Lingcai rode her little trike with an Alchemy engine, carrying Kelor and the gravely ill girl, racing toward Sata City. The engine growled like a brass beast.
They had pried the miracle healer’s address from the middle-aged man before they left. It felt like pulling a dry seed from a husk. Now they sped along the narrow lane, like arrows flung down a brown ribbon.
Kelor’s focus stayed welded to the sick girl; her face storm-dark, her fingers clamped around the girl’s hand like a lifeline.
Her Highness was far from her usual calm, composure cracking like thin ice. Even Lingcai couldn’t help speaking, words tossed like pebbles into wind. Lingcai called out, her voice slicing the wind: “You know her?”
Kelor seemed adrift, as if the words sank without ripples. Only when Lingcai called again did she surface, blinking: “What did you say?”
She raised her voice a few decibels, flaring like a torch. “I asked if you know her—the sick girl.”
“I... don’t think so,” Kelor said, shaking her head. Her lips hovered like birds afraid to land, hiding something.
Lingcai saw it and ribbed her, words flicking like a fan. “If you don’t, you don’t. Why add ‘I guess’? Do you know her or not?”
In the howling wind, Kelor stayed quiet for a long while, silence taut as a string. Then she spoke, voice low as a reed: “Do you remember I told you I had memories of a past life?”
Lingcai tilted her head, thoughts fluttering; yeah, that did ring a bell. “Right, you said you dreamed you’d been some delinquent girl...” Her words drifted like smoke.
“Those weren’t dreams,” Kelor insisted, grip tight as iron. “Didn’t I tell you my past self died in a quake, buried under rubble?”
Lingcai kept her eyes pinned to the road, hands white-knuckled on the bars, the dusk lane unspooling like a dark ribbon. “I kinda remember. How does that tie to this?”
Kelor’s gaze fell on the girl’s sleeping face. Her hand drifted toward it, then recoiled like a moth from flame. She murmured, words soft as rain: “I remember it clear: I died shielding a junior schoolmate that day.” “She mattered to me, a light I wouldn’t let go.” “When the concrete fell, I covered her, and darkness slammed down.” “When I woke, I was an elf princess in this world.” “This girl... she looks so much like her.”
Lingcai wasn’t buying past lives; her doubt sat cold as a stone. No one could prove souls or rebirth. She chalked it up to Kelor telling herself a story, castles of sand in a tide.
She groped for words like pebbles in murky water. “Maybe it’s just a lookalike.” “People you glimpse by day return in dreams at night.” “And her face is kind of everyday, so mixing faces happens.”
“Impossible! My memory doesn’t slip,” Kelor pressed, her voice like hail. “You heard her father, right?” “She’s seventeen, same as me.” “If she died in that quake too, we could’ve crossed into this same world.” “Seventeen years, on the dot, like clockwork.” “Do you think that’s a coincidence, A-Cai? What do you think? Tell me!”
Kelor’s emotions surged like a storm tide; she tugged Lingcai’s sleeve, sunk deep in her past-life fervor.
Lingcai wanted to brush it off, but Kelor’s eyes were earnest, steady as a night river. She swallowed a sigh and chose her words like stones. In the end, she offered a hedged answer, a fence of words: “Maybe... it’s possible.” “If past lives are real, she should remember hers too.” “Wait till she wakes and ask her; let the answer rise like dawn.”
Kelor froze for a while, gears turning like cogs; Lingcai’s logic carried some weight. But the girl still burned with fever, like a brazier. If they didn’t hurry, her flame could gutter out.
“Keep driving. Faster, if you can.” “Even if she isn’t my schoolmate reborn, we can’t let her die.” Her resolve set like iron.
Kelor’s words ebbed. She touched the girl’s burning forehead in silence, worry rippling under her calm like fish beneath ice.
With Sata City still a stretch away, the silence grew stiff as old leather. Lingcai fished for small talk, her question floating like a kite in the wind: “If she really is your schoolmate reborn... what would you do?”
Kelor blinked, caught off guard, as if the thought hadn’t grown roots. Kelor lowered her head, hesitated, then answered. “Sometimes I feel so alone, like a house without lights.” “If it’s her, maybe that loneliness would thin.” “But honestly... I hope it isn’t her.”
“Why?” Lingcai asked, eyes still on the road like rails.
“Because... if my schoolmate reincarnated into this girl, it means she died that day too.” “It means I failed to protect her,” Kelor said, the words falling like ash. “If not, she might still live in my old world.” “Maybe she’s built a warm, happy home by now.” “At least my death shielded her, didn’t it?” Hope flickered like a lantern.
Lingcai felt the talk sinking like a stone, so she veered off. “By the way, Your Highness, heard of the miracle doctor at this address?” She waved the slip like a leaf.
She handed the note back to Kelor on the rear seat, paper soft as old bark. Kelor took it, skimmed it, memory sparking like flint. “I think I remember.” “It’s the site of a ruined altar, low on heritage value.” “Sata City’s lord petitioned for funds to restore it; I denied it.” “That was over a year ago; no idea how it is now.”
Lingcai breathed, “Oh...,” the sound trailing like mist.
With Lingcai pushing the throttle, they reached the city foot before dusk, twilight pooling like ink. Sata City is a mountain city, ridged with steep slopes like ribs. The trike lacked the muscle to haul them up, stubborn as a mule. Lingcai and Kelor had to hop off and push, bodies bowed like reeds.
Kelor’s leg seemed weak; she leaned on one foot, limping as she shoved the trike, her rhythm a broken metronome.
Lingcai didn’t dwell on it; she just felt Kelor’s urgency ran hot, like fire licking a pan.
She noticed something else along the way, a thorn in the cloth. Even near the city, the road held almost no traffic, cold and bare as a dried riverbed.
At the listed ruins of the old altar, Lingcai saw a shabby field of blue canvas tents sprouting among rubble like bruised sails. Under the tarps lay clusters of patients like the girl—some unconscious, others awake but breath-thin.
Now and then, a patient groaned, clutching their skulls as if split by axes. Those cries were rare, scattered sparks in ash. In this deadened scene, even sobs were good—they proved life still flickered. The ones still and silent, eyes closed, might be gone for days before anyone knew.
Each patient was curtained by blue tarps, makeshift isolation stalls, waves of fabric keeping bodies apart. It didn’t look like a hospital, but whoever set this up knew medicine, knowledge steady as a surgeon’s hand.
In front of the altar’s clearing stood a sign scrawled in black marker, letters clawed across white: “Infectious Disease Area! Do Not Enter!”
Their symptoms mirrored the girl’s, but it wasn’t certain it was the same illness, like reflections blurred by rain.
As Lingcai hesitated at the edge, a familiar voice cracked against her ear like a whip: “Stop! You two!”
She turned, motion quick as a sparrow. A figure stood there in a white improvised suit, mask and goggles fogged like glass in winter. Ropes cinched the sleeves and waist tight like belts. Her hair was bound under a white headscarf, tucked away like a parcel.
On seeing Lingcai, the white figure froze, then asked in disbelief, voice fluttering like a startled bird: “Lingcai? It’s you?”
She knows me? Lingcai studied her, the voice ringing familiar, like a bell from last week. Hmm... there was a spark of recognition, like flint.
As she tried to place the face, her gaze slid to the generous curves under the suit and the petite frame, clues like lanterns in fog. Girl... small... stacked... knows medicine... Realization hit like a gong. She smacked her forehead. Of course—Little Moon Sage!
