“Could you be gentler next time?” Her voice drifted like a feather across still water.

“Then could you drop that weird kink of yours?” His reply snapped like dry twig underfoot.

Several carriages sped along a wilderness road, a silver current of wheels and hooves flowing through scrub and stone.

A dozen knights in silver plate guarded the convoy, their lances like young pines swaying in the wind.

Silver filigree gleamed on the carriage panels, and a crest of sword and blossom shone on the armor, like moonlight on a river’s edge.

All of it announced the convoy’s true face, a banner unfurled like a white crane crossing the sky.

It was the Holy Maiden’s Sacred Visitation, already days out from Eastern Sea City, like a pilgrim star drifting west.

In the middle carriage, Spring Tide and Cerqin sat together, their old argument looping like waves slapping the same shore.

It wasn’t a standoff so much as Cerqin’s steady complaint, a drizzle that wouldn’t stop no matter how you cupped your hands.

She just wanted time to rest, like a field lying fallow under soft rain.

She’d thought the ride would grant mercy until the next city, a cool shade under roadside trees.

Who knew the green‑haired girl would pounce whenever a sliver of time opened, hands like quick fish slipping upstream.

Outside training and meals, Spring Tide never stopped, like a spring flood chewing the banks.

The carriage was custom work, soft as a silk cocoon and roomy as a gourd turned hollow by time.

Inside, it was a proper bedroom, a still pond with no ripple of jolts breaking the surface.

What made Cerqin want to cry was this: shout all you like, unless the window opened, the outside stayed deaf as stone.

But any noise outside, once raised, came through inside clear as a bell across winter air.

Wasn’t that a perfect crime scene, a fox’s den hidden under snow?

Before reaching the next city, the Holy Maiden had no duties besides her daily cultivation, a moon with only one ritual orbit.

Nothing else to do meant doing Cerqin, like rain pattering a single eave until dawn.

Thanks to these hand‑over‑hand, high‑frequency “lessons,” Cerqin felt her recovery growing, a sapling thickening ring by ring.

That alone pleased her: the harsh drain and the swift rebound ate mana by themselves, a tide flushing her body each time it returned.

It replaced her usual sitting meditation, like the wind saving a boat the labor of oars.

“You bounce back fast, so a little rough is fine—that was your line,” Spring Tide said, eyes bright as dew on bamboo.

Cerqin choked on words, a sparrow catching a seed and not knowing where to perch.

She had said that, back when her brain was a lantern swayed by her body’s wind.

“Then I want more rest,” she murmured, her mood a wilted leaf before rain.

She shrank into the warm arms behind her, like a cat curling under a quilt.

She tugged the thin blanket up to her collarbone, a small shield like a shell against the tide.

“Don’t you ever get tired of this?” Her sigh drifted like mist from a teacup.

“Do you?” Spring Tide’s smile cut like sunlight through cloud.

“…”

Being the Holy Maiden’s personal Nun was hard, a mountain trail that kept turning and never crested.

Cerqin held her tongue, guarding this patch of rest like a candle cupped against wind.

So she yanked the topic aside, a boat pushing off a snagged reed.

“How long till the city? Four days in this carriage—I’m getting sick of it,” she said, her tone a pebble skipping twice.

“About halfway,” Spring Tide answered, eyes counting miles like beads. “We sped up. We’ll arrive two days early.”

“Fine,” Cerqin breathed, her acceptance falling like a leaf that knew the stream’s path.

Ten days compressed to eight was the limit, a rope pulled tight but not snapped.

They ran a straight line from Eastern Sea City to the first stop, Eastwind City, like an arrow loosed true.

No detours to small towns, which the plan ignored, small ponds outside the pilgrimage’s map.

Time was the first blade here, but a letter was the second, slid beneath the door at dawn.

It was a report naming a Divine Officer in Eastwind City’s Sanctuary, a thorn lodged under white cloth.

It accused him of treason to the Sanctuary, of consorting with a cult and hosting rites in shadow, like mushrooms after rain.

The letter reached Spring Tide right after she left Eastern Sea City, borne by a rider like a hawk stooping fast.

He brought Archbishop Mingxi’s word as well: arrive early, protect the Nun who informed, and learn the truth, like lanterns lit before night deepened.

“Once we hit Eastwind City, we’ll be busy,” Spring Tide said, voice a bell before market. “So while we can—”

“…” Cerqin’s silence drooped like a willow switch over water.

How did this green‑haired Holy Maiden always pluck the right excuse to bully her, a magpie who knew every shiny coin?

Cerqin rolled her eyes, clouds skimming a blue ridge, yet her body obeyed like tide to moon.

They went at it till noon, sweat beading like rain on tiled eaves.

When the convoy halted to rest, the knight‑captain rapped the window, his knuckles a short drum at mealtime.

Only then did Spring Tide rise from Cerqin, their skin parting like wet leaves unpeeling after rain.

She dressed without fuss, motions neat as folded paper cranes, then nudged the dazed girl, a fingertip like a tap on still ice.

“You coming out to eat, or should I bring yours in?” Her tone rang light, a bell on a kite string.

“…” Cerqin stared, a deer in brush with ears held high.

“I know you’ve recovered already,” Spring Tide added, eyes like clear wells. “Don’t try to fool me. If you won’t say, I’ll bring it.”

She turned toward the door, steps quick as bird tracks in fresh snow.

“Wait,” Cerqin blurted, springing up like a startled hare. “I’ll eat outside. I don’t want to eat alone.”

Who knew what Spring Tide would do in the carriage, a fox in its own den?

Meals were sacred, a hearth that shouldn’t share a door with anything else.

They stepped out one after the other, shadows stretching like ribbons across the camp.

On both sides of the road, the knights had set up pots and fires, iron mouths breathing like little dragons.

Soon, a rich meaty scent rose from the cauldrons, smoke twining like ink in wind.

Cerqin took a bowl of broth, hands warmed like stones in sun, and drank in a rush.

She exhaled a breath rich with a thread of mana, a white plume like kettle steam in winter.

Strength crawled through her limbs, a vine twining one ring tighter, and the taste hooked her like honey on the tongue.

Only then did she think, with a soft glow in her chest, that being a Nun of the Sanctuary was a blessing like rain in a drought.

Meat from powerful beasts, with top‑tier herbs, worked wonders for the low ranks, a tonic spring under rock.

But the cost made common folk flinch, a cliff too sheer to climb.

“At this rate, a few more months and I’ll break through,” she muttered, voice a thread unwinding like silk.

She went for a second bowl, steps quick as sparrows, then sat beside Spring Tide, their shoulders like two reeds in the same breeze.

She swept her pink hair behind her ear, a petal tucked back on its stem, then blew gently on the rim.

Her big eyes flickered with hope, fireflies in a dusk grove.

Spring Tide swallowed, throat tight as if her rice turned to sand, appetite drifting like smoke.

“Fourth Rank at sixteen is real talent,” she said, praise like clear water in a bamboo cup. “Your future’s wide open.”

“Easy for you to say,” Cerqin shot back, a smile thin as a moon sliver. “You’re barely a year older, and you’re already Sixth Rank.”

“From you, it sounds like mockery,” she added, the words a thorn wrapped in cotton.

She knew the praise was sincere, but still she sighed, a reed bowing to a light gust.

She’d caught that flash in Spring Tide’s eyes earlier, a coal under ash waiting to glow.

“What are you plotting?” she asked, edging away like a crab from a wave. “We’re outside. People are watching.”

Spring Tide gave her a look, cool as shade on stone, and sipped her broth like a cat at saucer’s edge.

“I’m not that desperate,” she said, a dusting of frost over a laugh.

“Aren’t you?” Cerqin teased, her grin a fox’s ripple in tall grass.

“Hmm? I don’t mind shutting you up in front of them,” Spring Tide murmured, voice soft as velvet but edged like steel.

“I was wrong,” Cerqin said at once, surrendering like a flag lowered at dusk.

“No apology accepted,” Spring Tide replied, her smile a blade in a flower sleeve. “We’ll handle it back in the carriage.”

“Eep~” Cerqin’s little sound fluttered like a sparrow startled from bamboo.

Just as their banter threatened to become after‑meal exercise, a vast black mass burst from the far treeline, a storm shouldering out of green.

It was a tree, roots ragged with clotted soil, yanked from the earth like a tooth from a jaw.

In a single breath, the tree streaked in with eerie speed, a whoosh splitting the air like a hawk’s dive.

It arrived before them with a banshee whistle, a shadowed trunk blotting sun like a sudden eclipse.