Tangxue seized the cage, then slammed a headbutt into the bars like a mountain goat hitting iron frost.

‘Ow, ow… good thing Dreamsound once taught me how to resist a soul-requiem,’ she thought, palm to her brow, pain ringing like a struck bell.

Body and soul tug at each other, but the body always leads like the sun pulling a shadow along the ground.

If you want to blunt a requiem’s grip, you have to start with the flesh, like shoring up a dam before the flood reaches your heart.

Dreamsound told me a requiem’s a nightmare; once you’re caught, you’re done, and a hypnotist can even reshape your memories and your nature, like a sculptor carving wet clay—though only with absolute dominance of the mind.

And that woman, Qing Feng Yuelian—her divine sense can crush mine like a boot on fresh snow.

It can crush everyone here, like a storm flattening reeds by a riverbank.

I can’t let her have her way, not while breath still smokes in this winter air.

Tangxue twisted her left arm; pain spiked and tears beaded like dew on cold leaves. “Ugh…!”

Not again! Over my dead body I’m doing that again! The vow landed like a blade stuck in ice.

Execute Plan B, now, like lighting a lantern in a fog.

‘If she’s going to sing, then I’ll sing too,’ she decided, the thought rising like a swallow off a rooftop.

Tangxue couldn’t match a requiem head-on, but she could slip in as accompaniment and throw it off, like tossing grit into a music box.

After all, she’d learned every spell and song that could annoy Dreamsound, the way a prankster masters all the squeaky floorboards—and she’d mastered them to perfection.

In the vast square, another voice rose, a different color of sound, like spring water threading beneath winter ice.

Unlike the earlier chill, this one was younger, like a girl just past her voice change, a light melody that stirred a spark of adrenaline like sunlight on skin.

The two voices wove together like twin streams braiding, each note an echo, each echo a mirror.

Soon, the frosty voice ended first, snapping the braid like a taut string, and the brief duet broke apart like scattered snowflakes.

Tangxue let her own song fall silent as well, then turned; across the distance, Qing Feng Yuelian’s gaze pinned her like a needle through a moth’s wing. “…”

“…”

“Looks like that guy Yanfengle has already left,” Tangxue said, eyes narrowing like a hunter sighting along an arrow. “If someone helps him, he should bring Bai Zhi here within two days. Which means you can keep me caged for two more days.”

At Starfate City’s eastern gate, with no monstrous powerhouse to bar his path, Yanfengle moved like a war god through brambles, battering open the city’s barrier like a battering ram through old wood.

He wondered why the cultists and the city lord weren’t chasing him, the doubt fluttering like a moth, but this wasn’t the time; he sprinted on, feet drumming the earth like rain.

“Huff, huff… finally out,” he panted, breath smoking like chimneys. “Next… do I head east and seek Her Majesty, the queen of the Radiant Empire? But the teachers told me to find the head of a nearby orphanage… so who do I go to?”

[Of course you listen to your teachers and find the orphanage’s head. (Affirmative)] The voice fell like a pebble in a still pond.

[I can say this responsibly: even if this country’s queen came, she couldn’t do anything to that mermaid… If you do as your teachers said, this city might have a sliver of life left, like a candle under a jar.]

“Ah? Goddess-sis, how come you know all this so well?” His doubt rose like mist.

[Oh, don’t mind the details~ (evasive). I’m a god, remember? Knowing a bit more is normal, like stars knowing the night!]

“…”

Yanfengle hesitated, his heart seesawing like a scale. Who should he listen to? The teachers said that hidden master might be on par with the current queen, maybe stronger, like an old pine older than the palace itself.

That headmaster was even the teacher of a Hero and of Teacher Ling Xuewei; by any measure, seeking the nearest help was the cleanest cut.

“Uh… I’ll go find the nearby hermit after all,” he decided, the words settling like a stone. “Time’s tight. The map says the orphanage is less than half a day; the imperial capital would take several days.”

But… it was Qingsheng Tangxue who bought him this chance to run, and he wasn’t following her wish; guilt pricked like thistles underfoot.

“Enough. Don’t overthink it. Make time your ally,” Yanfengle muttered, shaking his head like a dog flinging off rain, then turned and shot toward the orphanage marked on his map like an arrow loosed.

In truth, either choice was an ‘optimal answer,’ like two roads meeting the same mountain pass.

…

North of Starfate City sprawled a forest buried under white snow year-round, a blank page that never took ink, known as a forbidden zone for humankind.

The cold there was a knife, and the beasts were brutal as avalanches; even seasoned adventurers avoided it like sailors steering clear of jagged reefs.

The orphanage Yanfengle sought sat between Starfate City and that White Snow Forest, like a lone lantern between town and tundra.

“If only I could ride a sword through the clouds,” Yanfengle murmured, envy flicking like a tail. “Here we are… this should be the Pineapple Orphanage, right?”

The name was odd, like a flower blooming in winter, but the head here was a very big deal.

The place was larger than any orphanage in his memory, halls spreading like wings, and its decor didn’t lose to a palace, all gilt and hush.

If he didn’t know it was an orphanage, he’d have thought he’d stumbled into a royal court, like a peasant in a dream.

Even the guard dog—no, the guard wolf—was a snow wolf, its presence like a glacier, and it was probably a ninth-tier beast.

A seven-meter giant wolf towered there, higher than anything Yanfengle had ever seen, like a white cliff growing fur.

“Wait, wait! Don’t bite me!” he yelped, the plea flying like startled sparrows.

By the time he reacted, the white wolf’s claws and fangs were a meter from him, the air between them thin as paper.

Lucky for him, he moved in time; otherwise he’d be a snack, like jerky tossed to a campfire.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! You again? Don’t push me too far!” His protest cracked like dry wood.

“All right, Big White, scaring him a little is enough,” a woman called, her voice dropping like frost.

The main gate stayed shut like sealed ice, but on the roof a long-haired woman had appeared, pink coat bright as a peach blossom in snow, lower half clad only in fleece-lined white stockings that hugged her legs like frost on birch.

Isn’t she cold? Yanfengle wondered, the thought drifting like breath.

“So, what brings you here?” she asked, gaze like a blade. “I don’t believe a ninth-tier powerhouse just ‘happened’ to pass this desolate place. If your reason doesn’t satisfy me, I’ll feed you to Big White.”

“Your Excellency—? Ahem… Headmistress, I’m actually a student from Heavenly Melody Academy, not some ‘Your Excellency’…” His voice wobbled like a reed in wind.

“…Hm?” Shock flared on her face like lightning behind cloud.

Since when did Heavenly Melody Academy have a ninth-tier student this young, like green bamboo already taller than the eaves? Had she fallen behind the times?

“My teachers helped me!” Yanfengle blurted, words tumbling like pebbles. “Starfate City got overrun by a cult. The city lord opened the gates. All the teachers at Heavenly Melody Academy are trapped. I got out because they spent everything to send me.”

“All of them… is Xuewei trapped too?” Her brows arched like drawn bows.

“No… Teacher Xuewei isn’t there. I came under Teacher Fangzhe’s orders to ask you, Headmistress, to save Starfate City.” His plea landed like a letter sealed in wax.

“No,” the headmistress said without a flicker, her refusal cold as a shut door in winter.

“Huh???” His surprise burst like a snowball to the face.