Outside the window, yellow fog pooled like damp gauze, a tea-stained veil smearing the world.

Half an hour ago, the Skyship slipped into this world, yet all around lay only mist, a drowned horizon, no contours at all.

“This world… doesn’t look that dangerous,” someone murmured, like tossing a pebble into a calm lake.

First impression felt friendly, like spring rain over a quiet village: no acid downpour, no beasts prowling, no crushing gravity—nothing lethal, except this sky-wide shroud of fog that swallowed sun and sound.

“But we still haven’t found the Sky Voyager,” someone sighed, hope flickering like a lone firefly. “The signal did drift from here, though.”

Zero Wei bent over the comm panel, fingers skimming it like swallows over water, puzzled that no distress pulse reached them, even though the Sky Voyager should be down within a few dozen kilometers.

“I really want to get back aboard,” Maria drawled, reclining like a cat in a sunbeam as she sipped a rosy tea that steamed like dawn mist. “The Illusory Plume Arcade hasn’t opened for days, and the lost revenue stings like frost.”

“…”

Voices rose and fell to warm the room like a hearth, light banter fluttering like paper cranes. Only Dixue sat quiet as a porcelain doll, her sea-green eyes fixed on the world-blanketing haze, thoughts sealed like a letter in wax.

“Um… LittleSnow, don’t blame yourself,” Yue Liuyi said, stepping forward with the hesitant courage of a spring shoot. She clasped the blue-haired girl’s hand, palm cool as petal shade. “Even if the culprit is the Third Princess, that’s on her, not on you.”

“Huh?”

Dixue’s gaze brightened like a lantern being lit, surprise widening her eyes. “But I’m not brooding over Sikong Qinhui,” she said, voice light as windbells. “That knot, I untied it myself. We can’t stop others’ choices, but we can do our own.”

“Huh?”

“If it really is the Third Princess, she’ll probably send a threat soon,” Dixue said, miming like a street performer under moonlight. “It’ll go: ‘Hahaha, Dixue, how does it feel watching innocents suffer? It’s all because of you! If not for you, I’d never have meddled with the Sky Voyager’s jump! If you want to save these poor people, come be my doll. Then I’ll let them go. Hahaha!’ Like that!”

Her “hahaha” rolled out like tin bells, so perfect Yue Liuyi burst into laughter, a spark catching dry twigs.

“Haha! I was worried you were drowning in guilt, LittleSnow… Then why the long face, a cloud hanging all day?”

“Because…” Dixue lifted her chin, eyes steady as stars. “Because I haven’t held Little Moon for a whole day!”

“Wha…? LittleSnow, are you serious?”

Yue Liuyi froze like a deer in the lantern light. So that frown—was it just because she hadn’t been hugged?

“Mm! Little Moon’s body is amazing,” Dixue declared with solemn gravity and a blush like dawn on snow, “but without your soul in it, it’s an incomplete pillow. And my own body—though you’re inside—hugging myself feels weird, like chasing my own shadow. So hurry, wash up, then wait on the bed like a warm nest! We’ll sleep together.”

“Sleep what! You’ve been thinking about that this whole time? What about saving the innocent crew on the Sky Voyager?”

“We’ll save them!” Dixue nodded, earnest as temple drums. “But there’s only eighteen of us, and over ten thousand on the Sky Voyager. The task is a mountain. Before the climb, you fill your lungs. Before rescue, I fill my soul—otherwise I’ve got no spark without enough Little Moon energy!”

She stated it dead serious, as if reading edicts under a vermilion seal, with zero awareness of being a chapter president.

“If others heard that,” Yue Liuyi groaned, face in hands like a folding fan, “your idol aura would shatter like glass, and the Rangers Lodge’s reputation would crater.”

“Compared to Little Moon, all that’s fallen leaves in the wind,” Dixue said, airy as drifting willow fluff.

“Right. Liuyi, she’s not wrong.” The voice came like a knife through silk, and Xiang Xiaoyan slipped in as silent as a shadow crossing water.

“Why! Even you, Senior Xiaoyan!”

“In one sense,” Xiaoyan said, calm as a winter pine, “Dixue needs her own body to unleash her full strength, and so do you. A big fight may be brewing. Keeping your energy full is as vital as oil to flame.”

“Exactly, exactly,” Maria chimed, twirling a lock of hair like a ribbon in a breeze. “Time is short. To ease the soul leaving the body, don’t wear too much to bed. Sleeping nude is best, like shedding a cocoon.”

“Maria, you too…”

“Yup, yup! Little Moon, let’s go curl up together,” Dixue sang, voice sugar-sweet as candied haw.

“Help, I’m being molested—save this maiden!” Yue Liuyi yelped, like a startled sparrow exploding from a hedge.

When a “boy” admits he’s a maiden just to fish for sympathy, that’s rock-bottom despair, like clinging to a floating plank in a storm.

…

Yue Liuyi had no idea how it spun to this. A rescue turned bridal-chamber farce, her clothes shed like autumn leaves, her fate a quilted trap because otherwise LittleSnow would sulk like a rainy day.

So our “little bride” had to peek from the covers like a rabbit from snow, watching Dixue slip off garments one by one, moon-pale skin revealed in soft arcs. It was her own body on display—cute, yes—but staring at herself felt pervy, like stealing your own shadow.

“Sleep, sleep—sleep with the one you like,” hummed the blue-haired girl, a tune light as drifting plum petals, clad only in lingerie that blushed like cherry silk.

“W-wait, LittleSnow, what are you doing!” Yue Liuyi yelped as something soft enveloped her arm, warm and tender as bread fresh from the oven, skin to skin cool as river stones.

“Holding Little Moon’s arm to sleep,” Dixue mumbled, happy as a cat kneading a cushion.

“Don’t press that close! I can’t sleep like this!”

“That’s your own chest,” she said with a playful lilt, like tapping a wind chime. “Shouldn’t you be used to it?”

“I’ve never heard that logic in my life!”

…

After a bit of tangled flailing, Yue Liuyi still drifted off, sleep settling over her like snowfall on bamboo.

For some reason, with Dixue near, drowsiness folded over her quick as twilight, the world dimming into velvet.

…

…

In a boundless dark, a voice sounded, clear and hollow as wind through a bell.

“Save me…”

It was so airy, so far, like a lantern boat receding into mist.

“Huh?” Her heart pricked like a thorn nicking skin.

“Save me…”

The voice came again, flat as a stone on still water, the same syllables, the same chill.

“W-who are you?” she asked, words trembling like a candle flame.

“Wind…”

It sounded as it named itself—weightless, ungraspable, a breeze that slips your fingers.

“Where are you?” she asked, reaching with her mind like casting a line into night.

“Garden…”

Garden? But all around was pitch-black, an ink ocean with no shore, no color, no light.

“How do I find you?” She strained to listen, but the voice dissolved like a cut-off breeze, leaving no ripples.

…

…

“Little Moon!”

“Huh?”

Yue Liuyi’s eyes opened slow as petals at dawn, and the first thing she saw was Dixue’s sea-green gaze, tight with worry like storm clouds.

“Little Moon, are you okay!” Dixue snatched her into an embrace, arms firm as a lifeline, unwilling to let go.

The hug landed just right—or wrong. Yue Liuyi’s cheek pressed to Dixue’s chest, a soft heaven scented like milk-and-soap, and she nearly suffocated on that tender paradise.

(F-face wash? I’m doomed…) Heat flushed her from neck to ear like spilled wine, but she’d returned to her own body, so her squirming did nothing against Dixue’s hold, a net snug as vines.

“Mm… mmph! Mmm…”

“Are you okay!” Dixue blurted, hands flitting like startled swallows as she finally let go, those green eyes scanning the blue-haired girl’s face for even a hairline crack.

“I-I’m fine…” Yue Liuyi panted, lungs like bellows, refusing to admit her turmoil was Dixue-made—her dignity as a girl fluttered there like a flag in a stiff wind.

(Huh? As a girl… Something feels off about that…)

“Did you dream something bad?” Dixue asked softly, concern pooling like warm tea. “You were sweating a lot, like in a nightmare.”

“A dream… right!” The memory surfaced like a koi breaking water. “In my dream, I heard an ethereal voice saying ‘Save me,’ over and over.”

“Save me?” Dixue’s brows knitted like drawn bowstrings. “Did you answer?”

“Yeah. I asked who she was, and where she was. I wanted to ask more, but it faded like smoke.”

“So that voice chose you,” Dixue murmured, lowering her gaze as if weighing stones.

“Huh? You heard it too?”

“Mm. When we first arrived.” The silver-haired girl nodded, words flowing like a quiet stream. “No matter how I replied, it never answered. It only said ‘Save me, save me’… then went silent.”

“So it’s real?” Cold crept up Yue Liuyi’s back like a shadow at noon. If it were just her dream, fine. But from Dixue’s account, it was a stranger’s signal, a hand tapping through sleep.

“Could it be someone from the Sky Voyager?” Dixue asked, eyes searching like hawks. “Little Moon, do you have any close friends aboard?”

“Friends… no clue. Probably not.” On the Skyship, perhaps Dongfang Chen knew her nod and name, but Yue Liuyi had basically no one.

“What did the voice answer exactly?” Dixue pressed, voice steady as a drawn line.

“Let me think… right! She said her name was ‘Wind’, and that she was… in a garden.”

“The Sky Voyager’s garden?” Dixue frowned, thoughts circling like leaves in an eddy. “Strange…”

She chewed the idea and found no seed. “Let’s find the Sky Voyager first. We’ve slept an hour. Maria should have something.”

“Okay!”

As they moved to rise and dress, a girl’s voice rang from the hall like a bell through fog.

“Everyone! I found it! The Sky Voyager’s position!”

…

Dressed and ready, Dixue and Yue Liuyi stepped into Lia’s room.

Before the black hole jump, Yue Liuyi had picked a wide-view suite with inner and outer rooms for the blonde diviner, and stocked her with fabrics and crystals. In a blink, Lia had transformed it into a mysterious, elegant divination chamber, drapes flowing like waterfalls and crystals glinting like stars.

“Butterfly Snow President, Lady Body Pillow, please sit,” Lia said, formal as a court attendant. “I just saw the Sky Voyager in the crystal ball.”

“Wait—who’s Lady Body Pillow!” Yue Liuyi flailed, words popping like corn.

“Huh? Aren’t you Lady Body Pillow?” Lia blinked with solemn innocence, eyes wide as a doe’s, no trace of teasing.

“My name is Yue Liuyi,” she huffed, cheeks puffing like steamed buns. “Call me Little Moon, or Liuyi.”

“O-okay… b-but everyone outside calls Miss Liuyi ‘Lady Body Pillow,’” Lia said, voice small as a reed flute. “It’s spread like wind through grass. I don’t really know what a ‘body pillow’ is, but it sounds respectful…”

“It’s not respectful at all! I’m not a body pillow!” Yue Liuyi protested, waving arms like windmill blades, while Dixue hid a laugh behind her hand, shoulders shaking like willow branches. Clearly that cutesy title had escaped into the wild.

“Being a body pillow doesn’t sound so bad,” Dixue murmured, teasing smooth as silk. “It sounds soft.”

“It’s terrible > <!” Yue Liuyi shook her head fast as a rattle-drum, then fled to a safer topic. “Miss Lia, you found the Sky Voyager? But Maria’s radar couldn’t scan it.”

“Mm.” Lia nodded, placing a multicolored crystal on the table, facets catching light like trapped rainbows. “Yellow marks distance, red marks bearing, blue marks altitude. So the Sky Voyager lies at about our one o’clock, seven degrees down, twenty kilometers away.”

“Really?” The question rose like steam.

“With feedback this clear, I’m confident,” Lia said, gaze anchored to the crystal ball like a needle to north, voice steady as a metronome.