With the last errands falling away like dead leaves, Lingcai and Scarlet Leaf set out on a small tour of the Royal Capital’s churches, marriage as their evening lantern.
Lingcai hugged a map skimmed from a travel agency, a painted tapestry of streets and steeples like river and forest. Royal Capital Junlin Travel Guide Selected Map (Northern District).
Her eyes skimmed the ink lines like swallows cutting air, and she led Scarlet Leaf down the stone streets like a slow stream.
“Let me see… it’s called North Azure Grand Cathedral, right? Then we should head right from here,” she said, her voice calm as dusk.
“Huh? Isn’t this a crossroads? Or…” Her doubt drifted like a puzzled breeze among shop awnings.
“Nope. We passed the last crossroads already… If your sense of direction’s off, I’ll lead,” Scarlet Leaf said, her fingers snagging the map like hooks on silk.
She took the map, studying the red-and-green labyrinth like vines crossing an old wall.
“If we take alleys, it’s easy to lose direction; small lanes are eddies that swallow you,” Scarlet Leaf said, her words steady as stone.
“First, we need to know where we are,” Lingcai replied, hunting for Polaris in paper constellations like a wary navigator.
Scarlet Leaf peered, her fingertip hopping like a sparrow from symbol to symbol, then brightened with a crescent-smile like a young moon.
“I think I got it! Follow me!” she said, her confidence gleaming like morning dew.
Then Lingcai learned a truth that stood like a warning bell in fog.
Never trust someone’s “roughly” — it’s mist that hides cliffs.
“Left?” she tried, her tone thin as a thread of wind.
A dead end, a sealed well under shadowed brick and silent ivy.
“Then right…” she said, hope lifting like a kite.
“Roadwork ahead, please detour,” croaked a wooden sign like a black crow on a post.
“So where are we now…” Scarlet Leaf murmured, her confusion drifting like fog across a pond.
With her heart tugging like a snagged net, Lingcai felt the realization settle like cold rain.
They were lost in the Royal Capital, ants on a chessboard of streets.
Since when? The trail had smudged like footprints in fresh rain, vanishing as the crowd churned like a tide.
“Let’s go back the way we came and start over,” Lingcai said, trying to trace their steps like prints in damp clay.
They turned and saw only a tide of bodies and carriages flashing by like iron fish in a river, their memory washing thin like diluted ink.
“Crap,” Lingcai muttered, the word dropping like a pebble into a deep well.
“Ask for directions?” Scarlet Leaf poked her arm like a twig tapping water.
Lingcai’s gaze flicked over her, then she pulled her forward like a kite string in steady hands.
“Asking is small. But we’re being tailed; showing we’re lost would crack our mask,” she said, her caution coiling like a snake in grass.
“Stalked—” Scarlet Leaf blurted, her voice popping like a startled sparrow, and Lingcai covered her mouth with a palm like a leaf.
“Quiet. We don’t know their intent; find a corner and check,” Lingcai whispered, her calm smooth as river stone.
Confidence settled in her chest like a mountain under clear sky. A weapon rested in her backpack like coiled thunder waiting to roll.
Even if the Little Moon Sage stood before her, she’d point that thing and shout, “My lord, times have changed!” — her defiance flashing like lightning.
In a blink, Lingcai tugged Scarlet Leaf and slipped into a narrow alley like minnows darting into shade. Behind them, a shadow hurried, feet pattering like summer rain.
Lingcai lingered at each corner like a wary cat, baiting the pursuit with pauses shaped like leaves trembling in wind.
She memorized the stalker’s look: a white sun hat like a pale dome, a grass-green shawl like moss on stone. The distance smudged the rest like heat haze.
It was enough to lock the target, enough to spare bystanders like butterflies beyond a net.
After several turns, the shadow stumbled into a cul-de-sac like a sealed cave under brick and silence.
Waiting there were Lingcai and Scarlet Leaf, and a metal crossbow cannon gleaming black like rain-slick iron.
It sat in her hands, black as a storm cloud, three muzzles rotating like a storm wheel, all aimed at the stalker like spears of night.
Now Lingcai saw the face behind the shadow, and the answer landed like a predictable crow.
It was the witch LilyBell, her white sun hat hiding fox ears like folded reeds at a riverbank.
Under the grass-green shawl, her Eastern robes fluttered like crane wings, vivid as lacquer against the gray alley.
Lingcai felt no fear; one twitch and she’d turn LilyBell into a sieve like threshed bamboo.
“Don’t move, or I’ll really fire. Steel nails don’t have eyes,” she said, her voice cold as iron under frost.
The weapon’s name was the Portable Black Hurricane Rapid-Fire Cannon, three barrels revolving like a windmill in gale.
It spat steel nails in rotation, keeping the barrels cool like shaded metal so heat wouldn’t jam the throat.
Lingcai had guessed LilyBell might come for revenge after the other night, the thought drifting like a familiar cloud.
But LilyBell didn’t look vengeful; she waved frantically like a willow in strong wind.
“Wait… I… I mean no harm,” she stammered, words fluttering like moths around a lantern.
Lingcai didn’t buy it; to her ear it was honeyed smoke that lulls before a knife in fog.
She lifted the cannon again, trigger half-squeezed like a taut bowstring, and her words cut like a thin blade.
“If you mean no harm, why follow me?”
“I… I’m here to return this,” she breathed, her voice thin as spider thread.
LilyBell raised a trembling hand like a leaf in rain, revealing the seven-colored sigil of the Great Sage like a rainbow coin in a gray world.
Lingcai paused, and LilyBell’s speech rushed like a stream jolted by stones.
“I didn’t mean to attack the Sage that day! I’ll never do bad again! No, I never did bad! Please spare me… here’s your emblem!” she babbled, fear clinging like frost to bare branches.
Lingcai thought fast, the conclusion blooming like frost on glass.
LilyBell had mistaken her for the Little Moon Sage, so terror had rooted deep like winter grass.
Fine, ride the slope; play along, and the emblem would slide back like a returning tide to shore.
She’d played a false princess once; a false Sage was child’s play, a mask smooth as lacquer.
Lingcai lowered her voice, borrowing the Little Moon Sage’s frail cadence like winter light filtering through silk.
“All right. Seeing your repentance, I’ll let the past go. If I see you stirring trouble again… you know the outcome,” she said, the warning hanging like distant thunder, then coughed delicately like brittle leaves.
She even mimicked the Sage’s sickly cough, each rasp a dry leaf crossing stone.
If the real Little Moon Sage saw it, she’d probably peel Lingcai’s hide like bark from a trunk.
LilyBell handed over the seven-colored emblem obediently, her fingers careful as if placing a bird’s egg in a nest.
Lingcai exhaled, folded the cannon back like a collapsing tripod, and stomped it into her backpack like packing a tent before rain.
She slung the bag and moved to leave with Scarlet Leaf, but LilyBell still trailed like a cat on silent paws.
At first she thought the tail would end after a short stretch, but the knot tightened like a vine creeping up a wall.
She had to turn, patience thin as paper under damp air, and glance back.
“What now? If you’re going to that elf guard, go. Do whatever you want; it’s none of my business,” she said, her tone flat as slate.
But the unexpected fell like a stone into a pond, sending ripples through the alley’s quiet.
LilyBell dropped to both knees, then bowed low like a willow bending to the stream.
“Sage, please take me as your disciple! Please!” she cried, her voice ringing like a bell under the gray sky.
