“Qianchun! Here are some Magic Stones.”

At first light, Lingchen Yao slipped back to the rental like mist returning to the valley, and handed Qianchun the Magic Stones from Illusory Glass.

In the pouch she left last night were four or five Magic Stones of the First Symphony. The Eye Orb scanned them like cold moonlight on glass—no traps inside, no lingering magic marks on the skin.

If it’s free, you’d be a fool not to take it—like catching rain in a drought.

He passed the stones to Qianchun. Since her Magic Stone shattered, the reborn Aklatia’s entire cash reserve had been under her care, like a hive in steady hands.

She only had a junior high diploma, yet her talent and luck in finance flowed like a clear spring. She studied hard, step by step, like seedlings seeking sun.

If tragedy hadn’t fallen on her like winter hail, she’d have scored well, entered a good university, joined the Magic Maiden organization, and seen a sky without ceiling.

“If you’ve got time, go to the black market. Or we go tonight and pick up a few firearms. Sooner or later we’ll need them. Better safe than sorry—keep your guard up.”

Whether Illusory Glass lied or not, hot weapons were windbreaks in a storm. Without a Magic Stone, Qianchun’s Mana was shallow and brief, like a candle in draught.

A pistol would boost her odds of living through the night, like flint in a blizzard.

Lingchen needed one too.

He couldn’t become Night Frost every time trouble rolled in. That mask would crack one day, like ice under noon sun.

A pistol would give his civilian skin some bite, and hide Night Frost’s shadow behind a thicker curtain.

“Right, swing by Yunyang Orphanage more often—the one on Yunyang Road. Go as a volunteer. Build trust like stacking bricks, just for the next few days.”

“If anything goes wrong, move everyone straight to the underground shelter. You know where the nearest one is.”

“Mhm. Got it.”

While Qianchun logged his tasks on the computer, Lingchen wandered the cramped rental, familiar yet strange, like a room moved an inch in a dream.

Trust Qianchun to turn chaos with a hint of charm into neat lines, like combed black silk.

“You’ve worked hard. Sleep more. And—anything you can’t shoulder alone, bring to me. We’re small, but we’re a team, like reeds bound into a raft.”

He ruffled her hair. Her black strands were smooth as water-polished jade. No conditioner here, yet she kept them soft—touching them felt like snow on skin.

He wanted to leave his hand there, like a palm warming stone.

Ahem.

The Eye Orb coughed, a mechanical rasp like metal on slate. Lingchen snatched his hand back. The orb settled on his shoulder, nerve filaments brushing his nape like cold spider silk.

“Boss and secretary, office romance? Keeping a white-haired loli on the side? And a fair-skinned beauty for dessert. Kid, you’re swimming in luck.”

“Get outta here. You don’t know squat. Don’t joke about the white-haired loli—she might crawl out of some crack in the wall. And my sister? Who hits on his own sister? I’m not that desperate.”

They bickered, sparks dancing off iron, then let the coals cool. They set a rendezvous at the subway by dusk and headed out.

At the station, they scooped up Qianchun. Lingchen tapped his card like a blade through paper, and welcomed bruisers—and maybe bruisers in a beauty’s skin—into the market’s guts.

He stopped Qianchun from gawking at the halls and corners, afraid stray sights would plant shadows like burrs in her heart. It was her first time here.

Her past earnings had been handled by her old boss, split by contribution like meat carved under many eyes.

Tonight the black market roared. The small hall was packed like a tide in a gorge. Buyers, sellers, a swirl of faces and whispers.

At the Obsidian Stone door, the flow didn’t stop, like ants before a storm. Lingchen’s third visit, and the most crowded yet.

He burned to know why, but first things first—secure iron before rumors.

He gripped the slender wrist beneath Qianchun’s black cloak, and the two cut through the crowd like a knife through reeds. They reached a nearby stall.

He remembered this regular. The man once sold old firearms. Maybe he had lines others didn’t.

“Guns? Sold out.”

The stallholder held a cigarette like a smoldering twig. Gray smoke climbed and coiled above his head, then thinned like fog at noon. Under a black brim, his cloudy yellow eyes rolled, and he slanted a look at Lingchen in black hoodie and mask, and the cloaked figure behind.

“Last week you still had some, didn’t you?”

Hands in pockets, Qianchun clenched the Magic Stones like warm river pebbles and studied him in silence.

“You don’t know?”

Surprise flickered in the murk of his eyes, then delight bloomed like oil on water. He dipped his brim and inched closer, dragging a stool like a limp cartwheel.

He leaned to Lingchen’s ear and whispered.

His breath stank, a sewer gust. Lingchen flinched aside like a shadow dodging fire, and bumped a man’s hat off. Fights were poison here, so he apologized.

The man swore and stalked off, like a stray dog kicking cans.

Qianchun lowered her brim. She’d seen something too. She sidled up to Lingchen, quiet as a moth.

“I can tell you what’s going on. I can sell you guns. But it’ll cost this much… maybe more. Special times, special prices.”

His crooked, old fingers wrote a number in Lingchen’s palm, like a thorn pressed into flesh.

Seeing it, Eye Orb and Lingchen both itched to curse. They’d checked market rates—handguns ran six to ten thousand. The old man wanted twenty to start.

Daylight robbery, like a hawk stooping on chicks.

Even if it wasn’t Lingchen’s money on the plate.

“Kid, that’s already cheap. No one in this market has better channels than me. Not even the boss.”

Lingchen studied his face, searching for cracks like flaws in porcelain. He glanced at the Eye Orb and murmured, “He’s very sure of himself.”

“I think we should look around,” the Eye Orb whispered, voice dry as paper. “Don’t hang from one tree. Also… I think I saw my boss. The new boss. Not certain.”

Lingchen told Qianchun to relax. They were wrapped tight, and the crowd was a screen of reeds. Getting recognized was unlikely.

They squeezed to other stalls. After a handful of questions, they circled back to the same short, black-hatted elder with the sallow eyes. A tease glinted in his gaze like a fish flash.

“Well? Believe it now? Ask a few more and you’ll hear the same. The top arms dealer here…”

“Is you? Doesn’t look it. If so, why run a stall?”

He cut him off and eyed him, suspicion like frost on glass.

“Ahem—my boss. I just moonlight. I can take you to my boss’s black market branch. You might find what you want there.”

So the old man had weight in the gun trade here. Asking more would only draw the same circle in dust.

Lingchen stepped closer. The old man produced a card from both pockets, and slipped it into Lingchen’s palm like a folded blade. Go to the second turn by the entrance, get in the car. Someone would feed them intel and drive them to the address.

“Here?”

Lingchen showed the card to a black-car driver crouched by the wall, gnawing the last ember of a cigarette. The driver checked it, then waved them in like a gatekeeper parting curtains.

The black market boss swirled red wine in a crystal bowl, two delicate glasses chiming like ice on a winter stream. In the Obsidian Stone room, his smile hung like a mask.

“Three days from now. Is the intel solid?”

A golden-eyed attendant in a black evening suit poured. The red flowed like fresh blood from a vein, reflecting a burly, bearded hulk with scars and mechanical seams.

He scorned sipping. He downed his glass in one gulp, like a furnace swallowing sparks, and banged for more.

“Tastes like nothing. Your kind of soft drink. But your intel’s good. Three days later—true? The streets are buzzing.”

The boss didn’t bristle. He lifted his glass and sipped, a leaf on still water.

“You types let wine hit the gut, not the throat. No palate. Drinking with you is dull.”

He set the glass down, murmured to the attendant, who slipped away like a shadow. He turned back to the hulk.

“The intel’s real. Source is the Order Keeper. I’ve pulled my people to District Eleven. Safer after fresh war. Better for growth, for roots… I leave tomorrow. Kapus, your plan?”

“If the intel’s right, the Abyssal Rift opens in three days. Cantata Three intervenes. I need to mobilize.”

“I’m an outfit beyond the border. My people are untamed horses. I’ve lost several batches lately—lost a few bases too.”

He rolled his arm. Metal rang inside like a bell in a forge. A lazy swing shredded air, and his eagle eyes could have pierced the Obsidian Stone wall.

“Time they learned I’m not easy prey.”

Kapus slammed the glass on the table, thunder on slate, and strode out like a storm breaking its leash. The boss sighed and called the attendant to tidy the wreckage.

The attendant’s fingers brushed Kapus’s glass. A crack hidden deep in the clear stem spread like ice on a pond. Shards spat outward, nicked his suit, and bit his arm.

Red wine spilled everywhere, a small river, streaming from the bottle like a cut that wouldn’t close.