Urk—hurk, hurk… the sound clawed at the trees like a cat hacking up rain.

After a long wrestle with the underbrush like a boat snagged in reeds, Kelor crawled out half-alive, her eyes empty as winter water.

Xueyu looked ash-smeared and drooping, like a sparrow after a dust storm, her whole frame wilted.

She’d probably taken a hail of scolding, like pebbles pelting a tin roof.

If she hadn’t insisted on racing Lingcai like a colt chasing thunder, she wouldn’t have landed herself in this mess.

You reap what you sow, like seeds meeting their own shadow at dusk.

“We should be close to Sata City, right?” Kelor finally got her breath back like a bellows finding air, drew a deep lungful, and stretched like a cat in sun.

“Close is close…” Xueyu muttered to herself like a kettle under low flame, yet her tone curled strangely like smoke.

Kelor ignored it and eyed the road ahead like a hunter sizing tracks, then snapped, lightning hot.

“I don’t know what’s in that head of yours, like a cupboard full of fog! Where’s our people? Where’d you lose the Star Guard? If assassins show up again, fine, we can just wait here for death together like candles in wind!”

Xueyu knew the fault was her temper, like fire thrown on oil, so she stood there honest as a post and took Kelor’s tongue-lashing like rain on stone.

When Kelor had about spent her thunder like a storm rolling off, Xueyu thickened her face and tried to soothe like warm broth.

“Your Highness, don’t worry, I know this road like the lines on my palm. It’s a side path folks take only when the canal runs low, like a river breathing out, while most go by water straight to Sata City.”

They’d come by carriage like a beetle with burden, so shipping them by boat wasn’t easy, and they chose the land route across the bridge like a thread over a loom.

“Also, this road’s newly cut, like fresh bark, hardly anyone knows it. Even assassins couldn’t lie in wait here like foxes in snow. Last time we fell for a trick, like fish to bait, that’s why they got their chance. And anyway, we’ve got Cai, right?”

Xueyu spoke firm as nails, then flicked a glance at Lingcai like a pebble at a pond.

“You’re not thinking of using me as a decoy again, are you?” Lingcai shot her a white-eyed look like frost on steel.

“I never said that,” Xueyu swayed her head like grass in wind. “If you wanna take it that way, suit yourself like a duck to water.”

Kelor knew if she didn’t cut them off, they’d bicker till dusk like cicadas in heat, so she clapped hard, palms sharp as flints.

“Enough! Move! We need to reach Sata City before sunset like boats beating the tide, or the night entry paperwork turns into a swamp. If you don’t want to sleep outside the walls like stray dogs, pick up the pace.”

Lingcai chimed in like a second bell. “She’s right. If it gets any darker, bandits might show like wolves at the treeline.”

Xueyu snorted like a horse under bit. “Broad daylight, clear sky like a polished bowl—who dares rob us? If anyone lasts three moves under me, I’ll call him a hero like iron in fire!”

“Bandits got smarter,” Lingcai said, face turning grave like a blade catching cloud. “They don’t hit head-on; they stab from the back like shadows behind paper.”

“For example, they pose as the gravely ill, hook your pity like bait on a line, and beg a ride,” Lingcai went on, voice flat as a whetstone. “You soften and let them on, you ease your guard, and then—shff—they stick the knife in your back.”

White blade in, red blade out, like frost turning to blood—click.

“Cut it out, who are you trying to spook?” Xueyu gathered the reins like gathering rain, swung into the saddle, and set her heels like a drumbeat. “Even if it happens, it doesn’t mean it’ll be our problem. Hyah.”

They rolled out again like a small caravan under a pale sun. Kelor’s carriage took the lead like a swan on a canal, Lingcai’s three-wheeler hummed behind like a hornet, and Scarlet Leaf rode a donkey at the tail like a brown stone skipping water.

One carriage, one trike, one donkey—an odd procession like mismatched chess pieces.

They hadn’t gone far when the road ahead rippled with change like wind crossing wheat.

Two figures stood by the roadside like reeds against a bank: a middle-aged man around forty, and a girl cradled in his arms like frost-struck blossom.

Anxiety burned on the man’s face like a lantern in gusts; he kept scanning the way like a hawk over stubble.

When he saw the carriage, hope lit his eyes like sunrise breaking fog, and the girl in his arms stayed limp, eyes shut, like sleep sunk in deep snow.

As Kelor’s carriage drew level, the man flung himself forward like a mantis raising its arms before a cart, blocking the road as he waved and cried:

“Please! Help me! My daughter’s gravely ill! Sirs, have mercy like rain on drought! Ask anything—I'll be your beast of burden if I must! Please, save my daughter…”

Speak of the devil, and the devil steps out like a coin from the sleeve.

Flag triggered on the spot like a tripwire in grass.

He stood dead center like a stake in a stream, and Xueyu had to pull an emergency stop like yanking a bell rope.

Inside the carriage came a loud thump, like a melon hit by a stick, and Kelor, clutching her head, burst out blazing like a firebrand.

“You never stop, do you! Never stop! I told you to brake, brake—what are you braking for! Couldn’t you warn me first?” Her fists hammered Xueyu’s side like hail on a drum.

Xueyu knew she was at fault, yet felt wronged like a pup kicked for barking. “…I didn’t know someone would jump out…”

Kelor glanced at the man, eyes narrow as slits, then jabbed Xueyu with a finger like a twig. “Go ask who he is.”

Lingcai’s warning still in her ear like a reed flute, Xueyu lowered her voice to Kelor. “Don’t rush. Your Highness, it could be a trap, like a pit covered with leaves.”

Seeing the person of rank step out like moon from cloud, the man rushed up in two or three bounds like a deer over brush and dropped to his knees with a thud like a mallet.

“Noble lady! I beg you! Just take my daughter to Sata City, that’s all! Our village clinic is packed and helpless like nets full of holes! I heard only there they still accept patients! Please, save my daughter—I’ll kowtow to you!” His forehead hit dirt like rain on clay.

Under his repeated bows like waves on a shore, Kelor wavered, a crack of softness showing like light under a door, and she turned to Xueyu.

“It doesn’t look faked, like tears that sting. I’ll go down and see.”

Xueyu blocked her at once like a gate post. “…Your Highness! Please stay in the carriage, I’ll check and be right back. If it’s a raging contagion, we can’t take her along, like bringing fire into dry straw.”

While Kelor and Xueyu spoke, Lingcai had already reached the girl like a swift shadow and checked her condition with cool hands like spring water.

She called toward the carriage, voice clear as a bell. “It’s serious. Fever’s high like a kiln, but I can’t tell the cause yet.”

Kelor heard and, after a heartbeat of silence like a pebble sinking, leapt down despite Xueyu’s arm like a bar, and stepped up to look.

When she saw the sick girl’s face, shock flashed in her eyes like lightning behind silk, as if she’d seen her somewhere in a dream.

Kelor’s whole body stiffened and trembled like ice under foot, then she turned to the father at once. “May I ask, sir—how old is your daughter this year?”

The man dropped to one knee and cupped his fist like a soldier. “Replying to you, noble lady! From birth till now, it’s been a full seventeen years!”

Seventeen years—seventeen summers, like rings in a young tree.

Kelor stared at the girl, so near her own age like mirrors facing, yet lost in fevered sleep, and panic rose on her face like frost creeping over glass.

Xueyu noticed the change in Her Highness’s color like ink in water, yet she thought it unlikely Kelor knew a common human girl, so she let it pass like a cloud.

Just in case, she asked anyway. “Your Highness, do you… know her?”

The question snapped Kelor from a dream like a twig underfoot; she shook her head fast like a startled bird.

“No… no, I don’t…! Cai! With your speed, can you get this girl there fast like an arrow? The faster the better! I’ll cover all costs, like rain covers a field! Move!”

This time, not just Xueyu, even Lingcai sensed Kelor’s shift like a wind changing. Usually, Kelor was either storm-fire or still water, never this rattled like chimes in a sudden gust.

Lingcai knew there had to be a reason like roots under loam, but saving a life came first like a bell before dawn. “Leaf! Give me a hand! Get her onto the trike!”

She waved Scarlet Leaf over like a flag, and the two of them unloaded the three-wheeler fast like hands shelling beans.

They lifted the sick girl together like lifting fragile porcelain and laid her on the empty cargo bed like a pale lotus on a plank.

Lingcai twisted the throttle, and the Alchemy engine roared to full like a forge waking, just as she was about to sprint off like a hawk launched.

Kelor did something no one expected—she caught the back seat like catching a branch and hopped on. “I’m coming too! Cai, take me!”

“Wait!” Xueyu panicked, her body moving to block like a door barred. “Your Highness! It’s too dangerous to go alone! Please get down!”

Kelor had her own reason, iron in her eyes like a nail, and she didn’t give an inch like a cliff. “Move. Will you, or not?”

“Not,” Xueyu said, spreading her arms like wings.

Kelor snapped to Lingcai like a whip crack. “Hit her. I’ll pay the medical bills.”

Lingcai saw Xueyu holding ground like an ox, and herself stuck between like a tool on a rack, forward or back both bad, while the sick girl’s time bled away like sand.

She twisted the throttle again like grinding a mill, thought once, and spoke to Kelor. “…Can the cleaning fee for the trike be reimbursed too? In case the gears and chain pick up, you know, tissue or bone fragments, which are a pain to clean, like gum in hair…”

Xueyu stepped aside in a blink like a curtain drawn. “Safe travels.”