“Mmm... this chair’s a bit small—like a sparrow’s perch.”

“Because it’s made for little kids—seats for saplings, not trees.”

“Little Yue, they’re starting!”

The girls sat in a kindergarten classroom, still as lilies on a pond, eyes fixed on the projection like moths to a lantern.

The image poured from a morning glory’s trumpet, its light spilling onto the blackboard like pale dawn on slate. The picture was fuzzy, a fogged window, yet clear enough to show a cluster of black‑clad figures moving like crows at dusk, poised to do something.

Their leader swaggered like a storm front. His black suit hung off his shoulders like a cape in a night wind. A cigar smoldered at the corner of his mouth, and pale smoke rings climbed like ghostly halos, as if he were speaking to the air.

Beside him stood a woman thin as a willow branch and a burly fat man built like a boar under armor.

The woman was about one sixty‑five, wrapped in skintight black leather like shadow on skin, long boots dark as wet obsidian. From this angle, her face hid like the moon behind clouds, but the skin she showed was moon‑pale, a sickly frost.

The fat man, broad as a boulder, still squeezed into an ill‑fitting suit. A big box rode his back like a tortoise shell—judging by the size, it looked like a heavy weapon’s ammo case.

The other men in black looked like small fry, driftwood in a dark tide. Seven or eight of them, each carried something canteen‑shaped, metal glints like dull fish in a net, purpose unknown.

They moved with fox‑quiet caution, checked their tail like birds testing wind, then slipped through the gate of an abandoned factory, swallowed by its rusted maw.

“Woof? What are they... trying to do?” The bark rose like a pebble dropped in still water.

The feed halted, a held breath. They were spying through Dixue’s summoned butterflies, white flutters like snowflakes; to see inside, Dixue had to shift a butterfly deeper through the rafters like a moth seeking fire.

“I don’t know... but that kind of sneaking reeks like swamp gas. It’s nothing good.”

“Little Rose feels it too. That aura—they carry it like winter wind. I know it too well.”

“Wait... LittleSnow, can you nudge the image inward?” Yue Liuyi’s heartbeat thudded like a drum under silk; her eyes narrowed like new moons.

“Little Yue wants inside? We need a moment. If we rush in, we’ll spook them like deer.”

“No. Tilt the view to the factory sign—like turning a fan toward the window.”

“Oh—that’s easy!”

The projection panned, a crane’s slow arc. The factory logo slid into view like a shadow stepping into lantern‑light.

“Ugh... Sa—Sanlu Chemical Plant!” The words stumbled like a child on ice.

“Sanlu Chemical Plant? Little Yue, you know that name?”

“Mm. Sanlu Chemical Plant—this is the one Luyao told me about, the factory that leaked toxic gas,” she said, her voice hushed like snow.

“What!?”

Shock rippled through the girls like wind across rice fields. Two years ago, on Dreamwood Star, a cyanide gas leak had torn through lives like a black frost. Countless people fled the Winterwood District, birds abandoning a withered grove.

The chemical spill was only one shard of Dreamwood’s pollution, a cracked mirror of a larger blight. But that single storm made people lose faith in the sky itself, like sailors doubting the stars.

So then... why had these people come here today? The question hung like a hawk circling carrion.

Yue Liuyi’s gut tightened like a drawn bow. Whatever the men in black planned, it wasn’t simple—it smelled of thunder.

“LittleSnow, we need to see what they’re doing.”

“Yeah... this looks messy. I’ll shift the phantom butterflies—closer, like snow drifting to the eaves.”

The image turned again. A white butterfly swayed down like a flake of ash, landing on a branch by the factory wall.

Through layered leaves—a green curtain— the girls watched the black‑clad men. They pulled out rulers and gauges, measuring the factory’s instruments like carpenters sizing bones.

The burly fat man hooked thick fingers under a manhole cover and lifted it bare‑handed, iron groaning like old ice. He lowered something down the throat of the dark, a stone into a well.

“Woof? What are they doing?” The bark trembled like a leaf.

“If only... we could hear what they’re saying,” someone whispered, hope thin as smoke.

“If we get a bit closer, we’ll catch their words—like crickets at the threshold. But they might notice.”

“If they notice...”

“It should be fine,” came the steady answer, a river over stone. “Worst case, we change plans.”

Dixue weighed it like a scale with a single feather, then sent the phantom butterfly gliding inward, a white petal on black air.

The projection sharpened, edges crisp as frost. From the morning glory’s trumpet came their voices, drifting like low thunder.

“My lord! All measurements are done.”

The voice was slovenly, a wet rag on gravel.

“Good. Serpent Enchantress, what’s the success rate on your disguise?”

This one was flamboyant, a banner snapping in wind.

“Unknown.” The reply was cold and lush, a winter rose. From the timbre, a woman: “If it’s Lope’s underlings, those wastes won’t notice. If it’s the Dreamwood Alliance, I can’t say.”

“Good. That’s enough. Move—now.”

The arrogant voice returned, a blade flashing in dusk.