In this world, everything is impermanent, like clouds unmoored at dawn. Amitabha.

After a few dozen seconds of scuffling, Kelor slipped into the plain clothes Lingcai had just shed, like changing masks backstage.

Forced by the tide of danger, Lingcai had to put on the princess’s gown and crown, clammy with puddle-water like fish skin.

She felt the crown on her hair not as a jewel, but as a guillotine blade perched on her neck.

“If I turn into a ghost, I’ll hate you two for a lifetime…” she muttered, squeezing water from her over-the-knee socks like wringing rain from bamboo.

Xueyu drew her long sword once more; with her other hand, she hoisted Lingcai to her side like a kitten, treating her like a true princess.

“Your Highness,” she said to Kelor, voice steady as frost. “To keep suspicion low, I’ll carry the decoy and draw the assassins. Hide here. If I don’t return by nightfall, don’t mind me—run.”

“I understand. Stay safe,” Kelor said, nodding in Lingcai’s borrowed clothes.

“What do you mean stay safe? If she’s gone, I’m gone! Please, have mercy… I really want a few more years!” Lingcai’s panic fluttered like sparrows.

She had zero willingness; the stronger their “heroic farewell” tone, the more her knees trembled like reeds in wind.

Xueyu folded Lingcai into her arms, breath close as night rain. “Miss Lingcai, live or die, I go with you today. Afterward, your family—our country—will see to them. Go with a calm heart.”

She lifted the latch with a flick of her blade; the monastery door groaned open like a coffin lid, and she dragged Lingcai out into the gray.

Assassins appeared ahead, not far at all, scattered like crows on a field. The guard cavalry was strong, but numbers rolled over them like a tide.

Seeing their footfalls closing in, Lingcai shook Xueyu’s shoulder, terror rising like floodwater. “Big sis, please, you have to keep me alive.”

Xueyu’s face was still water. “Don’t panic. I run with you. That’s the move.”

Then she raised her sword and shouted toward the massed assassins, voice like a bell in fog: “Men! The Princess is here! Protect her!”

Lingcai almost snapped on the spot; she lunged to cover Xueyu’s mouth, eyes wide as saucers. “Why are you shouting?! Afraid they can’t see me?!”

“Exactly. You’re here to draw their eyes. Got it? Move!” Xueyu pressed her hand down hard, urgent as iron.

“I’ll hate you two for a lifetime. Even as a ghost, I won’t let you go.” Her words were sharp, but her feet were already itching to run like a stray dog.

Bows creaked; arrows hissed through the air. Lingcai ducked behind Xueyu as if hiding behind a stone gate.

Xueyu slashed her own palm; a bright red line painted the inner edge of the blade like a seal. She drove the sword into the earth and intoned:

“Water-Binding Art… Eightfold Ghost-Sealing Array!”

Water twined up from the ground around the blade’s point, rising like a pillar of whirlpools; the arrows hit the blue wall and vanished into its churn.

When the swirl subsided, shafts fell like cut strings, clattering loose onto the dirt.

“I’ll hold this side. You run elsewhere! Life or death, leave it to heaven—go!” Xueyu kept her blade high against the onrush, and shoved Lingcai so hard she nearly sank into the wall.

Lingcai stumbled, then fled like a pardoned prisoner, crawling and scrambling without a care for dignity or pose.

She still found breath to throw thanks over her shoulder like flower petals: “Elf sis! I knew you were a hero! If I live, I’ll burn incense for you every year! I’m going—hold them for me!”

Xueyu had no air to spare; steel rang close, and she met the surge head-on like a cliff facing waves.

But these assassins, dressed as commoners, didn’t cling to the fight; their eyes were hawks fixed on the crowned decoy.

In the few minutes Xueyu bought, Lingcai didn’t dare stop; she ran like a startled deer, only forward, only away.

Bad luck can be a bamboo knot; soon she saw she’d reached the cliff’s edge. It wasn’t high, but below lay a jumble of boulders, teeth like a broken shrine.

One misstep and her skull would blossom red on the stones like a crushed hibiscus.

Even with the assassins falling behind, Lingcai felt a cold blade across her throat, invisible as night wind.

She could only close her eyes and throw the dice.

Lingcai drew a deep breath, hugged her head tight, shut her eyes, and rolled down the slope, thud-thud like a barrel.

Luckily this is a comedy; otherwise she’d die without even knowing how.

Curled up like a snail, she squatted at the foot of the hill for a long, quiet moment, mind blank as paper slowly taking ink.

“I need a spot to ditch this cursed dress… or I’ll burn through all nine lives…” She muttered, knocking dust from her sleeves like beating rugs.

She glanced up toward the cliff, seeing no shadows in pursuit, no blades glinting like winter stars.

Only then did she exhale long, like steam leaving a kettle. She turned—and her face froze to stone.

Assassins in black had already closed a ring around her, tight as a jar’s mouth. Long swords, short knives, magic staves—every sting of a swarm.

Lingcai was a turtle in a pot, nowhere to swim.

They held their weapons and watched, silent as statues, waiting for something, eyes prowling her face like wolves.

“Uh… sirs and madams, I’m just a commoner. I was grabbed as a stand-in, a fake. The real princess already ran. Maybe go chase her?”

“I can leave the dress and crown here, you know, so you can report back…” Her words were oil on water, trying to smooth the ripples.

She took two steps, and a young woman slid a blade to her throat, cold as a moonbeam.

“No spine, Your Highness. Royal pride is high when it’s flowers and wine. When it’s life or death, you turn to water?” Her smile was a thorn.

Lingcai shook her head so hard she looked like a rattled drum. “No, no, no! Absolutely not! Look at me—do I have that aura? Do I look like a princess?”

The young woman studied her for a beat, gaze like a needle. “You don’t just look like—”

“See? Sister, your eyes are sharp as fire. I’m just a poor Alchemist—” Lingcai sprinted to catch the thread.

“—You look identical.” The woman pressed her knife, herding Lingcai into a corner like driving sheep. “You can act. Keep spinning.”

Lingcai nearly folded on the spot. “Why won’t you believe me? Listen—I’m not only not a princess, I’m a man!”

The young woman snorted, and a few assassins couldn’t hold their faces; one even sprayed his neighbor like a cracked gourd.

“There’s… there’s a reason!” Lingcai rushed on, words tumbling like beans. “I was an Alchemist. During a human transmutation, something went wrong. That’s why I’m like this…”

“Fine. It’s entertaining.” The woman’s smile was half chill, half amused. “Keep going. I’ll see when your tale turns seamless.”

Cornered, panic clawing like vines, Lingcai found one last straw. “Okay, sis, listen. Find anyone who’s seen the princess. Let them take one look.”

“One glance at my face and they’ll know I’m not her. That’s fair, right?”

She spoke each word with a sincerity like kneeling at an ancestral tablet.

“Fine. You’re bold. You won’t cry till you see the coffin.” The woman jabbed a finger at Lingcai’s nose, hard as a chopstick. Then she barked, “Bring her up!”

The bound captive they dragged forward was Xueyu, helmet gone, armor scuffed like bark after a storm. Clearly she’d lost after a hard fight.

Lingcai’s heart loosened like a knot undone. “Yes, yes, this elf sis. She was there when they grabbed me as a decoy. She can prove I’m fake.”

“I’ve got an eighty-year-old mother at home to feed. Spare me and I’ll be grateful till incense runs out…”

As Lingcai pleaded, Xueyu cut the air with a single turn, voice crisp as winter. “Your Highness, stop struggling. A little trick like that won’t fool them. These assassins came prepared.”

“…Wait, what did you call me?” The thud in Lingcai’s chest was like a dropped stone; her scalp prickled, the world tilted like a boat.

“Don’t do this. I already drew the assassins away for you. You can’t make me take the blade for the princess again, can you?”

“As to whether you’re the princess,” Xueyu said, formal as a decree, “I think these traitors already know. Keep resisting and you shame the crown. Drop the pretense and accept it.”

Lingcai’s tongue turned to ash; all her words had dug her own grave like a shovel in wet earth.

“See that, little princess? That’s human nature.” The young woman’s laugh was a hook; she patted Lingcai’s shoulder like a butcher testing meat.

“That’s your bodyguard, betraying you at the last breath. How does that feel?”

What feeling? Death is a quiet door. A life spent as someone’s scapegoat, and even the dying is muddled.

Lingcai glared at Xueyu, teeth grinding like millstones; but Xueyu’s face was iron, her choice set like a chess piece—abandon the carriage, save the king.

“…I’ll hate you two for a lifetime. Even as a ghost, I’ll never let you go…”