Scarlet Leaf is actually coming to the capital to find me?

It should’ve been expected, yet the words hit like spring rain, and Lingcai’s eyes warmed into tears.

Of course her wife still cherished her, like a hand over a winter brazier.

They weren’t officially married yet, but the heart had already signed in ink.

That, however, made the trouble swell like a storm tide.

Right now Lingcai wore a pint-sized, sugar-cute girl’s face, like a peach blossom bud.

Even if she met Scarlet Leaf, what could she say with this milk-soft voice?

She couldn’t exactly confess, I tried to craft a cute poster girl for my shop, and turned myself into a little girl instead.

That was the kind of truth that shattered like dropped porcelain.

To keep things from sliding into the worst abyss, she let fear prickle, then steadied like a stone in a stream.

Decision fell like a sword on a chopping block—

—From now, restart! The Human Transmutation Plan!

She’d ended up like this because of human transmutation.

So she’d run the old experiment in reverse, and walk the river back to its source.

She glanced at the date; the calendar gleamed like a white slate: August 13.

Scarlet Leaf said August 15. Two days left, two candles burning fast.

Two days from design to buying reagents to hands-on work felt tight as a drum skin.

But tight didn’t mean impossible; a slit of dawn still cut the dark.

With that thought, Lingcai crawled to the desk like a fox to its den.

She pulled out calculation paper, and fished memories like nets through water—steps of human transmutation, and the parts that needed to be unspooled in reverse.

Because of that accident, the notebook for the human transmutation results had been seized, like a bird cage whisked away.

She could only trust her memory, bead by bead, to thread every detail.

Here should be…the limit. After twenty-five minutes of reaction, the acid ratio should be forty-five percent? Or eighty?

First phase eighty, second forty-five—the numbers flickered like fireflies she tried to cup.

She bent over the desk till dusk drowned the windows, six full hours passing like sand through fingers.

Lamplight bloomed on the table like a small sun, while her hands and mind raced like twin horses.

Near midnight’s deep well, the draft of the experiment lay sketched like a map.

Refinement could wait till tomorrow; she’d fine-tune while she worked, step by step like stitching a hem.

She had done this once; doing it again shouldn’t be a mountain of knives.

Just as she was about to rest, the door of her alchemy lab thudded with a soft rhythm.

Knock, knock, knock—light as moth-wings on paper, careful not to stir the pond.

So late—who would come at this hour, like a shadow past the eaves?

Before she could ask, a voice floated through like a ribbon.

“Are you asleep?”

Hearing Kelor, Lingcai let her pulse settle like tea leaves.

She opened the door and bowed to the night’s cool air.

“I was just about to sleep. Your Highness, it’s late—what brings you here?”

Kelor didn’t bother with ceremony, hands behind her back, gliding in like a cat.

She wore a pale-blue, semi-sheer nightgown to her knees, mist over moonlit skin.

Her limbs and torso were clean lines like a carved statue; even the underwear beneath showed clear as water.

Even the tiny bow on her panties perched like a butterfly.

Heat rushed up Lingcai’s cheeks like steam from a kettle.

She clapped a hand over her eyes.

“Y-Your Highness! I didn’t see anything! Please, don’t—could you cover up a bit?”

Kelor shot her a glance, cool as frost on glass.

“I don’t mind. What are you fussing about?”

She sat by the bookshelf, thoughts gathering like clouds over a ridge.

Lingcai lowered her voice, careful as stepping on snow.

“So…this late, is something on your mind?”

“Nothing.” Kelor shook her head, the motion as light as a reed.

“Princess Sia arrives in the capital tomorrow. After I leave, she’ll take my place and handle regency affairs.

Because of that, I can’t sleep. I walked and saw your light still burning, so I came in.

Speaking of which, why are you still up? Busy with something?”

At that, Lingcai’s fingers slid her notes aside like a thief tucking away a letter.

She had no intention of letting Kelor know she was rebooting human transmutation.

“Uh…couldn’t sleep either. I’m just scribbling some data,” she said, a smile thin as rice paper.

Kelor didn’t press, but a hush settled over her face like twilight.

Words kept forming and breaking on her lips, waves that never touched shore.

“What’s wrong? Do you…have something weighing on you?”

Huge question, obvious as the moon—if not, who sits here at midnight?

Kelor held silent for a long time, a well with the bucket stuck.

Then she asked, out of the blue, a question that cracked Lingcai’s composure like ice.

“Cai, do you believe in past lives?”

Huh? Past lives?

Lingcai’s thoughts scattered like startled sparrows.

Had the princess stayed up with romance stories until she slipped into a spell?

But she couldn’t dodge, so she braced like a sapling in wind.

“Well…I'd rather believe the soul exists after death.

As for where it goes, I don’t know,” she said, the words drifting like fog.

Kelor listened, then let the silence pool again, deep and still.

“When I was little, I often dreamed,” she said at last, voice like a thread.

“I dreamed my past life was a delinquent girl. Do you know what that means?”

What? How did we get here?

Lingcai’s confusion bobbed like a cork on choppy water.

Middle of the night, and you came to talk about this?

Seeing Lingcai’s face, Kelor knew she didn’t know.

She went on, her tone level as a ruler.

“A delinquent girl is the kind who runs in a pack at school and gets into fights a lot. Got it?”

Kind of got it, kind of didn’t—the idea hovered like a half-seen kite.

Kelor kept going, the gloom still parked on her brow like a cloud.

“I also dreamed how I died. There was an earthquake.

I had a close junior; she hurt her foot and couldn’t get out.

To save her, I covered her when the rubble fell.

After that, I remember nothing.”

Silence returned, long as winter.

Only the lamp flame wavered, a willow leaf trembling in a breeze.

In the end, Lingcai broke the still surface like a pebble.

“I think your past life was a good person, and the temper matches you.

On the outside you’re bossy and unreasonable, but inside you always take care of people.

Maybe you became a princess this life because of merit saved up,” she said, half teasing, half warm.

She worried the joke might overstep like a foot on a line, so she added quickly, soft as cotton.

“I mean it as praise.”

Kelor drew in a breath, then blurted five words like chalk on a blackboard.

“Odd flips, even stays!”

Lingcai blinked, fog thick as smoke.

“Huh? What? What do you mean, odd flips even stays?”

Her blank look smothered Kelor’s spark like a thumb to a candle.

Kelor tried again, tossing another rope across the gap:

“How are you? I’m fine thank you, and you?”

What is even happening—

When Lingcai still didn’t catch on, disappointment dimmed Kelor’s eyes like dusk.

“Forget it. Rest. Good night.”

She turned, slipped onto the bed, and lay down, quiet as snow on tiles.

Lingcai stood there, dazed, turning over words like pebbles in a palm—

delinquent girl, odd flips even stays—phrases she’d never heard.

Then something jabbed her like a thorn.

“Wait! That’s my bed!”