“Ancestor, you’re coming in person?!” Flora Eina’s heart leaped like a startled bird, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Thankfully she was in her room, a shell of silence. This room’s soundproofing held like thick snow on eaves.

“Mm. Get ready... and be extra careful tomorrow.” She drew a long breath like pine-cool air, let it out like a soft breeze, and said, “I understand.”

After the call, Huaruo Qingqing loosened her shoulders like an unstrung bow. “Eh? That little brat isn’t back yet? Or did she slip out again?!”

Stare—

In Beastkin territory, a half-Beastkin charlatan, ragged as old bark, was cornered in a church by Qingsheng Tangxue. “Ah, hahaha... little friend, why stare at me like a spear?” The quack mopped sweat with a limp handkerchief, drops like rain off eaves.

“Because you look suspicious,” Tangxue said, eyes cold as morning dew.

Stare—

The half-Beastkin, a head and a half taller yet shrinking, sweated rivers like summer roofs. “Hahaha, you jest, little friend... I came with the priestess. She can vouch for me.”

“I don’t believe you. You feel like a bad man.” Tangxue pressed in, step by step, like a tide chewing at a cliff.

“Ha... ha... Little friend, actually, I sell picture books. Want a look?” His grin turned greasy, and he leaned in like a creeping vine.

“...?”

He slid his right hand into his trousers, like a snake into a burrow. Then—

“What is that...? You!” He pulled out a smutty booklet, pages inked silver-gray, every page an Elf like moonlit skin. Tangxue squeezed her eyes shut like shutters before a storm. She sprang back, and her foot whipped up like a lash. Her kick cracked his chin skyward like a snapped branch.

“Ah!!”

“Pervert!!!”

Only after Tangxue had dashed off, her steps like the wind, did the half-Beastkin groan and set his jaw, a click like a loose tile. “Good grief... that little runt hits like a hammer,” he wheezed, breath steaming like a kettle. “Good thing it’s just a kid.”

Huaruo Qingqing was still fixed on her talk with Eina, eyes on distant ripples, and missed it all like a cloud missing a thrown stone.

That evening, Tangxue slipped home like a dusk cat. She leaned by the door and peeked at Huaruo Qingqing, who watched a transparent silver screen like a frozen pond. Tangxue’s feelings tangled like reeds in a slow river. She said nothing and drifted to her room to sleep like a leaf settling.

That sleep was thin as frost and pebble-studded.

At dawn, the plaza outside turned into a tide of people, a sea rolling under pale light. The Beastkin guests would soon arrive, and the Elves moved like ants, dressing the grounds for the festival.

After a long night’s work, the city wore a new skin like fresh leaves. This morning, they only had to tie the last ribbons like dew-bright knots.

“Hey... old thing, are you still in bed?” Tangxue went to rouse Huaruo Qingqing. Most mornings, she was still a warm lump in quilts. Today, like a startled bird, she was already out.

No breakfast waited at home, just an empty bowl on a bare table like a white moon on slate. Huaruo had taught Tangxue to cook, little fires like fireflies. But Tangxue preferred food made by other hands, warm as a hearth after snow.

“Wow, it’s so lively today...” Tangxue stood on the World Tree’s leaves like a sparrow on jade. She peered down. The huge plaza below was packed with Elves and a dense swarm of Beastkin. The Beastkin cheers rolled like thunder, sky-filling waves. If not for the Elves’ voices below, she’d think the Forest Capital had fallen like a breached dam.

“I’ll go find a shop and eat.”

Every place was jammed, wall to wall, from door to stove, steam like banners. When she used to buy breakfast here, the owner greeted her like sunshine after rain. Today she tossed a quick hello, a pebble skipping water.

Tangxue took her breakfast and stood in the middle, a reed in a flood. There were no seats, only a floor packed like hard earth. The big shop was stuffed with Beastkin, shoulder to shoulder like stones in a riverbed.

She looked down at her food, steam curling like pale mist. She looked up at the crowd, a wall of fur and leather like a cliff.

Forget it, it isn’t hot. She raised the bowl and downed the soy milk in one swallow, a warm wave through a cold belly. She set the bowl on a nearby table like setting down a shell. Then she headed for the door, steps light as ash.

“Hey, wait up, little one!” The boss lady—Auntie Yun—jogged out, breath fluttering like moth wings, a bag of pastries in hand.

“What’s up, Auntie Yun?” Tangxue asked, her voice light as a bell.

Auntie Yun panted twice, then offered the snacks like a small moon wrapped in paper. “Little one, you didn’t eat your fill, right? Here, take these. I made them myself, all by hand. Sigh... we’re swamped today. Sorry, little one... no seat for you. I was going to grab you a stool in the back.”

“No need, Auntie Yun.” Tangxue smiled, a crescent over water, but still took the bag. “Thanks for the pastries~ I have to head to the plaza later. I can’t help in your shop today.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Go on, little cutie~” Auntie Yun waved like a summer fan, then hurried back to the kitchen, steam trailing like clouds.

Huaruo Qingqing had told her to swing by the plaza, a summons like a tug on a kite string. She didn’t know why. But since the old thing called, she’d go, feet light as leaves, with nothing else on her hands like an empty afternoon.

Just then, a burly Beastkin called out, voice like a drum. “Hey, elf auntie up ahead! Please wait!”

“Aun... tie? You mean me?” Tangxue pointed at herself, face flat as a pond without ripples.

“Yeah, auntie.” The honest Beastkin scratched his nape like a bear and grinned. “Elves get younger-looking as they get older, right? Our textbooks say so.”

That wasn’t wrong, a stone that sits true on the riverbed.

“I’m one year old.”

“Huh...? Hahaha! Don’t joke, auntie~” The young Beastkin patted her shoulder, a big paw on a leaf. “Okay, no more jokes. Auntie, can I ask something? Which way to the central plaza of the Forest Capital?”

“Greenleaf Plaza...? That way.” Tangxue pointed ahead, the same way her feet were set like rails.

“Oh, oh! Thanks, auntie~!”

He turned to leave, broad as a door and just as steady. Tangxue caught his right hand, fingers like a fishhook snagging cloth. “I said I’m one year old. Only a few months old. Didn’t you get it?”

“Hahaha, don’t tease me, auntie.” He doubled over laughing, belly like a drum in festival time. “It’s rude to say, but if you’re really one, why so hung up on age?”

Tangxue froze like a sparrow mid-flight. Why indeed?

“That’s why our Ancestor is so wise,” the Beastkin youth said, pride shining like bronze under sun. “He already saw through every race’s habits.”

“Is that so... How old are you?” Tangxue asked, her voice small as rain on moss.

“Sixteen. Why?”

Sixteen... and already that tall? Tangxue looked up. He seemed three of her stacked, like three trunks rising.

“Alright... nothing.” She shook her head, a leaf shedding dew, and slipped past the giant youth toward a nearby shop, shadows like cool water.

The Beastkin scratched his head again, thoughts scattering like dandelions on wind. He let it go and strode toward the plaza, steps like pounding hooves on packed earth.

Tangxue only browsed inside the shop, eyes drifting like clouds without anchors. When she saw the Beastkin leave, she slipped back out, a little ache in her chest like dusk settling.

“Am I... really already old?” she murmured, words like mist that won’t hold shape.

That Beastkin had a point. The old thing’s height looked shorter than Sister Eina’s, like a stump beside a birch.

“I’ll ask her at the plaza.” Her voice was a thread, and she followed it into the crowd like a leaf into a stream.