While the dark‑skinned youth and Scarlet Leaf were stuck in that inevitable awkward small talk, Lingcai slipped into the warehouse like a shadow sliding over still water. Her gaze snagged on the blade hung at the most glaring spot on the wall, a black crescent like a night moth pinned to bark.

Its pitch‑black scabbard bore three carved characters, stark as frost on obsidian:

“One Illusory Bloom.”

Together they read as Demon Blade: One Illusory Bloom, a name like a whisper of poison under a silk veil.

Lingcai tilted her head, ear poised like a leaf catching wind, and listened toward the blade. A breath later, a girl’s voice rippled through the hush like a pebble in a pond:

“…Mom… mom?”

The sound came from the blade, a cold echo like water down a well. But why could only Lingcai hear the cry, like a lone bell tolling in fog?

She turned, eyes steady as still rain, and asked the dark‑skinned youth, “The Alchemist who deposited this blade years ago—was she a woman?”

He blinked, surprise flaring like a struck match, and nodded. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

Lingcai pointed at the demon blade, finger light as a reed. “It’s calling for ‘mom.’ If I’m right, an Alchemist forged a man‑made soul into it, giving dead iron a heartbeat like ember under ash. In the past, Alchemy like that went into puppets, but now the state locks it down as forbidden, like wildfire behind stone dams.”

Maybe only Alchemists could hear that trapped voice, a river under ice. The others stood in silence, deaf to the cry in the iron.

“So what do we do?” Scarlet Leaf’s mood sank like dusk over hills. “The maker died in the wars, didn’t she? Maybe tell it the truth? Endless waiting is a slow frost.”

“It isn’t a puppet,” Lingcai said, shaking her head like a willow in wind. “It has no device for receiving sound, so it can’t hear us. It can only project raw spiritual power, a one‑way tide, so Alchemists or mages catch its voice like thunder in bone. No one but its maker can speak back mind‑to‑mind. Right now it only has touch, like a hand groping through night.”

“Then tap it some Morse code,” Scarlet Leaf said, breezy as a sparrow on a rail.

“Even if it could get it, I can’t!” Lingcai deadpanned, a sigh like steam in winter.

The next heartbeat, a skull‑splitting roar slammed Lingcai’s mind, a storm drum beating inside glass:

“…Mom…! Mom!”

She clutched her head and dropped to a crouch like a sapling in a gale. Her voice trembled like a harp string. “My head’s going to blow… Leaf, let’s go. This isn’t a knot we can cut.”

But the more she tried to move away, the louder it pounded, a tide dragging her ankles back into black surf.

Seeing her pain like thorns under skin, Scarlet Leaf didn’t hesitate. She scooped Lingcai up, swift as a hawk snatching prey, and rushed for the door like dawn breaking a night watch.

She still spared a glance back and called to the youth, words quick as tossed pebbles: “Sorry! We can’t fix your demon blade! She’s not feeling well, we’re heading out first! Sorry to trouble you!”

The young man waved fast, head shaking like a rattle. “No, no… meeting Master Scarlet Leaf is honor enough… if you’ve got business, go ahead… come back anytime!”

He helped hustle Lingcai out to the yard, a breath like a loosened belt. Only after they faded down the lane did he return to the warehouse to lock up, steps soft as ash.

Then he froze, breath snagging like a fish on a hook.

The wall where Demon Blade: One Illusory Bloom had hung was bare as winter bark.

Panic flared. He searched the warehouse left and right, eyes darting like swallows, but the blade was gone, clean as mist burned off by sun.

“Huh?!” His cry popped like a bubble in still air.

After leaving the young smith’s shop, the voice in Lingcai’s head ebbed away like rain easing over tile. The splitting ache loosened its claws, a storm drifting behind hills.

“Whew… finally quiet,” she murmured, slumping against a wall like a tired reed.

“Back to the topic, Lingcai.” Scarlet Leaf had been chewing on a thought, jaw set like a millstone. “Why would an Alchemist bind a man‑made soul to a blade?”

Lingcai lifted her head, forcing her body upright like a willow unbending. “It’s happened before. Some Alchemists dreamed of weapons anyone could wield like a river follows its bed. So they grafted man‑made souls onto blades. Even if a normal person drew the sword, the soul could ride them like a wind in canvas and turn them into a seasoned swordsman.”

She reached for a scabbard that had fallen nearby, using it like a cane, and kept speaking. “But blades with self‑awareness are wildfire in a hayloft. The state sealed all lore on that Alchemy behind iron doors.”

Then she noticed the look Scarlet Leaf was giving her, strange and fearful as a deer hearing snow.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Lingcai frowned, touch light as rain.

Scarlet Leaf hesitated, then pointed at Lingcai’s bracing hand, finger tense as a bowstring. “Lingcai… when did you start holding that thing…”

“Huh?”

Lingcai finally felt the weight in her grip, a chill like ice under glove. Dread rose like cold tide in her chest. She slowly lifted her hand, and the three characters on that black scabbard leapt up like red seals in moonlight:

“One Illusory Bloom.”

“Mother of—!” Lingcai flinched, hand jerking like a startled fish, and dropped the demon blade to the ground. “When did it show up here?! I didn’t touch it before we left the smithy!”

Scarlet Leaf’s eyes narrowed, thought threading like silk. “Maybe it’s because you’re an Alchemist too. It might be treating you like its master, like iron seeking a magnet.”

“Leaf! Don’t joke like that! I can’t laugh at this!” Lingcai’s voice cracked like thin ice.

The blade’s voice welled up again in Lingcai’s mind, a small cry like a fawn in thorns:

“Mom… mom…

It… hurts…

Don’t… leave me…”

A black aura began to seep from the scabbard, ink bleeding through paper. It twisted into tendrils, slick as eels, and lashed for Lingcai’s right arm, coiling her forearm like ivy on stone.

Scarlet Leaf sensed danger like lightning before thunder. She raised the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade, a spring bloom flashing steel, and swung at the tendrils. “Let go of her!”

Clang!

One Illusory Bloom surged up, yanked by its own tendrils like a hooked marionette. It drew itself free with a hiss, and its edge caught Scarlet Leaf’s strike like a crescent parrying a falling star.

More tendrils snaked from the scabbard, winding Lingcai’s forearm tight, binding the blade to her right hand like a shackle of night.

No matter how Lingcai pulled, the coils held fast, stubborn as roots in rock. Then things got worse, a cloud dropping lower before the rain.

One Illusory Bloom steered Lingcai’s right hand, flowing through single‑handed stances like a river tracing old banks. Finally, the point leveled at Scarlet Leaf, a needle of winter aimed at spring.

“Leaf! Danger! Move!” Lingcai shouted, voice bright as a snapped wire.

Her right arm jerked, a puppet string yanked hard, and a flash of chill light carved the air like frozen moon. The ground where Scarlet Leaf had stood split in a clean line, smooth as a cake sliced by silk.

Scarlet Leaf slid aside, resheathed in one breath, and held the draw stance tight, a coiled spring under snow. The demon blade seemed roused by her earlier strike, temper rising like fire under bellows. It kept its grip on Lingcai, twirling blade flowers in the air like black petals taunting the wind.

Lingcai slapped at the hilt with her left hand, frantic as rain knocking at shutters. “Stop! I’m not your mom! Hey, hey, good girl, easy now… calm down…”

The blade ignored her plea, heartless as iron. It lifted slightly, keeping a fixed angle, and scraped the wall again and again, fast as a whetstone storm.

Screee— screee— screee—

Sparks spattered the wall like fireflies thrown wide, and the edge reddened like iron pulled from a forge. In moments the blade glowed near white, as if a small sun had lit inside it, proud as a warrior girded for battle.

It was a sword art called Hard‑Edge Grind, a fire‑fed temper that thinned the edge to a semi‑molten keenness, then burned the opponent with a blazing cut, a move that ate the weapon like rust eats chain.

Lingcai stared, stunned, pupils wide as pools.

Never heard of this! Since when can a demon blade cast its own magic?!

Finished, the blade used a tendril to lift the scabbard, slid its ember‑bright edge home with a soft hiss, and mirrored Scarlet Leaf’s sheathing stance, defiant as a crane facing the wind.

Scarlet Leaf stared back, equally stunned, breath steady like smoke over tea.

Its self‑will is outrageous.

From that goading posture, it clearly wanted a duel of draw‑cuts, a flash and a verdict like lightning and thunder.

“Leaf, listen. We should run.” Lingcai cooled her voice like water down stone. “I don’t think you can be sure of winning. You can beat it many times, but it only needs to beat you once, and that one time could kill you.”

Scarlet Leaf didn’t budge, stance rooted like pine on a cliff. Her eyes steadied, a quiet resolve like snow setting.

“I won’t run,” she said softly, breath like a vow on cold air. “If my cowardice births an irreparable end, I’ll regret it for life. Lingcai, give me strength. Just say those three words.”

“What three words?” Lingcai blinked, mind skipping like a pebble. Then the meaning struck, and heat rushed up her cheeks like sunrise. “You—you want me to confess in the street?! I—this is not the time! Run, please!”

“Say it. Loud.” Scarlet Leaf’s gaze never left the demon blade, eyes locked like magnets. “If you whisper, I might lose, and then it’s your fault.”

Seeing the blade slide free again, sparks dripping like meteors, Lingcai panicked red as a maple leaf. Cornered, she shut her eyes and blurted, voice a tight drum:

“I… I love you…”

“Can’t hear you! Not at all! You call that a confession?” Scarlet Leaf shouted back, voice like a bell over a storm.

Lingcai saw the demon blade’s ember seam opening, strike coiling like a serpent, and she finally screamed it, face burning like a lantern:

“Fine! … I love you!!”