The cursed blade flashed from its scabbard like a strip of fire-lit lightning, then swept toward Scarlet Leaf like a falling comet.

Hard-Edge Grind: Grand Whirlwind Cut. You finish the hard-edge honing, then hurl the blade outward from a draw, a 360-degree storm of steel. The ember-orange arc carried the threat of a wildfire and the punch of a battering gale. Even steel helms and iron plates would split like dry bamboo under a hot, keen edge.

But its foe now was the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade, a magitech relic that moved like a moonlit spirit. The field shifted like wind changing in a valley.

Water-Moon Stance: Mirror-Flower Form!

Ting—!

Scarlet Leaf flicked a perfect draw-parry, clean as a pebble on a lake. A crisp crack rang out, and Yihuanhua’s blade snapped, the still-hot shard spinning once like a firefly, then spearing straight into the earth like a blackened stake.

The black tendrils coiled around Lingcai’s arm crumbled like dry clay and blew away like ash; the cursed blade lay ruined like a broken idol. Yet in the instant of that crack, Lingcai seemed to hear it weep, thin as wind through reeds.

The half-blade left in her hand went cold and dull, empty as a dead ember. She hesitated, her chest tight as a knotted rope, then crouched and laid what remained of Yihuanhua on the ground as if setting down a small bird.

No matter what it was, it had once carried breath like mist over a stream. Give it the smallest respect, like a stone set on a grave.

Scarlet Leaf still wore her nerves like a taut bowstring, eyes fixed on the shattered Yihuanhua as if it might rise like a ghost from fog.

After staring a while, she swallowed and asked Lingcai, voice thin as paper, “Is it… really dead?”

“P-probably,” Lingcai said, guilt stinging like frost. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s… forbidden work.”

She gathered the blade shards with careful fingers, like picking glass from snow, and slid them back into the scabbard. Last, she set the broken hilt back into the mouth of the sheath, like returning a tooth to a jaw.

Lingcai lifted the black scabbard, felt its stillness like cooled iron, then hooked it at her belt, heavy as a stone at the waist.

She sighed, breath like a pale cloud. “Even if the soul was man-made, it was still a life. Let’s find a quiet place and bury it like a seed.”

That tugged at Scarlet Leaf, and pity rose like a bruise. “Hearing you say that… it does feel kind of sad.”

They had called it a cursed blade, but its thoughts and heart were soft as a child’s cheek. After its master died, it hid alone in a warehouse dark as a well; anyone who tried to take it found it creeping back, returning to its spot like a lost cat to a doorstep.

So it waited, decade after decade, like a lantern burning low through endless night.

When it finally thought it had found its mother, it met shattering and silence in Lingcai and Scarlet Leaf’s hands, like a flower crushed under a heel.

The thought stuck in Scarlet Leaf’s chest like a stone. Kindness won out like spring water under ice; she stepped forward and stroked the ruined blade, her shadow small as a folded wing, and murmured:

“I’m sorry… but I had to kill you to protect my family. If there’s a next life, I hope you’re born to a happy home. Goodbye, Yihuanhua.”

She had forged many blades, and so to her, every blade had a face like a snowflake’s pattern. Even cursed steel was no exception; warmth clung to iron like dew.

Watching a life go out in front of you weighs like wet cloth. No heart walks away light.

After they buried the broken cursed blade Yihuanhua, both women’s moods fell like dusk. Lingcai most of all; on the road, the snap of that break echoed like a heart being torn, and every time it did, her breath hitched like a fish out of water.

Silent, guided by a few familiar landmarks like stones in a stream, they made their way back to the inn’s courtyard.

The moment they stepped in, Princess Korol’s voice rang out, sharp then soft, like thunder rolling into drizzle.

“Fine. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that.”

From the other side came Xueyu’s muttering, muffled in a coffin like a sulking drum.

“I’m not listening! Not listening! I’m not listening!”

Good grief, they were still at it, clattering like windchimes in a squall.

Surprising, though, that Her Highness went first to apologize, like a phoenix bowing. It was Xueyu who was being dramatic, like a cat with its back up.

Kelor stood hands on hips, a storm coiled in her stance. She swallowed the thunder, then kept coaxing the girl in the coffin like a stubborn mule.

“Are you done yet? What are you still mad about?”

Xueyu snorted in the coffin. Through the hole in the lid, she caught a glimpse of a white dress like a swan’s, but not the face under it, veiled by shadow.

Seeing that, she puffed up with certainty like a rooster at dawn and mocked the figure outside.

“Hah. Don’t think a costume will fool me. You’re A-Cai. Tell me, did Her Highness ask you to dress up and play act?”

Kelor’s temples throbbed like a drum; she wanted to drive two nails into Xueyu’s forehead like a carpenter with a grudge.

“Are you blind? The one apologizing is me, you idiot! Look properly!”

Xueyu didn’t glance. She clasped her hands behind her head, lazy as a cat in sun. “Cut it out. A-Cai, you don’t get it. In all my years of experience, Her Highness would never apologize to me. That’s just how that woman is.”

Who are you calling “that woman,” Kelor thought, heat rising like steam.

She crouched by the coffin’s small hole, face close as a lantern, and, half mad and half amused, said, “Before you decide that, can you look at me once?”

“No! I said I won’t look!” Xueyu turned her head, giving Kelor the back of her skull like a stone wall. “You’re an Alchemist! Face-changing’s child’s play! You’re in on it with her! You just want to trick me out! I don’t believe it! If you’ve got guts, bury me!”

Anger tightened Kelor’s fingers; her knuckles cracked like ice on a river. If Xueyu had climbed out, the day could’ve ended like a lamp snuffed. Now Kelor wanted to drag her out and beat her until the stars came out.

Maybe even keep her in a hospital bed for a few days, like a wilted lily under gauze.

Kelor shot a glare over her shoulder, sharp as a blade, saw Lingcai and Scarlet Leaf at the gate, and waved them over like calling hawks.

“A-Cai. Come here,” Kelor called to Lingcai. “Help me drag her out. Even if she wants to die today, she can take a beating first.”

Hearing Kelor’s teeth grind like millstones, Lingcai let out a helpless sigh, thin as smoke.

She stepped to the coffin, patted the plank like calming a skittish horse, and through the hole said, “Hey… didn’t I say you should think about apologizing to her? Why are you butting heads again? Were you even listening?”

Xueyu heard Lingcai’s voice and felt the world tilt, stomach dropping like a stone in a well. If this voice was Lingcai’s, then who had apologized before?

Oh, crap.

Her heart sank half a rung, cold as rain.

After a long silence, her bluster blew away like dust, and she said, small as a whisper under a blanket, “Y-Your Highness… I… didn’t mean it…”

Kelor folded her arms and sighed, her tone sweet and sharp like a sugared lemon. “Oh. It’s fine. After all, with your ‘years of experience,’ isn’t that just the kind of person I am?”

“Look, Your Highness… I mouthed off… I was wrong… you know I spout nonsense when I’m mad… be the bigger person, okay? Let it go like a wide river.”

Realizing the one outside had been Kelor, Xueyu wilted like a doused spark. “But before I come out, you have to promise me one thing. Otherwise, just bury me.”

“Still making demands…” Kelor’s fire had mostly died down, leaving only a weary glow. “Fine. What is it?”

Xueyu paused, words thick as vinegar. “Don’t keep icing me out… and don’t snap at me all the time. If something’s on your mind, don’t hide it from me… You spill your heart to outsiders, and tell me nothing… It makes me sour.”

“What kind of condition is that?” Kelor pressed a hand to her temple like warding off a headache. “Why are you such a handful? Do you really need to get jealous about this?”

“If you won’t promise, pretend I’m dead. Bury me,” Xueyu said, then went limp in the coffin like a curled leaf. “We’ve known each other since we were kids, more than ten years, and it’s all gone thin. I won’t talk to you anymore.”

Every line reeked of vinegar, sharp as pickled plums.

Damn, Kelor thought, she’s really pushing it.

Before Kelor could speak, a streak of blade-light slammed onto the coffin lid like lightning hitting a tree. Xueyu jolted and yelped, “Okay! I was wrong! Don’t actually cut me, Your Highness!”

“It wasn’t me!” Kelor snapped, then whipped her head toward the source like a falcon sighting prey.

There stood Scarlet Leaf with the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade in hand, her face unsure as a clouded mirror.

But something was wrong. Black tendrils coiled along the blade like oil-slick vines, and the other end rooted into Scarlet Leaf’s right hand like a leech.

At the sight of those tendrils, a keening rose in Lingcai’s ear like wind in a graveyard.

“Mo… ther…”

Lingcai blanched, blood dropping from her face like the tide. She understood with a cold click.

“The cursed blade… didn’t die,” she said, voice thin as frost. “It parasitized the Crimson Cherry Blossom Blade!”