Heat hung in the Sky Voyager’s prime cabin like noon sun pressed against glass.

It wasn’t a crowd’s heat; the presidential suite was a wide lake of velvet and light, and only two figures stirred its surface.

A flame‑haired girl lounged on a throne like a coal set high, one elbow propping her cheek, legs crossed as she gazed over a rolling sea of clouds.

Silks and ribbons cinched her waist like ivy; her pale legs were smooth as cream, twined like willow switches in a breeze.

Her hands were carved‑jade delicate, the kind a mountain stream would polish, perfect in the way only the wild knows.

She was small in frame, yet anger burned bright on that exquisite face; ruby eyes flared, and her brows knit like storm clouds closing.

She was Sikong Qinhui, Princess of Burning Song of Dragon Heaven, the Third Princess whose presence fell like frost on lesser hearts.

“Still nothing?” Her voice cracked like a spark in dry pine.

“I’m sorry, give me a little more time.” His reply crawled like a shadow across stone.

Opposite her, a young man in a suit knelt as if the floor were ice, pleading with a trembling voice for the girl’s mercy.

“Come here.” Sikong Qinhui lifted a hand, her gesture light as drifting ash, calling him closer.

“My Lady.” His breath hitched like a caught bird.

She watched him prostrate himself, and nodded the way a blade nods to a whetstone; she hooked his chin with a fingertip cool as snow. “How long is the window to execute an urgent task, as a royal attendant?”

“Th‑three days.” The words fell like pebbles into a well.

He lifted his head in panic, and met those ruby eyes at arm’s length, lost like a moth before a lantern.

“And how many days have passed?” Her tone was a knife wrapped in silk.

“Two days.” His voice shrank like a flame in wind.

“Then use your head and finish it!” Her sleeve snapped like a banner in fire, and heat roared.

Whoosh—flames surged like a volcano venting; he shot across the room and slammed into the far wall.

“This is the last day. Use every method you have.” Her words fell like iron shot. “The girl who shared a room with her? You didn’t seize her either?”

“Y‑Your Highness…” He pushed himself up like a man wading through tar, fighting not to spill the blood gathering at his lips.

He knew a red stain on the carpet would be oil on the Third Princess’s fire.

“We found her… but Thousand Night Snow shielded that girl,” he forced out, each syllable a stone. “With our current manpower, we can’t extract her.”

“Dixue? She too… damn.” The curse hissed like steam from a fissure.

Sikong Qinhui’s fist closed, a star coiling before it bursts; heat rolled, and the room’s temperature climbed like a summer noon.

“Send a formal notice to the Rangers Lodge,” she said, voice steady as a drawn bow. “Say the target involves major weapon smuggling. We need to interrogate.”

“Yes, but…” The young man’s hesitation fluttered like a torn flag; he weighed whether to open the gate on his secret.

He chose truth, like a diver choosing cold water. “Our source says the girl is close with Thousand Night Snow. This afternoon she entered the test chamber with Maria. They seem to be arranging a Collaborator.”

“A Collaborator?” The word hit the air like a rock tossed into lava.

For a heartbeat the young man thought he’d fallen into magma; fire flared around the red‑haired girl like a mountain venting wrath.

Then, as sudden as a storm clearing, Sikong Qinhui went cool again; she sank onto the sofa, and a potted plant beside it had become ash.

She lifted a glass of wine, the liquid red as fresh blood, as red as her hair under sunset.

“Notify the Special Response Division. Bring that girl in,” she said, light as drifting snow.

That murmur raised every hair on the young man’s arms, like frost at the nape of the neck.

“Please reconsider, Your Highness. If we move the Special Response Division, any gap that opens will draw His Majesty’s blame like thunder.”

“I know.” She didn’t flare at his courage; instead, she smiled like a chess player seeing two lines at once. “Inform our people. From now on, spread word that the Crimson Rainbow Round is in that girl’s hands.”

“Understood!” He nodded fast, a drum beaten in haste.

He saw it now, a stone felling two birds; aim the Murder Fiend at the blue‑haired girl, and they could net the catch without wading into the river.

The mantis stalks the cicada; the oriole waits behind. But who is the oriole? On the undercurrent‑swollen Sky Voyager, no one knew.

Heavy steps beat down the dim corridor, each thud like a hammer on a hull.

Xia Jiajun climbed the stairs like a man ascending into cloud, toward the Sky Corridor—outwardly a VIP haven, in truth a quiet brig.

Marble walls rose on all sides, cold as riverbed stone; sigils painted in mugwort juice crawled over them like green vines.

Those arrays severed all lines like a winter freeze, whether born of magic or of circuits; to reach this place, only footsteps bridged the gap.

Guards in silver dragon‑scaled armor stood on either side, solid as cairns; when they saw Xia Jiajun, they bowed their heads like reeds in wind.

“Lord Xia, you’ve arrived.” Their voices were low thunder.

“Mm. I’m here to interrogate the suspect,” he said, cool as slate. “Wait outside.”

“Yes.” The answer was a single iron ring.

Xia Jiajun wiped a thread of blood from his lip, a crimson leaf brushed away; alone, he walked into the cells.

Before the Princess, he played the ash at a stove’s foot; before subordinates, he reclaimed his name like a blade unsheathed.

At the door, he set his hand on the lock, and fed it his mana signature like ink flowing into grooves.

“Who is it?” The voice inside snapped up like a cat hearing a twig.

Zaocun straightened on reflex, a sapling shocked by wind.

The cell held a window as wide as a sail, showing a milky ocean of clouds; from outside, it was mirror‑black and mute.

The white room was tidy and gentle as a clinic, but a rack of restraints squatted to one side like wolves’ shadows.

Those tools were for fear, not flesh; they’d never tasted use. Zaocun’s clothes were neat, her skin unmarked, her eyes bright as morning.

She looked livelier than in the holding cell, like a cat let back into sun.

Xia Jiajun appeared behind the door, a calm shadow; he drew out a paper bag and crossed to her the way a butler crosses a hall.

“This is your dinner,” he said, setting it down like a placid teacup. “Eat, then talk. I don’t rough up girls, but Her Highness is getting impatient.”

“I’ve said it, I don’t know!” Her refusal rang like a bell struck hard.

Inside the bag lay her favorite, a codfish burger, steam curling like a beckoning hand; but she had given her word, and a promise is a knot.

“I don’t know where the Crimson Rainbow Round is,” she cried, eyes fierce as flint. “I’m innocent!”

The Crimson Rainbow Round was a vicious magitech munition, a seed of storm; slot it into a common magitech firearm, and it roared like a small arcane cannon.

It could level a block in a breath, a scythe through wheat; it was banned, a shadow weapon barred from all markets.

“Still going with that?” Xia Jiajun shook his head, a winter tree shedding one leaf.

He sat opposite Zaocun, his chair a stone set sure. “We may not know if you’re the killer, Miss Zaocun, but we do know your true face.”

“Yingyao’s cat‑ninja, isn’t that right?” His smile showed a knife’s glint under silk. “Or should I call you Cat‑Ninja Zaocun?”

“Mm…” Her ears drooped like wet leaves; her tail flicked, then stilled. “I am…”

“But I only wanted to go to the New Land and adventure,” she said, stubborn light in her eyes like stars through mist. “No special mission.”

“A cat‑ninja from Yingyao posing as a maid in the Red Wine Bar?” Xia Jiajun sighed, a theatrical wind. “Who would believe that?”

He let a dangerous smile bloom, a thorned rose. “Friendly reminder. Her Highness can’t find the Crimson Rainbow Round, so she’ll pull in that other girl.”

“Let me think… Yue Liuyi, right?” His tone was a hook dropped in a pond. “If you won’t talk, her fate may turn ugly.”

“No. Absolutely not!” Zaocun sprang from the bed like a cat bristling, voice tearing out like a hawk’s cry.

“No!” she shouted, the word a burning brand. “Miss Yue is innocent. She saved me. I won’t let you hurt her!”

“That depends on you.” His reply fell like snow that chills more than fire.

“Mm…” Zaocun lowered her head, torn like a paper lantern in crosswind, caught between vow and fear.