On day five inside the Arctic Circle, our stash of yak meat vanished like warmth snuffed by polar night.

Only the compressed rations from Sidonia Dragon Fortress remained, a heap of brick-dry bites that tasted like dust; Harrison kept swearing his old teeth would crack.

Annoyed or not, he was still our fellow traveler, the pair of hands for maps and chores; so Yekase and Lu Yao shouldered cold steel and slipped out to hunt.

He caught fragments, got it wrong, and flared like a torch in frost. “Rob the locals? You think anyone forgives that?”

Yekase and Lu Yao turned, their eyes sharp as ice blades cutting wind.

“W-What?”

“Funny you’ve got backbone now. Who was just whining about chipped teeth?” Yekase asked, voice dry as snowflakes.

Irritation pricked Lu Yao like sleet under a collar—why did that sound like admitting to robbery? Fine. She did talk like that.

Yekase kept the villain act. “You’re coming too. A-Ping, issue him an L85A1.”

“For real?”

“You actually want that gun? You a glutton for pain?”

“I’ve got blueprints and ray reserves. I can fab it on-site, like frost forming under a lamp.”

“Works. Works.”

A silver flash cut the cold light; Lu Yao reached into the armory and pulled out a factory-fresh rifle, then tossed it to Harrison like a fish flicked from ice.

This pacifist merc, good for herb gathering and guiding, knew nothing about guns; he had no clue what made this one special, or why Yekase named it.

Maybe it was so forgiving, so friendly, that even an untrained soul like him could hit something? Maybe Yekase would drag him into robbery by any means?

Harrison Jones, forty-four, scraped through this messed-up world like driftwood in black surf—was he finally fated to stain his hands with human blood?

Panic iced his chest; he had to prepare to kill; but how do you rehearse crossing that frozen line?

“We’re going to bring down two yaks,” Lu Yao explained at last, warmth like a small stove under a blanket.

“…Oh.”

Lu Yao cradled an SSG08—besides her beloved Glock, she favored this light sniper; the cold-forged muzzle with three side ports threw back sunlight like shards of ice.

Yekase kept it simpler; Dawn of Eden, that gunblade strung between classic and sci‑fi, fitted the day like a black ribbon on white snow.

We kitted up, sent the Iron Beast Bird drone floating low and silent, found a resting herd not far off, then went in on foot, leaving Dorothy to watch the car like a hearth keeper.

Five minutes later, Yekase slunk back with tail tucked, like a cat rained on by sleet.

“What happened, Teacher? Are you hurt?”

“No.”

Yekase came back empty-handed, gunblade folded away; she climbed in, flipped open her laptop like a tin lid in wind.

“Just remembered I didn’t submit last month’s summary. I’ll write it now,” she said, voice flat as a frozen lake.

Where did this office drone fall from, Dorothy thought, jaw dropping like a loose mitten.

Dorothy leaned in. In seconds, Yekase’s fingers poured out lines like winter rain: “spark interest,” “edutainment,” “theory and practice intertwined”—buzzwords piling like snow on a low wall.

“Next I’ll use a nifty tool—No. N‑699, codename ‘Youth Study.’ It’s an AI that deep-learns online summaries and expands and polishes mine,” she said, eyes bright as glass.

“???”

You… you’re using AI for that, Dorothy thought, baffled as fog on a visor.

Yekase loved using high tech on brainworm chores; it was her tech, her rules, and it did make daily life smoother, like oil on hinges in frost.

An AI with an unnecessary cartoon mascot bobbed on the screen, pretending to read; it waved, and paragraphs sprouted, then reshaped, like snowdrifts shifting under wind.

The nonsense Yekase had cobbled from hot air in ten minutes turned in the mascot’s hands, and flipped like a fish in a net—garbage into garbage that looked legit.

“Lately I had another idea. If it studies online illustrations and novels, after training, it might crank out fakes that pass. Then I’ll rename it ‘Terminus Novel Site.’”

“The illustrations?”

“Probably got boycotted,” she said, mouth curved with regret, like a leaf caught on ice and tugged.

Dorothy had watched her long enough to know—she had already tried it, like a secret lantern lit behind a screen.

“No helping it. AI lacks that spark. I ask it for ‘puppetization’ and ‘statuefication,’ and it draws puppets and statues, period,” Yekase sighed, breath misting like steam.

“Uh, isn’t that… correct?”

“Far from it! ‘Puppetization’ is the slow storm where a normal person turns inorganic, the inner monologue trapped in a hard shell, the half‑shouted plea breaking off into an ellipsis. Get it? Don’t get it?”

“Who’s supposed to get that!” Dorothy yelped, heart skittering like a hare.

She felt this “teacher” kept circling heavy tastes, but she had no proof, only a chill like a cloud over sun.

Thinking of how Yekase slipped perfectly into the maid‑doll role last time, Dorothy suddenly understood something, like a lantern lighting a narrow stair.

“Teacher, once we get the Golden Apple, you’ll stay in Europe a few more years, right?” Dorothy asked, eyes glinting like dew on steel.

“Mhm. Why?”

“Before we return to Huaxia, could you become Lymriel completely, and fulfill a maid‑doll’s duties? I’ll slip you among ordinary dolls, let unsuspecting servants order you around… you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Yekase turned her head, dodging like a swallow. “I still have a class to lead—”

“What a pity,” Dorothy said, smile sliding back in place, pressure dissolving like fog under sun.

“Anyway, it’s uncertain whether there’ll even be a court or servants by then. So, could I ask you, as Lymriel, to be my personal maid‑doll, and witness—take part in—France’s modernization… to witness my country’s dawn?”

“Where’d you learn pretty lines like that?” Yekase raised a brow, half amused, like a cat watching a ribbon.

Dorothy lifted one jade finger and pointed at Yekase, a quiet arrow in air.

“…All right.”

Yekase had nothing left to say; she just reached out and ruffled the girl’s gold hair, raising cowlicks like little antennae. After a beat, she soothed in a voice like warm tea:

“I’ll watch it with you—as your teacher.”

“Hmph.”

Dorothy puffed, small storm under a bonnet. A teenager’s heart was a labyrinth like frost patterns on glass.

Yekase had spent a year and a half as a girl, even tried the loli and the onee‑san types, and learned nothing, like water slipping off oiled stone.

She glanced at the young one sprawled across the off‑road seat, a fifteen‑year‑old who skipped into college, a STEM prodigy, mind like a hawk over snow.

A little more calculation than Ling Yi, less certainty; more innocence than Jiang Bailu, less wicked glee; and a dash of ideals with nowhere to land, like kites over tundra.

Yekase didn’t know if her arrival gave Dorothy a real road, or deepened her daydream into a blizzard; either way, Dorothy and her sister Ain stood at a crossroads.

They had become the two eyes of ancient France, peering out at the world, bright as beacons over ice seas.

Dorothy had no idea what Yekase was thinking; she just met her gaze, and that look needled Yekase like a thorn under skin.

So she knew—no matter how much she favored this good student, some hard words had to be spoken, like salt on a wound.

“Dorothy, revolutions are launched by intellectuals, because they have goals and ideals; they’ll do radical things to reform, and rally people into a storm without forecast.”

“But when the storm passes, that noble spirit gets eaten by bureaucratic rot; fighters turn into stakeholders, another rebranded Shadow Curtain International. On this Möbius loop, humanity may step forward, or spill blood for nothing.”

“I’m your teacher. I’m bound to warn you—hero tales end, but reality keeps walking. Are you ready for the gray chapters unwritten after the climax? Ready to make peace with your first ideals, if you must?”

She kept her tone light as drifting snow, but her words landed like stones.

She didn’t say outright what becomes of those “intellectuals”—they learn to hate politics, hate the world, turn cynical as winter crows.

In the end, they become a handful of cold ash—right, Xiaoyuan?

“T-That kind of thing…”

After the barrage, Dorothy’s face went pale, like moonlight on bone.

Yekase wouldn’t say this to Ling Yi—she would shrug, “Let the people decide.” She wouldn’t say it to Jiang Bailu—she’d murmur, “I don’t care.”

And she wouldn’t say it to Lu Yao; it would be Lu Yao asking her; their minds differed but their resolve was iron, forged as comrades.

Dorothy stayed silent a long time, then bowed her head like a willow in wind. “Please give me time to think. I don’t want to answer in haste.”

“Please do.”

Yekase killed her phone screen, tossed it onto the dashboard, and stretched, spine cracking like frost.

“Mmm↗↘… I just philosophized with Lu Yao last night, now with you today. In empty places like this, being alone invites idle talk of ideals, like group chats begin forensic debates when the NSFW pics don’t show.”

“I don’t think it’s idle,” Dorothy blurted, earnest as clear ice. “It’s something I truly need to consider—”

“Okay, cut. Freeze the topic till you hand in your paper.”

“…Mhm.”

Far out on the white, two figures crested the snowy horizon like dark commas; Lu Yao and Harrison waved, arms slicing wind.

Yekase lazily gripped the roof handle, slid her weight into the driver’s seat, and fired up the off‑road with a growl like a waking beast.

“Wait, Teacher—you can drive?”

“Hm? Nope.”

“‘Hm?’ what does that mean?! Why are you—hey, hey, hey! Don’t hit the gas! I’m not ready to die!”

“It’s fine. I drove a tractor as a kid, a mecha grown up; a mere car won’t stump me,” Yekase said, confidence humming like a warm wire.

“That’s different! That’s really different!”

“The tundra’s wide open. Drive however. Let’s go! Luciferin—launch!”

“Aaaaah! Adults like you—I’ll correct you!!”