In Maple City, Tulip Manor breathed beauty, like a lake of tulips cupped by night.

Under a sky of cold stars, a timely winter wind raised waves through the flowerbeds, and the air turned to silk with romance.

Many couples met here; they swayed with the willow branches, and with each sway, a few petals drifted down like quiet snow.

Seclusion was a screen that welcomed Fulin’s shadow; at her small sign, the big cat spread its baleful shroud wider, like ink soaking silk.

The widened shroud wrapped Fulin, the Mountain Wind Knight, and the big cat—two people and one beast—like midnight folding them into its sleeves.

From afar, the shroud worked like camouflage; to other eyes, they were only a slightly wrong piece of shadow, a seam of dusk stitched into the garden.

“This way,” Fulin whispered, her voice thin as reed-wind, pointing to a narrow path splitting from the main road.

“Got it, Blazing Fire Knight,” the Mountain Wind Knight said, his usual cheek tucked away like a blade sheathed in water.

He followed at Fulin’s back, eyes combing the hedges, while his Wind Sense tasted the currents to be sure no gaze hooked on them.

Led by Fulin, the two and one beast moved fast, shadows skimming water.

Through the vast, maze-like grounds, they threaded like a shuttle in a loom; in less than half an hour, most of the distance lay behind them.

“Hold,” Mountain Wind cut the air with his hand at a pavilion’s corner.

“What is it?” Fulin turned, lifting her long hair like a black stream so the ends wouldn’t brush the ground.

“Someone you know,” he said; his Wind Sense wasn’t a spell, yet the breeze carried whispers like sparrows to his ear.

“Someone I know? Who?” Fulin drew out a band and tied a single ponytail, and her calm hardened like rime.

“Rose Knight,” Mountain Wind said, pointing at the building. On the second floor, a wide sitting window stood open; the wind from it brought him the news.

“She’s inside?” Fulin almost reached for a life-detection spell, then stilled it, wary of a hunter’s hook tugging back along the line.

“Shouldn’t she be at the Magic Academy?” No joy, no anger—only reason ran clear in Fulin, like winter water.

“She’s inside,” Mountain Wind affirmed. “My Wind Sense doesn’t miss.” His certainty sat like a stone on the riverbed.

“Fine, fine.” Fulin sighed, resignation thinning like mist.

His words tied the Rose Knight to tonight’s web, threads knotting in the dark.

“But she wouldn’t do this,” Fulin said, confusion rippling the surface of her calm like a tossed pebble.

“Isn’t it because of her that Yuna got stuck in that awkward place?” His question fell heavy, like rain on dry soil.

Fulin said nothing; she knew a girl’s heart could be a garden of winding paths and sudden walls.

But she lifted her gaze. “Let’s get the marquis out first,” Fulin said, eyes raised to the blazing stars, resolve setting like frost.

“As expected of you... I wish I were as calm as you,” Mountain Wind muttered, looking at the hand on his blade; a dry chuckle sparked and died like flint.

They moved on; they slipped into the rear courtyards like leaves riding a faint stream.

Fulin’s map-scan said the Feng Wolf Marquis was here—inside a square tower twenty meters ahead, like a trapped flame in a stone lantern.

Thirty meters in a straight line seemed nothing, yet the rear grounds bristled like a thicket of spears.

Along those thirty meters, each house and pavilion had at least five knights on patrol; their fixed routes wove a net with no empty mesh on the ground.

Two-story pavilions rose as watch platforms; mages there sipped flower tea and swept their gaze like brooms of light, keeping eaves clear of thieves.

With warding so dense, those thirty meters became a sky-split gorge, an unbridgeable gap of steel and sight.

Mountain Wind’s grip tightened until his knuckles paled like bone; he looked at Fulin, not even half his height. “What do we do?”

“You tell me. If it were you, how would you do it?” Fulin asked, her tone steady as a mountain stream.

“If it were me...” Mountain Wind had served the Vanilla Duke for ten years, laying patrols more complex than this, lines on a chessboard in wind and stone.

But knowing defense wasn’t knowing assault; he’d joined the duke after failing to kill him and being spared—a hawk with clipped wings, no hand for stealth.

“Spare me,” he said, dropping the thought like a hot coal. “If it’s on me, I’d just smash through.” His words rumbled like storm against a gate.

“Mm. Usually, you do have to break through,” Fulin agreed. “But there are ways to crash in without leaving a ripple.” Her voice was low, like thunder far off.

As a level-110 Dark Knight, Fulin wore assassination and stealth like night stitched into her boots.

She pointed at the archer leaning out from the tower’s window. “We’re going in there,” she said, aiming for the needle’s eye.

“Huh?” Mountain Wind stared at the opening, no wider than a forearm. It was an arrow slit, a crack of ice no person could squeeze through.

He shrugged, doubt hanging like fog. “Don’t tell me only you can get in?”