Set Lingcai and Xueyu aside; the wind flips the scene like a bamboo curtain, and we land on Scarlet Leaf.

Ink-black arms and a clattering carriage snatched her from the inn doorway, sweeping her off like a storm-borne kite to ruins outside the royal capital.

The ruins are the bleached bones of a Brunkia-era castle; the uprising broke it like thunder, and no craftsman ever stitched it back together.

Now the true kidnapper roosts here, nesting in shattered stone like a crow. Yet when she sees the captive, annoyance pricks like thorns.

“…Before anything else, can someone tell me who you even grabbed?”

Perched atop a broken pillar stands a fox-eared beastkin girl, hair the color of ripe tangerines. She wears pale green eastern robes, a wide red sash cinching a willow-slim waist. The hem skims above her knees like a lifted wave. A red garter with a bow hugs her right thigh, and her bare, smooth feet rest on clacking wooden geta.

Before her stand two black humanoid puppets, flimsy and sway-light, like figures cut from paper.

“Speak! Who is this you dragged in? Say it!”

She stomps; the stone thumps like a drum. She points at Scarlet Leaf, who sits smiling on the ground, and she scolds like a sparrow pecking.

“Reporting, Lady LilyBell! We captured the princess!”

“Lady LilyBell! We captured the princess!”

LilyBell snaps, and the pillar cracks like ice under a boot.

“How do your eyes even work?! Did you check if she looks like a princess when you grabbed her? She’s just a plain village girl!”

The paper puppets tilt their heads; their voices clatter like tin windchimes.

“Lady LilyBell, you said the one beside Xueyu was the princess!”

“You said the one beside Xueyu was the princess!”

LilyBell claps dust from her palms, hops down, and glares with storm-bright eyes. She jabs a finger, words sharp as thistles.

“Fine. I get it. You two aren’t blind—you’re brainless. Crawl. Crawl!”

The pair slump and flatten, then wriggle away into the ruins like ashamed eels.

“We’re crawling.”

“We’re crawling.”

Once those paper shadows slink off, LilyBell turns to Scarlet Leaf’s sunny smile and feels her pride scuffed like lacquer.

— I’m kidnapping you here! Can you at least look scared? And you still smile!

She squints at Scarlet Leaf. “Who are you?”

“I’m me.”

LilyBell’s face twists like bent metal. “I asked your name!”

Scarlet Leaf hugs the blade in her arms, shrugs, and her voice drifts light as willow fluff.

“I didn’t call anything.”

“Your name! I mean your name! Do you… not understand human speech?!”

Two sentences in, LilyBell is tangled like yarn by Scarlet Leaf’s natural obliviousness.

Scarlet Leaf nods. “I understand human speech, sure. Even if you switch to fox-tongue, I could probably figure it out.”

LilyBell bristles; her ears stand straight like grass after rain.

“Enough! Can you act scared? I’m kidnapping you! Kidnapping! If you don’t behave, I’ll eat you!”

She bares small, sharp teeth and claws the air, a kitten trying to be a tiger. Her shadow dances like flame.

Maybe she thinks it’s scary. From Scarlet Leaf’s angle, the little fox girl looks oddly adorable.

Scarlet Leaf tilts her head, puzzled, like a sparrow peering at a bell.

“Then you want money? How much? I have…”

“I’m not here for coin! Who wants your money! I have plenty!”

LilyBell hops in place, all fire and steam, yet her hands tremble like leaves, and she can’t bring herself to strike.

Scarlet Leaf tightens her coat by instinct, lowers her gaze like clouded water, and asks softly:

“Then… are you here to… force me?”

“Force— you—!”

LilyBell stammers, tongue tied like a ribbon. Then she thinks: if kindness fails, steel will speak.

She snaps her fingers—weak thunder. Feeling her aura falls short, she claps hard, palms cracking like bamboo, and shouts:

“I am LilyBell of the Garden Clan, one of the Four Witch Generals! A mere village girl dares look down on me! You’ll pay! Show her some color! Go, my loyal shikigami!”

At her cry, the two black figures crawl back from the rubble like crabs from a tidepool.

This time they swagger, no gloom, bodies waving in exaggerated ripples. They strike a stacked pose, upper and lower, and their voices grind like gears announcing themselves:

“I’m Unstoppable!”

“I’m Full Firepower!”

“I’m five-foot-nine!”

“I’m six-foot!”

“He likes making up lies!”

“He’s great at climbing mountains!”

— Are you two doing a comedy routine?

LilyBell looks pleased, like a painter admiring her own brushwork. Truth is, she wrote that whole intro, names and all. Her taste, before battle, is… questionable.

“Unstoppable” and “Full Firepower” finish their pose and flail claws, trying to spook Scarlet Leaf like paper tigers.

“Did you make Lady LilyBell cry? Did you?”

“Did you? Apologize to Lady LilyBell!”

LilyBell’s face flips like a sky before rain. From nowhere, she whips out a big folding fan, white like a gull’s wing, and whacks each of them once.

“When did I cry? What’s that supposed to mean?”

The fan cracks the air like a slapped drum. The paper pair cringe, wrinkling like damp parchment. They wobble, peeking at their master, then bob heads and trade lines:

“Seems she didn’t cry this time,” says Unstoppable.

“Not this time! Not this time!” echoes Full Firepower.

Smack. Smack.

LilyBell raises the fan and thumps them again, then roars like a small storm:

“I didn’t cry last time either! You two— can you give me some dignity? Uu… uuu…”

…Yeah, this time the tears are real, pearl-bright and rolling like beads from a broken string.

For all her grand title, she’s still a child; when things go sideways, she leaps from tears to tantrum to theatrics like a weather vane in a gust.

Scarlet Leaf sees the little fox cry and mercy warms like tea; she steps close and pats that tangerine head, palm sinking into soft fluff.

“All right, all right… don’t cry. So, why did you bring me here? What do you want to do?”

The fur feels heavenly, clouds under a hand. And those ears…

The sight of those upright fox ears tugs a strange impulse, like fingers reaching for ripe wheat.

LilyBell hiccups the last sobs and asks, voice half-pleading, half-prickly, a reed bending in wind:

“Hey. I’m asking you. What’s your relationship with Lady Xueyu? Why were you beside her?”

Scarlet Leaf’s attention drifts, caught by the sway of those ears like pendulums. She barely hears the question.

— Are those ears real?

— Do human ears hide under that hair too?

— If so, which pair does the listening?

Curious, Scarlet Leaf reaches out and kneads both furry ears, fingers sinking like into moss.

LilyBell jolts like a startled bird, then shows teeth again, anger crackling like kindling.

“Listen to me! I asked your relationship with Lady Xueyu!!”

“Mm-hmm, I’m listening, I’m listening.”

Her words float, but her hands don’t stop; she smiles, lost in the soft, marshmallow feel.

It’s the kind of plush that lulls you like a summer hammock.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze—

At last, despair wells in LilyBell like floodwater breaking a dike, and she cries again:

“You’re not listening at all!!”