At least I won’t have to worry about maternity leave, Fulin joked to herself, a brittle smile like frost crusting dry earth.

But the young master’s mess ran deep, a shadow that reached for her throat; it threatened Fulin, who’d hoped to drift in this skin like a leaf on water, and now she might have to bolt from home like a sparrow from a breaking branch.

The thought pricked like nettles; irritation flared first, then words spilled like stones down a hill. “Hey, hey! What kind of joke is this? You said two, three years—now you’re rushing me out? Are you sick?”

Fulin hadn’t been a hothead in her last life; the edge in her blood was hunger, a drumbeat in her veins like wolves pacing at night.

Every dawn she had to release her Dual Incarnation for a breath, her small frame barely hugging a body-sized pillow like a child clutching a snow-white log; she put on a scaring face that was actually cute, little fangs sinking hard into fabric, leaving bite-mark moons one after another, a tiny vampire’s thirst pressed into cotton.

Thirty minutes washed by like ripples calming on a pond; Fulin finally settled. “Mm-hm… what should I do?”

She faced the mirror, hands moving awkwardly through silver hair smooth as flowing moonlight, strands a waterfall you wanted to touch; she thought while combing. As it stood, both families were rushing an engagement, and our side was rushing to drive me out—clouds gathering wrong, this wasn’t normal.

Fulin tried to hunt the cause in Lance’s shadow, like turning stones in a stream.

Lance was a well-known wastrel, a spoiled breeze that knocked hats off in the street; at fifteen he looked harmless, but without the old butler watching, he drifted idle like a boat without oars, doing whatever he pleased, leaning on his father’s legion-commander weight to bark orders around Mubay City, running with stray dogs and fox friends to stir trouble; give him a few more years to learn pleasure and he’d be that sleazy rake—your textbook rotten villainous young master, the kind you boo at like thunder.

From a father’s mountain peak, a son that hopeless deserved exile once grown, clear as daylight; but they didn’t pick his coming-of-age half a year ago, they picked right after the elder brother’s engagement—bad manners like mildew at a feast, ill omens like crows at dawn; would any proper noble do that?

Fulin puzzled over it, thoughts circling like starlings; no answer perched.

Yet even if Lance Morrison had to leave, Lance Morrison, as a real, breathing person, still had weight—because in this strange world, on the Nordland Continent within the Doran Kingdom, identities got checked like nets pulled through shoals.

The check wasn’t netted down to each peasant; the king stationed census offices in major ducal cities, officials seasoned in local winds and roads, who’d question travelers about origins and family up to two generations, like gardeners asking about roots and soil; it wasn’t strict or everywhere, but if Fulin lost the Lance Morrison mask, then in the Doran Kingdom where she knew no paths, she’d be just a Blood Clan loli on the road, and if an interrogator fixed on her like a hawk, how would she fool the storm? Her hiding wasn’t some low-grade race-bigotry issue; it tangled with Nordland’s weather now.

On Nordland’s northern border, the Dark Spirit Empire’s army pressed down like a winter front; the Celestial Spirit Empire, ruler of the continent, ordered its vassals to stand together like trees against wind; Doran, a rear vassal and a gulf nation, had to watch for Dark Spirit troops slipping past the front to land along the back coast; so Mubay City, a Doran coastal place, bristled like spears, vigilant against Dark Spirits.

Dark Spirits and Celestial Spirits alike were umbrellas over many peoples, banners shivering in different colors.

Humans and elves counted as Celestial Spirits; and just Fulin’s luck, Blood Clan here counted as Dark Spirits; worse, Blood Clan in the Dark Spirit Empire were elite blades, with two main branches—call them Bloodspawn and Darkborn—leaving corpses by the thousand on Nordland, their infamy thick as smoke; silver hair and red eyes had seeped into the masses’ mind like dye in water, a stamp of darkness and evil, feared and hated.

So right from the crossing, Fulin had inherited a cauldron of blame she’d never cooked, a black pot swinging from her back like a shadow.

If she didn’t want to become a sacrifice on the altars of racism, chauvinism, and all the messy banners of ideology, she had two roads: trek into Dark Spirit lands like a moth toward night, or hide her Blood Clan loli self and live as a mortal, steady as a stone under moss.

The first looked bad at first glance, a cave mouth breathing cold; Fulin knew nothing about the Dark Spirit Empire, and Nordlanders painted the dark world as a devil’s nation, a valley of knives; maybe a giant secret hid behind the curtain, but Fulin didn’t want to bet her throat—she wouldn’t walk into a place that might be worse than this shore.

So for now, the path was clear as a lantern: play Lance Morrison well.

And keep a low-key, ordinary second-generation image until he was fully kicked out, like a candle kept small under a bowl.

“I’m awake—water!” Fulin became Lance and shouted, voice like a brass bell in a quiet hall.

“Yes, young master.” Outside, old butler Brook answered, then waved in a servant and a maid; they carried clothes, towels, a basin, and hoisted a water bucket, opening the door like a ripple through wood and stepped in. “Young master, please sit and don’t move.”

At the order, the servant and maid couldn’t help the deep dislike on their faces, like bitter tea; everyone at Tulip Manor knew the second young master’s spoiled stripes, and this kind old butler had coddled Lance since he was small like a hen shielding a chick.

They had no choice; they swallowed the taste like sand, hurried through washing and dressing, hands moving quick as sparrows; but when they thought the old master would soon drive him out, their hearts balanced like scales finally even.

“Washed—food!” Lance called, sprawled like a giant baby basking in sunlight.

“Yes, young master.” Old butler Brook sent the servants back to their posts, then, steps aged yet quick like a breeze, fetched toast and egg slices for breakfast, and a cup of milk; a few drops splashed onto the napkin by the plate like white rain from his rush; he set the tray before Lance. “Please enjoy, young master.”

“Full. Don’t wanna move. Carry me downstairs!” Lance finished, stretched like a cat, then bellowed.

“Th-this…” The old butler hesitated, eyes on the boy’s not-so-small frame and strong limbs; heat rose in his chest like steam, but memory pulled him back—his lady’s words from thirteen years ago, spoken on the edge of farewell, cooled his anger like snow; he crouched in front of Lance. “Come, young master. Go easy—my back may not carry storms anymore.”

“Forget it if you can’t.” Fulin caught herself at the edge of becoming pure scum, reining in like a horse tugged from a cliff; after all, Lance was already that kind of rotten brat, and in front of familiar faces she had to play the scene. “Just prep the carriage for me—getting ready to go out!”

“Yes, young master.” Old Brook rose and walked out, down the stairs and from the manor, heading to the stable to ready the carriage, his silhouette thin as a reed.

Playing Lance, Fulin left the room too; his chamber sat on the second floor, and the stairs lay beyond a long corridor like a drawn bowstring.

As ‘he’ walked, thoughts circled like kites in an updraft; the more she thought, the sharper her curiosity bit.

Not about anything else, but about Lance himself; though he was decadent and lazy, through the advanced talent of a Dark Warrior—Dual Incarnation—Fulin knew Lance Morrison carried a special power, a bloodline called the Warrior Bloodline.

Bloodline power didn’t come from Legend of Dawn—it was this world’s, Nordland’s, a native gift like iron in mountain veins; it had a tendency to pass on in families, but by the crowd’s measure it was one in a thousand, and true strong bloodlines one in ten thousand, stars scattered in a vast sky; even so, Fulin didn’t know if the Warrior Bloodline was mighty enough, only that it could be strengthened in the Legend of Dawn way—gain experience, level up, temper steel; strengthen the Warrior Bloodline and you got a fighter’s sturdy body, a flood of life force, and Battle Aura to bind war skills, all the iron a knight needed in the Doran Kingdom.

So with that gift, Lance Morrison should’ve been trained hard as a sapling staked against wind.

His wastrel nature should’ve been corrected early; yet even Lance himself knew nothing about it, and if Fulin hadn’t glimpsed it through the status pane in her mind like a secret script, she’d never have guessed this second-generation brat hid such a seed; she had no time to dig into the soil behind it.

With that talent, Fulin had started, a month ago, to move the plan forward like laying stones on a path, and to make Lance Morrison stronger; she held two lines in both hands, tight as reins.

First, she used the Chaos Vampire’s innate gift, the Essence Conversion Law; in this world you couldn’t grind monsters for EXP, but this law let you drain life essence while feeding, convert essence into experience, then pour it into Lance’s Warrior Bloodline like water into roots.

Second, in the Lance Morrison mask she’d find a master to study under; for a top player that sounded extra like gilding a blade, but as in games, if a player skyrocketed in a short time, someone would report him for hacking; Fulin needed a reason for Lance’s power to surge, and a knight mentor was the perfect fig leaf, a banner flapping in plain view.

She’d thought up both a month ago, the ideas misty like morning fog; she just wanted to prepare for rain before clouds gathered; now, with expulsion looming like a storm line, the plan looked wise as a well.

“Young master, the carriage is ready.” From the corridor window came the butler’s call, a voice floating like a breeze.

Outside, a horse whinnied, and iron wheels chewed the muddy ground with a crunchy song, like teeth on bark.

“Coming.” Lance answered and trotted downstairs, steps quick as a fox.

Even with expulsion on the horizon, this wasn’t a cliff yet; the ground still held.

Sure enough, on the first floor he saw, by the hall’s dining room, two men seated—Duncan and Malte—just as expected, figures like chess pieces set for play; if the engagement had been decided, Malte would have announced it last evening, in front of everyone; with the two sons’ reputations miles apart, the choosing should’ve been a cut made in one stroke like a clean slice; something made Malte hesitate, smoke hiding in trees; that meant Fulin, playing Lance, still had time to find a knight mentor—short, but a week’s candle remained.

Time enough for Lance to consult that cold-faced, warm-hearted knight, a winter stone with a hearth inside, and decide ‘his’ road ahead.

Thinking and acting in tandem, Fulin hurried for the door, but Duncan’s voice snagged her like a hook.

“Yo, my dear brother—where you off to?”

Duncan’s handsome face was a minus to Fulin as a once-man, ice too polished to trust; even ignoring that, he was slick and narrow, a smile tailored like paper flowers; his tone held that sweetener you gave superiors, flattery poured like syrup.

In front of Father, Duncan hid his color like a snake in grass, playing a caring elder brother with a painted mask.

Fulin’s dark read on Duncan didn’t come from Lance’s memories; it came hammered from her past life—out of the office grind, a veteran of 996 shifts, bones sore like old wood.

Most times, bosses liked seeing employees burn 996 not because the company needed it, but because they enjoyed the furnace; employees, chasing their own ends, leaned in to please; it wasn’t simple bootlicking—it was mutual appetite, a market under lanterns.

She knew Duncan’s act now, colored glasses aside, likely served a sharp goal: Malte, despite leaning toward a decision on the engagement, still hadn’t cut the rope; Fulin didn’t know why he delayed, but guessing another twig right felt good, joy like a spark.

She rode that mood, and as Lance, spoke rough to her brother, words like tossed pebbles.

“None of your business.”

The brothers were bad water to begin with; that made the role a delight, and Lance’s born swagger flowed out like wine; she was one step from grabbing a clump of horse dung and slapping it on Duncan’s face like a farmer’s prank.

“You—! In front of Father, you still—” Duncan hadn’t expected his clown of a brother to show teeth in front of Father; a flame whooshed up inside like flaring oil, and if Father weren’t here, he wouldn’t even spare this fool a glance.

“Enough. Let him go.” Malte didn’t show much concern, a stone unruffled by passing wind.

“But he—”

Duncan’s worry rose like a storm cloud; he wanted to refute his father’s words, but Malte brushed it off like dust: “Let him go.”

Seeing Lance arrive late, the butler swung the carriage door wide, a dark mouth opening to the street.

“Young Master, please board.”

Lance offered no thanks; with overbearing ease, he skipped the steps like they were beneath him and vaulted straight into the carriage.

He hooked his ankle over his knee, lounging like a cat on a sun-warmed sill.

“Depart. To Mr. Layne’s villa!”

“Yes, Young Master,” the butler replied, his voice smooth as polished wood.

The carriage gave a gentle sway, and the world beyond the windows flowed past like a slow river of ink.

Watching that shifting scene, Fulin felt resolve and fear knot like two vines around her heart.

Maybe life was only this drifting current; for tomorrow, she would wear the mask of Lance Morrison and hide the truth from every eye.