She didn’t know how long she’d slept. Night Frost surfaced like a drowned moon, roused by rustling sounds that scurried like mice. Face on the table, she pried open heavy lids like wet leaves, and scanned the room.

Last night she chased Array Patterns till the lamps burned low, like fishing in a dry well. Progress wasn’t nothing; it was less than nothing. Every Formation leans on the strength of Mana, and with only a thread to output, Night Frost couldn’t weave a net strong enough to hold wind.

Sleep ambushed her, and she fell on the desk like a leaf that forgot to land. Ever since she entered Cantata Two, sleep and food had faded like distant bells; days without eating or drinking were fine as winter air.

But now she was little different from a common passerby, a reed in a regular stream. When drowsy, she had to close her eyes. When hungry, she had to eat, like a body remembering old laws.

She rubbed the blur from her eyes, slow as morning fog. The rustle was the Doctor, arms full of heavy books, sitting opposite and writing, ink flowing like ant trails across a glassy tablet.

One glance at the tablet—formulas crowded like birds on a wire. He’d been up for a while, watching her state, harvesting nothing but silence, like him, waiting and empty-handed.

“Finally awake?” His voice was a dry bell. “Wash up. We’re going to the lab today.”

Once, she would’ve felt guilty for making someone wait, like rain owed to parched fields. Now, the longer she let the Doctor wait, the more time pooled into her jar, sand slipping from his hourglass to hers.

Night Frost nodded, and drifted toward the washroom like a slow boat. The Doctor had laid out toiletries with careful hands, like tea service at dawn. She dawdled for half an hour, then stepped out, and flicked away the unfinished Array Pattern at her fingertip, scattering it like mist.

Etching Array Patterns in water did blunt the burn that came when the pattern set, a cool river over hot stones. But it had a fatal flaw: time. The cold stream pressed down her fire like snow on embers. The washing took under ten minutes; the Patterning dragged on like winter.

“Let’s go.” The word fell like a latch.

The Doctor led her out. People, bright as paper lanterns, greeted them with warmth. Night Frost refused their gifts and snacks with gentle hands, sending their kindness back like floating clouds. The goodwill she kept in her heart.

At the street’s end, Night Frost spotted Yin Chen Yue, a small face wrapped in sleep like dusk. The girl saw them and straightened at once, spirit sparking like a match—looked like she’d stayed up late.

Yin Chen Yue wore a pure white oversized T-shirt, moonlight stitched in cotton. Everyone else wore the same; this underground city felt ruled by uniforms, a hive in pale cloth.

“Good morning, Night Frost sis.” Her voice bobbed like a sparrow.

Night Frost greeted the cute girl and reminded her to guard her health, to sleep before the stars get cold, kindness sliding out like warm tea.

“I didn’t stay up!” The protest fluttered like thin paper. It convinced no one.

Night Frost laughed and rubbed her hair, soft as down on a chick, then followed the Doctor toward the elevator, a steel throat.

She took the same elevator she’d used coming here, but the destination wasn’t the surface. It was the mid-level lab. The car rose fast; the crowd below shrank into ants, a mural fading.

“Has Yin Chen Yue always been here?” Night Frost looked down at the small, still figure like a pebble in a riverbed, then at the Doctor, who stared at his tablet like a wooden stake planted in earth.

“She was here when I arrived,” he said, calm as stone. “She seems to be one of the earliest residents. She knows this city like lines on her palm, so I asked her to guide you.”

Yin Chen Yue knew the city’s layout? The thought jolted Night Frost like a bell. Maybe she could draw more news from that spring. Maybe, with her help, find a path out, like a rabbit hole in a hedge.

“You want to rely on her to escape?” The Doctor’s tone was a cold gate. “Not likely. Lin alone could haul you and that girl back in a single sweep.”

He wasn’t wrong. Lin, the watcher, had strength like iron stakes. If there was a chance to slip away, she’d first have to cut the shadow chains of his surveillance.

The elevator sighed open. Night Frost and the Doctor walked the gray stone, tiles like river slate, to the corridor’s end. After the Eye Orb scanned their retinas, light sliding over them like a fish’s eye, the heavy gate rose like a glacier, and a clean lab gleamed like ice before Night Frost’s gaze.

This lab was a shade larger than the Doctor’s home, bright tiles and cold glass. Two or three staff moved within, white coats like gulls. According to the Doctor, he’d rather go without assistants; a few here came from Rouge Rabbit to watch him, strings on a puppet, fearing he might light fuses for dangerous experiments.

The Doctor’s freedom was a paper door, thin and easily torn.

“Begin,” he said, a blade hitting an anvil.

They’d been waiting. They yanked on oversized protective suits, ballooning like cocoons. In their eyes, Night Frost was a rare specimen, a glass butterfly pinned. With the Doctor’s nod, they fetched a dazzling array of tools, metal petals closing her in.

Among them were giant syringes and a chainsaw—tools like a butcher’s song. The strangest normal thing was a scalpel. It felt less like a lab, more like a slaughterhouse wearing a mask.

“Uh, I’m not an animal.” Her voice trembled like thin porcelain. “You don’t need a syringe that big. I’m not livestock… And put down the chainsaw. Let’s talk.”

That needle looked like it could spear her through like a skewer. The chainsaw growled like a dog that only knows bite. This should be an experiment, not a blood harvest.

The Doctor stared, speechless, like a mountain facing a noisy stream. Maybe they’d misunderstood.

“I said she’s a girl with the heart of the Calamity Dragon,” he snapped, thunder behind the words, “not the Calamity Dragon itself. What’s all this for?”

The two muttered apologies, cheeks pale as paper. They tossed the syringe and saw aside, metal clattering like dropped antlers. They switched to rubber tubes with needles and proper instruments, vines instead of axes, and ringed Night Frost again.

With the switch, her fear eased like smoke in rain. Still, looking at their eager faces, she worried they’d pull out another strange toy, a snake from a basket.

“One question first,” she said, heart steadying like a drum. “How many vials?”

Alcohol chilled the inner elbow, a cool dew across tender skin anyone might bite. The needle slid in, light as a gnat’s sting.

“Six vials,” they said, calm as a ledger. “That’s the minimum. We don’t yet know if the Black Dragon heart’s functions are also suppressed by that bracelet’s seal. If you can’t endure, say so early.”

Night Frost nodded, a leaf agreeing with wind. Dark red blood, edged with shadow, streamed from her wrist into plastic. But as it left her, Black Flame wreathed with Crimson Gold Flame kissed the plastic mouth and bloomed, fire like molten gold on ink, melting it into a sagging puddle.

Ordinary plastic couldn’t hold the mingled blood of Night Frost and the Black Dragon, a river too hot for petty banks. The Doctor had prepared vessels dusted with Obsidian Stone powder, night sand mixed in glass. He handed one to the researcher who was hopping and yelping, palms scorched by Crimson Gold Flame, a sun-bite through gloves.

The Doctor set the remaining special tubes on the table, aligning them like chess pieces. Thought flickered in his eyes, a lighthouse beam.

Night Frost’s flame had changed. It used to be pure Black Flame, the Black Dragon’s gift, a moonlit fire. The Crimson Gold Flame felt different, warm like a sun rising from within; it seemed hers.

Black Flame comes from the dragon’s heart. Where does the Crimson Gold Flame spring from, a hidden spring under stone?

The bracelet should suppress Mana, a frost ring on a wild river. It can’t crush the Black Dragon’s power, mountain against mountain. So why does Crimson Gold Flame, born of Mana, rise with her blood, a barred river breaking its dam?

Is Crimson Gold Mana stronger than the bracelet’s pressure? Or is Black Flame mutating within her heart, a seed shifting inside a furnace?

Night Frost carried secrets like sealed scrolls under ice.

The blood-draw was slow as winter rain. With no phone, no toy, she stared at the ceiling, a blank sky, and began mapping escape routes, lines like gull flight over water.

The Doctor stood behind the glass, a silent pine watching snow. He didn’t leave because he feared new moths flitting toward the flame.

From the fourth vial, pain prickled her arm like thorns. The place felt hollowed, a dry well. Her control over Mana grew lax, strings slack on a zither; she’d need time to mend.

Time thinned like tea. When the vials were done, her body turned light, a paper lantern on a breeze. She felt the loss, too much blood gone. The Doctor set iron-rich drinks and food beside her, bowls like little hearths, then nodded to the staff and slipped away like a swift swallow.

She wanted to do something, to move, but exhaustion pressed like wet sand. Her lids drooped; she knew sleep was a net she couldn’t fall into now, not with eyes watching.

The lab had ventilation ducts, but they were welded shut like dragon scales. Even if she peeled them open, she didn’t know the paths they veered through, a burrowed maze. If only she could get a layout map, a lantern in the tunnels.

They measured heart rate, blood pressure, Mana index, numbers ticking like rain on eaves. After a whole afternoon’s bustle, they let Night Frost go; her stomach drummed hollow, hunger a wolf pacing.

The elevator whooshed to the bottom, a swallow diving. She felt weightless, a space lift in cloud—really just blood loss and an empty bowl.

When the doors opened, Yin Chen Yue dashed from a narrow alley like a sparrow from a hedge.

“What are you doing here?” Night Frost’s words were a soft chide, a hand to guide. “Not heading back to eat, and instead waiting by the elevator?”

“Good afternoon, Night Frost sis~” Her eyes were bright as beads. “I’m just waiting for someone.”

She was as guileless as spring water, saying everything like beads strung on a cord. Night Frost had warned her not to tell strangers too much; but now, to Yin Chen Yue, Night Frost wasn’t a stranger, more like a lantern in a dark hall.

“Waiting for who?” Night Frost asked, voice light as wind.

“My dad!” Hope tugged her words like a kite string. “He said he’ll be back in a few days!”

“Where did your dad go?” Night Frost followed her gaze to the elevator, a steel throat swallowing and spitting people.

“He said he’s going up, and he’ll return within a month.” She counted days like pearls. “It’s day seventeen! In thirteen more days Daddy will be back… How’s that? My math’s not bad!”

She spread her hand, clumsily making a one and a seven, fingers like crooked branches trying to be numbers.

“Only… every time he comes back, he leaves again after a few days.” Her voice thinned like an evening wind. “I know Dad’s busy… But Yin Chen Yue doesn’t want him to go. He never listens, and he won’t take me along. He always says it’s for my own good…”