Linluo University sat only a block away from Moon Post Bookstore, like a shadow sharing the same street.

Yet, like Winter Leaf Road, this once-bright name on Dreamwood Star now lay half-abandoned, a lantern guttering in wind.

Its iron back gate was wrecked; the lock core was gone, and spray paint bloomed across it like mold on damp stone.

The guard booth looked moth-eaten; the smashed wooden desk was heaped with glass grit and cigarette stubs, like cold ash after rain.

So Yue Liuyi signed nothing and walked straight in, a stray breeze slipping through a torn screen.

Compared with the city outside, the campus streets looked tidier, like a courtyard freshly swept—no gum, no smeared stains.

But the way ahead felt hollow; only dead trees stood on both sides like burnt torches, and not a single student drifted by.

That hush felt inevitable, like frost after a hard night; Linluo hadn’t opened public enrollment in ages.

Money, accreditation, the flow of students—many reasons crowded in like clouds, but the sharpest edge was exclusion.

As a haven of scholars on Dreamwood Star, Linluo understood how ecology roots a society; teachers and students pushed to strengthen an Ecological Protection Law and chased remedies through research, like planters tending seedlings.

Those trees on campus were planted then, green vows turned to bark; pity—like the trees now husks, their efforts hit a wall they couldn’t climb.

It was a wall of capitalists, outside firms, and speculators, a dam of cold coin built against the river of reform.

They cared for profit now, not tomorrow; for a quick flame, not a steady hearth, for harvest without soil.

So the researchers became thorns in their eyes; if the law took shape, their running factories would bleed money like a cut artery.

They broadcast like adverts, beating the drum of “production is justice, jobs are happiness,” painting rightness with the color of paychecks.

To win workers and citizens, they poured in servile ideas like syrup and smeared Linluo with low tricks like mud.

They poisoned trees, slipped shoddy reagents into labs, and seeded rumors like dandelion fluff on wind.

Worst of all, they blacklisted Linluo graduates from their companies, doors slamming like iron shutters in a storm.

Under that weight, Linluo had to shrink, like a fire banked to embers; only a few grad students and projects still glowed here.

Sorrow pricked first, a needle under the skin; Yue Liuyi had come here often as a child and had seen the place blaze like a festival.

Phew... She drew a long breath like tasting cold dawn, shook her head, and tried to buoy her spirits.

Anyone home? I’m here to buy magelight candles~

She pushed open the Ninth Institute’s door and called inside; selling fresh-made magelight candles had once been one of Linluo’s side incomes, a little lamp oil for its lamp.

The foyer was hollow as a shell; a headless woman in stone stood by the stairs, a mute sentry in dust.

Huh... did they stop selling while I was away? Anyone? I’m here for magelight candles...

Unease brushed her first like a chill; she walked deeper, but no answer came, only her footsteps roaming the corridor like pebbles in a dry well.

Don’t tell me the Ninth Institute’s empty...?

That was the worst outcome—the researchers had flown this forsaken star like birds leaving a dead tree.

But that shouldn’t be; hope flickered like a wick. Sis Kiki told me they wouldn’t leave, no matter what.

The blue-haired girl kept on, wrapped in old familiarity like a faded coat; she didn’t raise her guard and didn’t notice... her foot found a trap.

Huh?!

Weight vanished under her soles; iron bars surged from the floor like reeds of steel.

Ah—it's a trap!

She darted sideways, but too late; a huge iron cage rose to the ceiling and sealed her in, a netted minnow shaking her head in panic.

Why would a school have traps?

Oh! Got another one? Haha, walked right into my mousetrap!

A girl came from down the hall, her voice arriving first like a tossed pebble across water.

She looked sturdy and sun-bright, wore overalls, and her hair was a storm of tangles, as if vanity were a dull chore.

A wrench hung from her belt, the badge of someone fresh from the guts of a machine.

Huh?! Are you a researcher here?

Oh? They sent a girl to do sabotage now? Think I’ll go soft because of that?

Panic spiked like a struck string. You’ve got it wrong. I’m not here to wreck anything!