Nana Toki waited, and the afternoon dragged like a shadow across stone.

Through it all, Zhao Qian kept a calm, practiced smile, like still water hiding a current. When the game’s sun bled toward the horizon and the shade pooled under the trees, he finally spoke. “Miss Xia, our people are ready outside. All we need is your nod. In a few minutes, you’ll walk out of this cage. We’ll guarantee your safe exit from our company. How about it?”

“No. Wait a bit longer.” Her tone was light, like a leaf skimming a pond.

She glanced at the time in the corner of her virtual screen. A half-smile tugged her mouth, playful as moonlight through bamboo. “Even someone like me needs a little time to get used to using a friend’s body. Give me a buffer.”

Zhao Qian: “...”

Buffer my ass, he cursed in silence, heat flaring like sparks under ash. It’s been a whole afternoon—even a snail would’ve buffered by now. And you don’t look burdened at all; you look relaxed, like a cat in a sunbeam.

“Supervisor, bad news! The front desk blew up!”

His gripe wasn’t even cold when a window burst open in front of him, blooming like frost on glass. The feed was a pulled security cam; his face went bloodless, a cloud eclipsing the sun. He snapped his gaze at Nana, fury crackling like dry pine. “You set me up?”

“Hey now, that’s not fair,” she said, grin flashing like a blade under rain. “How is it ‘I set you up’ when I haven’t done anything yet?” She flicked her chat list; everyone from Moonlit West River was offline, empty as a drained gourd. Looked like they’d already arrived.

She hadn’t misjudged them.

“What did you do?” His fingers skittered across his virtual panel, a panicked insect beating a window. He hammered the same command again and again, then froze. “Why can’t I log out?”

“Relax.” Her voice was gentle as a fan’s breeze, cool with danger. “Just a little tweak. I won’t keep you here long. This place doesn’t suit someone like you.”

She snapped her fingers. Green code spilled down his screen like rain in a bamboo grove.

The System did it on her order, a thunderclap meant for fear, not ruin.

“You’re not Test Subject 7200!” His pupils pinpricked, horror rippling like a startled koi. “A normal human subject can’t just rewrite game data. What are you?”

“Why do you care who I am?”

She tossed her right hand. A golden streak shot out like a comet and struck Zhao Qian’s avatar square in the chest.

Ding— [Treasure Imp] used [Immobilize] on [Lotus Pond Moonlight]. Duration: 3 minutes.

“Sit tight,” she said, voice warm as tea and cold as steel. “We’ll talk later.”

Nana didn’t waste another breath on him. She stepped through dappled shade and followed the murmur of water toward the creek, where she’d left Nan Jin at play.

“What is it, Youzi?” Nan Jin sat on a smooth rock, bare feet tapping the surface, scattering silver ripples like fish scales. She rose, gathering her skirt like mist, then paused when she saw Nana alone. A flicker of strangeness crossed her face, a cloud snagged on a peak. “Did your talk end, Youzi?”

“Yeah. Just ended.” Nana took in the droplets jeweling the girl’s cheeks, bright as dew on peach petals. “Do you want to leave here?”

“Eh?” The question hit like a pebble in still water; confusion spread in rings across Nan Jin’s face. She didn’t seem to understand what “leave here” meant.

“I don’t quite get it, Youzi.”

“Just what it sounds like.” Nana placed a hand on her shoulder, her expression soft as early spring. “Leave this virtual world. Go back to the place that’s yours in reality.”

“...” Nan Jin lifted her head in a quick surge, eyes locking on Nana’s, sharp as a swallow’s flight. “Then what about you, Youzi? Are you going to stay here alone?”

“Who said I’m staying?” Nana frowned at the odd tilt in the words, a draft under a door she couldn’t place. “Once I find my body, I’m out.”

“What if you can’t find it?”

“Hm?” Nana blinked, a beat of stillness like a dropped leaf. Can’t find it?

How would that make sense? If she disappeared three years ago, there had to be a reason. They wouldn’t just—what—bury her and be done?

“But if you really can’t,” Nan Jin pressed, breath quick and tight as a plucked string, “how long will you be stuck? Three years? Thirty? Forever?”

“Why do you sound more anxious than me?” Nana’s calm returned like a lake after wind. “Are you hiding something?”

“...N-no...” The unfamiliar look on Nana’s face made Nan Jin flinch, like a bird spooked from a branch. She mumbled an apology and lowered her head, voice small as drifting smoke. “I didn’t mean to hide anything from you.”

“...” Then tell me, she thought, a dull ache like rain behind the eyes. What are you hiding?

“If it wasn’t on purpose,” Nana said, steady as a metronome, “why won’t you tell me what it is?”

“Because you aren’t the real Youzi.” Nan Jin lifted her gaze, careful as hands holding a lantern. “Who are you?”

“Xia Xiaoyou.”

“No, you aren’t.” The Youzi in her memory was warm as sunlight and soft as cotton, a girl whose smile rounded every edge. The woman before her was nothing like that, a moon with a different face.

“Then I’m not.” Nana shrugged, careless as wind through reeds. Believe what you want.

Nan Jin’s words stuck, a peach caught in the throat.

“You’ve already recovered your memory, haven’t you?” Nana’s voice rippled, low and certain. When they’d swapped weapons back then, she’d smelled something off, like iron in spring water. To be sure, she’d asked the System to check her blades against her in-game code. Afterward, a line of source had gone missing from her weapons. The System hadn’t told her which, but she’d guessed it tied to Nan Jin’s returning memories. Today’s scene only hardened that guess, like clay baked in sun.

“Since you know I’m not the Youzi you remember,” Nana went on, “why still help me leave?”

Nan Jin didn’t answer. Silence drifted between them, soft as fog.

“Maybe it’s just my stubborn wish,” Nan Jin said at last, her expression dim as a lantern in drizzle. “If I can help Youzi—even if the person inside her is a stranger—I’ll feel a little at peace.”

“...” Nana breathed out, a thread of air in cool shade.

“Sorry,” Nan Jin added, a rueful smile quick as a falling petal. “I’m rambling. If you really want to know the truth, just leave here and go home. Everything will clear like rain washing dust.”

“No. I don’t want to know at all.” Nana’s face went solemn, smooth as a sealed door. “I think things are fine as they are.”

Right now she just wanted to clear the System’s two crappy quests, then kill herself and hop to the next world, like stepping stones over a stream. As for side branches? Not interested.

“...” Nan Jin could only stare. This girl never played by the book, a kite refusing the string.

“Aren’t you curious,” Nan Jin burst out, the question leaping like a spark, “how Youzi got trapped in Aoto Game Company’s Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation? And why a giant like Aoto would suddenly run human-head experiments?”

“Nope. I don’t care, and I don’t want to.” Nana’s voice was flat as slate, unmarked by storm.

Why should she dig into things that didn’t matter to her? She’d already decided to topple everyone inside Aoto; that paid the original’s debt like a coin on a grave. She wasn’t about to invite extra vines to tangle her feet.

“Then why gut the parent company and hunt for your body?” Nan Jin asked, bafflement fluttering like a trapped moth. “What for?”

“To kill time,” Nana said, easy as rain on eaves. “I’m pretty free.”

“...” It was the most unreliable answer Nan Jin had ever heard—yet out of Nana’s mouth, it settled with a strange rightness, like a crooked tree that still throws good shade.

“Alright then.” She couldn’t force truth down someone’s throat; that was a tea that scalded. Still, she hoped Nana would use her body to leave this digital cage and return to the breathing world. In her heart, it was what she owed Youzi. Even if the one steering Youzi now was a stranger, she wanted this girl to live.

“But if I use your body, what happens to you?” Nana asked, a frown like a crease in silk. Would Nan Jin be trapped here forever?

“You don’t need to worry.” Nan Jin’s smile thinned, a crescent in mist. “Three years ago, I already became a string of game data. At this point, leaving or staying is a fallen leaf on moving water.” She drew the dagger at her waist, steel catching a cold gleam like moon on ice. “As long as you end up safe, that’s enough.”