Before she could get far, Nana Shi plowed headlong into a man sauntering in from beyond the city gates, two stray currents colliding in a narrow stream.

“Fuck—watch where you’re going, you blind mule!” He’d been bragging to the crowd, a rooster on a fence, but the hit lit him like dry straw, and he jabbed her nose, barking.

Passersby outside Chronos City glanced over like reeds bending to wind; swaggering peacocks had sprouted here lately like weeds after rain, and no one knew why.

Maybe because she looked alone, and a woman; the man she’d struck drifted closer, eyes circling like a vulture, and sneered, “Since you’re a woman, Young Master won’t fuss. Apologize, and I’ll let you go.”

“You… want me to apologize?” Confusion fogged her chest like mist in a ravine; only then did she speak, calm as a still pond.

“What, you crashed into me, and I should apologize?” he snapped, temper snapping like kindling. “Count yourself lucky I’m merciful; your ancestors are smiling through incense smoke.”

“Right, our Young Master’s in a good mood,” his lackeys chimed, like crows on a branch. “Apologize and be done, woman, or you’ll choke on regret.”

…Speechless irritation pricked her like thorns. Where did this pack of idiots crawl from?

Were there really such hard-headed calves in her city? The surname Zuo rang hollow; their formation was loud as a marching band, and their colors weren’t local.

They didn’t feel like natives; probably nobles from some other country with business here, strutting like cranes in a duck yard.

On her turf, no noble dared crow this loud; since she’d returned, he was the noisiest rooster she’d seen.

“This Young Master Zuo you keep praising… is he strong?” She tilted her head, tone level, like a cat flicking an ear in sunlight.

“What? You don’t even know House Zuo?” Their faces curled with disdain, dull knives trying to gleam.

“Told you these people are yokels,” one scoffed, breath sour as swamps. “Their queen’s comatose, the place is chaos, and they don’t even know mainland nobility.”

“If not for word of someone here selling weapon tech to patch a treasury, I wouldn’t step into this smog-choked pit,” another added, pride puffed like a toad.

Not that bad, right. Her lip twitched like a cat baring a fang; in a few months, the continent’s idiots had multiplied like rabbits.

It wasn’t all on them. She’d been comatose six months in the real world, a winter without sunrise; she’d only been back a day and hadn’t caught the news.

House Zuo had belonged to a tiny border nation south of Chronos City, remote as a cliff village, its spirit stagnant and stale.

Then they found a rare crystal vein under their capital, an ice river under stone. Crystals were scarce; tech and trade drank them like wells.

The backwater struck gold in one season, a spring bursting in a desert; in half a year, they muscled into the ranks of “developing” states.

Big nations lacked crystal reserves; House Zuo shook hands with heavyweights, netting favors like fish. Outside of tech, they sailed downwind in everything.

“Forget it. Explaining to someone like you is water on sand,” the man scoffed, chin lifted like a cheap lantern. “On this continent, House Zuo has faces. You bumpkins just bow.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Nana Shi’s brow flicked like a blade, and a cold arc lifted her lips, moonlight on ice.

“So House Zuo stands above all?” she asked, soft as falling ash.

“That’s only natural. To people like you who don’t—”

Smack. The slap cracked like thunder splitting dry wood, and her hand moved like lightning across a summer ridge.

He cartwheeled to the ground and coughed blood, teeth skittering over the stones like spilled rice, pride shattered like cheap porcelain.

“Young Master Zuo!” his henchmen cried, yanking swords with a rasp like winter ice on iron. “Bold slut!” “Seize her!”

“Heh, thanks for the compliment. If I’ve got one virtue, it’s guts.” Her laugh was cold as a mountain spring, and two thunderous slaps sent two swordsmen flying like cut kites.

“Truth is, I prefer winning hearts with virtue,” she said, voice calm as rain on tiles. “We collided; right or wrong, I owe you an account.”

“But you erred by pressing me, and by spitting on the face of the thousands in Chronos City, a slap to our city’s sky.”

She stepped to Young Master Zuo, bent, and fisted his hair, hauling him up like a dead dog from a ditch, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

“House Zuo? What’s that worth?” Her words fell like pebbles into a well. “Across this continent, fewer than three even catch my eye. Which gutter crack spawned your shabby nobility?”

“You dare preach rank? Then learn rank. In these lands, I stand above. You kneel below.” Each syllable hit like hammer to anvil.

Her gaze went cold, a black lake under a moonless cloud, a peat bog that swallows anyone who lingers on its surface too long.

Hoisted rough, his handsome face ran with blood like smeared paint. Passersby stopped, phones lifting like sparrows pecking grain, murmurs fluttering in waves.

They marveled at such a fierce woman blooming on their own turf, a storm opening from a clear sky.

“You dare treat me like this… the Pan Mountain Empire behind me won’t let you go,” he rasped, voice thin as torn paper.

“That so? You won’t let me go?” Boredom sank through her like a cold tide; her head dipped, bangs curtaining her eyes into unreadable shadow.

“If that’s the case, there’s no point in you living.” Her words pressed like frost on leaves. “Then die.”

Her voice had barely settled when his pupils pinpricked, two seeds on stone. “No—”

With a sickening pop, his head burst like a watermelon, gore and gray spattering the street like flung ink, and silence fell like snow.

Everyone sucked in a breath, a hiss like surf over pebbles; the youths who'd been filming turned clammy, sweat beading like sudden rain.

This woman who called herself Nana Shi… terrifying, a blade pulled from velvet.

Wait. Nana Shi? The name rippled through them like wind over wheat, and recognition broke like dawn over roofs.

“She said she’s Nana Shi…” “It can’t be that Nana Shi…” “It has to be that Nana Shi; how many Nana Shis does Chronos City have?”

“And the photos I just took…” “Delete them now; our Queen doesn’t like anyone hoarding her photos.” Their whispers skittered like mice.

“Mmph…” The sound stuck like a seed in a throat.

“Tch… my clothes got dirty.” She glanced down, annoyance sparking like flint; she’d liked this set.

She ignored the orbit of fear, shock, and stupefaction around her, a ring of crows in a field. She curled a sneer at the lackeys. “Get lost. You’re not welcome here.”

She was lovely as carved jade, but the blood-dyed white dress and the flecks of flesh on her cheek made that beauty eerie, a blossom in grave-snow.

The men she’d swatted scrambled up as if snake-bit, and tumbled for Chronos City’s gate, crawling like hounds with a ghost snapping at their heels.

Nana Shi rarely showed her true face outside the walls; today was an exception, a lantern briefly unhooded in the dark. Since she took the throne, rumor swirled, but never photos.

She disliked her image in other hands, even if someone swore to enshrine it like incense under glass, a saint behind lattice.

Now and then, a few tried to stash a secret snapshot, a stolen talisman under a pillow. In the end, either her research institute traced it and wiped it, or Nana Shi herself knocked and dealt out some— ahem—physical amnesia.

In time, no one dared hoard her portrait across the continent, hunters who’d learned the forest’s taboo.

Even though the real person appeared today, the citizens mostly watched the spectacle; those who’d snapped pictures for Twitter were quietly glad they hadn’t rushed to upload.