In the Skyship’s cockpit, the girls wore storm-stiff faces, like reeds bracing under a hard wind.

Outside the windows, the Crimson Baroness strutted like a blood-feathered hawk riding dark currents, arrogance blazing.

“Hahaha, Dixue—your old flame is already in my net.”

She hurled a red-haired girl onto the deck. The girl was limp, hands lashed behind her, and dust flurried up like ash from a dying fire.

“Eh!? Sikong… Qinhui…?”

Dixue hadn’t imagined their reunion would fall like this, cold as rain on old letters.

The Third Princess had lost the thunder she’d worn when Yue Liuyi first met her. Even in her deep sleep, toil shadowed her brows, the way long roads carve lines into a traveler.

As if she’d been running too long, never finding a spring to rest by.

“Damn you, Crimson witch! Colluding with the Fourth Princess…”

On the other side, another “girl” was pushed out of the grove, struggling against hands like vines. She wore a shame-bright bunny outfit, wrists bound behind her, and the quotes mattered—her face was resolute, lovely yet edged like blade-light, a beauty gone uncanny.

Yue Liuyi stared, and her breath snapped like a string.

“Xia… Xia Jiajun!?”

Yes—though the bunny-suited girl looked far from the clean-cut boy in a suit, Yue Liuyi saw him in those pupils, steady as stars over a winter lake.

(But why… would that boy… become…)

“You can break me, but I won’t bow. This debt—I’ll pay back in fire.”

Bound and unashamed, the girl glared at the Crimson Baroness, eyes bright as flint, spine straight as a spear.

“Oh? A loyal hound indeed. Turned out like this and still no gratitude? I handed you the only chance.”

The Crimson Baroness’s heels clicked like cold bells as she glided close, smile wicked as moonlight over a blade. She lifted the girl’s chin with one finger, a crimson nail like a thorn.

“Gratitude?”

“Your master only favors women. Like this, you finally hold a key to her heart.”

“W-what!?”

“If you can’t grasp even that, you’re just a dull tool that can’t read a woman’s tides.”

She shook her head, and interest died like a candle in wind. A sweep of violet light brushed the air, and the bunny girl’s resolve went dark, falling into silence.

“Crimson Baroness! Why strike at Sikong Qinhui? Don’t you know Dragon Heaven will answer with thunder?”

Dixue stepped onto the bridge, voice cold as frost on steel, facing the Crimson Baroness head-on.

“Haha, Dixue, you didn’t know? Dragon Heaven wanted her taken. I’m only the knife they hired.”

“Dragon Heaven?”

“I’m working on commission.”

Black demonic wings spread behind her like a midnight field of feathers, and she rose, hovering near the Skyship. She met Dixue’s gaze like two stars locking across a winter sky. “The Fourth Princess sent Crimson Paradise to capture Sikong Qinhui. But once I learned her tie to you, I changed the play.”

“Hmph, another shadowed scheme.”

“No. A trade. Choice sits in your palm like a coin.”

“A trade. What kind?”

Dixue’s brows knit, caution pooling like ink. Bargaining with the Crimson Baroness felt like petting a tiger under lantern light.

“I’ll hand you Sikong Qinhui. Her loyal hound too. Do as you wish. Or let her fall into the Fourth Princess’s net, and the end won’t be mercy.”

“And your price?”

“Ailuna. I want the World Tree Maiden.”

“Impossible.”

Dixue refused without a heartbeat, her answer sharp as a snapped bowstring. “If that’s your offer, we have nothing more to say.”

Her silver hair flashed like frost, and she signaled Xiang Xiaoyan and Maria. The three were coiled, ready to seize their own, storm-bright and steady.

On the Skyship, they never hand over comrades to the void. And they never watch a tangled girl drown without throwing a rope.

“Haha, I knew you’d spit that back. And you’re right—a mongrel princess doesn’t deserve a World Tree Maiden.”

The Crimson Baroness smiled, then lifted her chin, sudden solemn as an altar. Behind her, a lozenge blade with a cross-flower pattern shimmered like stained glass in shadow.

“Then a new price. Sea Sword Princess—and Xiao Hei. They’re my precious retainers. No matter the tide, I’ll reclaim them.”

“Sea Sword Princess…?”

“Otherwise, even if I can’t beat you straight, I’ll hunt you to the world’s edge. Like just now—I’ll keep tormenting your lovers, striking at your sleep.”

“Why ask us? Sea Sword Princess and Xiao Hei were handed to the elves. They aren’t aboard.”

Since the war in the Elven Capital ended, the Sea Sword Princess and other illegal captives were locked in elven cells, waiting for Ailuna to return and give judgment.

“Humph! The World Tree Maiden is with you. If the elves move, it’s because Ailuna speaks—and the World Tree listens like an old oak to rain.”

“Uh…”

Dixue fell into thought like a pebble sinking into a quiet lake, and Yue Liuyi sensed the aim under Crimson Paradise’s pursuit like smoke tracing a hidden fire.

The Skyship carried three World Tree Maidens—two in public—and three bosses of the Rangers Lodge. A weight like that could crush a planet, a storm even Crimson Paradise wouldn’t sail against.

So they’d abandoned a frontal war. Offering Sikong Qinhui, who should’ve been delivered to the Fourth Princess, was a kind of compromise, a red blossom tossed to calm the tide.

Yet the Crimson Baroness valued her retainers like heart-blood; she wouldn’t leave them floating.

Thus they set the terms: trade the Third Princess for captured retainers. And if the Skyship refused, harassment would gnaw like wolves at night. Yue Liuyi’s illusion had already drawn that map.

“Dixue-jiejie… let’s accept Crimson Paradise’s terms. I’m willing… to release their captured members.”

Ailuna stepped forward, careful as a doe crossing water, voice soft and clear as rain on leaves.

“Eh? You’d do that? Crimson Paradise might be the very hand that robbed you.”

“Mm. I don’t know Xiao Hei well, but I spoke with the Sea Sword Princess at the camp. She truly loves Crimson Paradise—that’s why she joined.”

“…All right. I hear you.”

Dixue nodded, decision settling in her chest like a stone that fits the palm.

“Baroness, I accept. Sea Sword Princess and her retinue will be released. Xiao Hei… I make no promise.”

“No promise?”

“Ailuna will sign the release now. Whether they return to you or not—that’s their freedom, like birds choosing a sky.”

“Haha, interesting. Fine… I accept.”

…

After that, the trade passed hand to hand like lanterns in fog.

Dixue didn’t trust her, so they swapped hostages and letters on the landing field before the Skyship’s gate, open as a plain under moonlight. Ailuna wrote the release by her own hand, ink smelling like sap. Maria carried the sleeping Sikong Qinhui and Xia Jiajun back to their cabins, gentle as night nurses.

“Good… Dixue, doing business with you is a pleasure, crisp as winter air.”

The Baroness dipped her chin, eyes gleaming as she drank in Yue Dier’s beauty like wine under a red moon.

“I don’t share that feeling. You hand me Qinhui like this—aren’t you afraid of the Fourth Princess’s reprisal, a thunder that doesn’t ask names?”

“Not at all. They planned to dump the blame on me anyway. A warning for you—the Fourth Princess will strike next, sharp as a falcon.”

“Hmph, let her come. Has she not eaten enough bitter losses before me, Yue Dier?”

The silver-haired girl stood calm, sky-clear, no storm-wall pressing her horizon.

“She’s fallen to you? Intriguing. President Dixue, I understand—I’ve no right to make you my retainer. Let’s hope next time we meet, the wind doesn’t push us into war.”

“Don’t bully my Xiao Yue. Touch her, and I’ll come for you like fire in dry grass.”

And so the Rangers Lodge—an odd official engine—and Crimson Paradise—an acknowledged outlaw garden—struck their bargain, two shadows shaking hands under a sunless sky.

It smelled like officials and bandits clasping wrists, but on the lawless New Land, such trades were everyday weather.

Besides—

The red-haired girl who’d once dragged Dixue and Yue Liuyi through thorn and storm

had finally come aboard the Skyship, a scarlet comet gone quiet.