Pushing a shared handcart—the same one they’d used to wheel LittleSnow that first day—the two girls rolled back, satisfied like cats warm in a sunbeam.

The market had been a river of colors. They brought back plenty, not just daily supplies. Yue Liuyi also bought little notebooks and pens, like minnows in a net. With those, she could make simple games for everyone to play.

They passed cluttered blocks and bare tree trunks like bleached ribs. Then Yue Liuyi and LittleSnow reached the Winterwood District again. Far from the city’s noise, the air came clean as a mountain spring.

“Wow, what a haul today!”

Joy sparked like lantern light. Yue Liuyi looked at the goods and pictured the eyes waiting at home, bright as stars behind a window.

Kaka would pounce like a golden pup, hunting for her chew-bone. Little Rose would be giddy, rolling on the bed like a petal in wind.

“Mmm… never thought plushies from Xiaoyue’s hometown would be this cheap…”

LittleSnow eyed the plushies riding the cart. In the Inner Ring, one plush could cost a hundred yuan or more. Here they were twenty yuan each.

“It’s ’cause no one wants them… There used to be a plush factory on Earth. It went under, so they dumped stock on Dreamwood Star…”

“Huh?”

“The boss was a guy named Lan He. He couldn’t pay wages and ran off with his sister-in-law. He left workers to take plush as pay…”

“Heh, that’s wild—eh…? Xiaoyue, look out!”

Laughter froze to ice. Dixue spotted a black shadow, a hawk-dive aimed at them.

To be precise, it was a heavy truck, barreling at seventy or eighty kilometers per hour. Its weight was a battering ram, enough to punch through walls.

A normal person would have been paste under its wheels.

The truck’s target was clearly the girls. It came on like a landslide, with zero sign of braking.

But Dixue wasn’t ordinary. And Yue Liuyi wasn’t ordinary either.

Fear pricked first. Then Yue Liuyi snapped up a hand, and air bent. She cast an air spell that locked the wind, a clear wall like glass.

LittleSnow’s fingertip traced silver. A streak shot at the truck like a falling star.

Boom!

Silver light detonated on contact, a firework against steel. The congealed wind knitted into a supple wall, a tight-webbed net that wrapped the truck and held.

“What—”

“Xiaoyue, careful!”

Relief came sharp, then broke again. The truck was only the opening move. Five men in black sprinted in from afar and squeezed their triggers without mercy.

Rat-tat-tat!

9mm rounds hissed in from all directions, like hornets from four winds. The crossfire stole every scrap of cover, meant to erase targets in a blink.

Let alone Yue Dier; even Dongfang Chen wouldn’t fear that kind of ambush.

They wore no level-three armor or helmets. But in a world of magic, guns were for ordinary people. Against veteran mage-warriors, guns were blunt sticks.

Yue Liuyi and Little Rose chose the same answer. The World Tree Maiden went further. She raised a thick water curtain close to her skin, a river-coat.

Outside that, the blue-haired girl spun a burning ring, a rim of flame like a plasma shield. Bullets hit and liquefied in a breath. The molten iron fell and the water drank it.

To wield water and fire at once, two warring elements, was beyond elite. It was a master’s hand. Seeing that, the men in black shivered like reeds in a cold wind.

LittleSnow seized the blink of stillness and struck. Killing flunkies was easy. Catching live ones took finesse and a gentle grip.

Silver-white butterflies became lances of light. They carried a thunder of sound and a white flash that slammed the head. Under that “stun” and “flash,” the men couldn’t even blink. They crumpled, stunned cold.

“Hah… what is this… who are these people…”

Nerves tingled like ice. Yue Liuyi wiped sweat from her cheek. The assault had failed to harm them, but the suddenness gnawed at her.

Why attack us? Was this ambush laid in advance? If so, would the Moon Post Bookstore be at risk?

Anxious, Yue Liuyi glanced at LittleSnow. The silver-haired girl scanned the street, then shook her head to Xiaoyue, calm as falling snow. “Xiaoyue, don’t worry about home yet. These men in black are pawns, thrown away.”

“Pawns?”

“Mm. They don’t know our depth, so they sent these ones to probe. Just now, I felt a hidden presence slip away. That person is the real attacker.”

As she spoke, Dixue stared back the way they’d come, eyes like frost. One step closer, and her Cherry Blossom Butterfly Speech would have snared him in silk.

But the watcher stayed beyond her range, cautious and clever as a fox.

“Then we…”

“Xiaoyue, let’s go back to the Moon Post Bookstore. Grab one of these and bring him. Let that red-haired kid handle the rest.”

“Mm…”

…

For the last stretch, Yue Liuyi moved like a cat on wet tiles, careful with every step.

Maybe the display had been enough. No more men in black showed. The girls reached the Moon Post Bookstore without another ripple.

“Woof, Master’s back!”

Before they pushed the door, Kaka popped from behind it like a spring and swung it open for Yue Liuyi.

“Huh? Kaka…”

“Woof woof woof!!”

The golden-haired little girl wagged her tail like a metronome. She’d clearly been waiting behind the door for ages.

“Mmm… good girl, Kaka… this is your bone.”

Yue Liuyi patted Kaka’s head, warm as sunlight. Then she handed over a bone-shaped cloth toy, a chew made for dogs—gentle on teeth, tough as rope.

“Woof! Awesome! Eh… did you bring back big ribs? Woof! Thank you, Master!”

“Wait, Kaka, that’s a captured man in black! He’s for questioning, not for eating!”

Yue Liuyi shot out a hand and stopped Kaka’s eager pounce, like catching a pup mid-leap.