When you think of where to hunt intel in a Western‑fantasy world, what picture flashes first?

Yeah— the bar, a smoke‑lit hive where rumors swirl like dust in sunbeams.

No one knows why it has to be a bar, but every tale hangs its lantern there.

To reach the Inner World crowd, Lingcai and the Little Moon Sage had to find their watering hole, a shadowed nest under the city’s skin.

The Sage was seasoned; her heart moved like a tide before her hands did.

To beat an enemy, you first learn their scent and rhythm, like tracking dew along a fox’s path.

Before she quit the frontline, she led a squad for over a decade, cracking down on witches and wizards with sticky fingers, like storms pruning a rotten grove.

These gray‑zone folk couldn’t win head‑on, but ducks dive when hawks circle.

They’d hit the Surface World for a golden haul, then grease their heels and vanish into mountain gullies like mist, laying low for months or years.

When the wind changed, they swaggered back into the Inner World, drinking deep and blowing smoke rings like halos.

To hunt these mice, the Sage squeezed a full codebook out of captured wizards, soft one day, hard the next, like rain then frost.

After that, she slid through the underbelly like a fish finding its river.

Sometimes she’d burrow for half a year just to net one name, patient as moss.

On the way to the gathering bar, she gave Lingcai a primer, words like stones in a pouch:

“In their code, ‘tong’ means ‘you get it.’ If someone asks ‘Are you tong,’ they’re checking if you know the ropes.

‘Red spike or yellow spike’ means mage or alchemist.

‘Spike’ is their way to say weapon.

Mages make seals with blood, so blades stain red— red spike.

‘Yellow’ stands for gold, so alchemists are yellow spikes.

By the same logic, they call gold ‘yellow gnaw,’ like teeth on a coin. Got it?”

“Some code’s rank‑locked, like antiphonal verse— one line thrown, one line answered, like moon to lake.

You only get to pitch the first line if you’re their equal or higher.

I’m teaching you the simple stuff, enough for daily drift.”

She talked a river; Lingcai caught a lagoon.

He couldn’t hold every ripple, but he had a feel— talk crooked, not human‑straight.

The target bar squatted in a basement at the end of a narrow alley, a shy mouth between two buildings.

The neon tubes flickered like wounded fireflies— the place smelled of secrets.

The moment they stepped in, a dozen gazes snapped to them like crossbows, then slid away like rain off tile once they saw no familiar faces.

Of those seated, roughly sixty‑eight percent were witches or wizards; the rest were Alchemists shimmering with quiet math.

They were learned folk, not brawling mercs; books cooled their blood where beer tried to heat it.

Make a scene here, and you’d be asking the reaper for a dance.

“What’ll it be?” The bartender wore black‑and‑white like a chessboard; his shaker clicked like hail in his hands.

He lifted a brow, eyes a thin blade on the Sage and Lingcai.

The Sage leaned her elbow on the bar, angling her shoulder like a crescent shield.

“Here to visit the mother’s side.” (Here to see our own crowd.)

The shaker paused, a pendulum caught in mid‑swing, then swung on.

He spoke to her and to the room, like smoke drifting to every ear:

“Does the kid have an uncle?” (You’re not a regular— got a referral?)

The Sage tapped her forehead, a knuckle like a pebble on bark.

“One dry twig.” (I stand alone.)

“Red spike or yellow spike?” (Mage or Alchemist?) the bartender pressed, voice like a string pulled taut.

The Sage lifted her chin to the ceiling tiles, smiling at nothing, like a cat listening to rain.

She let silence do the talking.

Lingcai chewed the pause; the question was simple, so why play dumb?

His worry fluttered like a moth.

The bartender stared for a count, then let mockery curl like smoke.

He picked up a glass and wiped it slow, each circle a smirk.

“So, red spike or yellow spike— turns out you’re a white spike.” (I can tell—you’re an outsider.)

The air thickened, a storm kneading the room.

From the first moment, the witches and wizards here had been chatting with warm faces and cold eyes, watching the Sage’s every ripple.

Many weighed the chance to stamp a newcomer, the way alley cats test a soft mouse.

Their lot sat low in the pecking order, and resentment was a simmer; a soft fruit begged a thumb.

The noise rose, a pot coming to boil.

All eyes swept to the Sage and Lingcai, two stones in the stream.

The Sage took the jab without twitching; her smile was a thin blade.

“You’re a frog squatting under a deep well— big mouth, small eyes.” (No vision. You aren’t worthy to question me.)

The bartender blinked; surprise darted like a fish.

She knew the code, and her standing wasn’t small— the room felt it like thunder under floorboards.

His face softened, politeness folding over fear like paper over flame.

“I’m the second hand here, the deputy.” He crossed his arms, fists turned inward, bowing with a damp brow.

“Is your pool shallow or your river deep?” (Where are you from? What backing?)

In the Inner World, a cell’s head is the Chief, the second is the Deputy.

This bartender was the area’s number two, a hinge on the whole door.

The Sage didn’t answer the question; she lifted her right hand, and a pale blossom bloomed from nowhere, moon‑white and quiet.

She laid it on the bar, careless as snow.

That gesture meant she was of the Garden Witches, a crest like a petal stamped in wax.

Clatter.

Something shattered behind Lingcai, sharp as lightning on glass.

He glanced back; the circle of patrons shot to their feet and froze, bodies ready to run, hearts nailed to the floor.

When they saw the Garden Witches sign, one small, skinny witch tossed her cup to bolt like a rabbit, but her arm overswung.

The glass smashed against the wall, a burst of stars.

The crash pinned the rest; they stiffened like deer under torchlight.

Several cut her with bitter looks— blame skittered like roaches.

That was the Garden Witches’ shadow over the lower mice— a hawk over grain.

They were a top‑tier coven; any one of them could be a mountain, and these novices were still scraping at foothills.

Only then did the bartender suck in a cold breath, the sound thin as winter.

Hard nut, he realized, and bowed deeper, arms crossed like a gate.

“Please fling a name!” he asked, voice both respectful and afraid. (Your title, please.)

The Sage, hearing his fear, softened her tone, humility like a leaf over steel.

“Wild chickens have no names, straw sandals have no numbers.”

She tipped her head.

“This humble one— White Iris.”

In that heartbeat, Lingcai peeked back again; the room had emptied like wind through reeds.

Not a spare footstep lingered; even dust seemed to tiptoe.

The bartender looked relieved, like rain after drought.

He lifted the white blossom with both hands, reverent as a votive, and backed through the rear door.

“Please wait a moment.”

Lingcai had watched the ritual end to end; his mind felt like a lantern full of fog.

How did a few words roll the tide?

“What did that even mean?” he whispered, breath a nervous moth.

“What did you say? What did he say?”

The Sage clasped her hands behind her head and swayed, relaxed as grass in wind.

“I told him I’m the Chief of the Garden Witches, Iris Flower, and to go tell the area’s boss.”

Lingcai remembered what Xueyu had said— among the Garden Witches’ Four, there was indeed Iris Flower.

The other three were BloodRose, LilyBell, and Blue Rose, names like blades in bloom.

“Grandmaster… are you that Iris Flower?” His voice trembled like a lute string.

The Sage shook her head at once, laugh warm as tea.

“How could I be? I bluffed him.

Chances are they’ve never seen the real Iris.

I’ll scam a meal, ask a couple questions, then drift— no cracks will show.”

Lingcai thought, badass, and lifted a thumb like a little banner.

Still, worry pricked like thorns.

“Grandmaster, what if— I mean, what if we’re exposed?

What do we do?”

She blinked at him, incredulous, like a cat at a puddle.

“Easy.”

Her smile curved, moon over steel.

“We beat them up.”