The banquet dimmed like lanterns folding shut; Chen Xiaoyin slipped back early to the Order Keeper’s dorm for Magic Maidens, tomorrow’s rebuild a sunrise waiting. Night Frost stayed, held by Qianchun like a soft tether.

Emptiness pressed like fog; Night Frost had nowhere else to go. She couldn’t crawl back to the hospital’s neon snow.

This rental building sat quiet as a shell on the shore; only Qianchun lived here now. The landlady and tenants had moved to the next district, like birds to safer branches. The landlady wouldn’t return soon. Rooms yawned open like hollow moons, enough for Night Frost.

She weighed it, cool as evening rain, then settled here. She passed Qianchun Illusory Glass’s little stash, bright as coin-sparks, and Blade’s Order Keeper badge, brass like an autumn leaf. She aimed for the bed, a cloud calling her down.

Qianchun cut the thought like a knife through mist, and tossed Night Frost toward the bathroom. Her voice snapped like frost: no bath, no exit.

Who was the boss here? The question rattled like a cricket in a bowl.

Resigned, Night Frost lifted the water bucket like a slow tide. She ladled two scoops into a basin, unwrapped a fresh towel, and sank it like a soft net.

The underground pipes had splintered like dry roots; the supply system lay dead, a fish out of stream. Ordinary folks fetched water from the Order Keeper. Water was a river of life—use less, and let the river breathe.

She slipped down her skirt like petals falling. She loosened the white shirt’s collar, peeled off the inner layer, and draped it over the sink like a faint cloud. Moonlight combed her pale skin; a snow-soft curve glowed and vanished. Her legs stretched slender as reeds, shimmering in the silver night.

Cool water lapped her fingers like lake glass. She closed her eyes; lashes fluttered like butterfly wings drinking dew.

Summer deserved cold water. She sighed like a cicada. Winter would be another story, a knife-edge wind.

She worked the towel, letting it drink like dry earth. She wrung it out; jade-like fingers guided the damp cloth to her stomach, a small hill of health under moon-silver touch.

A tremor rose first, bright and shy. This was the first time she studied her new body, not just with a mirror glance but with a tide’s patience. The past days she’d been bound to hospital sheets, cleaned by a Magic Maiden’s spell like a soft rain.

Cleansing Magic Spell was handy, a broom of starlight. She planned to learn it, then toss a Magic Spell onto herself and skip the bucket’s dusk.

Moonlight cast her in frost and porcelain; her own body stole her gaze like a white river. Her focus drifted, a boat sliding off its mooring.

Is this me? She murmured like night wind and held a hand to her thin chest, small enough to cup like a sparrow. Qianchun had joked this size didn’t need a bra, just a light inner layer, a cloud, not a harness.

Her skin met her fingers—then sensation sparked like a fine current, a peach-bloom tingle skimming her nerves. She flinched, heat scattering like startled fish.

So this was a girl’s weather? The thought was honey and ice, slow and curious.

Her gaze slipped past the non-existent swell, toward the deeper forest, a center where springs began. Life felt there, a seed at the root.

Sanity drew a firm line like a willow staff. Step too deep, and the abyss would bite. Cross it, and some high-tier censor would nuke the chapter, leaving only “chapter revised” like ash after fire.

She steadied her heart like a lantern in wind. She let the cool towel kiss her shoulders and sides, gliding over a body that felt like carved snow.

She washed her hair, heavy as wet silk, a river pulling on her neck. Strands ran wild like vines on stone.

She flicked away beads of water, then breathed a small flame, drying her hair like sun through mist.

She slipped back into her daytime clothes, a crisp sheath of routine. She ignored the silk pajamas Qianchun had prepared, soft as dusk. They were Qianchun’s; the thought didn’t warm her night.

She sat on the bed that used to be hers, now Qianchun’s island. She’d just rest here, then drift to the next room like a quiet tide.

Qianchun finished scribbling and tucked papers into a shelf, leaves into a willow. She came over, hooked Night Frost’s arm like a friendly vine. Jasmine drifted off her skin, a garden hidden in breath.

“Stay here tonight,” she said, her voice like morning tea. “We don’t have fresh bedding.”

Unease pricked first, sharp as pine needles. Night Frost tried the old card—she was a guy inside. Qianchun countered with a smile that cut like sunlight.

“You aren’t now, boss. That other room’s a mess. Stay here. You’re a girl now—keep clean.”

Soft pressure wore stone. Night Frost sighed and agreed, a stream giving to a bank. When Qianchun fell asleep, she’d slip away like a shadow and crash next door.

She took the inside; Qianchun lay outside like a shore. Night Frost slid inward, looking for the safe hollow of a cave. Qianchun followed like tide to moon, an arm binding Night Frost’s waist so lightly, so close.

Jasmine folded under her nose; warmth breathed against her back like a gentle kiln. Qianchun’s chest rose and fell, a small sea lapping Night Frost’s spine.

Night Frost had never felt this weather. Sleep fled like a startled deer.

Past midnight, she tested for an opening, searching cracks like a mouse at the wall. Qianchun’s hold was anchored tight as ivy; there was no gap.

Next time, she muttered, I’ll learn a Shrinking Magic Spell. Become a pebble. Slip like rain.

Moonlight spilled over them, milk on slate. Night Frost turned her head; Qianchun’s face lay clear and delicate, hair a little wild, a meadow stirred by wind.

Night Frost smiled, thin as thread. I treat you as a subordinate, and you want to romance the general?

Eventually the night grew heavy as velvet. She closed her eyes and sank, a leaf to dark water.

Morning spilled gold like fire over rice. Night Frost opened her crimson-gold eyes; sunlight warmed the quilt, a soft kiln. The space beside her was empty, a lake without a boat. Qianchun had gone.

From the kitchen, aromas rose like steam banners. Night Frost smoothed her hair and drifted to the center room. In the kitchen, Qianchun wore an apron like a white wing, stirring the pan. Fragrance leapt like sparrows.

Her cooking had sharpened like a blade honed on river stone.

“Morning,” Qianchun sang, her note a ribbon of warmth.

Night Frost answered with a breeze, then washed at the sink. An Order Keeper truck had passed at dawn; Qianchun had filled two buckets, cool moons parked by the wall.

Guilt pricked like a thorn. She’d done nothing but drift.

Over breakfast, Night Frost said she’d investigate the missing students and teachers. The site lay an hour’s walk from campus, a road of dust and light. With Moon Owl’s corridor, the time would cut in half, a river’s shortcut.

Moon Owl had told them last night at the Order Keeper branch. She’d carved a path outside the hunt circle, a tunnel like a hollow reed through dark, saving time. If Night Frost and Illusory Glass had taken it, it would’ve been ten minutes, a blink. Blade hadn’t told Illusory Glass; Moon Owl had authorized the route.

Using Order Keeper authority, Moon Owl had excused both of them. Second day of school, and already on leave; a pair of straws bending the rules.

After this, Illusory Glass should stick less to Night Frost. Night Frost would bend her like bamboo, even curvier than the wind wanted.

Truth was, Illusory Glass was already crooked, a vine enjoying its curl.

Morning, Illusory Glass and Night Frost sat in class like stones in a stream. Rumors fluttered like leaves—students and teachers gone missing. Night Frost glanced at Senior Su’s notes, ink neat as ants. Her mind drifted to the Abyss, cold as a well, and class slid past like mist.

Afternoon, they returned to last night’s ground. The sun burned broad as a furnace; Night Frost fished up a torn parasol from a trash bin, a moth-eaten shade. She sat beneath it, watching the empty field like a stage.

They had guesses about the disappearances, seeds sown at dusk. Hard truth required testing, a blade to the fruit.

Sunset bled red across the earth, painting it like a scroll. Threads of afterglow flickered at the horizon, fireflies before dark.

The humid heat retreated like a tide. Cold rolled in, a blade across the Twelfth District. Night Frost and Illusory Glass shivered, reeds in a sudden wind.

Dawnlight stood amid the ruins, her brows knotted like tight rope. In that instant, the cold wind carried a stench she loathed, rot wrapped in iron.

Space began to twist, breathing like a sleeping beast—expand, contract, expand. A pull gathered near the rift, tugging at them like a whirlpool’s throat.

Wind poured from the inside, carrying wails and laments, brittle and sharp, a choir of bones.

Night Frost’s guess rang true, a bell in frost. This place hinged on time. At this point, some unknown force opened a strange Abyssal Rift.

Dawnlight reported upward like an arrow. Moon Owl felt it at once; Chapter Three’s aura unfurled like a banner. She locked the breathing space, a seal pressed to wax.

Blade compared the readings, eyes like steel water. The essence matched Abyssal Rifts; other traits were identical. This looked like a variant, maybe the human Abyss’s true face.

If it was an Abyss, inside would be vast—space or continent, a plain under shadow.

Deploying Chapter Three would be fastest, but Chapter Three had only Moon Owl, a lone hawk in a storm. She needed to deter predators; if she left, those wolves would pour into the Twelfth District. Inside lay a continent; even Moon Owl’s speed had limits, wind that couldn’t cross the whole sea at once.

So the search fell to other Magic Maidens, sparks scattered into the dark.

Blade eyed Dawnlight, then Night Frost, like a general measuring the weather.

“If Dawnlight feels disgust, the space may be full of the dead,” he said, voice cool as rain on iron. “Dawnlight, bring them back.”

Dawnlight nodded, steady as a mountain.

“Night Frost, you’re one of the discoverers. Go with Dawnlight. I’ll excuse your class. Your pay’s double, and whatever you can carry out is yours.”

Motivation flared first, gold like a coin in sun. Then wariness deepened, a shadow under the eave. Blade knew her weather, and that made the storm feel closer.

“What about me?” Illusory Glass raised her hand, a sprig lifting toward light. “I’m a discoverer too.”

“On this,” Blade said, aligning with Moon Owl like two stars, “you’re a kid. Stay here. Go to class.”

“I don’t want to!”

Her protest fluttered like a sparrow against a window. The glass didn’t move.