“This is Misty Tide. She’ll be living with us for a while, like fog settling in for the night.”

After introducing the girl playing under the dining table like a cat in shadow, Nana Toki lowered her head again and fiddled with the radio like it were a stubborn seashell.

“I told her not to do anything to you, so relax, like putting a stone back on a quiet pond.”

Luo Shanshan: “...”

“Why is Misty Tide crouching under the table, like a goblin under a bridge?”

At the thought of last night, ice crawled over Luo Shanshan’s skin like a winter wind through bamboo.

Angel? No—demon; the halo had cracked and left only horns in moonlight.

“Maybe she wants to surprise you,” said Nana Toki, like a fox grinning behind a paper screen.

“...Some surprise,” Luo Shanshan muttered, heart drumming like a scared sparrow in a bamboo cage.

“By the way, there’s something else,” Nana Toki added, voice flat as a blade on snow.

She paused with the radio and looked up at Luo Shanshan, calm as a lake before rain. “Misty Tide is dangerous, so don’t parade her down the street like a torch in dry reeds.”

“Huh? Why?” The question fell from her lips like a pebble into a well.

“Zzzt-zzzt... zzzt-zzzt...”

Luo Shanshan wanted to ask more, but the radio hissed alive like cicadas in summer wire.

“Zzzt-zzzt... According to last night’s search squad, the Fog City killer seen at the alley mouth wasn’t alone. Two girls accompanied them. Their methods were ruthless. Residents, stay alert... zzzt-zzzt...”

“This is...”

She looked at Nana Toki hugging the radio, confusion drifting across her face like mist over water.

Why does that report sound so familiar, like a mirror you’d rather not look into?

“We’ve been put on a wanted list,” Nana Toki said, voice heavy as storm clouds.

“TV is probably plastered with our faces, like posters slapped on a damp wall.”

“Eh?!” Luo Shanshan blinked, lost, like a deer in lantern light. “Why are we wanted?”

“Because a killer is sitting in our home, like a tiger napping under our table.”

Nana Toki’s gaze slid beneath the table like a blade of shade.

Misty Tide was still squatting there, zoning out, like a small owl at noon.

Luo Shanshan: “...”

That little demon again?!

“Th-then what do we do now?” Her voice shook like a reed in wind.

“Trouble,” Nana Toki said, brows knitting like tangled thread. “They’ll be at our door soon, like thunder that already smells of rain.”

She set the radio on the side table like laying down a cooled ember. “Home’s burned. We leave first and plan on the road.”

She led Luo Shanshan and Misty Tide outside, moving like three shadows slipping off a wall.

They’d gone only a few steps before a crowd rolled toward them like a tide of boots, at least a dozen, maybe twenty.

At the front stood two all-too-familiar faces—Jiang Xinli and Bei Yuan—like chess pieces she’d already played against.

“Well now, what wind blew you two here today?” Nana Toki smiled as if tasting bitter tea.

Seeing them at her door wasn’t strange; Jiang Xinli had gone to her school, and an address spreads like gossip on a playground.

What startled her was the speed, like hawks diving the instant a mouse twitched—barely minutes since the broadcast.

Not even three minutes, and bodies already ringed her door like a net thrown in one practiced cast.

So this was planned ahead, like traps laid along a hunting path.

Or maybe it’s just that protagonist halo, bright as a stage spotlight that never dies.

“It hasn’t been long since we last met, has it? You’ve already made yourself queen bee here?” Nana Toki’s half-smile flashed like a knife’s reflection.

“Yu Xi, where are you going?” Jiang Xinli called, voice sharp as a snapped string.

Chased several times since being beaten back, Jiang Xinli had trained with Bei Yuan, grinding her power like a whetstone on steel.

She wasn’t fluent yet, but she could move, like a newborn blade learning wind.

Facing Nana Toki again, she had a little breath in her chest, a coal that wouldn’t go out.

“Where I go isn’t your business,” Yu Xi said, her grin wicked as foxfire, her eyes cold as a cave of ice.

Jiang Xinli felt an invisible wall press between them, air thick as wet paper, and her lungs forgot how to open.

When Yu Xi finally looked away, Jiang Xinli let out a breath like dropping a boulder into deep water.

It felt like a beast had fixed her with its stare, a claw running down her spine.

“Yu Xi! You’ve got some nerve, keeping company with the Fog City killer!” Voices rose like crows exploding from a tree.

“At school you were so well-behaved. Who knew you had thoughts like this!” Words flew like stones in a narrow alley.

“Yu Xi, what do you have to say!” The crowd’s clamor surged, a hot wind trying to tip them from the ridge.

“Xixi...” Luo Shanshan tugged Yu Xi’s hem, small as a moth seeking a sleeve.

But Nana Toki didn’t look back; her calm held like ice over a river.

“What do you want?” Her voice fell like cold water from a bucket, dousing sparks.

“You—” someone started, but met her gaze and swallowed the rest like a fish bone lodged mid-throat.

Jiang Xinli frowned, not expecting such coolness now, a chill road through summer air.

“Yu Xi, you’re suspected of colluding with the Fog City killer. Murder falls under law here,” she said, each word like a nail.

“No proof,” Yu Xi smiled, teeth white as frost. “Where do you see collusion? Or are you just guessing to pin me down?”

“...”

“We have witnesses,” Bei Yuan said at last, voice steady as a drawn bow.

A burly man stepped out of the crowd like a boulder rolling free—last night’s search captain from the alley.

He stood at Bei Yuan’s side, head down, lips sealed like a stitched wound.

He still remembered last night, carved in him like a scar, and he wouldn’t poke at these gods of calamity.

“Last night the search squad found the killer mid-strike,” Bei Yuan said. “After a chase, they met you at the alley mouth, like paths crossing at a fork.”

“So?” Yu Xi’s shrug was a falling leaf. A witness didn’t stir her blood at all.

If she’d cared, she wouldn’t have let Misty Tide spare those men last night like candles snuffed and relit.

“Not only that, we have physical evidence.” Bei Yuan’s face was unreadable, blank as a slate under rain.

He raised a phone. On screen, a video played—Yu Xi feeding Misty Tide power, like pouring wine into a second cup. “As far as I know, since the Great Fog began, no power can grant others a mighty boost.”

He lowered the phone and pinned her with his gaze like a spear. “If it’s not your ability, then that little girl isn’t ordinary, is she?”

Eyes swung to Misty Tide, pooling on her like water around a stone.

Misty Tide herself had no sense of the storm; she still crouched, poking little ants with chopsticks she’d carried out, like a child playing in spring dust.

“...”

“Yu Xi, what else can you say!” Jiang Xinli pressed, emboldened, her voice a bell trying to rally the courtyard.

She gestured, and people closed in, forming a ring like a rope knotting tight.

“You plan to kill me?” Yu Xi asked, her tone sinking colder, like night thickening.

“No. We just want you to come with us,” Bei Yuan said, lightning tucked under his words like thunder under skin.

He valued her power; she’d tanked heavenly lightning before, like a tree standing through a storm.

And if Yu Xi’s ability could boost others, his plan to return elsewhere would shorten like a path cut through thorns.

“You want to cage me and make me work for you?” Her eyes were swords laid across his throat.

“...”

Bei Yuan didn’t answer, but the silence said yes, a net drawn tight without a word.

Heh. They want me as a tool, she thought, like harnessing a tiger to plow a field.

“Do you think that’s possible?” Yu Xi’s gaze circled the crowd, then landed on Bei Yuan like a hawk perching on one branch.

“...”

“Move!” Bei Yuan snapped, command cracking like a whip.

The ring surged all at once, bodies rushing like wolves down a slope.

“Heh. Your turn.” Yu Xi yanked Luo Shanshan from behind her like pulling a hidden card from a sleeve.

“Eh?! Xixi, I can’t!” Luo Shanshan stared at the closing faces, fierce as storm masks, tears prickling like rain.

“If I say you can, you can. Quit yapping and go,” Yu Xi said, words sharp as flint.

Given Luo Shanshan’s weird ability, Yu Xi wanted her as the vanguard, like sending a silent knife ahead.

Since the male and female leads were here, she wasn’t in a rush to run, not with their halo begging to be sanded down like proud gold.

System: “...”

Host, are you going crooked again? the System whispered like a draft under a door.

Shut up, you useless System, she thought, like flicking a fly from tea.

System: “...”

“Hah!” While Yu Xi bickered with the System, two fire users rushed Luo Shanshan, fists wrapped in flame like coals in iron tongs.

“Eek!” Luo Shanshan raised her arms on instinct, a sparrow throwing up its wings.

Like a magic trick, the fire winked out on contact, their power vanishing like breath on glass.

“Whoosh!”

While they gaped, Misty Tide shot in like an arrow loosed from a taut string.

“Thud-thud-thud!” Three kicks in a blur, and the two grown men flew like sacks tossed from a cart.

“Yo, crappy System, figure out Luo Shanshan’s power yet?” Yu Xi asked, curiosity flicking like a cat’s tail.

“...”

No, the System sighed, blank as fog.

Useless, she thought, like a dull knife in a fight.

“Thud, thud, thud.” In the space of a breath and a thought, Misty Tide booted a few more fools into the air like leaves caught by a gust.

She gathered herself to press the advantage, to sweep the rest like cutting grass.

“Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack!”

Mid-leap, Misty Tide froze, body seizing like a bird hitting invisible glass, then dropped straight down.

Blue-white shackles snapped onto her wrists and ankles, cold as frost on iron.

“Bind!” Jiang Xinli shouted not far away, the word sharp as a thrown dart.

In an instant, a thin, transparent cube rose around all of them like ice growing from air, sealing the street.

“Zzzt-zzzt... zzzt-zzzt...” Footsteps tapped closer, steady as rain on tiles.

Bei Yuan walked up step by step, blue lightning crawling his right arm like serpents under skin. “None of you are leaving today,” he said, a storm in a man’s mouth.