The try-on went smooth, like silk slipping over skin, and Nana Toki kept the reins the whole time, so the “ten-minute hot-spring photo” stretched past an hour like a lazy summer afternoon.

As the subject of all this, Nana looked satisfied, full and warm like a cat after sun.

“See? Fair girl skin suits you best—those ugly bruises should be wiped away like ink in rain.” She walked back to school with Wenquan, eyes crinkling like crescent moons as she scrolled through her trophies on her phone. “Next swimwear shoot—please take care of me again.”

Wenquan let the words drift past like wind over reeds, but one note snagged like a hook.

“You said wiped away?” Her ears pricked like a fox in snow. “You erased those wounds, didn’t you?”

She’d wondered where all her marks went, vanished like morning mist—so it was this woman?

“But how did you do it?” Confusion puckered her brow like ripples in a pond.

This girl hadn’t even gotten close enough to lay a healing hand, not once.

“You want to know?” Nana brightened, like lanterns along a night street, guiding Wenquan toward her trap.

“If you’ll go to the amusement park with me next weekend, I’ll tell you.”

“...” Wenquan stared, her mood jumping like a sparrow off a branch.

“Of course, if next week’s packed, the week after works,” Nana added, mistaking silence for doubt, voice light like drifting petals.

“Alright, I’ll go—next week.” Wenquan answered quick, like a blade flashing.

“But explain first: how did my scars vanish?”

Compared to bargaining for Sunday fun, she cared more about those bruises, like stones at the bottom of a cold stream.

It wasn’t a problem common sense could wash clean; her concern hung in the air like winter breath.

Nana said nothing; her smile thinned like a knife’s edge as she pulled a sharp fruit knife from her pocket.

She sliced her palm; scarlet welled out like a spring, and the iron scent spread in the air like rusted rain.

“You—”

“Shh.” Nana lifted a finger, still as a crane, and pointed Wenquan’s gaze at the wound.

A moment later, Wenquan watched it knit shut at a speed you could see, like time rewinding in a mirror.

This plane held a faint drift of Spirit Energy, like dew before dawn.

It wasn’t enough for sky-soaring, ground-cleaving omnipotence in xianxia tales, but it could harden the body like tempered steel.

Otherwise, how could Nana, posing as a normal girl, have flattened those four like leaves in a gust the other day?

“Ever read cultivation novels?” The cut was gone, skin smooth as porcelain, and Nana looked up with a smile you couldn’t read, like fog over water.

“The kind where they breathe in the qi of heaven and earth, then heal others like warm spring rain.”

“...” Wenquan stayed silent, but her black eyes spilled her unrest like ink in a cup.

For something like this to show in a materialist world—shock rose in her like a sudden chill.

“So, you’re an immortal from a novel?” Her acceptance was quick, like a door quietly opening.

Once she settled, even sword-flying later wouldn’t rattle her like thunder.

“No, just a regular high school girl.” Nana tossed that line like a pebble to ripple the surface—on purpose.

“...” Then what’s with that outrageous healing speed—and my wiped bruises?

The questions hung between them like kite strings.

“I want to tell you, but it’s not a story I can untangle in a blink.” Nana’s voice cooled on the quiet street, like moonlight on stone.

“Just know I won’t hurt you. I told you before—I like you.”

If it were anyone else, she wouldn’t have stepped in at all; her meddling is a flame lit for one person.

“...”

Silence again, familiar and weighty, like snow settling.

Wenquan sifted through the pieces in her head, turning them like shells in a palm.

After a long beat, she snapped back and said, “So I asked all that, got no answers, and still agreed to your condition?”

The System, watching like an audience in the rafters, gaped.

“Shouldn’t the focus be the sudden confession?”

“Yup. Still sharp as ever, Wenquan.” Nana’s eyes curved like bows, playful where she’d been unreadable.

“So I’ll be taking the swimsuit shots and the amusement park, no guilt.”

The System trembled for a whole year in one second.

“Is nobody focusing on the key point?”

The afternoon class was math, dry as chalk dust, and Nana got drowsy like a cat in heat haze.

She copied the others and played on her phone; the teacher let it slide, one eye open, one eye closed like a sleepy guardian.

When the bell rang, Nana packed her bag and moved to leave, neat as folding paper.

Though she’d been tangling with Wenquan lately, everything from after-school to the next day was Wenquan’s free time, like a stretch of open road.

Nana never pushed too far; she kept to shadows like bamboo shade.

Today was different; she decided to follow, quiet as rain on eaves.

She couldn’t let go of the mention of a senior at her part-time job; high-school girls working was rare as cranes in mist—maybe there were clues flickering like fireflies.

“Since you care so much, why not just ask?” the System bubbled up, lazy as a koi.

“With your current favorability, even asking to walk home together wouldn’t get refused.”

“True,” Nana said, wry as bitter tea. “But who knows what flags that might trigger—like a sudden favorability drop, or cannon-fodder side characters popping up to die like moths. Better safe than steady-bleeding.”

Wenquan’s favorability was hard as a frozen lake; if there was a decrease mechanic, Nana would crack like brittle ice.

The System fell silent, a dot of ellipsis floating like a lone star.

“Didn’t expect you to have the ‘stalking’ skill lit.” It sounded genuinely surprised, like a bird’s chirp at dawn.

“Weren’t you a flop webnovel author?”

“Usually you don’t need it.” Nana squinted, shadowing Wenquan at twenty-plus meters like a hunter in reeds.

“Most rarely used skills, like tailing, I learned for writing certain scenes—forced, like binding twine.”

“Eh?” The System blinked, then caught up like a dropped bead.

“And the wall-climbing and tree-scaling you use a lot...?”

“That’s just a personal hobby,” Nana said, calm as still water.

“...”

The System ran out of words, tongue tied like a ribbon.

Its host was a rare flower, strange and bright, growing in odd soil.

Nana trailed Wenquan through turns and side streets, their path looping like river bends.

They finally reached a bustling shopping street north of school, lit like a string of lanterns.

“Tsk. If I’m remembering right, the original host and Song Qingtian used to come here a lot,” Nana murmured, pulling up old scenes like faded photos.

Her memory was dusty—only a few storefronts stood out like stones, the rest blurring into fog.

“Don’t space out—Wenquan just ducked into that alley,” the System chimed, a bell in her mind.

Nana snapped back and hurried after, feet light like falling leaves.

“When did this street get an alley like that?” It wasn’t in the System’s memory, a gap like a missing brick.

She walked down the dark lane for about ten seconds, shadows pooling like ink, and turned a sudden corner.

A strange shop appeared, abrupt as a theatre curtain lift.

“Huh? Why’s a coffee shop tucked in a corner like this?” Nana didn’t enter; she watched from a hidden nook, still as stone.

It looked nothing like a normal café—its facade was shabby as peeling bark, and the sign was dry, cracked wood like parched earth.

There was no smooth clear glass; the windows were spiderwebbed and knife-scratched, broken frost patterns across them.

Standing outside, she couldn’t see inside—only vague shapes swam like fish behind dark water.

“Tsk. Don’t tell me it’s one of those sketchy places.” She plucked a busted bulb from a chain of little lights, rolling it in her fingers like a bead, suspicion whispering.

The wear wasn’t staged; it felt lived-in, like calluses on hands.

If she hadn’t watched Wenquan walk in, she couldn’t imagine a modern high-school girl working in a place like this, a cave in a city of glass.

“This plane’s plot just got stranger,” Nana murmured, the words drifting like smoke.