“Spare us!!”
As Yue Liuyi stepped into the warehouse, a wave of pleading rose like wind through dead leaves.
Four masked men knelt like broken scarecrows, a few vials of venom tossed aside like shed snake skins.
The machines inside already drank ink-green poison; thick, harmful slurry pulsed through metal veins, a swamp reek spreading across the room.
Yue Liuyi’s gaze hooked onto a thin woman, a lone reed shivering in a corner.
She stood trembling against the wall, a black handgun clenched like a cold stone in her fist.
Bang!
The woman fired, but Little Rose threw up a curtain of water, a clear river that swallowed the bullet.
Little Rose flowed with it and drew a gold-and-crimson muzzle-loader, the black mouth yawning at the woman’s brow like a cave.
The woman looked death in the eye like frost and tried to pull the trigger again; Dongfang Chen flicked a fan of fire-feathers, and the blaze knocked her away.
Her frail body hit the wall like a fallen sparrow and slid down into faint silence.
“Little Rose, don’t shoot. I’ve got questions for them.”
Chest lifted like a steady mountain, Yue Liuyi walked to the center, a calm tide cutting through the stink.
The syndicate’s trail writhed like smoke; Yue Liuyi needed the root, not just the leaves.
“You came here to do what? If you don’t answer, I’ll shatter those gas masks one by one like brittle shells.”
The “youth’s” voice rang across the warehouse, a bell in a hollow hall, and the remaining lackeys cracked under fear like ice.
“Boss, mercy!! We’re just grunts of the New Island Group! The underboss ordered us here—we’re only following orders!”
“New Island Group?”
“It’s a black syndicate name... Angel Sis, they should be gang members, and that one just now was their underboss.”
“Huh? A force from another star?”
Dreamwood Star doesn’t have mafias in the usual sense; folks like Luyao are more like street crews, waves splashing at the shore, far from a deep ocean.
The star-spanning syndicates carry armies like ant swarms and companies across planets like iron forests; they walk black and white both, hard bones to chew.
“As for details... Little Rose doesn’t know! If Little Dessert were here, she’d know for sure!”
“I see...”
Dongfang Chen nodded like a reed in wind, then faced the lackeys. “Anything else to add? Especially... about the World Tree Maiden.”
He smiled strangely—pretty face, ragged women’s clothes—an unbeatable vibe of a twisted blossom in the dark.
He himself didn’t notice that shadow.
“More info!! Sir, spare us, don’t shoot!”
The lackeys sprawled like lizards on the floor, already cowed by Yue Liuyi’s presence, a storm heavy with thunder.
“Mm... speak.”
“W-we only joined the boss recently!”
...
...
Yue Liuyi sighed, a thin mist leaving her lips, and stepped out of the warehouse with a stone in her chest.
The lackeys’ story carried good news and bad, twin tides colliding.
Good news: they don’t know who the World Tree Maiden is; Yue Liuyi’s guess was right, even the man in sunglasses didn’t expect her to appear here like moonlight at noon.
Bad news: though they don’t know her face, they came to hunt the World Tree Maiden, knives wrapped in velvet.
The syndicate was hired by Dreamwood Star’s Welfare Alliance—Capital Alliance—first to track the World Tree Maiden and, if needed, cut her down; second to sabotage Lindream Council actions, so their profits stay fat like winter geese.
Today’s black-clad were only a vanguard, the first drop before the storm; to erase the World Tree Maiden, they’ll weave tighter nets and bring more hands.
“Looks like we need to move carefully now.”
While Yue Liuyi’s thoughts churned like dark water, Little Rose drifted in on her broom, a swallow riding a breeze.
“Angel Sis, I already leaned on those ‘three-thousand’ punks and made them pour the venom back into the vials!”
“Good. In a bit I’ll use air magic to seal the air here, a glass bell over the room.”
“Only seal it? Want me to handle those ‘three-thousand’ clowns? Don’t worry... clean work, the cops won’t smell a trail.”
“Uh... let’s not, for now. I’ll ask LittleSnow before deciding.”
Yue Liuyi shook her head, a willow frond tired in rain; on what to do with the black-clad, she had no bright path.
On a battlefield she could cut down foes like weeds; but to kill those who tossed their weapons and knelt, her blade turned to water.
Handing them to the legal system would be best, like tossing fish back to the net; but it might expose her identity, and she’s not ready to give the Council more of herself.
“LittleSnow... should have a way.”
Just as that thought rippled, a silver-white silhouette glided into view like moonlight on frost.
