“Are you sure you’re paying your own way and going alone tomorrow?”

The day to leave for Longvine Academy shot up like a sparrow from a hedge, and the Head of Year eyed the girl before him with a puzzled frown, like cloud-shadow on a field. “Do you have a reason you must act alone?”

This exchange trip’s funded by both schools, like two rivers feeding one lake, so students don’t need to spend a dime.

She didn’t look like the late-to-class type, steady as a clock on a quiet wall, so why the sudden choice to pay her own way?

“Are you worried you’ll get bullied on the coach?”

The girl looked timid and inward like a hedgehog in drizzle, so the Head of Year assumed she was suffering school bullying. “Don’t worry about that, our teachers will stand with you, like pine trees in wind.”

“No, Teacher Chen! It’s… because I get carsick on coaches,” she said, voice as small as a moth’s wing. “I’m worried I’ll trouble everyone, so I thought I’d go on my own, don’t worry about it.”

Xiaoxiao Ji stood there all hunched, like a sparrow on a cold rail, speaking quietly; to passing classmates glancing in, it looked like she was getting scolded under storm clouds.

“But students going off-campus alone for a school event puts us in a bind,” Teacher Chen said, rubbing his head like brushing frost from a melon. “If something happens, the school can’t shoulder it.”

“You really don’t have to worry, Teacher Chen. I’m going to Longvine Academy with a friend of my father’s,” Xiaoxiao said, like laying a steady brick on a wobbling wall. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Anyway, once we reach Longvine Academy, activities won’t start right away,” she added, like a pebble skipping once more across still water. “I won’t delay the group.”

“But…” The Head of Year’s face showed a knot, like a rope pulled too tight.

“We’ll rally votes for you in this year’s Head of Year vote,” she said, voice bright as a lantern in dusk.

“It’s settled, Xiaoxiao,” Teacher Chen said at once, smiling wide like a blooming chrysanthemum in autumn sun. “Votes or no votes, it’s your safety I care about, like a roof over rain. If a guardian’s with you, I’m relieved. Be careful, and don’t delay the others’ schedule.” Watching that flower-bright grin, Xiaoxiao felt the towering image she’d had of him crumble like clay in hard rain.

Adults these days are painfully honest, like clear water showing every stone.

With permission secured, Xiaoxiao slipped out quick as a fish and returned to class, heart still thumping like a sparrow’s wing. She hadn’t expected Nana Toki’s idea to work so well; the “pull-votes” trick opened the door like a key that clicked home.

Useful or not, she still didn’t get why her ghost-sis refused to let her take the school’s bus, a free ride glittering like dew on grass.

Free hurts when you let it go, she thought, clutching her small allowance like a warm pebble.

“Xiaoxiao, I heard you’re not going with the group tomorrow?”

Lu Ming, who’d passed the Head of Year’s office, had overheard, and now he leaned in like a cat near a windowsill, curious.

“Yeah. Sister Ling Jiang’s taking me,” Xiaoxiao said, blurting it out like a pebble dropped in a quiet pond.

“You’re not worried your ghost-sis might harm you?”

Lu Ming’s heart sank like a stone into a well. Most people, haunted nightly, would lose sleep like leaves lose green, but not Xiaoxiao Ji; she went to class with a ghost in tow, eating and drinking like sunlight through a kitchen window.

In all his years as a Spirit Exorcist, Lu Ming had never seen a human-ghost relationship this harmonious, like koi and lotus under one surface.

Though, to be fair, the ghost stuck to Xiaoxiao was the oddest he’d ever seen, like a crane walking in a chicken yard.

“Not worried. I think Sister Ling’s good to me,” Xiaoxiao said, faith warm as a brazier in winter. “If she wanted to hurt me, she would’ve done it long ago, not now.”

Lu Ming: “...”

If not for the spark in the girl’s eyes, bright as fireflies at dusk, he’d suspect that female ghost, Ling Jiang, had possessed her.

“What are you two chatting about?”

Nana Toki drifted down from above like mist from an eave, and Lu Ming’s face didn’t ripple, calm as a stone in a stream; Xiaoxiao nearly bolted like a rabbit startled by wind.

Truth be told, after spending time with Nana Toki, Xiaoxiao had learned this ghost-sis always popped up from strange places like a jack-in-the-box in moonlight, scaring her half to death. She’d complained, but Nana Toki only grinned like a crescent blade. “Gotta train your courage.”

Xiaoxiao: “...”

All she wanted to say was: I can’t do it, not even with a torch in noon sun.

The two humans and one ghost chatted a while longer; when the bell rang like a silver spoon on porcelain, Lu Ming and Xiaoxiao returned to their seats and sank into the day’s lessons like leaves settling on a pond.

The day slipped by fast as a shadow, and dawn came cold and pale.

At first light, Nana Toki yanked Xiaoxiao from sleep at six sharp, like pulling a radish from frost. Xiaoxiao squinted at the clock on the wall, its hands thin as dry twigs.

Six a.m...

They didn’t need to gather at school, so why up so early, she thought, curling around her quilt like a shy snail.

“If you don’t mind me giving you nightmares, sleep on,” Nana Toki said, her head sliding out of the wall like moonlight from a cloud, smiling like a devil with sugar on his tongue.

Xiaoxiao: “...”

She rose without a word, washing up like a cat, quick and small.

Near six-thirty, Nana Toki and Xiaoxiao stepped out of the apartment, breath puffing like white silk.

“At this time, we should catch the first bus,” Nana Toki said, voice flat as cold iron.

The sky was a lid of gray, sunless as a dry well; walking the street, Xiaoxiao felt a pressure like damp wool on her shoulders.

This shouldn’t count as walking at night, she told herself, tucking her chin like a sparrow. She bought a meat bun at a breakfast stall, steam rising like morning mist, to comfort herself.

It’s daytime. It’s daytime, she chanted, like a charm.

Can’t see ghosts. Can’t see ghosts. Can’t see ghosts.

They dawdled to the stop and just in time watched a bus pull away, tail-lights like coals on wind.

“Ling, do you feel it’s a little cold around us?”

Watching the No. 12 bus leave, Xiaoxiao hugged the warm bun and shivered like a reed in a draft.

“Look at you,” Nana Toki said, rolling her eyes like two chips of obsidian.

If we’re out, pretend you don’t know me, her look added, sharp as frost.

Xiaoxiao: “...”

The wait stretched, long as a shadow at sunset; the hands crept toward six-forty, and the next bus still hadn’t come, like a fish that won’t rise.

Maybe this run was delayed.

Nana Toki took Xiaoxiao’s phone and flicked through the stop info, finger a pale leaf. Route 14 had a crash last night and was adjusting service; arrivals would be late, like a train under snow.

This smelled like a scripted kill, thick as thunder in a closed room.

She wasn’t trying to jinx herself, but she could feel it—this side quest from that trash System had hooks like barbs under silk.

She’d checked: if it were only about taking a bus to Longvine Academy, there was no need to cling to Route 14 like ivy to a wall. Routes 11 and 9 could get them there too, smooth as river bends.

But the side quest specifically ordered her to take Xiaoxiao on Route 14 to Longvine Academy and complete the exchange, a line of ink that felt like a snare in grass.

It screamed trap, a pit with a silk cover.

“Ling, the bus is here!”

Just as Nana Toki weighed whether to risk it, bright yellow high beams flared at the street corner like twin suns. Xiaoxiao, bun in one hand, fished coins from her pocket like clinking pebbles, ready to dive for the shelter of the bus’s warm belly.

“Wait.”

Nana Toki snagged Xiaoxiao by the collar like catching a chick, keeping her from boarding.

“What’s wrong, Sister Ling? That’s the No. 14. Aren’t we getting on?”

Seeing the gravity on Nana Toki’s face, Xiaoxiao paused, coins cold as hail in her palm.

“My stomach suddenly feels off. Let’s catch the next one,” Nana Toki said, turning to block the driver’s view with her body like a folding screen, offering a flimsy excuse as thin as paper.

“...”

It wasn’t fear.

It was variables, too many and sharp as thorns. If that bus was what she suspected—a Soul Carriage—then every passenger would be a guest from the other side, eyes like night water.

She couldn’t guarantee Xiaoxiao’s safety in a space that tight, a tin can in a storm. Even with talismans, she wouldn’t risk the Nesting Phoenix on a coin toss in a moving box.

While she held Xiaoxiao back, the No. 14 eased out of the stop and disappeared into the mist-thin dawn, tail-lights fading like fireflies into a bend.

As the orange glow vanished around the corner, the chill in the air lifted like fog under sun, and Xiaoxiao felt her shoulders loosen.

“Sister Ling, why didn’t we take that bus?”

She gnawed the last half of her meat bun like a squirrel with a nut. “The other buses to Longvine don’t run till after eight.”

She refused to accept that ghosts got stomachaches, as absurd as rain falling upward.

“That bus gave me a bad feeling,” Nana Toki said, voice low as a drum under cloth. “We’ll wait for the next one.”

“But the next one is also the No. 14,” Xiaoxiao said, words dropping like pebbles.

“—!”

Nana Toki’s heart snapped tight, like ice forming in a bowl, and she whipped around.

Another bus had slid into the bay without a sound, like a shadow taking a seat. On the black plate, the familiar numbers shone cold as moonlight: 14. The driver leaned over the wheel, lips curving into a crooked smile like a cut in wax.

“Welcome aboard.”