‘The clues are too thin, like threads in fog. I’ll keep close for a while longer… She made me check the time today—that was a nudge. Time here bends to the dreamer’s will; outside, maybe not even a minute has passed.’ Qianya tried to soothe herself, a hand on a fluttering heart. In truth, she had no sense of how long; here, every minute felt like a blade notching one more risk.

‘No, Qianya. Split your focus like this and you’ll achieve nothing…’

She jolted upright from the bed, breath a soft gust, and slipped to the bathroom. A wet towel cooled her brow; sweat beaded like dew and wiped away.

“I have to take what’s in front of me seriously,” she said, a nail hammered into a swaying heart.

A new morning sighed open, everything as usual. Xuewei and the others rose on time for class. At the door they ran into Yueyu and her sister, and the four drifted toward the cafeteria like leaves in the same current.

“Morning, Qianya. Didn’t sleep in today?” Dawn Sugar Snow’s smile was candy under sunlight.

Qianya rolled her eyes at Tangxue’s grinning cheeks, a stone skipping water. “Tell that to Xuewei.”

“Why am I getting dragged into this again…” Xuewei’s voice wilted like a petal.

“…”

“By the way, where’re your classes today?” Qianya asked, voice easy as a breeze.

“For freshmen, it’s just those rooms, right? Where else could we go…” Tangxue’s words stretched like a lazy cat.

“Fair.”

They followed the flow of students into the teaching building, a small tide. All first-years together were only a few dozen; one room couldn’t even fill. The daily lesson was basic magic theory, a lantern at noon. A second-year senior held the podium today, a male upperclassman. Aside from Qianya, almost no one wanted to listen; the dullness droned like flies.

At noon, after lunch, Qianya and Xuewei went back to the dorm to rest. That lecturer was so boring everyone was making up sleep; the hallway sat like a quiet pond. Xuewei flopped onto her bed, yawned, and slid into a nap like a pebble sinking. Qianya sat before the mirror to tend her clothes and hair—a habit polished over decades, a blade honed smooth. When it looked right, she nodded, a painter signing a corner. She gathered her things and left the room, steps light as dust.

‘Keep investigating the school,’ she thought, a compass needle quivering. ‘This place still hides so much from me.’

Teaching district. Combat grounds. Back mountain. Fallen Valley. Living quarter. Besides those, a giant lake surprised her, a mirror dropped from the sky. It was her first time here. Facing the endless water, she walked closer, curiosity tugging like a tide.

‘So calm. Walking here makes everything feel weightless… The sky is blue. The water is blue. The wind on my cheeks is a gentle palm. The ripples breathe like sleeping fish…’

“Student, this area is dangerous. Do not come here again!”

The warning cracked like thunder. Qianya’s awareness snapped back. A hand hoisted her like a kitten and flung her through the air back to shore.

“Ow—!” She hit with a thud. Pain bloomed at her tailbone, as if it split into quarters; tears pricked like rain.

“What… is going on…”

A translucent, pale-violet phantom slowly formed before her, a second-year senior shaped from mist. She fixed Qianya with a cool gaze. “This is a forbidden zone of the Academy. Even second-years can’t stroll in. If you don’t want amnesia, leave now. Every extra second here erodes your memory.”

“What!?” Qianya blanched, color washing out like ink in water. She stopped caring about anything else, sprang up, and shot away from the pale-blue lake in the opposite direction, a bird flushed from reeds.

After she left, the violet phantom sighed, a reed flute’s note. “Why do idiot students come here to die every year? Good thing I spotted her early.”

‘What was that? How did I wander into a forbidden zone? Wait—was that senior lying to me?’

‘No. Probably not… That feeling was real. Danger, like the ground falling away. As if nothing mattered anymore. If I’d stayed, I really might’ve lost my memories…’

‘How scary. Why would such a place exist inside the Academy?’

She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at sweat, beads like dew, and hurried away from that ghostly place.

After that scare, she had no mood to explore. She went straight to the highest peak of Heavenly Deity Academy and sat at the cliff to steady her heart, a stone easing into moss.

‘I think I was here the day before yesterday. I kept staring at the sky then. Looking down now, the Academy is pretty majestic, a chessboard carved into the mountain. Ah, I can even see that lake from here? Tsk. Bad luck.’

Qianya turned her gaze elsewhere. Beyond the classrooms and buildings, nothing else. Farther out stretched pale-green grassland, endless as sea, like that lakeside. Stay too long, and you could lose yourself, your memories drifting like dandelion fluff.

‘Good thing I headed for the Academy when I did. If I’d kept walking out there, I might’ve forgotten even my own name.’

She let out a soft sigh, sat a while, then headed back. Not long after she left, Dawn Sugar Snow walked out, a bag of chips in her right hand rustling like dry leaves.

“Here to sightsee, Qianya?” Her voice was sweet with a hook. “Wandering without aim like this is a waste. Or have you noticed I’ve been tailing you?”

She smiled and shook her head, a crescent moon. “See you tomorrow.”

That night, Qianya brought Xuewei to knock on the dorm door and invited Yueyu and her sister to the Academy’s night market.

“Good evening, Qianya~ It’s late. What’s up?” Dawn Sugar Snow’s tone chimed like bells.

“Tangxue, Yueyu, want to hit the night market? Sitting in the dorm is too dull. Let’s stretch our legs.”

“Hm…” Dawn Sugar Snow cast a mock-thoughtful look at her sister, a fox peeking through grass. “What do you think, Xuewei~?”

“Me? If Sis goes, then…” Xuewei’s words drifted like falling feathers.

“Mm, I get it. When Yueyu says it like that, she wants to go,” Qianya said, nodding to herself like counting beads.

“…” Yueyu’s silence was a pebble in a pond.

“Oh?” Dawn Sugar Snow glanced at Qianya, surprised, then burst out laughing. “Pff—hahaha! Didn’t think you’d learn ‘Yueyu-speak’ so fast, Qianya. Not bad. You’re quicker than I was!”

“There’s no such thing,” Yueyu snapped, glare a small knife. She wanted to add more, but seeing others there, she swallowed the words like hot tea.

“Then we’ll tidy up and head out~?”

“Mm. Xuewei, let’s wait at the door.”

“Hurry up,” Xuewei waved into the room, a cat’s paw. “Don’t be slow.”

“Coming right away~”

“Yueyu, be honest. Do you want to go?” Dawn Sugar Snow asked with a soft smile, a lantern glow.

“I… I don’t know…” A flicker of confusion crossed Yueyu’s eyes, a cloud over water. “But I’m hungry. I want something to eat.”

“Got it. Then let’s go~” Dawn Sugar Snow smiled, eyes crescenting, and patted Yueyu’s head like smoothing feathers. She rose to get ready.

Yueyu stared at the things on her desk, briefly adrift like a boat in fog. Then she packed with her sister.

Ten minutes later, the four set out, their goal the night market, lights a river of stars.

At Heavenly Deity Academy, resource trades were everywhere, like stalls under lanterns. If you wanted to survive school, credit points were a must. They said it affected leveling and graduation. Let your credits sink too low, and you might get expelled.

Even as freshmen, they’d heard about credit points often, the way you hear the sea in a shell. That one free month might be blessing or curse. If, when it ended, you still spent like water, danger would come knocking.

“Qianya’s grilled fish is pretty good,” Yueyu said at last, voice calm as a pond. “If you’ve got no work, you could run a stall at the night market and feed yourself.”

It was the first time Yueyu had answered Qianya directly, a small flame catching in the dusk.