At first light the next day, the girls packed their bags and set out hand in hand, like dew-beads strung on a blade of grass.

Sunlight sifted through the treetops, gauze-like mist draped the air, and gold-white beams slanted down like ribbons, gilding leaf-littered earth until the jungle glowed like a dream.

Birdsong rang like silver bells, and a far brook chimed like glass; the wind brushed their cheeks like cool spring water, and one breath tasted of hush and cleansing rain.

For ease, Dixue hid the Skyship in a quiet wood deep in Rainbow Valley, like a white whale sleeping under green waves.

It would spare them needless trouble, but the road to the Forest Fortress would be taken on foot, like a path stitched through moss with patient needles.

“I’m a noble princess! Why am I doing grunt work?” Ji Wan burst out, her voice fluttering like a startled sparrow.

Annoyance burning like a coal, she shoved a small handcart—the very one Dixue had used in the Elven Forest to carry Xiao Yue—its wheels whispering like beetles on leaves.

“Noble ‘Princess’? Because what we’re hauling is also a noble ‘Princess,’” Dixue said, her tone light as a dandelion seed.

“Huh? A princess...?” Ji Wan blinked, confusion rippling like rings in a pond.

She hadn’t visited the infirmary since the Sixth Princess boarded the Skyship, and she had no idea what the cart held, a sealed shell in the shade.

“Your sister, Sikong Qinhui, is inside,” Dixue added, words dropping like pebbles into silence.

“W-What!” The exclamation shot out like a startled hare from bracken.

The orange-haired girl darted to a vent slit and peered in; a red-haired girl lay with eyes closed, that ‘savage’ face all too familiar—a mirror shard of home, her sister, Sikong Qinhui.

“S-sis!? Why is she with you... Is this a corpse cart? Don’t kill my sister, don’t kill me! O-or I’ll fight you to the death!” Her bravado quivered like a paper lantern in wind.

Realizing she’d been pushing a cart holding Qinhui, Ji Wan’s face went green like unripe bamboo shoots.

The Sixth Princess puffed herself up before Dixue, but in a maid outfit with a scandal-short hem and no sword at her waist, her shivers looked cute as a newborn fawn.

“A-as a royal child, I would never harm my own blood! No matter what vile tricks you use... it won’t work...” Her voice ebbed like a tide, fear seeping in like cold fog.

“You can relax, Ji Wan. Unless you’re too naughty, the big sisters don’t bully girls. And if you do get punished, Ailuna will share it with you,” Ailuna chirped, her promise hopping like a little rabbit across clover.

“Share...?” Ji Wan stared at the pink-haired comforter, confusion blooming like a plum bud in late snow.

“Ahh... such an untouched fledgling dragon,” the silver-haired girl sighed, her breath like frost on a window. She tugged Yue Liuyi close and hugged her like a pale willow cradling moonlight.

“You’re not... a crooked shop that sells heartless meals?” Ji Wan asked, suspicion pricking like thorns.

“If we were, we’d have sold you already,” Dixue said, dry as winter reeds. “The Chaotic Lands teem with rebel outfits like hornets’ nests.”

Not as crucial as the World Tree Maiden, perhaps, but price alone would make this pampered dragonkin princess fetch a fortune, enough to buy carefree days like a river without end.

Out here in the far-off New Land where heaven is high and the emperor far away, even selling a princess, Dragon Heaven couldn’t react in time, like thunder too distant to shake the eaves.

“Don’t sell me! That would be so humiliating!” Ji Wan cried, cheeks burning like peaches in sun.

“That’s why we’re not here to persecute you,” Dixue said, voice like a silk fan flicking heat aside, “but to save you and your sister—by order of Lady Dixue, branch leader of the Rangers Lodge.”

“R-Rangers Lodge...? N-no way! The brothers and sisters of the Lodge are good people. They wouldn’t treat me as cruelly as you do... making me do terrible things...” Ji Wan’s eyes went wide, haunted like a deer hearing a hunter’s flute.

“Terrible... things?” Maria stepped forward, her brow folding like gentle hills; she couldn’t recall giving Ji Wan anything truly harsh.

“Dishwashing! You made me... touch such filthy work... u-uu...” Ji Wan stared at her own hands as if crumbs still clung like burrs, dirty as gutter moss.

...

“And this morning, no one helped me dress! No one even brought my panties,” she added, her grievance puffing like steamed buns.

“Dixue, let me handle her,” Xiang Xiaoyan said, her frown cutting like a knife through bamboo. What stung wasn’t just Ji Wan’s pampered airs, but her disgust toward leftovers.

These were Dawn Goose’s own dishes, cooked with care like embers banked under ash. In the old days, even her leftovers would be fought over by adventurers like sparrows over millet—yet this girl called them filth.

“Let it be, Dawn Goose,” Dixue said, voice smooth as jade. “She’s a noble princess; pickiness is expected. If Lady Ji Wan won’t wash, then we won’t wash. We’ll keep the scraps.”

“K-keep them?” Ji Wan’s scalp tingled like a cat’s fur in dry wind.

“Mm. For Lady Ji Wan’s next meal. That way, she won’t need to wash,” Dixue replied, smile bright as fresh snow.

“W-wait—no! I’ll wash, I’ll wash!” Panic fluttered in Ji Wan’s chest like trapped swallows.

Looking at Yue Dier saying this with such a sunny smile, Ji Wan felt she’d met a demon in angel’s white—an icicle with a halo.

“Your Highness, no need to be shy,” someone teased, voice ringing like wind chimes. “Those bowls still have last meal’s scraps. Perfectly fine to keep eating!”

“I’ll wash! Please don’t make me eat that!” Ji Wan’s plea fell like kneeling rain.

By the end, the orange-haired girl’s voice had turned to supplication, thin as willow silk.

“Then it’s settled. Guard Xia, you explain things to Her Highness Ji Wan. You good?” Dixue said, waving a hand like a crane’s wing.

“Yeah. Leave it to me,” Xia Jiajun answered, a wry smile rising like smoke he couldn’t fan away.

Watching all this, Xia Jiajun could only laugh and sigh; in this black-haired girl’s body, he was starting to find his feet like a foal. Still awkward, but walking was fine for now.

“G-Guard Xia...? You’re my sister Qinhui’s... bodyguard?” Ji Wan asked, hope flickering like a firefly.

“Yes, Sixth Princess. Rest assured. Lady Qinhui is safe for the moment,” he said, his tone steady as a stone bridge over a rushing stream.

Xia Jiajun drew out a dragon-crest badge, the emblem of what he’d been—a moon sinking behind clouds. Since the Third Princess was stripped from the rolls, it had lost all real weight, like a seal with no wax to press.

“B-but I remember Guard Xia as a handsome boy... How are you... like this?” Ji Wan’s words trailed off like smoke.

“Your Highness, that’s... a long story,” he said, helplessness fluttering like a rag in wind.

Facing the Sixth Princess, the black-haired girl gave a bitter smile and, like laying stones across a river, sketched out what had happened since landing in the New Land.

...