The surviving adventurers leaned on one another, with Dixue and Yue Liuyi guiding them, like battered birds returning to the Skyship’s nest.
Yue Liuyi’s worst fear didn’t happen—the Skyship sat whole, not a slab of stone, like a boat that rode out a black squall.
“Come have mutton soup—piping hot mutton soup!”
Lingwei, in a maid outfit, handed out steaming bowls to road-dusted travelers; hot lamb with flatbread warmed them like a hearth after snow.
“If you’re hurt, get treated here. Gentlemen, see Officer Chen.”
“Thank you—really, thank you!”
Other passengers—Lia, Officer Chen, and others—formed rescue teams like lanterns in fog, tending the wounded adventurers.
Yue Liuyi and Dixue stepped into the hall and saw a familiar figure at a table—a purple-haired girl, one hand to her brow, regret pooling in her gaze like rain in a basin.
“Senior Xiang...?”
“I’m sorry! Especially to Miss Liuyi—I’m here to apologize!”
Seeing them approach, Dawn Goose stood at once and spoke with solemn weight.
“Huh? It’s fine, it’s fine... I didn’t take it to heart.”
Liuyi waved fast, signaling breeze-light forgiveness.
“What I said went too far... please forgive me. When I use my full power, I become like that. I reflect, I try, but I can’t control it...”
Xiang Xiaoyan lowered her head, dusk-colored hair veiling her face; she truly was steeped in remorse.
“Really, it’s okay! Honestly, you looked cool with your power unleashed, Senior Dawn Goose! And that big talk—it gave you character!”
“Cooler... Miss Liuyi, are you a masochist...?”
“Absolutely not!!!!”
...
“I’m heading back to my room.”
“Mm-hm. Don’t wander off~”
Back aboard the Skyship, Yue Liuyi unclasped her collar, took leave of Dixue and the rest, and slipped into her cabin like a swallow to eaves.
If memory served, one of her grimoires focused on petrification. Maybe answers slept in those pages.
By the glow of a mana-lamp, she flipped through paper like wind over reeds.
Petrification had always stalked magic’s history, usually tagged as a life-born talent, not transmutation. Think Medusa—snakes for hair, a gaze that stones all—top-tier power.
That sits at the summit: permanent, though special means can undo it. Magecraft runs lower: stone-skin, stone-weapons, stone-fields, stone-grenades—temporary, small radius, a few hundred square meters.
The Skyship’s case was permanent petrification, hard as granite to reverse. So Liuyi reasoned: whoever did it wasn’t human, nor like those beasts—those fought with tail-hooks and blades, not stone.
A thought bloomed like frost: deep in this world lurked a colossal creature. It petrified the Sky Voyager—and maybe crushed the civilization that once bloomed here.
“A monster that’s lived at least seven hundred years... monster indeed.”
Then things aligned like stars. If it had Medusa’s gift and a fierce territorial will, the massive Sky Voyager looked like an intruder. The smaller Skyship slipped below its notice.
“Alright, I’ll tell everyone my thoughts. Even if I look like a porcelain doll, I can pull my weight.”
Yue Liuyi was about to move. Pain lanced her heart; she stumbled and hit the floor, breath scattering like beads.
(Why did I just eat dirt? No... my mana—why is it draining so hard? LittleSnow... did you go out?)
The blue-haired girl ignored her aching knee and sprinted to the hall, eyes sweeping like hawks. The lounge hummed; newcomers kept polite, some chatting, some waiting for care...
But the silver-haired silhouette she knew was gone.
“Um... Senior Xiang, have you seen LittleSnow? Did she just go out?”
“Huh? How did you know, Liuyi? Dixue... did head out, yes—to help some adventurers who haven’t arrived.”
By the door, the purple-haired girl polished her sword; when Liuyi came up, she startled, her words snagging like thread.
“B-but... why didn’t LittleSnow tell me?”
Doubt rippled across Liuyi’s heart. Dixue always brought her along, or at least told her. This time, silence like a shut door.
“It was urgent. No time to explain.”
“Mm...”
(Am I overthinking it? Yet Xiang Xiaoyan’s reaction looked off. Are they hiding something from me? Either way, I’m catching up to Dixue.)
“I want to go help LittleSnow. Did she head that way?”
“Sorry... before leaving, Dixue told me not to let you out. It’s too dangerous out there.”
“Huh? But...”
“Relax. Dixue’s true strength outstrips mine from earlier. Even a swarm of those things won’t trouble her.”
The purple-haired girl stood and gently eased Liuyi back, like guiding a leaf from a ledge.
“But...”
Liuyi meant to argue. A thought sparked, and she let it go like a hand from a kite string.
Around her, more than twenty adventurers filled the lounge, mostly strangers. If she blended in as one of them...
Then it wouldn’t matter if she turned back into a boy!
“Then... I’ll go read in my room. If LittleSnow comes back, please tell me, Senior Xiang! Disappearing like that is worrying!”
She nodded, all obedience, and made a show of retreating.
“Got it.”
...
Good thing Dongfang Chen kept menswear in a suitcase’s false bottom. Otherwise it’d be the heap of frilly skirts from the closet—girl-mode again.
She slipped into men’s clothes for the first time in ages, then built a sleeping decoy from pillows and sheets—belt and suspenders, though with Dixue gone, no one would dare enter.
One hazard remained: avoid Zaocun’s eyes. The catfolk girl knew Dongfang Chen. Thankfully, she was asleep from overwork, curled like a tired kit.
By Huimang Star’s clock, it was past three a.m. But Liuyi had woken that afternoon, so drowsiness hadn’t found her yet.
(Jet lag really is a special kind of torture...)
Quiet as falling ash, Dongfang Chen slipped from the room into the corridor.
Unexpectedly, someone called his name.
“M-Mr. Dongfang Chen!”
He turned toward the voice. Dazzling blond hair, a handsome face—and eyes that had shed their flippancy, now steady as a lake.
“M-Mr. Gong!?”
“M-Mr. Dong! You survived this too!? I heard everyone on the Sky Voyager turned to stone—is that true?”
“Yeah. They turned to statues...”
(Crap. Forgot he might be on board...)
“Hey—listen!” Gong Linxun didn’t question his presence. He sidled over and slung an arm around Dongfang’s shoulder; if he knew Dongfang was the Yue Liuyi he pined for, he’d burst like a firecracker.
“Look! Do not breathe a word that I hired you to steal Miss Yue’s panties! She’s now the exclusive property of Rangers Lodge branch head Yedie Snow—way out of our league! That SSS-grade intel job is canceled. I’ll still pay you hush money!”
(Exclusive property...)
The urge-to-snark-but-can’t feeling gnawed like an itchy scar.
(But I can use this...)
A spark leapt. He had an idea.
“Right now, money’s useless anyway! I’ve got a friend outside. I need to fetch them. Go beg Vice Chair Xiang to arrange a room!”
“Huh? The Witch Xiang! You’re sending me to die!”
Terror washed his face; clearly, Xiang Xiaoyan’s discipline that night had landed like a thunderclap.
“Oh? Can’t do it? Then my mouth might start...”
“I-I can. I will!”
Gong thumped his chest, swearing, “As long as you destroy all evidence... and that envelope. Don’t keep it! Burn it! Or I won’t live to see tomorrow!”
“Relax.”
...
While Gong, face set like a martyr, went to find Xiang Xiaoyan, Dongfang reached the hatch and opened the Skyship’s main door, letting cold breath spill in.
He’d been with the Rangers Lodge too long; Dawn Goose might spot something. Better to use Gong as a lure, then slip off the Skyship.
Cold air bit like iron. He breathed the murky wind and, alone again, stepped onto the Sky Voyager’s deck.
(What are you doing, LittleSnow? Fine... this time I’ll guard you from the shadows!)
Waiting would’ve been safe, but LittleSnow’s odd move tugged at him like a hook. He chose to follow and see.
Solo work is risky, but Dongfang moved through it like a practiced shade.
He’d always adventured alone.
...
Tracking Dixue wasn’t hard for him.
Or rather, for Dongfang-who-had-been Yue Liuyi, plucking a strand of silver-white mana from cluttered air was almost muscle memory.
In a quarter hour, he found that familiar figure.
“There—Dixue! And she’s headed... to the Celestial Courtyard?”
Unlike what Dawn Goose had claimed, the pale figure wasn’t going to medical. She moved toward the ship’s biggest pillar—the Celestial Courtyard.
(So they did hide something. Dixue, you—huh?)
As he pondered, a dazzling white streak whooshed past his ear like a lightning-fletched arrow.
He knew it was a deliberate miss. A true shot would’ve pulped his head.
“Who are you? Why are you tailing me?”
Silver longbow raised, the silver-haired girl spun, cold as moonlight on ice, and leveled the question at Dongfang.
