As expected, like a cloud that never leaves the ridge.

Barely a few days passed, and the heroine came knocking, wind climbing the mountain steps.

Nana Toki sat at the stone table by Stream Peak’s gate, eating fruit and watching the view, calm as a pond.

When the heroine climbed the steps, Nana’s heart didn’t stir; a small smile tugged like a ripple at dusk.

Damn idiot; the heroine’s cheat wasn’t so easy to snap, steel under velvet.

She’d come under the banner of seeking the Way, to net the Azure Sea Tide Technique like a fisherman at dawn.

In the Cloudpeak Sect, only my master’s skill with water and wood roots runs deep, like an old cedar.

If she doesn’t ask, who would? The stream always seeks the deepest pool.

“Excuse me...”

“I can’t hear you.”

Nana turned her head, treating the figure on the steps as nothing but a stalk of grass by the path.

“...”

Stream Peak’s disciples are odd, pines bent by cliff wind.

Yiling Shen thought the fruit-eating girl looked familiar, a face in mist she couldn’t place.

She stepped to the stone table and asked, formal as a temple bell, “Is the Second Elder of Stream Peak here?”

Crunch... crunch...

Nana kept eating her pear, eyes on far ridges, letting the girl beside her be no more than a roadside shrub.

Hmph. With this “humble seeker,” I’ll just leave her to dry in the wind; she’ll drift off like fallen leaves.

But there’s always a twist, sudden rain on a sunny day.

Yiling Shen gathered Spirit Energy and formed several water blades, sending them for Nana’s forehead like flying carp.

Nana’s surprise flashed cold and sharp; then arm-thick water blades surged in, white water under moonlight.

Suddenly, a purple-red fire wall roared up from the ground, sunrise behind rock. The blades hit and sizzled, leaving nothing.

“So? Not playing deaf now?”

Nana let the fire wall fade. On Stream Peak’s steps, Yiling Shen stood there, wearing a half-smile like frost.

“I remember you now. You’re that disciple who made trouble at the gate. Name’s slipped my mind. Healed up, have you? Must’ve burned through pills and time like rain.”

“...”

Silent. Behind the fire wall, Nana’s eyes were a dead lake. She flicked her wrist; a knot of flame burst out, hammering toward Shen’s spot, hungry as drought.

Yiling Shen’s heart jolted, a drum under water. She retreated fast and pinched a seal, raising a round water shield to hold off the blaze.

Nana narrowed her gaze and split her Spirit Energy, guiding the fire to wrap the shield like a tightening cocoon, then constricting slow.

Sizzle layered on sizzle; steam bloomed like pale ghosts, and hairline cracks spidered across the slick shield.

Nana didn’t wait. She drew her Black Great Axe and lunged, chopping the flaming shield clean at the waist.

Bang!

Crack crack crack...

As the shield shattered, Yiling Shen inside was sent flying, a cut kite tumbling. She hit the ground, twitching, blood spilling from her right waist like a dark brook.

How did she get this strong, like a storm rolling off the sea?

Yiling Shen gritted her teeth and forced herself up, the world tilting like reeds in wind.

Her vision went blurry; scarlet fire fell from the sky, a beast with a blood-red maw poised to swallow her whole.

No time to react, not a heartbeat left.

Fire thudded down again and again, and the reek of char rode black smoke, curling into Nana’s nose like night fog.

Damn idiot.

I didn’t even go looking for trouble, and you sprinted into my blade—moth to flame, begging to die.

Human clownery?

As the smoke thinned like lifting mist, Nana stepped forward to check how many degrees the heroine had roasted.

Instead, a bulging shell of woven wood-vines met her eyes, a green carapace braced like a turtle.

“?”

This...

At the first glimpse of those vines, Nana knew her plan had been smothered, a bucket dousing a campfire.

“Luo’er, your hand knows no measure.”

From a room within Stream Peak, Shrine Water walked over, willow brows drawn, displeasure cool as rain.

Clearly, Shrine Water had watched Nana’s whole performance, eyes like wells.

“Master, my fault—I held back and didn’t kill this idiot. Please give me a chance to make it right. I promise I won’t leave you time to step in before I chop her dead.”

Shrine Water: “...”

Her disciple talked like a specter drifting through a graveyard.

Protected by the wood-vine shell, Yiling Shen: “...”

This Feng Luo Luo might be a demonic cultivator, shadow under moonlight.

“Master, open this turtle shell. I’ll split her with one swing.” Nana hefted her Black Great Axe, eager as a hawk, pointing at the vines on the ground.

I almost had the heroine cooked, and my master turned out to be an actor.

Protagonist halo is ridiculous, like gold light under clouds.

Shrine Water: “... You’re the turtle shell—your whole family’s the turtle shell. It’s a wood prison, clear as day.”

“Luo’er, don’t babble. Those who come to Stream Peak are guests; who starts with fists at first meeting?”

Shrine Water flicked Nana’s forehead, a knuckle like a pebble. “Put your weapon away.”

“Ugh...” Another flick. I’ll note it in my little book, tally later like debts.

Reluctant, Nana stowed the Colossal Axe, cheeks puffed like a steamed bun.

No helping it. The main quest is to honor my master, incense above iron.

If Master won’t allow it, then no—for now. I’ll just do it behind her back, a knife in moonlight.

She sighed, a touch wistful, like a breeze over reeds.

The road to grinding down the heroine’s halo is long and heavy, stones on a path.

System: “...” Host, behave!

Seeing Nana put away her weapon, Shrine Water finally urged Spirit Energy and opened the prote—no, the wood prison—slow and careful like petals.

“Cough cough... cough! Cough!”

Water spilled out in a clear sheet, and Yiling Shen, battered and choked, lay there coughing like a fish tossed on shore.

“Enough. Don’t lie there like a salted fish playing dead. The wound’s gone—what are you coughing for?”

Nana eyed Yiling Shen with disdain, gaze sharp as a thorn.

Whatever Shrine Water did, the ragged cut at Shen’s waist had vanished like frost, replaced by pale, tender skin.

If not for the torn cloth on her right side, Nana would’ve thought she’d imagined the gore.

No wonder—heroine halo, sheer nonsense, light threading the clouds.

“Th-thank you, Second Elder...”

Yiling Shen’s breath was thin; her face stayed pale, words light as drifting snow.

“We’re all of one sect; no need to be so stiff. Take this elixir and settle your inner energy.”

Shrine Water helped Yiling Shen to the stone table and sat her down, then dried her clothes with Spirit Energy like sun on silk. Only when her color warmed did she ask, “I recall your name is Yiling Shen, yes? Why come here instead of staying on Moonview Peak with the Sect Master?”

Shrine Water had heard no order to place Shen under her care, clouds clear as glass.

“Second Elder, this disciple came to Stream Peak to ask about difficulties on the cultivation path.”

She swallowed, weak but formal, like a reed bowing to wind. “My water root progresses slowly. I heard Second Elder’s dual mastery of water and wood is profound, and that you treat disciples like your own. So I thickened my face to seek your guidance.”

“Tch. You just want to freeload a technique. Say it outright; no need to hide behind leaves.”

Nana, propped on one cheek, ate fruit and skewered the mask, sharp as a needle.

“...”

“Cultivation runs on yourself; techniques are secondary,” Shrine Water said, giving Nana a glare, thunder under her calm.

“I have a scroll called the Azure Sea Tide Technique that should suit you. Take it back and study—don’t let the Sect Master down.”

Shrine Water took out the scroll Nana had given her days ago and passed it to Yiling Shen, like handing over a smooth jade.

“But this scroll was gifted to me by Luo’er, so I won’t give it away. Copy it on Moonview Peak and have someone return the original to me.”

Nana: “...”

Is my master just painfully straightforward, stone honest?

Who does this—handing what I gave her to someone I hate, right in front of me?

“Thank you, Second Elder.”

Yiling Shen’s heartbeat quickened, a drum under silk, when the Azure Sea Tide Technique touched her hands.

As expected.

That technique had been taken by Feng Luo Luo. My hunch that day was right, like a crow crying at noon.

She stowed the Azure Sea Tide Technique carefully and bowed. “Then this disciple will return now and come back in a few days, Second Elder.”

“Master.” Watching the heroine’s back fade down the path, Nana’s mouth twitched. She finally voiced the itch in her chest. “Did you, honestly, practice that technique?”

She didn’t believe the heroine would return a cheat once taken, fox with a fat hen.

Blame my master for being too soft, rain over moss.

“Not yet, but I wrote down the method.”

Shrine Water remembered why she’d come out. “I was going to start, but I heard your ruckus outside and stepped in. Luo’er, I’m not scolding you for nothing—don’t strike at people on sight. It harms the harmony among sect disciples, like frost on young leaves.”

Nana: “...”