From Qiange’s eyes, the state was a thorned wall, cold and hateful like iron rimed with frost.

Since the Elven King took the throne and named the era “Senluo,” the civil exams shut like winter gates against human students.

Her younger brother had studied ten winters by a cold window, a lamp guttering low, and died with bitterness caged in his chest, leaving a house like a broken shrine.

But from Lingcai’s angle, the truth was a different moon in a different pond.

Ariex’s examination system was polished like a mirror, yet the gap in knowledge was a river in flood between humans and elves.

Qiange’s brother and the other human scholars failed because figures on the scale were lighter, while elven elites weighed like stone.

On a state’s ledger, officials are chosen by merit, a balance-beam weighing grain, and the state, as a machine, had not erred.

Yet these inch-by-inch differences piled like snowdrift, and a small drift birthed a tragedy.

Lingcai turned that thought over for a long while, the truth like a blade under silk, and still could not force the courage to tell Qiange.

“Right, I never asked—who are you?” Qiange’s voice plucked the air like a taut string and cut off Lingcai’s thoughts.

Fluster rippled like wind on water, and Lingcai started circling around an answer.

“Uh… I’m an Alchemist. The ‘Scarlet Leaf’ who forged your father’s blade has a fiancé studying Alchemy abroad, you knew that, right?”

Qiange nodded, a small bow like a reed in breeze. “I know. He’s Chuerde’s most famous grand Alchemist, named Lingcai. His Alchemy tuned Chuerde from a border hamlet into the North’s trade hub. So you’re…”

Watching Qiange’s eyes widen like lanterns lighting one by one, Lingcai’s chest bloomed like a firework.

Revealing yourself before a fan was a god-tier flex, a banner snapping in bright wind.

She floated a little, pride written across her small face like sunlight on a stream.

“To be honest, I’m the grand Alchemist you—”

“—’s disciple.”

The truth jammed like a peach pit in her throat, and she couldn’t say it.

She looked at her own loli body and slammed the words aside like a door, changing course mid-step.

If her fans learned that Chuerde’s hero, a grand Alchemist, had become a golden-haired little girl by her own hand, her face would shatter like a dropped porcelain cup.

Forget it, forget it… I’ll be my own disciple, a cloak thrown over a draft.

She tucked that comfort over her heart like a thin blanket.

What Lingcai didn’t expect was Qiange prostrating on the spot, full-body devotion like a falling pine.

“My apologies! I failed to see the mountain before my eyes! I didn’t expect I’d do something so low to the disciple of Master Lingcai! Please forgive my rudeness!”

Lingcai blinked twice, her expression freezing like water in shade. “Low? What low?”

“It’s…” Qiange’s words stumbled like pebbles. “Earlier, I…”

Realization hit, and chill licked Lingcai’s lower body like meltwater; she clamped her smooth legs tight with a flush.

“Heh… uh, you meant that… I didn’t take it to heart…”

That was a lie tossed like a paper screen in a storm.

She’d taken it to heart like a brand; without the cavalry’s timely whoosh, she might have lost herself on the spot.

And in a girl’s shape at that, like a mirror turned the wrong way.

Even my fiancée hasn’t touched me like that, she thought, curses swarming like bees beneath a calm veil.

Still, she kept her face smooth, a lake under wind, and stood as if nothing had rippled.

Qiange lifted her head, still kneeling with back straight like bamboo, and cupped her fists toward Lingcai.

“Miss, how should I address you? Since you’re Master Lingcai’s disciple, allow me to call you teacher.”

Everything about Qiange moved with a swordswoman’s air, cloak and gesture like a brushstroke.

She leaned forward to prostrate again, a tide ready to bow.

“All right, all right! Don’t do that! I’m not some grand figure, and your kneeling is a hat too big for me!”

Lingcai hurried to help Qiange up, her hands quick as sparrows, while her mind tangled like vines over a name for her fake disciple self.

She thought, then set her stake like a traveler pitching camp.

“No need to call me teacher. Call me Acai. My name is close to my master’s, so he calls me that, and so does Miss Scarlet Leaf. Don’t mind it.”

That part was a truth laid like a clean stone.

Though she and Scarlet Leaf hadn’t wed, they’d grown up like twin shoots, and Acai had become Scarlet Leaf’s soft nickname for Lingcai.

Somehow the sound sat better on her ear, a cup of warm tea in cold hands.

Better than ‘Master’ or ‘Teacher’ by a mile, like silk versus sackcloth.

“Right, Miss Acai, you said you came to save me?” Qiange’s thought sparked like flint, and she looked up.

Only then did Lingcai remember her purpose, and she pulled a ring of prison keys from her pocket like fish from a net.

With them came a lump of ashy clay and a metal cylinder with a conical tip, items dull as stones yet sharp as rain.

Once laid out, she set to work, pale hands kneading the clay until it had the pull of dough, a quiet rhythm like bread rising.

Qiange watched with a puzzled calm, eyes steady as a pond, knowing it mattered but not seeing the path.

“Miss Acai, what are you making?” Her voice was a soft tap, like rain on eaves.

Lingcai brushed a fine sheen of sweat from her brow, beads like dew, and answered, “I’m making you a key.”

The keys in your hand aren’t enough? The doubt skimmed Qiange’s mind like a swallow.

She stayed silent and watched, patience sitting like a stone lantern in a garden.

The plan was a straight path drawn in sand. First, make a duplicate key and have Qiange hide it inside the cell, like a fish under a rock.

Then return the real ring to the elven guards, a gesture neat as folding a fan, and let Qiange free herself later.

That way, suspicion would drift like smoke instead of clinging like mud.

So, the mold came first, as certain as dawn.

When the kneaded clay held a bit of stiffness, Lingcai pressed the prison key between two slabs, palms steady like millstones grinding grain.

She lifted the key out, leaving its ridges sharp as mountain spines, then joined the halves, saving a small mouth for pouring.

“Now I use this: a Thermite Shaper,” she said, holding up the conical cylinder like a dull spear.

Inside the Thermite Shaper, reagents and steel beads waited like coals, ready to bloom into a white-hot sun.

Pull the fuse, and heat near three thousand degrees would melt beads and shell, turning metal into a red river.

She set the shaper over the clay mold with care, movements careful as setting a tea tray.

She pulled the fuse, and a sizzle rose like cicadas, as dark-red melt ran through the tiny hole like lava through a crack.

When the fury eased like a storm passing, Lingcai cracked the hardened clay, then quenched the glowing steel with a pour of water, steam ghosting up like morning fog.

As the pale mist thinned, a copy of the prison key lay revealed, simple as a fish on a board.

She took out a grindstone and sandpaper and smoothed the burrs, sparks flicking like fireflies, then placed the key in Qiange’s hands like passing a hidden ember.

“After I leave, use this tonight to open the door and run,” she said, voice low as night wind. “Don’t come back. Put revenge down for now. If you live, weather can change.”

Qiange reached out, then drew back as if a thorn pricked her palm, fingers curling like a leaf.

In the end, she did not take the key. She shook her head, stubborn as a mountain under snow.

“If I escape, I’ll be the rope that drags you down,” she said, voice steady like a blade’s line. “I acted alone, and I’ll bear it alone. I know I can’t avenge them, but I’d rather die than pull others into my mire. Miss Acai, you’re kind; I’ll remember like a carved seal. If I have another life, I’ll repay you like a spring that never runs dry. Please go.”

She had sinned from her own narrow view, yet her heart was a river with both rock and blossom, a martial soul with a soft core.

The more she stood like that, the more the truth snagged in Lingcai’s throat like thorny briars.

“Huh? Are you dumb or—” Lingcai’s words stumbled like a cart on stones.

She had never imagined the road would twist like this, and she stood there stunned, a flag falling still in windless air.

How this story resolves, we’ll leave to the next turn of the page, like dawn tucked behind the ridge.