Night Frost glanced at the Spirit Formation’s arc, a moonlit curve slicing through the Linked Formation like a silk ribbon across dark water.

She hadn’t expected it to be this easy, and her chest lightened like thawing snow.

That Spirit Formation carved atop the chain of arrays didn’t just glow; it spelled out the undoing, like ink showing the grain in old wood.

Once more, she admired the array-carver’s craft—chisels singing, strokes as clean as winter breath.

But her cut-rate mentor on the phone sounded like a dry north wind.

He said that guy’s strength couldn’t match his, or Night Frost’s father, and the tweak, while clever, wasn’t that grand.

The trick lay in materials he couldn’t touch, rare metals like stars too far to pluck.

The Twelfth District had money, but not for an old man who burned coin on Formations like incense in a storm.

They were rebuilding; funds flowed like a river, but not into a hermit’s workshop.

At best, they wanted her mentor to churn out protective arrays for civilians, small shields against the rain.

Resources shackled his craft like iron rings on a tiger.

Truth be told, Night Frost had never seen him go all out, never seen the blade leave its scabbard in full sun.

Over the line, his voice turned slow, like tea steeped too strong.

Formations, he said, must turn complexity into simplicity; the highest realm was a few teasing strokes and humble materials birthing a supreme array.

Night Frost nodded, polite as frost on porcelain.

She’d never chased any “supreme”; it sounded more like his grumble at sky-priced materials than a scripture.

She traced the Spirit Formation’s edge, steady as a brush following grain.

Mana slid along her blade like oil on jade, and she shaved off four nodes of the Linked Formation with a whispering cut.

The book’s offensive arrays lost most of their teeth, like a wolf de-fanged.

She did what her mentor said—pulled the book free, clean as a reed plucked from water.

The Spirit Formation went inert in an instant, like a lantern snuffed.

The pressure around Kaneko eased, heavy air breaking like a storm passing the eaves.

Mana drifted in the small room like pale mist over rice paddies.

Kaneko’s lids fluttered, then closed; she sank into sleep, deep as winter ponds.

No wonder—she’d spent more Mana than rain on a summer roof.

Night Frost didn’t ask Kaneko to stay or go; her heart sat like a stone in a stream.

The landlady’s place was shot, cracks like spiderwebs in a bowl, and Night Frost would be out often.

The old excuses felt thin as paper, so she spoke a few straight words to the landlady and planned to move.

The landlady, warm as a kitchen stove, tried to keep her for dinner.

Night Frost declined with a soft smile, a leaf drifting past.

Something had come up, she said, and she had to leave early, a silhouette slipping into dusk.

After a beat of thought, she carried sleeping Kaneko to the car, quiet as a cat.

She remembered Zhou Jiaxin’s neighborhood—a scatter of empty shells, bare-bones units like unfinished clay jars.

Maybe they were rentable; even if not, a shell kept out wind like a coat.

Worst case, Kaneko could crash at Zhou Jiaxin’s nest, a sparrow under eaves.

But renting shouldn’t be a pilgrimage.

Zhou’s place was far, and once past the fancy gated gardens, cheap rooms bloomed like wildflowers.

Night Frost picked one, slid Kaneko inside, laid out bedding like a sea of clean cotton.

She stuffed rent into the landlord’s hand, crisp as dried leaves.

One month, she said, then left Kaneko a note, money clipped beneath, and a spare phone like a lantern left lit.

The road ahead wouldn’t be soft snow.

If her infiltration worked, their enemy would be half of District Twenty One, faces like a tide.

Kaneko had a drop of Mana, but truth was a cold blade—nice version, she couldn’t help; harsh version, she’d be a weight around the ankle.

Staying with Night Frost meant walking under falling tiles.

So Night Frost told her to reply by phone on whether she’d stay, a choice drawn like a line in sand.

Near midnight, Night Frost met Zhou Jiaxin under a night window, shadows thin as silk.

With Zhou’s cover and her own knack for dodging cameras—steps like wind slipping past bamboo—she reached Zhou’s place.

She reviewed manner and habit once more, breath even, mind still as a lake at dawn.

She put on a Bluetooth earpiece, a small shell at her ear, and told Zhou to keep the line open at all times.

She added her number, a thread tying them together.

Zhou didn’t dare slack; two paychecks floated before her like twin moons—one from the lab, one from Night Frost’s hand.

Still, worry stirred like a bird in a cage.

Did Night Frost know the ropes?

If she messed up, at least there was a voice in her ear, steady as a lantern’s glow.

Truth stayed truth: this was Night Frost’s first time setting foot in a lab.

She didn’t know the bones of the place, corridors like veins in stone.

Even with Zhou’s whispering directions, she felt at sea, bare feet on wet stones.

Zhou’s crew boss was thunder-and-lightning, orders cracking like whips.

Command after command came down—pour herbs in the kettle, sort reagents, check incubators, hold temperatures like fire tamed in a kiln.

Night Frost had heard a few names like bells she couldn’t place, but she’d never handled them; her hands moved stiff, cold as winter fingers.

Some reagents carried labels like cryptic stars—‘xxxxx’ and worse.

Night Frost couldn’t catch their shapes, and even Zhou had to pause, mind digging like a spade in clay.

Night Frost’s verdict on the command-barker in Zhou’s three-person team was crisp as a snapped twig.

Why don’t you get down here and work?

Fast orders don’t seed results; lightning without rain never feeds the fields.

That woman declared they must find a new drug in days, make the organization look up like cranes startled into flight.

Zhou said she’d stolen the credit more than once, skimming cream while the lower hands scraped the pot.

Night Frost kept her blade sheathed against those words.

She could squeeze workers if she liked, but not Night Frost.

Night Frost wasn’t hers; old tricks used on the wrong throat draw blood.

Break time came like a brief shade.

The command-barker hunted Night Frost down, eyes cold as tin.

She said Night Frost was stiff, green, and wrong more than right, then hauled another employee over for a neat, cruel comparison.

Zhou whispered Night Frost could call her Senior Wang—a veteran, hands seasoned like old wood.

Senior Wang had outlasted storms; many had fled, she stayed, a knot that wouldn’t loosen.

For some reason, Senior Wang treated Zhou Jiaxin well, a soft hand on a bruised shoulder.

Maybe it was old-guard sentiment, incense lingering in a hall.

Maybe she was simply good folk, like warm tea on a wet day.

Night Frost said her mana cycle was off and a chill clung to her bones, breath smoky as frost.

The woman didn’t care; called it an excuse, a silk veil over rust.

True or not, Night Frost’s temper rose like fire taking straw.

Senior Wang murmured comfort like a willow leaf.

It warmed Night Frost’s chest, an ember under ash.

But the comparison—pitting friends into cattle pens—made her blood boil, smoke lifting off ice.

If it were Zhou, she might swallow it; but Night Frost was Night Frost, steel under the sleeve.

Then the woman went low, muck dragging the hem.

She spat about the slums, dirt on a name.

Zhou hadn’t said it, but her file did—born in the slums, a sparrow in winter.

For the first time, Night Frost rose for someone else, heart hard as a stone picked from the river.

Someone’s bitter start isn’t a rope to hang them.

She was half an orphan herself, eyes bruised by cold stares, pushed through on Twelfth District subsidies and night work, into a college gate lit like dawn.

Zhou and Night Frost—two reeds in the same wind, though Zhou had it worse.

If not for luck and an entrance exam, she could have been a nameless body in weeds.

Night Frost knew that look—the contempt that peels skin like winter wind.

The woman’s curses snapped like thorns and dragged old nights back.

Should bad birth mean you swallow bad words forever?

If it had been a normal squeeze, Night Frost might have held back.

But the filth spilled over the rim: “born with a mother, raised by none,” “uncultured bastard,” “who knows which father.”

The air went cold; Night Frost’s eyes turned to ice.

She checked the woman with a hunter’s glance—no Mana, health brittle as stale bean curd.

If she stayed this path, her bones would be a map of fractures—prophecy written in frost.

Night Frost swung.

Her fist crashed into that plump face, a dull thud like a fist in wool.

Bad feel—too much padding—so she added a touch more force, a wave under ice.

Not full strength.

Killing would be waste; blood is ink that stains.

Mouths that spill poison need a few beats hammered out, or they think your silence is weakness and climb boots onto your neck.

Part of her boldness tasted wicked.

This wasn’t her workstation; it was Zhou Jiaxin’s.

If a pot breaks, it wasn’t her pottery.

“You scream. Go on, scream,” she snarled, voice edged like a blade.

“Isn’t ‘bastard’ you staring in a mirror?

Life throws stones at everyone; nobody asks for it.

What we’ve won, we carved with our own hands, and birth can’t bury it.”

Mana threaded her throat; her shout boomed, a drum under a temple roof.

The woman shrieked, thin as torn paper.

On the phone, Zhou Jiaxin gasped, then went silent, a candle pinched out.

She was sure everything was over, work crumbling like an old wall.

She’d thought Night Frost might bungle small tasks, but she hadn’t imagined the fist.

Double pay traded for disaster—that’s what a ledger would say.

Yet warmth budded in Zhou’s chest, a plum blossom in snow.

Someone stood for her—that had never happened.

Maybe it was time to change jobs, shed old skin.

“You hit me? I’ll report you to the higher-ups,” the woman hissed, eyes flashing like broken glass.

“You won’t last a day.”

Night Frost paused, thought spinning like a coin.

“Then I’ll stay,” she said, calm as still water.

“What can you do to me?”

She remembered a bottle, AE-137 something—corrosive, a bite that eats through flesh like acid rain.

She walked to the rack, fingers sure, and plucked a small vial that glinted like a cold star.

She stepped toward the supervisor, smile warm as a lantern’s glow.

She wanted today etched into the woman’s memory like characters carved in stone.

“Promise you won’t report this,” Night Frost said, voice soft as a snowfall.

“Break it, and this day next year is your death anniversary.

Walk carefully.”

She turned to leave—and her Mana burst like a dam.

Killing intent gathered, thick as smoke, near solid, a wall sliding over her skin.

“I’ll be watching you,” she added, a whisper that felt like frost on the nape.

The supervisor bobbed her head, frantic as a quail.

Night Frost pulled Senior Wang back toward the lab, steps light as drifting ash.

The moment Night Frost left, the woman bolted for the elevator, muttering to the air like an angry ghost.

“Tell the administrator—quick—she’s lawless, lawless!

That bastard’s true nature is out.

No upbringing is no upbringing.”

“Ow—hurts like hell—she couldn’t hit lighter?” she whined, nursing her cheek.

“It’s fine. We won’t see her again.

Plenty of replacements; hands grow on trees.”

She dove into the elevator and hammered the button for B16, finger pecking like a hungry crow.

A white figure bloomed behind her like frost in a mirror.

“I did say,” Night Frost’s voice floated in, soft and cold, “don’t report, didn’t I?”