“Do you think I’m amazing?” Linyue Yao smiled, light as spring sunlight, and tapped her own chest.

Yanfengle nodded on reflex, like a sparrow pecking grain. “Mm.”

“Scram. Fangzhe, that little punk, might be stronger than me.” Her voice snapped like frost. “Go listen to his blather.”

“Things like suppressing a cult? You ask the Empire’s army and the Queen. Not a skiving orphanage head fishing in the shade.”

“Ah, but…”

“I know what you’re about to say.” Her breath fell cool, like moonlight on water. “Yes, I taught Xuewei and Ling Yehan.”

“They left me when they were small. Their power doesn’t mean I’m the same. If you expect me to fix Starfate City’s crisis, forget it.”

“…”

Linyue Yao stroked Da Bai’s thick fur, snow-soft under her fingers, then turned toward the courtyard.

“Wait—Auntie, Teacher Fangzhe sent a letter for you!” Yanfengle fumbled it out, like a fish slipping from a net.

“Call me ‘Auntie’ again, and I’ll toss you into White Snow Forest.” Her lips puffed, her glare bit like hail. She snatched the letter.

A secrecy spell rippled over the paper, a veil of mist. Only Headmistress Linyue Yao could read it.

Her expression shifted like clouds over a lake. Then she crushed the letter into a hard little snowball.

“…Let’s go, Da Bai. We’re heading to Starfate City.”

“Ah?”

Yanfengle blinked, stunned, like a deer in torchlight. One letter, and ‘Auntie’ changed her mind? Uh…

“Wait here.” Her voice was steady, a river under ice. “I’ll tell the kids. Then we leave for Starfate City.”

“Oh—uh… Headmistress, you don’t mind if I look inside, right?” He shrank like a leaf in wind.

“I mind.”

“…”

Her glare sent him skittering like a startled rabbit. She strode into the house.

Ten minutes later, Linyue Yao came out and yawned, soft as dusk. “Da Bai, we move.”

“This wolf… sir is named Da Bai?”

“Mm. Xiao Han named him.”

“Oh…” Xiao Han must be a kid from the orphanage, right?

Yanfengle never imagined she meant Ling Yehan, the Frost Valor.

“Hop on. Da Bai running beats you slow-flying.”

“Ah?”

Isn’t flying faster than running?

“Why are you standing there, dumb as a stump? We go.”

“Right! Okay!”

Linyue Yao pinched her brow, weary as a winter reed. Was this kid slow on the uptake…?

If Fangzhe’s letter was true, she would have to grit her teeth and face the storm.

She looked at the scars crisscrossing her right hand, pale as old lightning. Could she pull her out from enemies not weaker than herself?

And finish before Xuewei arrived? If Starfate City’s idiots dragged that thing from the sea to shore, the city would vanish like sand in a tide.

The snow wolf’s speed outpaced Yanfengle’s lonely flight. In one hour, wind-lashed and frost-bit, they reached Starfate City’s gate.

Inside, on the central square, Tangxue bantered with the crowd, sparks flying like fireflies. She had begged voice chat when Fan Chen’s insults turned rancid.

They talked, hot as steam, and Fan Chen grew merry and mean. He “heated” the hot spring for Tangxue, then ran a current through it to “ease fatigue.”

The exchange burned hotter, like iron in a forge. The city lord’s composure cracked like glaze, and Fan Chen tossed honor aside.

He fired a magitech rifle at the hot spring, trying to ambush a fourteen-year-old girl.

Luckily, Tangxue was ready. An invincible ice wall rose, a double-layered cage, hard as a thousand-year turtle shell.

Careful as a snowflake’s edge, she opened a small slit in the cage, so the “conversation” could continue.

A one-sided denouncement flipped to a one-sided frenzy. Baseless grudge swelled into a blood-deep feud, rolling like a storm front.

Tangxue watched Fan Chen’s face twist, like clay under a cruel hand. Too tender, she mused—how did this pressure-shy man become city lord?

In ten minutes, Fan Chen “cordially visited” eighteen generations of Tangxue’s ancestors, twenty rounds, like a drumbeat.

Tangxue refused to wilt. With syrup-sweet sarcasm, she greeted Fan Chen’s late parents and wished him robust “health” and a very long life.

By the way, Fan Chen was already past a hundred, dust on old bronze.

The “ordinary” citizens near him got caught in the splash, too. They all knew each other, so a group greeting felt fair.

She was caged and “in danger,” frost at her throat. Yet she stayed calm, a lake under snow.

She had dealt massive psychic damage and solid AOE to their morale. Two days remained, and she could break their minds within those two dawns.

Give her time, and she’d be a future-warrior, blade of tomorrow, bright as ice.

Meanwhile, on the city’s edge, Linyue Yao planned with Yanfengle, speaking low as falling snow.

“Kid, can you hold off several ninth-tier experts alone?”

“I… I don’t know.” He shook his head, lost as fog. His strength wasn’t up to him, so he had no sense of his ceiling.

“Fine.” Her sigh drifted cold. “Watch the flow and bleed off pressure when you can. Da Bai and I will handle the main crowd.”

“Okay…”

A clear sky flipped to gale, as if a giant exhaled. The temperature plunged like a stone into deep water.

“Snow,” Linyue Yao murmured, voice soft as flakes. She slipped off the band that held her single ponytail.

“It’s time to meet again… Xiao Han.”

Da Bai planted himself before Starfate City’s gate, proud as a mountain. Wind and snow converged, sculpting a vast wolf-shade before him.

Compared to that towering phantom, the city gate looked small, like a toy under thunderclouds.

The blizzard started gnawing at Starfate City, teeth of ice. From outside, they couldn’t see the shape within. The barrier still refused to open.

“Da Bai, lay siege.” Her whisper was a silver bell. “You want to see him soon, too, don’t you?”

“Awooooo!”

The snow wolf lifted his head, high as a cold moon. His left eye, white, flashed fierce; his right, a blue slit, gleamed with austere authority.

His aura climbed like a storm wall. In this moment, he stood sacred, untouchable as a shrine.

The giant wolf-shadow crashed into the barrier. The pale membrane quivered and keened, like glass under winter.

The city answered quickly. Fan Chen switched off the protective barrier, hoarding its energy like a miser clutching coin.

The phantom dissolved, and Da Bai drew his spirit back like a blade into a scabbard.

Linyue Yao rode the wolf through the gate, snow trailing like banners. Yanfengle… he could just watch from the side.