Just as a snarl of blood-thorns coiled around the girl, ready to swallow her like a briar’s maw, a voice rang out behind her like dawn cutting fog.

“No one bullies my Little Yue!”

The body bound in vines jerked like a puppet on barbed wire, then lifted its head.

Her eyes cleared, green as spring water in a stone basin, warm as sunlight on moss.

A silver sheen swept her skin like moonlight over snow, and the dried pallor drank it like cracked earth taking rain.

The “revived” silver-haired girl tore free like a falcon shredding a snare and swung a fist straight at Breeze.

“!!”

Thud!

One punch sent Breeze flying like a leaf in a gale—but it didn’t end; another Breeze popped up behind the first like a mirror thrown into a lake.

“So dirty. I’m mad now...” The green-haired girl’s voice bristled like nettles as she seized her own duplicate and hammered her again like a storm striking a bell.

The silver-haired girl sprinted toward Yue Liuyi like a comet streaking through night.

“Little Yue!”

“L-LittleSnow...?” Yue Liuyi stared, disbelief fluttering like a trapped sparrow.

That silver-haired girl had clearly died. Why—

“Little Yue... wake up.”

Dixue hugged Yue Liuyi tight, ignoring thorny vines pricking her skin like winter needles, letting warm blood bead and flow like a red stream.

“W-wake... up?” The words trembled like a leaf in crosswind.

Yue Liuyi looked around, her eyes fogged with confusion like glass misted by breath.

“This sorrow-drowned world doesn’t belong to you,” came the whisper, soft as snow on bamboo.

“Doesn’t... belong to me?”

“Mm. Everyone’s still waiting... for Little Yue,” Dixue said, voice like a hearth in winter.

The scene shattered.

Images fell away like stacked blocks collapsing in slow motion.

Vines, the Skyship, the black night, the dripping blood—everything dissolved like frost under sun.

Only one thing remained—two girls holding each other, an island of warmth in a melting dream.

Heat touched her cheek like a brand from the living world.

A smiling face swam into view, crying like rain lit by lanterns.

Tears beaded and slid down a flawless cheek like dew on white jade, bright as stars, and it hurt to see them, like a thorn in the heart.

“L... LittleSnow?”

“Thank goodness... Little Yue...” Yue Dier could barely speak; she clung to Yue Liuyi as if hugging spring back into her arms.

Outside the window the sky was pale as fresh rice paper.

They were back in that familiar greenhouse where sunlight pooled on packed earth, and the air held the clean scent of soil after rain.

“Great, Sister Yue woke up!”

“Sister Yue—”

“You’re okay, right?”

Zaocun and Breeze pressed close like sparrows flocking to eaves.

Dawn Goose and Ailuna rushed in too, all of them alive and bright-eyed, like wildflowers after frost.

So—

Was everything just a dream?

Or was now the dream, thin as mist on a cold river?

Had she already died?

A murderer of her own friends, clinging to a sweet lie at the end—how shameless, the thought stabbed like ice.

“Little Yue, this isn’t a hallucination,” Dixue murmured, holding her tighter like sheltering wings. “I’m right here.”

“Sister Yue... I’m sorry,” Breeze said, guilt weighing her gaze like rain-laden cloud. “In the Naraka Mirage, the enemy took my face... it made you lower your guard, and you were hurt.”

“Liuyi, these are sakura cookies that heal the body,” Ailuna chimed in, offering a tray that steamed like a little spring in snow. “Look, I learned how to bake!”

“Uh...?” Yue Liuyi tried to lift a hand like a reed trying to lift snow, but found her body hollowed out like an empty shell.

Even raising an arm felt like wading through winter mud.

Her body was cold. Grave-cold.

“Am I... dead?”

“Little Yue won’t die!” LittleSnow’s voice rang like steel under silk. “The Staff of Naraka struck you with its mirage. Everything you saw was a false winter.”

“Huh?” The sound was small, like a bell under a blanket.

“While Sister Liuyi’s power lost control... the enemy launched an ambush,” Breeze said, face blank as a mask, eyes full of remorse like dusk before rain.

“Crimson Paradise... right? Ugh... damn it.” A sliver of calm slid back into Yue Liuyi’s mind like a cool blade.

The mirage had felt real, real enough to set her bones trembling like bamboo in wind.

But that couldn’t be the truth. Breeze had lived through world’s end—she would never do that.

“Heh~ Either way, Little Yue’s awake. That’s what matters,” Dixue said through a smile still wet with tears, stroking the blue-haired girl’s head like smoothing a startled kitten.

“Don’t relax just because Yue looks fine!” Dawn Goose said, but the corners of her mouth curved like sun catching the edge of a cloud. “We’re still surrounded, layer upon layer.”

“Eh...?” Only now did Yue Liuyi notice Dawn Goose’s hair had turned black again, the color she wore when she meant business like ink on a war banner.

From outside the window came a low thunder of artillery, braiding the air like iron weaving with flame.

“Heh-heh! Dixue, how does it feel to watch your beloved suffer?” The Crimson Baroness’s voice drifted through the hull like cold perfume. “You captured my vassal. I will have my revenge.”

“Uh!” At that voice, the silver-haired girl clenched her teeth like snow creaking under boots.

“You still won’t surrender? Then I’ll use my final measure,” the Baroness purred, dark as winter midnight.

“They’re starting the full assault?” Dawn Goose’s tone sharpened like a drawn blade. “Dixue, I’ll go meet them! Maria might not hold alone!”

“No need.” Dixue rose, still cradling Yue Liuyi like fire in her arms. “They’re bluffing. The Crimson Baroness doesn’t dare let her vassals fight us up close.”

Her anger burned hot as a forge. She wanted to crush every hand that had hurt Little Yue like grinding ice under heel.

But she knew the enemy had only two true targets—Yue Liuyi and Ailuna, two lanterns they’d try to snuff.

The most vital task was guarding the World Tree Maidens.

So Dixue gathered all three World Tree Maidens together like saplings ringed by stones.

She called Dawn Goose and Zaocun to form a wall, so no strange tricks could slither through like mist.

Even the Revival Bloom was set in a corner like an anchor charm, every thread knotted, every door watched.

Still, Crimson Paradise’s next strike slid in from an angle like sleet on a sideways wind.

“Achoo! Uu... anyone else feel a sudden chill?” The catfolk girl sneezed, ears flicking like frosted leaves.

“Mm. I feel it... not good. That’s a magic attack.” Dawn Goose’s gaze went sharp, bright as ice.

Above the Skyship, snow gathered as if a gray god wrung a cloud out by hand.

Then the snow sharpened into spears of ice and fell like a field of needles.

For the Skyship’s hull, it was a tickle, a scratch on iron.

But when the ice melted to glittering crystals and clung to the plating like hoarfrost, the temperature around them plunged like a cliff in shadow.

Normally, that wasn’t hard to handle—just fire up the heat like a hearth in a mountain hut.

But right now, the Skyship had been played too hard by Xiang Xiaoyan, left creaking like an old lute.

“Dixue! The Skyship’s heating efficiency is down to two percent!” Maria’s voice crackled through the phone like wind over a wire.

“Activate the thermal emergency protocol.” Dixue’s reply was crisp, a blade through winter air.

“Windows and doors closed, minimizing heat loss,” Maria said, words tight as wrapped bundles.

But it wasn’t enough.

The original hull had been built with heat-shielding in mind, and the glass was triple-vacuum, strong as three layers of ice.

The replacement sections, though, were rough stitch-work, more shield than quilt, built by elves who could sing to trees but not to nanomaterials.

Cold seeped through the patched skin of the ship like a river through reed mats, and slid into the rooms.

“Uu! So cold!” Ailuna hugged herself, crouching like a shivering fawn.

The room’s breath turned white and wispy, and even Yue Liuyi’s words smoked like little dragons.

The temperature plunged past freezing like a stone into a lake.

“Senpais! I brought bedding!”

As the girls trembled like reeds in a north wind, Lingwei and San Hua Zhi staggered in with an armful of sheets and quilts, a mountain of fluff tumbling like clouds.

Thump—down went the stack, dozens thick like piled snow.

“Good work,” the silver-haired girl nodded, voice steady as a stove’s hum. “Initiate step two of the thermal protocol.”

“Got it! The stoves and firewood are on the way.” Their answer skipped like sparks.

“Eh!? LittleSnow, your ‘thermal protocol’ is...” Yue Liuyi blinked, words fogging like a winter window.

“Mm! Everyone, hug each other! Then pile the quilts on top!” LittleSnow’s voice was bright as a copper bell.

Yue Liuyi didn’t need to join the group hug; she was already held full-length, wrapped like a treasure against Dixue’s chest.

Together they rolled into the sheets like two silkworms, and pulled heavy quilts over them like layered clouds.

Two girls, twined with blankets, hugging tight like braids.

“Zaocun’s here too!” With a perfect excuse to clutch Sister Yue, Zaocun couldn’t hold back the spring in her step; she pounced in like a warm cat.

“Yah! Zaocun? LittleSnow!?” Heat rushed over Yue Liuyi’s skin like tea poured into cold porcelain.

She became the filling of a human sandwich, Dixue and Zaocun left and right like twin hearths.

Even her arms felt a soft press at certain places, like velvet fruit against the forearm.

“Looks so warm! Ailuna wants in!” Ailuna couldn’t stand the cold and flopped into the pile like a seal into snow.

“Breeze must atone for her sins...” Breeze murmured, and hugged from the last gap like wind finding the final seam.

“Uu? Uu-uu...?”

Being wrapped by girls to fend off the killing cold should have been bliss, like winter honey on the tongue.

Especially after that nightmare—this should have been the gentlest spring.

But Yue Liuyi—

Blacked out on the spot, shy and red as a peony, with a little nosebleed blooming like a red petal.

Because, once upon a time, she was—

A boy.