Ling Yi took Luo Jie to the newly built super amusement park in Twin Towers City—DEATHny Park, a neon carnival rising like a mirage after rain.

After Gu Xiangshi dissolved all sub-city outfits, she seized piles of weapons, melted them down, and forged them into rides, like swords turned to wind-chimes.

Similar mega parks sprang up across the nation, tickets priced low like bread for the morning crowd, a friendly banner flapping in the civic breeze.

Twin Towers City, once a sin-soaked sprawl in the Yangtze Delta, was a thorn fat with martial swagger, so the guns seized here stacked like reefs.

The park grew bigger here too, a steel forest humming like cicadas at noon, with laughter running through it like river water.

It was a weekday, yet a long queue coiled at the gate like a patient python basking in sun.

“What do you want to try?” Ling Yi asked, her voice light as wind over reeds.

“I don’t know…” Luo Jie shook her head, eyes foggy as dew. “Mom never took me to an amusement park.”

“W-what…” The word snagged like thread on a nail.

Yeah. With Dr. Yekase’s shut-in, all-night lab habits, a hermit in a lighthouse, the girl staying sane was a small miracle.

Time to warm her with friendship, a lantern in winter.

“It’s fine. We’ll ride the Ferris wheel first. From the top, point at what you like, and we’ll go—”

Her voice hitched, like a needle catching on vinyl.

“Did something happen?” Luo Jie tilted her chin up, eyes wide as moons.

“No, no. I’m thinking about rides,” Ling Yi said, smile smooth as still water.

But right now, Ling Yi was thinking about something else, a thorn under silk.

When she’d looked up mid-sentence, a combatant near the front was staring at them, eyes like hooks in the crowd.

Hero’s instinct pricked like static. He’d recognized her, and plots were already sprouting like weeds between flagstones.

She couldn’t transform in a sea of phones and faces, a stage too bright for masks. But for Luo Jie’s perfect day, a kite uncut—

Ling Yi decided to slip away and deal with the enemy alone, like a shadow swallowing a candle.

Luo Jie matched her smile, a petal mirroring a petal. “Then… I want to try the roller coaster.”

But right now, Luo Jie was thinking about something else, a flint hidden in cotton.

She’d also spotted the combatant in the floral shirt. In her era, alien invasions hadn’t united humans; she’d crushed grunts like bugs on a windowsill.

One glance told her his heart was crooked, a reed bending with a dirty wind.

But Ling Yi had said, “It’s fine.”

Had she missed it? Makes sense. At this point, she was still a young student, a spring blade not yet tempered.

Not yet the Huaxia pillar who’d stand alongside Mechbreaker, a pine tree in winter gale.

She couldn’t transform in the public square either, a flame that would draw moths. But for Auntie Ling Yi’s perfect day, a ribbon unknotted—

Luo Jie decided to slip away and deal with the enemy alone, a cat padding through grass.

Just then, the combatant who had marked them bent down, a reed bowing, fingers fussing at the ground like crabs under stones.

But right now, the combatant was thinking about something else, a script flipped like a coin.

That’s Flashblade Red, right? Nine-tenths match with the ID photo upstairs, hair dyed like autumn leaves, still obvious as a lighthouse.

Why would Flashblade Red show up here, a hawk circling a picnic?

Miss Gu finally had time to relax, a swan loosening her wings. She went incognito to the region’s biggest park and told us bodyguards not to tail her.

We still slipped into plain clothes and ringed her like stones around a fire. And of course we bump into a radical faction hero, a spark near straw!

Can’t fire guns in a crowd, a storm in a porcelain shop. But for Miss Gu’s perfect day, a lake without ripples—

The combatant decided to handle the enemy alone, a knife kept under the napkin.

He used that crouch to pry up a loose paver and nest a packet of directional explosives underneath, like a wasp hiding a sting.

The bomb was pressure-triggered and specially tuned, counting presses down and spring-backs like beads on a cord, aimed at a chosen wave.

Flashblade Red and her friend stood side by side, twelve people between them and him, a dozen fence posts in a row.

He set the counter to thirteen. Let twelve clueless feet pass. On the two girls’ step, lightning under stone—boom.

The line’s path, pace, and stride were fixed like tracks on a clock; they had no way to hop over or skirt it.

With his perfect ambush planted, he hummed a tune and drifted forward, a leaf in a current.

Ling Yi and Luo Jie watched in silence, two swallows on a wire, each with her own plan tucked under wing.

Several people stepped on the tile with no issue. Delayed trigger then… Huh, civic-minded for a thug, like sweeping the doorstep before arson.

I’ll gather Mind Energy under my heel later and crush the trigger like a beetle, Ling Yi thought, calm as moonlight.

I’ll seep a little Flash Energy under the brick and ruin the sensor like rain in a lock, Luo Jie thought, steady as a metronome.

They traded a casual glance, two mirrors catching the same sun.

The number of people ahead ticked down like a falling sandglass,

three more,

two,

one—

[Please keep a safe distance while waiting to enter. Leave at least one paving tile between pairs. Beware of pickpockets—]

The PA crackled above like thunder on tin, a voice washing the crowd apart like a tide.

People fanned backward, a flock startled. The twelfth person who’d stepped off the bomb was about to step back on the same spot.

In a split-second flicker, both Ling Yi and Luo Jie moved, two arrows loosed from the same bow.

Ling Yi hit the left lower corner, a hawk’s talon on bark.

Luo Jie hit the right lower corner, a cat’s paw on glass.

The 20 cm by 40 cm tile flipped skyward under their force, a gull thrown into the wind, and burst several stories up.

It bloomed into powder midair, a gray dandelion scattering on the breeze.

“Didn’t expect a prank before we even got in,” Ling Yi said, smile tight as a drumhead.

“Same. It scared me too,” Luo Jie echoed, voice thin as frost.

They shared a few awkward laughs and kept queuing, two reeds swaying back into rhythm.

The bomb-planter had already scanned in and vanished like a minnow; after a few more minutes, it was finally their turn.

“Enjoy your visit—” The staffer’s voice chimed like a bell on a gate.

Inside the gate lay a circular garden, a ring of blooms like a wreath. In the center, a fountain thrust up, crowned with a bouquet of weapons.

Swords, axes, even rifles speared the top like iron lilies, while a slanted monument faced the path like a ship’s prow.

[Forge swords into plowshares]

[In memory of Miss Gu Xiangshi and the Official Heroes for their service to peace]

“Gu Xiangshi!” Luo Jie blurted, voice leaping like a fish.

“You know her?”

“She allied with us during the war, gave us gear and training grounds, like winter rations in a siege. But every time Mom finished a deal, she came back cursing.”

“I see…” Ling Yi’s reply drifted like smoke.

So Gu Xiangshi’s moves in a parallel world were fine to mention, but not who the war was against. A lock with one hidden tooth.

Ling Yi couldn’t square that circle, so she asked straight, a blade entering the sheath. “How do you decide what you can say and what you can’t?”

“I can’t say anything that directly changes the future. That’s the only hard rule,” Luo Jie said, words falling like pebbles in a clear pond.

Directly changes the future…

Right. If she named the foe, Dr. Yekase would start preparations tonight, thunder under a quiet roof—that’d change the river’s course.

But talking about Gu Xiangshi’s actions? They wouldn’t really go petition her; even if they tried, it’d sound like fairy tales on a bus. Safe.

Ling Yi bought two ice cream cones from a street cart, a little cloud on a wafer. She handed one to Luo Jie.

She licked the peanut crumble, then slapped her thigh like a thunderclap. “Hey—I’ve got it!”

Luo Jie jolted, cone wobbling like a tower in wind.

“If you can’t change the future directly, you can still tell me the state of things, right?”

“…?”

“Like the reasons behind the war, or the Doctor’s status. Static facts—weather maps, not orders.”

Words tumbled out of Ling Yi in a bright rush, a spring torrent; she gripped Luo Jie’s shoulders, excitement sparking like flint.

“C-can I? Is that allowed?” Luo Jie’s brows fluttered like moth wings.

“Of course! Look, our Doctor’s already different from yours, a forked river. Even if you tell me everything, she’ll treat it like a story.”

…That actually makes sense.

Luo Jie found the logic seamless as silk and felt respect rise like a dawn mist.

“Then I’ll say it… okay?”

“Say it! No—let’s line up for the Ferris wheel first. Tell me when it’s just us in the car.”

Ling Yi pressed a finger to her lips, a reed whistling hush. Luo Jie nodded and cupped her mouth, a pearl in shell.

They boarded the Ferris wheel with cones in hand, two comets in a glass sphere.

According to the sign at the gate, its top reached sixty meters, a slow moon over the park. From there you could drink the whole scene like tea.

As the gondola swayed upward, a cradle on a breeze, Ling Yi remembered a smaller park long ago, a smaller wheel with Ling Ya.

Back then, even the peak felt this tall, mountains to little legs, and everything glittered like soda bubbles.

When the gondola reached three-quarters height, Luo Jie began, voice low as candlelight.

“In my future, civilizations across the universe overused Infinite Power and hyperspace, like miners digging under their own foundation.”

“In the end, the universe began to shrink. Gravity anomalies came like summer storms, random wormholes tore megastructures like wet paper.”

“Space temperature crept upward, a fever under the skin. Scientists called it the Great Collapse, the Big Bang in reverse, a tide running backward.”

…Starting with the apocalypse? The horizon went black like a curtain.

“That sounds like game over already!”

“But Mom and other Infinite Power scholars found a way. They used every asteroid in the Milky Way, ground to sand, to build a spherical shell.”

“A shell ten light-years thick, an iron sky. Inside, the speed of light would drop to one-tenth, like honey instead of rain.”

“That’s how they fought a collapse moving at light speed, a fist catching lightning with a glove.”

“Light… can be slowed?” Ling Yi’s doubt flickered like a candle guttering.

“It can be sped up too. Back in the Golden Age, ships used compressed space and a raised light-speed ceiling to cross gulfs, arrows between stars.”

“Anyway, our self-preservation drew extragalactic civilizations, wolves smelling a cookfire. They invaded in force.”

“Mom went down with their strongest, two meteors colliding and shattering, the sky dark for weeks.”

Ling Yi fell quiet, wind caught in a net. A question gathered like rain.

How many centuries from now was all this? How many winters would pass before that sunset?

“Ships from the Golden Age,” yet right now humanity hadn’t even stepped past the Earth–Moon yard, a child at the gate.

So why did Luo Jie return to here, to this page in the book, this seedbed?

A nail missed in the twenty-first century, a horseshoe lost; a horse stumbling; a rider fallen; a message undelivered; a battle lost; a kingdom gone.

A tiny burr in a sock, aching into the bones of a far future dusk—was that the thread that strangled Dr. Yekase?

“Then what exactly—” The question trembled like a string.

Ling Yi remembered that old story, the dominoes of fate lined like rice stalks in wind, one tilt, a field gone flat.

She shook her head in disbelief, and her gaze slipped through the glass, a fish through reeds—

She saw Gu Xiangshi in the gondola opposite, a mirror across the wheel, moon to moon.

Gu Xiangshi saw her too, eyes meeting like flint.

Almost at the same time, both of them stood with a snap, two blades flashing out of their sheaths.