Dreamwood—Dongfang Chen’s homeland, a name like a hush of leaves at dusk.

True to its name, Dreamwood Star once was a painted grove of a world. Valleys ringed by trees cradled clear, secret streams. Sunlight sifted through tangled leaves and laid warm gold on foraging little beasts.

The sky used to be blue as a lake in spring. The night was a quilt of colors. Set in the mid-ring of the cosmos, you could often see meteors blaze past auroras like rainbow ribbons, and cheers rose like waves from the towns below.

No one knew when the turning came, only that it did.

Chimneys like iron spears bristled around the cities. The crust was gouged and fed into planetary furnaces. Seas turned murky. Skies draped themselves in smog. People packed into tight cities, hid inside domes named “shields,” and breathed through purifiers like fish in bowls.

Dongfang Chen was born into that season of gray.

“Dad, what’s that big patch of green?”

“That’s a forest. It used to cover our world like a mantle.”

“Oh? Then why don’t we see it now?”

“Because it stopped making money.”

In the late wave of immigration, Dreamwood Star stepped onto the factory road. Its mines were rich as veins of silver. Almost every resident earned a fortune like brimming pots. But profit ran alongside decay. The land’s breath thinned to near collapse.

So when Dongfang Chen was small, trees were ghosts on old postcards.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I want to be an architect!”

“I want to be an astronaut!”

“I want to be… Right, Dongfang Chen, what about you? You’re so smart. You’re gonna be a scientist, right?”

“I don’t know.” The boy lifted his face, eyes like a pool catching light. “But I do want to play more things. Dad said when they were kids, they caught ants behind the hill and fished carp in the creek. Not like us now…”

Oil-smudged poles hunched over the alley. A kicked bottle lay spun out like a broken comet. Chalk lines on asphalt marked borders like pale riverbanks. In this deep concrete forest, children’s playgrounds were chalk and scraps.

“Ah, it’s impossible! The back hill’s been bulldozed flat. Carp went extinct ages ago!”

“Yeah, yeah. Dongfang Chen, you always talk about things out of reach. We can’t play like that.”

“But I heard the latest VR headset can do that. Maybe…”

“Really? I’m so getting my parents to buy me one!”

While the crowd bubbled over tech like a pot at boil, Dongfang Chen glanced at the base of the pole. A single dead tuft of grass sat there like a little grave.

Impossible?

The thought fluttered and fell silent in his chest, and he walked off with his friends, carrying a small winter of doubt.

Time piled up like coins. Wealth stacked like bricks. People began to leave Dreamwood.

It had been a springboard world all along. Once money settled, hearts drifted to better skies. Families lifted off with their savings. Factory owners uprooted with retooled companies. They moved to new planets with air bright as washed glass and skies clean as old Dreamwood’s.

Dreamwood Star, after its crust was stripped, slipped into an industrial dusk. Civilization’s clamor passed like a carnival in the rain. It left behind scars on the land and the elderly poor, bones thin as the last reeds by a drained lake.

“We have to find the Eternal Tear!”

Resolve surged first, hot as a torch. Yue Liuyi jerked awake from the dream.

Light stabbed in like blades of noon. She’d fallen asleep watching the sky and drifted off under its pale gaze.

“So sleepy…”

Her hair stood all tousled, a soft thicket after a night wind.

“Huh? My hair’s caught by—ahhh!”

She felt weight on her hair, turned, and saw a silver-haired girl sleeping by her side like moonlight curled on the pillow.

“LittleSnow?! Why are you here?”

“Ah… it’s Xiao Yue. Good morning~”

Dixue blinked like a cat just roused, then waved lazily, sunlight pooling in her smile.

“Morning… Aren’t you in the room next door? How—”

Waking to a beautiful girl beside you is most men’s dream. But she wasn’t a boy. And the chance to sneak away was gone like a bird at dawn.

“Mm… I heard something last night and came. Xiao Yue seemed to be having a nightmare.” Dixue brushed her bangs, eyes regaining a clear luster like dew on leaves. “You asleep there looked so fragile. I lay down next to you.”

Her lips tipped with a gentle grin. She looked at Yue Liuyi as if at a cherished jewel, warm as a hand by a hearth. “What should we do today? Our first day together. It feels wonderful.”

Unease came first, like a tremor under snow. “I want to check some records. It’s a bit of a hassle, so…”

“Okay. We’ll go together. Xiao Yue has elite-level skills. I can take you to the Rangers Lodge support desk for help.”

“Huh?”

“As my partner, I can share lots of intel with you the proper way.”

A sly spark flickered in Yue Liuyi’s eyes as she glanced at the girl sprawled across the bed, a fox’s smile cut in moonlight.

Breakfast was animal crackers and milk, baked by Dixue’s own hands.

Some were whales with little tails like commas. Some were cats and dogs with tiny paws. Some were long-tailed mice like brushstrokes. They weren’t just cute; they were delicious. Bite down and the mouth filled with egg and wheat fragrance, warm as a bakery at dawn.

“What’s wrong? Milk’s not good?”

Yedie Snow tilted her head, hair falling like a silk ribbon, watching Yue Liuyi hesitate.

“It’s not that…”

Yue Liuyi looked up at the dining room clock—9:15. By habit, her mana would be burning fast by now, like a fire pulling air through a flue. Yet now, nothing. She simply sat there, steady, sharing breakfast with Yedie Snow as if the river had frozen.

What’s going on? Fear settled first, a cold coin on the tongue. This had never happened. She used to gauge how long her form would hold by the mana ebb. Now, if it stayed quiet like this, she might snap back to her original self all at once, like ice giving way underfoot.

So even with just milk, she sat on needles, mind skittering like sparrows in wind.

“Don’t worry. Partners don’t carry many obligations. The benefits are great too.”

Dixue, thinking Yue feared the title, answered with a soft care like a shawl set over shivering shoulders.

“Um… what exactly is a partner?”

“In short, it’s a teammate. The Rangers Lodge is known for freedom and flexibility. Tasks are often solo. To make things smooth, each Special Envoy Ranger can choose one partner and grant the same benefits.”

“Really? Such a rare spot, and you’ll give it to me?”

“Of course. Xiao Yue is my most precious companion.”

Yedie Snow watched her eat, eyes calm as a lake at dusk, the look of an older sister passing a bowl of soup.

“Th-thank you, LittleSnow.”

She didn’t know how the Lodge ran in full, but she knew it could help immensely. It was a special response office where elites gathered like hawks on a ridge. Almost every core member had remarkable strength. For common folk, the Lodge sat far off like a mountain name on a map. But without its presence, society wouldn’t hold this steady, like a tent without pegs.

“Still, I don’t know what the Lodge has on it… The Eternal Tear’s a rare treasure. Records might be thin.”

“It’s fine. Even a trickle of information helps.”

“Alright~ The support desk isn’t open yet. Let’s go to Xiao Yue’s room and move your things!”

“Huh?”

“Your things, don’t forget. From today on, you’re living with me~”

Yue Liuyi had never imagined she’d have to hide men’s clothes one day.

For convenience, she’d always kept neutral outfits for transformations. Even then, he had stashed those clothes in the suitcase’s hidden layer and never brought them out.

Now she had to pull those out and shove her usual wear into the hidden layer. If Dixue saw them and thought she was a “creep,” there’d be no good way to explain, like trying to stitch water.

“Xiao Yue, are you done? Can I come in?”

“Ah—yeah, yeah!”

She stuffed every trace of personal life into the suitcase’s hidden seam, then opened the door to Yedie Snow.

“Wow… so many magic books!”

Compared to Yedie Snow’s ship, Dongfang Chen’s cabin was cramped, a narrow throat in steel. Even so, the stacks of magic books turned the room into little towers. Piles upon piles. Enough to burden oxen and fill a warehouse.

“So many books. Xiao Yue must love reading.”

“I do… but I can’t finish all these. Most are stock bound for the New Land. They’re product.”

Dongfang Chen wouldn’t sail to the New Land broke. The journey itself was a market in motion. Before setting out, he converted most savings into magic books, planning to sell them in Gelven.

“A traveling bookseller! That’s romantic. Let’s make our living selling books in the New Land~”

“But it’s too many. I can’t carry them. I was going to find a shop in Gelven to buy them all.”

“That’d slash the price. It wouldn’t reach those who need them. Don’t forget, I have a ship. No matter how many, we can carry them!”

“Huh… that does work.”

Poverty narrows imagination like tight shoes. She had considered renting a wagon to cross the whole western forest from Gelven to Rainbow Valley.

“And on the way, we can ask customers for intel. The natives will be less hostile. Good plan~”

Dixue nodded, satisfied, already sketching their two-person future like a home drawn in ash on a hearth. “Let’s pick a nice name. As traveling booksellers walking the forest, we’ll be ‘Liuxue Forest.’ How’s that?”

“Liuxue Forest? Sounds like ‘Bleeding Forest’! That’s too gory. People will think we’re bandits.”

“No, it’s your ‘Liu’ and my ‘Xue’… Fine, we’ll call it ‘Moon-Snow Forest.’”

“Moon-Snow Forest… sounds good.”

“Settled~”