The petrification on the Sky Voyager melted away, clean as frost at first light.
People stared around in disbelief, like waking from a long dream right as the abyss opened—then, snap, the dream ended.
The once-quiet deck burst back into life. Names were shouted like flung kites. Passengers found family and friends and folded into urgent hugs.
Captain Duanmu Liang dragged himself out of a muddy heap, baffled by the lilies suddenly blooming through the Celestial Courtyard. His lieutenants were safe, and the Sky Voyager’s systems blinked back to normal one by one.
Explorers sheltering aboard the Skyship moved in tidy lines, turning clatter into rescue. Many passengers had just been un-stoned, minds still fog-bound. It looked messy, hands flying everywhere, but under Physician Wu Qianying’s calm voice every injured person found a proper bed and a steady touch.
Chulei quietly cracked open part of his smuggled cache, generosity spilling like a hidden spring. It helped. A lot.
Mino took a team and went hunting the monsters. Strangely, wrapped in song, the creatures that had been lurking in the Sky Voyager were fewer now. A few still skulked, but their terror had thinned like smoke in rain.
Under a storm of combined fire, the stragglers were blasted to shreds. Almost none remained.
The stone fell from the floating buildings too. Their black rind peeled away; metal and glass came back with a clean gleam. What stood revealed was a world abandoned, its silence like dust.
In the searching, traces of a past civilization surfaced. Priceless records of its changes went to the Sky Voyager’s archives, a compass for those who’d come after.
When the first rush finally ebbed—
“Why… did the stone just break by itself?”
Yue Liuyi sat in the room with Dixue and Breeze, watching the world outside tilt and reshape. Her chest felt soft and confused; her mind searched for cause. She couldn’t grasp why playing with Dixue and laughing like kids had shattered all that stone.
“Hehe, it’s simple. Beautiful memories… are love.”
“Love…?”
“Mm! Sure, real life tangles us in trouble. But love paints the gray, makes things bloom. Love makes people drop their walls and walk toward each other.”
“Mm…”
Yue Liuyi looked up. In her mind, old scenes floated like lanterns on a river. If people in this world could love more—less division, less suspicion—maybe none of this would’ve happened.
“Sis… Breeze… wants… a hug too…”
The green-haired girl spoke it with a clear, serious face. Since she’d found those bright memories, Breeze’s voice had mended a lot. Still halting, but her meaning was easy to catch.
“Come here—hug.”
“So soft…”
Breeze felt like hugging the wild. Leaves gliding over skin. A gentle itch that eased the heart.
“Hey! Midnight snack’s ready! Come eat!”
The purple-haired girl strode in, brows knit, and found the girls folded into each other, warm as quilts.
“Alright, alright, go eat. Xiaoyan cooked for once. Don’t waste it.”
“But… I only drink water…”
“It’s fine. Xiaoyan probably made Little Green’s favorite N-P-K combo meal. It’s delicious.”
“Th-thank you…”
The girls bounded out, chasing the smell of a rich dinner.
Once they’d gone, the purple-haired girl stood still and shook her head. Beside her, a figure who used to gleam with sultry danger drifted closer.
“Xiang… you were a Murder Fiend too? How can you… even…”
“Mm. I killed more than a few. That’s why they call me that. But I was lucky. I met Dixue and Xinrui—and once, Sikong Qinhui.”
“What was different… about them?”
“I don’t know. With them, I’m just… happy. Then everything else stops mattering.”
“…”
“So even if an old best friend hurt you, it’s alright. Trust us. No tragedies here.”
“Mm…”
The Blood Dancer closed her eyes, then walked with Xiang Xiaoyan toward the dining hall.
A huge revolving table spun slow, loaded with every color of feast. Around it, the girls were a hundred poses and a thousand smiles, a flutter of bird-song and spring.
“Wow! So many girls. It’s paradise!”
“Why is Gong Linxun at the banquet too? Shouldn’t this guy be in holding?”
“True. He’s getting full of himself. I’ll lock him up right now.”
“Sorry! Lady Maria, Officer Chen! I’ll eat quietly and keep my thoughts pure!!!!”
Gong Linxun bent over his bowl and shoveled fast, no more staring at anyone.
“Haha… never thought we’d go through this much.”
“Senior Chulei! Is the boss okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. Just spooked. Finding out his staff was a smuggling ring leader… that’ll rattle anyone.”
“Hey, Black Eagle! Don’t strut. I’m a detective. When things settle, I’m coming for you.”
“Ha! Any time.”
Mino and Dr. Wu joined too. With so many girls at the table, the dishes leaned toward delicate pastries and tiny marvels—each bite a promise that looked too good not to keep.
“Lingwei, nicely done!”
“Thank you for the praise, Lady Maria~”
Lingwei hustled back and forth with trays like a busy swallow. The other catfolk girl? Not so much. She munched dried fish and ignored the whole “tavern maid” thing.
“Huh? I remember Sister Xiang simmered a sea bass. Where’d it go?”
“Um…”
Lingwei’s eyes slid sideways. Her look went fishy.
“Ah! You smell like the ocean, Lingwei. Did you steal the fish?”
“N-no…”
“So sly!”
The catfolk girls’ eternal war for fish crackled on.
And something else wouldn’t stop, either—
“La-la-la~ my little Yue is the cutest~”
Yue Liuyi sat beside Dixue. The silver-haired girl had been shining since earlier, biting into an egg tart and sending Yue little crescent-eyed smiles every few seconds.
“LittleSnow, why are you so happy?”
“Hehe. Because our love—mine and Yue’s—is what saved everyone. That means our bond runs deeper than centuries of hate.”
“Uu…”
Heat rushed to Yue Liuyi’s face. Her bond with Dixue sat in that delicate place. More than friends, clearly. But say “lovers,” and her tongue knotted.
If she were a boy, maybe accepting it would be simpler. Of course Yue Liuyi liked Dixue—liked her very, very much. Who wouldn’t love a girl that beautiful, smart, cute, and capable?
Only… herself—
She remembered she couldn’t keep this identity forever. A little hollow opened. Then Zaocun’s words surfaced, and Xia Jiajun’s steady advice:
(No matter what, follow your heart’s truest thought.)
“LittleSnow… you’ve lived through things I don’t know, haven’t you? With Sikong Qinhui. With Xinrui. What… happened?”
“Is my little Yue jealous? Hehe…”
She saw the blue-haired girl’s lovely face, sweet and uncertain. Dixue leaned in and kissed deep.
“Mm… mm…”
The sudden kiss wiped Yue Liuyi’s thoughts clean. One breath she was thinking; the next, her mouth was full of fragrance.
Dixue, egg tart, cake, milk—all braided together. Tongues twined, soft and bright. It tasted like a secret summer.
A-again, LittleSnow… but…
It’s so happy…
“Wow! So sneaky—Dixue is stealing Yue again!”
“Dixue, hey!”
“This… isn’t a ‘beautiful memory’… it’s not wholesome…”
“…”
As their kiss landed, the table exploded in shrieks and laughter.
The lively warmth thickened over the Skyship, and over the whole Sky Voyager too—
Far out, tens of kilometers away, aboard a royal vessel.
A red-haired girl lay on a lounge chair. The wild gleam was gone from her eyes, replaced by misty thoughts you couldn’t quite see through.
“There’s no place left for us in this world, is there.”
Sikong Qinhui had planned the attack on the Sky Voyager and lost everything for it. Even the title of Third Princess couldn’t cover a hole this size. Besides—
She wasn’t their blood.
“Your Highness, you still have many loyal followers. Even if you turn your back on the royal house, we’ll follow you.”
Xia Jiajun knelt, hands folded in solemn pledge.
“Follow a sinner like me?”
She laughed, low and cold, but the corners of her mouth showed only helplessness.
“It’s the vow we already took. Third Princess, let’s go to the New Land. There—”
“Dixue’s suggestion? Fine…”
They said the New Land brimmed with adventure and chance, with hope and wild possibility. Even the strangest wishes could find soil there.
Would her obsessions fade, someday, on that shore?
“We’ll head to the New Land together!!”
To their companions, both girls spoke the same vow.
Volume I · End
