Night Frost couldn’t sit still. Anger flared like a struck match, helplessness hung in her eyes like rain. She sprang up and rushed the white-clad middle-aged man, a gust over stone. In a blink she was in his face. She grabbed his collar and hauled him up.

“Can you even open a door? You know it won’t, yet you keep twisting. Trying to keep me out on purpose, huh?”

The heavy keyring fell, chiming bright like a dropped bell. Night Frost stooped, the motion smooth as a cat, and picked it up. She studied the glinting metal with a hunter’s focus.

There were more than fifty keys, a small river of silver teeth under her palm. Numbers were etched on their faces, matched to the plates of nearby buildings. They were likely keys to portions of the residential blocks around here—no telling where he’d fished them up.

Still, Night Frost felt it in her bones like the cold. This man had ties to Rouge Rabbit’s staff. Someone had sent a sharp-looking, too-clever fool to get into the Doctor’s place. The true aim hid like mist. Odds were, it had something to do with Night Frost.

“Lin! Lin?”

Her shout cut the air like a sharp reed. A figure drifted over, reluctant as a leaf in weak wind, and stopped before Night Frost. She treated him like a servant, a beckoned shadow. Lin had no way to shake it.

He’d watched from afar, eyes cool as frost. The key had snapped inside the lock. The door was one of the Doctor’s special pieces, hard as old oak. Brute force might work. Lin wasn’t about to help her.

Seeing Night Frost sleep in the street promised a small, mean victory, a petty sun to warm his pride. Tit for tat was a river without a bridge—but the feeling was sweet enough.

“Ahem. For public safety,” he said, voice smooth as lacquer, “I’ll take him in for a proper look. I’ll send someone to change the lock tomorrow. Good luck tonight—”

Before Night Frost could speak, Lin whisked away with the white-clad man, fear shining in that man’s eyes like wet glass. He also snatched the silver-white keyring from Night Frost’s hand. They vanished like wind down a tunnel.

She’d wanted to ask the man’s identity and have Lin crack the door like a nut. Now that chance slid away like water. No intel tonight. And Night Frost would likely be sleeping under the open sky.

Not a total loss, though. Her fingers, quick as minnows, found a few keys in her pocket. They’d slipped from the ring when she grabbed it, a lucky accident.

Time had been a knife at her back, so she hadn’t fished many. Only five or six lay in her pocket, cold as coins. Judging by their numbers and order, they belonged to apartments near the elevator. Maybe one would be the winning draw.

Night Frost felt the odds like dry dust—low.

So the question lay before her like a crossroads: where to sleep tonight? She could go squeeze in with Yin Chen Yue. That shouldn’t be a crime, right?

Oh, right—she was a girl now. That made it simple as sunlight. Was this one of the perks?

No, no. Night Frost, you might wear a girl’s face, but your heart stays a guy’s. Hold your line like a mountain. You can’t take advantage of a little girl.

Otherwise, you’ll be sleeping outside. The underground city wasn’t that cold, like late autumn instead of winter. Still, sleeping on the street spoiled the night like grit in tea. Pride wasn’t worth a bowl of rice.

In the end, with cold needling her belly like thin knives, Night Frost hugged her lower stomach and tapped gently on Yin Chen Yue’s door.

Luck stirred like a small flame. Yin Chen Yue hadn’t gone to bed yet. Night Frost fell into her soft quilt like a tired bird into a nest. She drank tea the girl had brewed, warmth spreading like dawn.

“Saved...”

She was just a regular person who could move Mana, a reed toughened by running water. Mana had rinsed her body, but only into “stronger than most.” Fire could still burn her. Cold could still bite. And the monthly pain still bent her like a willow.

She shared what had happened, brief as a breath. The reply came as expected, hot as a kettle.

“That guy went way too far!”

Under hot tea and gentle tending, Night Frost felt better, the ache leaving her like mist at noon. She changed out of clothes stained red, shame pricking like thorns. Wearing Yin Chen Yue’s spare clothes, cheeks pink as peach blossom, she tucked herself half-curled on the bed.

It was mortifying, like mud on silk.

She’d been the one caring for Yin Chen Yue. Now Yin Chen Yue cared for her. She used the girl’s things. She took the girl’s bed. Guilt grew like a shadow at dusk.

Yin Chen Yue saw her reluctance, eyes bright as a night lamp. Young as she was, her social grace glided like a swallow. She refilled a cup of warm water and leaned close beside Night Frost.

“Sister Night Frost has cared for me so much. Now it’s my turn to care for Sister Night Frost.”

Night Frost watched the slim figure head to the kitchen, a reed in moonlight. Warmth spread through her chest like a hearth’s glow. A soft, maternal shine touched her face. She wanted a little sister that obedient.

Soon Yin Chen Yue came back, yawning like a small cat. Sleep tugged at her; the hour had slipped past midnight like sand through a sieve. It made sense.

Night Frost considered making a floor bed, the thought gray as old felt. Sleeping together felt like a crime scribbled in chalk. Last time with Qianchun had been the same. She simply wasn’t built to handle this.

Before she could speak, Yin Chen Yue dove under the covers, a sparrow into straw, and hugged Night Frost tight. For a moment, Night Frost couldn’t move, held by warmth like a net.

Feeling Yin Chen Yue’s heat against her, Night Frost tasted a nameless guilt, coppery as blood. Qianchun had made her feel the same. The unease sat in her chest like a stone.

It wasn’t really her fault. Through college, aside from Chen Xiaoyin, she hardly dealt with the opposite sex. Sharing a bed with a girl? Foreign as snow in summer.

“Um, I’ll just make a floor bed...”

Yin Chen Yue, eyes half-closed like crescent moons, wouldn’t have it. Her arms tightened like vines, and she pouted, voice small as a whisper.

“Do you dislike me?”

Night Frost couldn’t find words, like fishing in a dark pond.

“No... it’s just, I’m a guy on the inside. It feels kind of... not right.”

Yin Chen Yue buried her face in Night Frost’s chest and rubbed, a kitten seeking warmth. She probably took “I’m a guy” as a flimsy excuse to slip away.

“Should I call you Sister Night Frost or Brother Night Frost? Hmm, sister. Sister Night Frost can only be sister. Besides, what’s wrong with it? Even brothers share a bed!”

“Is Sister shy?”

Her big eyes flickered like starlight and met Night Frost’s red-gold gaze. The look made refusal feel cruel as winter. It was just sleep, nothing more. In this body, Night Frost couldn’t do anything anyway. She yielded like water.

“Sister, Chen Yue has a tiny request. Could you hold me...?”

The sudden ask froze Night Frost again, ice on a pond.

“Is it not okay...?”

In the faint night glow, she saw crystals of wetness in Yin Chen Yue’s eyes.

If you looked closely, Yin Chen Yue was lonely, quiet as an empty street. Her father came back only one or two days a month. Her mother’s whereabouts were mist on the river. It felt likely she was from a single-parent home.

She lived alone, learned independence early, cooking and dressing and sleeping by herself, never complaining, waiting day by day for her father to return. Neighbors gave help and warmth, but their distance sat like a fence. They had their own lives.

Night Frost was different, a lamp that stayed. She had time. Whenever she could, she cared for Yin Chen Yue. She chased away the girl’s loneliness like wind dispersing cloud. Yin Chen Yue regarded her as a sister—or family.

In two days, the father would be back. Night Frost remembered, the thought soft as a note.

Night Frost said little. She gently wrapped her arms around the small Yin Chen Yue, a sheltering branch. The girl’s eyes slipped shut, and she fell asleep quickly, worn out like a tired sparrow. No wonder—she’d been sleeping late for days.

Night Frost watched her quiet breaths rise and fall like tides. She let her own eyes close, slow as dusk.

Lin dragged the white-clad man to an underground cell, iron cool as cave air. He bound the man, then laid out tools, cruel as winter instruments. He raised the keyring and pressed it to the man’s face, ready to begin.

Before Lin asked a single question, the man spilled everything, words tumbling like beans. Soft-boned, pliant as wet clay. Lin had prepared tools for nothing.

“It was that black-haired woman. She told me to probe the girl’s strength inside that room. She promised me two thousand credits. She gave me the keys. One snapped before I even got it open.”

“But believe me, I didn’t do anything. I was just tempted for a moment... please, please spare me!”

Lin kicked the tools aside, iron clattering like broken thunder. The man hadn’t done much. Lin decided to leave him hungry a few meals. He’d learn this place was a blessing like spring rain, and he’d tried to ruin it.

“Didn’t she tell you the door was replaced? Your keys opening that thing would be a miracle.”

Lin’s exasperation rose like steam. Chu Qing should’ve known the door was changed. She probably knew he’d fail and sent him to pry Night Frost’s door, just to take a beating and weigh Night Frost’s strength.

“Does she have rivals for favor? Seeing everyone as an enemy won’t help her,” he muttered, words dry as dust.

Too many enemies lead to death like a cliff’s edge. Lin didn’t care about her fate. She was trouble, a traitor acknowledged among the Magic Maidens. Flawed, but strong as tempered steel.

Her style and spirit bent wrong, like a warped bow. The Doctor had shown clear disinterest in conflict, yet she still counted him an enemy, even with little real friction.

That was Chu Qing’s mind. Lin’s job was his own steady path. He wouldn’t let her touch Night Frost before the Doctor finished the research, a promise held like a seal.

Now she likely knew the measure of Night Frost, weight like a blade. After this test, she’d move.

“Hey. I just thought of something fun,” Lin said, a grin thin as a knife. “Let them fight first. When disaster’s about to break, I’ll step in.”

He decided not to tell Night Frost.