“It’s just a patrol, Dixue—why are you dressed like it’s an S‑rank mission, marching into a storm in full armor?”
“Better ready than sorry, like carrying an umbrella under blue skies.”
“Don’t tell me you’re peacocking in front of Miss Yue, like a rooster at dawn!”
“Maria, you seem to know a bit too much, like a cat nosing a cupboard.”
“Uh…”
Maria and the others came back in a rush, rain-shadow in their steps like swallows under eaves. Her right monocle glowed neon like a dragonfly wing, and her left arm wore a huge metal gauntlet like forged thunder. It was an exoskeletal power arm; one squeeze could unleash strength like a breaking tide.
“I’m ready.” Her voice was flat as still water at dusk.
Zero Wei nodded and slid into the copilot seat, a quiet leaf finding its branch. The catfolk maid still wore her uniform, as normal as a lantern in a window. Only a basketball-sized metal orb with a cat face hovered above her, circling like a firefly with a bell. Its LCD screen flipped through dopey faces, emojis blooming like little paper kites.
“Zero Wei, what’s that?” Curiosity fluttered like a moth to a lamp.
“Sis Yue, this is my personal computer, Fuzzball! Come on, Fuzzball, say hi to Sis Yue!” Her smile bounced like sunlight on ripples.
The cat-faced orb flashed a >0<, then looped around Yue Liuyi and—pop—dusted her with confetti like a tiny festival rain.
“That’s awesome, like fireworks in a teacup!”
“One minute till twenty-one hundred,” came the calm reminder, digits ticking like raindrops on a tin roof.
Xiang Xiaoyan came in with a longsword, half leaning on the wall like a shadowed pine in wind. Her presence was hush-still, a stone under moss, and if she hadn’t spoken, Yue wouldn’t have noticed her at all.
“Alright, let’s start,” Dixue said, voice slicing clean like a clear bell.
She took the helm; her pale left hand settled on the console like snow on jade, and the Skyship’s systems bloomed like night-blooming flowers. A holo-projection mapped their surroundings like a lantern chart, a cutaway showed the ship’s guts like a bone-and-blood scroll, and a comms screen linked to the Sky Voyager like a silver thread. Yue Liuyi, never having flown a ship, could only name a few lights in this starry sea.
“Ancestral mag‑energy fully harmonized,” came the calm report, steady as a drumbeat.
“Lift off!” Whoosh—the word rose like a lark.
There wasn’t a hint of jolt; even the pressure of ascent didn’t press her, light as a leaf in warm air. She only saw the Sky Voyager’s deck shrink below like a receding shore, and the Skyship rising like a new moon.
========================================
21:25.
The toxic storm arrived fast, a black curtain swept across the sky. Rain hammered the glass like fistfuls of needles, and under the searchlights it turned to sheets of glowing mist.
All passengers were ordered back to cabins, like fish diving under rock, yet many careless ones dawdled and paid for it. The poison wasn’t fierce at first, but on skin it crawled like venomous caterpillars, prickly and wrong. If it got in your eyes, the sting dragged tears like a ripped-open dam.
Through the cockpit glass, Yue saw workers in protective suits sprint across the deck like white ghosts in rain. They chased the cries that rose like flares, but some passengers cowered where hands couldn’t reach and had to call elsewhere for help.
“Rangers Lodge, do you copy? We’ve got a passenger up on the Celestial Courtyard’s pillar, requesting immediate support!” The voice crackled like thunder on a wire.
“Copy,” Dixue said, a nod sharp as a blade.
“That high? How did he get up there!” Maria stared into the rain where the tower loomed like a demon spire. Tonight the Celestial Courtyard was closed for safety; a few window lights leaked like cold stars.
“Maybe an extreme climber; that crowd treats life like a coin,” someone muttered, voice dry as tinder.
“Doesn’t matter—life comes first,” Dixue answered, firm as an oar stroke.
Under her hands, the Skyship slid near the Courtyard, a hawk riding the gale, and they found the man clinging to the glass like a gecko in a storm. He had two fingers jammed in a groove, hanging over the void like a lone leaf.
The Skyship was midsize; getting too close would be like two cliffs grinding. They agreed to hover above and rescue by rope, a spider’s line in a waterfall.
“Can you hear us? We’re the rescue team. We’re sending you a grappling hook—grab on!” The words beat out like drum taps in rain.
“—” His answer drowned under the downpour, a swallowed pebble in a river, but the Skyship still dropped the lifeline. The grapnel had a bio‑magnetic charge; it kissed to him in a snap like iron to a lodestone.
“Target secured,” came the report, crisp as frost.
“Good. Reel him in.” The rope rose like a drawn breath. Time mattered; they’d take him straight to the decon pod beside the cockpit, a clean spring under glass.
“Please relax. We’re disinfecting you,” Zero Wei said, voice soft as cotton.
She hit the button and sent him into the pod, eyes locked on a gauge that tracked residual toxins like a waning moon. She didn’t flinch at his fists on the glass, his panic beating like a trapped bird.
“Is he okay? He looks like he’s drowning—wait, you’re—!” Yue’s heart jumped like a startled deer as her gaze snagged his face.
It was familiar as a recurring dream: the young man was none other than Gong Linxun, the one Yue had met in the restaurant, a fox’s grin behind a gentleman’s coat.
“Oh? An acquaintance of Little Yue?” Dixue asked, letting the autopilot hold like a steady hand, and stepped over like a breeze turning cold.
“N-no…” Yue shook her head, panic pooling like cold water in her stomach.
“Decon complete, sir. You may exit.” Zero Wei pressed the release, and the blond man staggered out, drenched and dripping like a drowned cat.
“M-Miss Yue! Long time no see!!!” He lunged for her, eyes lit like a golden retriever spotting a bag of kibble.
“Who are you!” Dixue snatched Xiang Xiaoyan’s longsword in a hiss like rain on steel and stepped between them. The black blade kissed his throat like a strip of night, and her emerald eyes were winter-cold.
“I—I’m just an old acquaintance of Miss Yue…” His smile trembled like a thin ice sheet.
“Oh?” Dixue’s laugh was a thin blade. “Funny, Little Yue says you’re not,” she said, and pushed the edge forward a hair like a creeping frost.
With steel on his neck, he dropped the flirting act like a shed skin. He raised both hands, trembling like a reed in gusts. “I—I got the wrong person! S-sorry… B-big sis, please spare me…”
“Big sis?” A shard of ice flashed at Dixue’s eye corner; the chill pricked spines like sleet.
“N—no, little sis… I…” His voice frayed like wet thread.
“Excuse me, allow me to cut in,” Maria said, walking up with a smile soft as warm bread. “Sir, why were you outside the Celestial Courtyard at this hour?” Her tone was gentle, her gaze a needle.
“B… big sister, please save me! I’m just an innocent passerby! Shouldn’t a person calling for help get helped?” He clung to the word like driftwood.
“We do help the needy,” Maria said, and her hand moved quick as a kingfisher, “but that doesn’t include… perverts.” Her fingers dipped into his coat pocket and came out with panties, one after another, fluttering like stolen flags.
Color drained from his face like rain from a cloud.
“Zero Wei, call the police. Tell them we caught an underwear creep!” Maria’s voice snapped like a trap.
“Copy,” Zero Wei answered, neat as a stamp.
“Wah—help!” Seeing the tide turn, Gong Linxun spun to run, feet slapping like frightened fish.
But Maria’s powered arm wasn’t for show; the metal limb shot out like a striking mantis and lifted him like a chick by the scruff.
“I’m sorry! Please spare me!!!” His plea broke like waves on rock.
“So you were tailing Little Yue, you perv?” Dixue’s giggle chimed like beads. “Hee-hee! Dawn Goose, he’s yours till the cops arrive. Do whatever you want—no marks.”
“Got it!” Dawn Goose flipped open a toolkit, eyes smiling like slivered moons, and pulled out rope and duct tape, quiet as rain.
“Mmph—mmph—mmph…” His cries turned to muffled sobs, a gagged drum under a blanket.
Hog-tied and gagged, Gong Linxun was dragged off by Xiang Xiaoyan like a trussed boar, and Yue didn’t know what fate rolled over him after that.
“Don’t be scared, Little Yue. Stay with me, and I’ll take out every creep for you,” Dixue said, coming over to ruffle the blue-haired girl’s crown like smoothing silk.
“I—I’m not scared…” The words fell thin as ash, her face pale as paper.
She’d never imagined his end would be so rough, and her own words stuck like burrs. Fear crawled up and she shivered like a willow in wind, and clueless Dixue only hugged her tighter, a circle tightening like a looped scarf.
Anger first, hot as iron from the forge, beat in Dixue’s chest. Seems Little Yue’s been pestered by creeps—why should a soft girl get hurt, like a fawn in thorns? If she can’t be ruthless, then I will, like a sword drawn at noon!
The tighter Dixue held, the more Yue feared, like a bird trapped to a chest; and the more Yue trembled, the tighter Dixue’s arms locked, like ivy around a post.
“You two stuck like magnets—what are you doing? Get back to flying!” Maria called, voice a bell through rain.
“I’m comforting Little Yue. Maria, take the helm for me!” Dixue answered, tossing the words like a warm shawl.
…
