“Hey there—are you two here to enroll?” The gate loomed like a yawning stone mouth, and only one clerk stood beneath it—a short-haired girl with ice-blue bangs, waving with a squinting smile.

Qianya swept the scene, cool-eyed. Students streamed past without a glance, white wings unfurling, faint halos glimmering like moonlight on water.

Angels? The thought fluttered, sweet and ridiculous. She smothered a laugh and kept pace beside Xuewei, mask smooth as still ice.

In Blood Clan lessons, angels played the saint—sugar on poison, pious and dim. A few of them caught Qianya’s colored gaze and skimmed her with a look, then slipped around the corner into campus shade.

“Excuse me,” Xuewei said, nerves fluttering like sparrows, “did a blue-haired girl come this way?”

“Blue hair? Mine is blue~” The angelic girl tapped her own head, smile bright as a winter sun.

“…I mean someone here to enroll. My… sister.”

“Sister, huh…” She opened her eyes wider, measuring Xuewei’s face like a jeweler reading facets, then thought for a beat. “Mm, yeah. We do have a pair of sisters who look a lot like you. But they’re a pair. If you say you’re their little sister… I don’t buy it.”

“Is it Tangxue!? It is, right!?” Xuewei’s voice flared like a match.

“You mean the older one? The elder sister’s name is indeed Tangxue. But the shorter one isn’t. She’s called Rain Moon Willow.”

“…”

Ice Deity…

“Hello. We’re enrolling. Process us.” Qianya stepped up, palm landing on the desk like a stamp, her forceful tone making Xuewei jump.

“Okay~ tuition, please~”

Qianya patted her pockets—empty. She flicked Xuewei a look.

What are you even saying?

Seeing that blank, adorable face, Qianya wanted to slap herself. Why did she expect this little sweetheart to pick up a silent cue?

“How much is the tuition?” she asked, voice steady as a blade.

“One thousand years of life experience~”

“?”

“??”

“!?”

“Yep, just what you think~” The not-so-angel propped her chin in both hands, eyes narrowing to slivers, studying them. “You two aren’t kids, right? A measly thousand years of experience—surely you can cough that up?”

“Fine.” Qianya ground the word out like grit between teeth. No time to care—she had to find Tangxue and stop her.

“And you?” The girl turned to Xuewei, smiling with a gentleness that felt like a needle wrapped in velvet.

“I… same as her!”

“Great~ you two young ladies are refreshingly direct. Then…”

She crossed her arms over her chest, smile secret as a moonlit pond. Qianya caught a spray of light in the girl’s eyes—then a white blaze washed over them both, and the world went out.

“…Ah!” Qianya jolted awake, breath sawing like winter wind. Something inside felt cut away, but her memory sat untouched. She glanced at a mirror—then froze. The reflection was small. Much too small.

“Ta-da~ How d’you like our custom uniforms~? Since you’ve paid, you’re students of Heavenly Deity Academy now! Rules are inside—grab a teacher for the details. Oh, and before stepping onto campus, you two need to fetch two tokens from the nearby Misty Forest.”

“Tokens…?” Qianya’s brow tightened like a knotted cord. A thousand years siphoned, and now they wanted toys?

“Yep~ Misty Forest. It reads your heart. If you’re kind inside, you’ll find what we want in under ten minutes. If you’re carrying malice… you might never come out~”

“…”

“Before enrollment, I have to check if you’re baddies, right~?”

“Then why not test us before you charge?” Qianya’s voice cooled like frost over steel.

The angel-girl giggled. “Good or bad, gold’s innocent~ If there’s a chance to make coins drop, why would I let it go?”

“You—!” Qianya’s breath spiked, then steadied. She swallowed the fire.

“Fine.”

Xuewei stared, dazed, at the tiny white-haired girl storming off, mind still lagging like slow snowmelt.

“Hey! Quit spacing out. Move!” Qianya snapped.

“Ah—okay…”

On the path, Xuewei gathered her courage. “Are you… Queen of the Blood?”

“What else?” Qianya rolled her eyes, temper still simmering.

“Why did you turn into this…”

“Didn’t you listen?” Qianya’s patience frayed like silk under flame. “We got scammed out of a thousand years of experience. In short, our age rewound a thousand years. Knowledge, strength—everything except memory is gone. Check your mirror.”

“…?” Xuewei yanked a pocket mirror from her spatial pouch. A child stared back—her childhood face, soft as new snow.

“What does surprise me,” Qianya added, a teasing lift to her voice, “is you’re over a thousand too. I pegged you at, what, thirty?”

“…” Xuewei’s expression stiffened. A faint pink at her hair tips bled old memories back in a slow ache.

The Kelinveil Clan draws power from the Resplendent Phoenix. Gold dominates; pink recedes—burning and regeneration, two sides of the flame. Her father, a tool compared to her mother; her genes cast before her first cry. She inherited none of the clan’s proud holy fire. Only that way could her self-healing bloom enough to press down the necromancy within. For Xuewei, pink meant weakness. Growing up, she even dyed it away.

“I was born a long time ago,” she murmured, voice drifting like mist. “I call Bai Zhi my elder sister, but I’d already come into being more than a millennium ago—just without consciousness.”

“Then your blue hair…?” Qianya blinked at her.

“I don’t know… It comes from my brother. His blood kept me alive.” Xuewei dropped her gaze, words falling like pale rain.

“…”

Looks like that vile woman didn’t aim to kill us… just shrink us. Even the strength in Xuewei that belongs to Tangxue stayed intact.

Are we in another world?

…No. Too few clues. We’ll enter the academy first and figure it out there.

Without noticing the steps, they reached the edge of the Misty Forest. Fog curled like sleeping serpents between the trees. Qianya halted just before the shadows.

“We’re about to go in. We split up.”