The Eye Orb piped its resentful roar into Lingchen Yao’s mind through raw nerve-threads, like hot wires hissing. Lingchen stayed unmoved, his tone coy as he peppered the Old Woman with questions, like tapping at a quiet spring. She answered kindly, her voice warm as dusk light, and he soaked up the insight like dry earth drinking rain.

"Oh, she’s here."

The Old Woman glanced toward the campus, toward a girl stepping out from a teaching building, a black trench coat cutting like midnight. Her expression was frost; a jet-black pistol rode her waist like obsidian. Magic Stones gleamed on her black leather gloves, bright as cold stars.

The Eye Orb went silent, like a drumskin cinched tight. It had seen her yesterday, the girl whose aura was terror, the one from Cantata Two. It sank into stillness and gulped Mana from the bracelet like a sponge, trying to smother its own Abyssal Aura.

Unease pricked Lingchen Yao first, like a thorn under nail. Then reason lined up: the Eye Orb never quit whining mid-rant, and the bracelet burned like a hidden coal. The answer stood plain—this girl was sharp enough to taste the Abyss clinging to them.

Moon Owl frowned, her brows winging like ravens. She glanced at Lingchen Yao, a flicker of déjà vu like a shadow crossing water. She halted and thought, then recalled slipping into his home last night like a cat. Yun Mengmeng had said he was a freshman at Jiuqiong University.

"Too much going on lately. I’m late."

Her voice was winter glass. Lingchen drew a cool breath; her deep eyes felt like they could see through him, lanterns in a fog.

"Haha, it’s fine. You’re an instructor now; busy is good." Moon Owl swiped a card, the turnstile chirping, and let the Old Woman in like opening a gate in a bamboo wall.

"Bring this kid too. We’ve met by chance—let him look around."

Moon Owl hesitated like a leaf in a crosswind, then dipped her chin.

"You. Come in."

Lingchen Yao felt favored, heat blooming like sunrise. He followed the Old Woman and Moon Owl onto campus, footfalls ticking like beads. At the building, the Old Woman handed Moon Owl something from her bag, a neat exchange like passing a sealed letter.

"You go handle your work. I’ll walk the boy around. When you get old, you walk more—keeps the fog from the mind."

"Okay."

Moon Owl took the stairs without a backward glance, her stride straight as a blade. She seemed to hold little guard against Lingchen.

"This child’s state is poor today," the Old Woman murmured, her tone soft as rain. "She usually tells me to be careful before she leaves. Likely too busy lately—cool on the surface, but truly impatient underneath."

The way she listed the girl’s flaws echoed Chen Xiaoyin scolding Lingchen, like an old bell answering a new one. Lingchen sighed with a wry smile, like steam leaving a cup.

Even at Cantata Two, some things still cling like burrs.

"Gods… I’m suffocating. Kid… water…"

The Eye Orb exhaled a rush of warm gas, heat wavering like mirage. The air around them grew a shade hotter, but summer already blazed, and the Old Woman and passersby noticed nothing.

The Eye Orb wrapped the bracelet like a lizard clutching a rock, groaning with no strength. Until it found water, it would hang half-dead, a lantern with a dying wick.

Lingchen trailed the Old Woman as she introduced the innards of Jiuqiong University, the map a labyrinth like vines over stone. College dwarfed high school; one loop of a single zone was a march through noon glare. Sweat trickled down his temples like river threads. He stopped at a vending machine, bought an iced mineral water with a click, and spared the Eye Orb a share, a cool mercy.

Cold slid through his parched throat like streamwater; summer’s blaze retreated a step. He looked at the Old Woman; her brow held only fine beads of sweat like dew, not the soaked mess he wore.

"Young folk should walk more. Else when you’re old, ailments stick like moss and regret bites."

The Old Woman rolled her shoulder, then settled on a bench under tree shade, leaves stippling her face like moving lace. She opened the warm silver of her thermos. Lingchen took the chance and slipped toward the nearby restroom, and tap water washed away the red tint clinging to the Eye Orb, like dye running off silk.

"I’m back from hell’s gate again…"

The Eye Orb lay slack on the bracelet, breath a flicker like a dying ember. Burned twice in one day—any more and its leftover self-repair cells would die out like frost-killed grass.

"We need faster recovery. The Magic Stones we got are tapped dry. We either hunt Abyss Monsters or scrounge existing Magic Stones. But look at the kid’s funds… he agonizes over buying cola. Odds are—no, it’s certain—he can’t afford Magic Stones."

"I have cause to suspect you’re bad-mouthing me."

Lingchen met the Eye Orb’s contemptuous stare, then pinched its nerve endings and twirled them in the air like strings. The Eye Orb wobbled and begged for mercy, its tone thin as reed.

With his own mess and the Eye Orb’s handled, Lingchen returned to the Old Woman. Her over-shoulder, flower-white hair drifted in the summer breeze like willow floss. Sitting on the bench, she kept her eyes closed, feeling the soft wind on her cheeks and the dancing shade like ripples.

Footsteps approached; she heard them like pebbles tapping a path. She lifted weathered lids, lines cut by years like riverbeds. Kindness and gentleness sat in her gaze like lamps. Her voice came hoarse and warm.

"Shall we continue, child?"

Lingchen flicked open his phone and checked the time; noon’s glare pressed down like molten glass. Motivation drained, and all he wanted was to loaf in a dining hall, to drift under cool air like a fish in shade.

The campus cafeteria was freer than high school, choices spread like a market. He wasn’t a student, so the Old Woman treated his first meal at Jiuqiong University, frugal as a clay bowl. The cheap set meant the plate was light, but it felt worth every bite, far better than pricey, joyless high school fare.

He had just finished eating and was ready to say goodbye, then find a corner to nap like a cat in sun. At that moment, the distant teaching building flipped to eternal night for a heartbeat, then snapped back to sunlight like a curtain whisked open.

Day and night switched so fast it dodged normal eyes. With nerves braided to the Eye Orb, Lingchen barely caught the wrongness, a chill thread in warm air.

"What happened?"

He asked, and the Eye Orb answered in a blur, its voice like fog.

"Likely that Cantata Two girl met some Abyss Monsters. It’s too far; I can’t feel it cleanly."

The Old Woman still sat and sipped tea, calm as a lake. She looked at the stunned Lingchen, lifted her stainless cup like a small moon, and asked,

"Want a sip?"

Lingchen smiled and declined, his gaze sliding back toward the building like a moth to a lamp. Curiosity and worry braided in him. Then he remembered—she was a Cantata Two powerhouse—and his worry uncoiled a little, like a fist opening.

Office building, rooftop.

Moon Owl drew a circle on the ground with a Magic Tool, the line dark as ink. She took a bottle of powder from her bag, stirred her Mana, and the dust jumped like startled gnats. The motes clung to her skin, itching like nettles; she stood unmoved, a stone in wind.

A moment later, her black trench coat heaved like a sail. A viscous creature was stuck to her back, its liquid spreading like oil. The instant it touched the white powder, it shrank fast, screaming thin and sharp. It curled into a ball and peeled off her back like a slug dropping.

A black Magic Stone wrapped Moon Owl’s fist, and pressure gusted from the dark like a storm front. It crashed into the viscous creature, twisting its mass like cloth wrung out.

Dull thuds rolled; Moon Owl hammered punches into its head, one after another, relentless as rain. The creature’s face was pulped beyond shape; only a blood-slick eyeball still showed, staring like a drowned pearl.

At last, endless darkness fell like a curtain. It swallowed the creature. Black fragments fluttered down like ash.

"Cracked Magic Stones… Abyssal pollution, this close?"

Moon Owl had sensed Abyssal Aura last night, then dropped and killed many Abyss Monsters, like a hawk among crows. Yet this thing had clung to her.

No trick could remove the monster on her back; it was a parasite, drinking her mind and swapping her Mana for Abyssal Aura, like rot in wood. Luckily, she found a way and pulled it off in time.

This thing is lethal to First Symphony, and to low-perception Cantata Two it’s a blind knife. One slip, and you’ll be converted into a human-shaped Abyss.

"Is this a creature native to the Abyss, or a local life warped by Abyssal Aura? Judging by the look, it’s a larva."

Moon Owl couldn’t tell, despite her deep reserve of Abyss biology, a library under snow. She decided to bring it back.

But as she reached out, the corpse liquefied in an instant, pooling into sticky fluid. Under the hot sun it gelled, like melted rubber baking on tin.

"Hey, Blade. The monster I mentioned yesterday—can you run a check on this?"

On the line came a lazy, mature voice, followed by the rustle of a quilt thrown aside, like a cloud slipping off a hill.

"Got it. What now? I just handled that big bird cleanly, unseen by anyone. I’m tired, alright? A Tier‑2 Beast robbed me of three nights of sleep. Yaaawn—"

"You’ve got an agent; let her do it. I don’t. Also, you’ve slept eight hours these days."

"Mm… Who besides you would burn the candle at both ends like this? I sent you to taste campus life so you’d do less. And here you are—work in the morning, monster-hunting at night. Your energy’s ridiculous—"

The mature woman wrapped a blanket over her bare, heat-flushed body and sat before her computer, reluctance glinting like a cat’s half-lidded eyes. She clearly wanted to slack.

"Tell me. Besides last night’s traits, what else?"

"Different from the group last night. This one’s gray-black all over, with a Magic Stone that’s broken. It converts a host’s Mana into Abyssal Aura. Short-term, it barely touches Cantata Two. To ordinary folk and First Symphony, it’s deadly. Unknown what happens to the host once the conversion finishes."

"Mana‑crystal mixed salt harms it, but can’t kill."

"Form is insect-like."

Her fingers clattered over keys, crisp as hail on tin. A file pinged onto Moon Owl’s phone like a fallen leaf.

"I’ll report as soon as possible."