closer and closer to that person, she threw herself into mech refits; the tell-no-one anxiety and pressure had reached the verge, like a river at flood.

Anyway, the dark drink went down—a settled fact, ink dried on paper.

Yekase didn’t know Lu Yao’s tolerance. But she knew one thing: she’s the kind who, once the shell cracks, cries hardest, a storm breaking its banks.

Proof sits in the shooting range basement incident, and the kitchen back home, memories like soot prints.

So tolerance means nothing here. A person who wants to be drunk is only hunting a pretext, like rain seeking a gutter.

…Trouble. A rare holiday turns heavy, clouds pressing low.

Yekase sighed, a leaf falling, and patted Jiang Bailu’s shoulder as she eavesdropped on other patrons. She signaled her to take Dorothy and Ling Yi elsewhere, or just go out and play.

Jiang Bailu sighed bigger, a curtain swaying, but stood to comply. Leading the two puzzled girls out, she muttered in Yekase’s ear, teeth clenched like flint:

“Go play den mother. In the end, you’re the one who’ll get chewed through!”