Felt like the prey walked into our snare, a fat carp leaping straight into the boat.

We’d split into pairs and trios on purpose, like nets flung over many coves, sweeping several suspect spots for ripples of bandit activity.

Catch a loner, wring the truth out like water from a reed, then map their nests by the drips.

Cerqin hadn’t expected the hideout to fall into her hands so easily; after she refilled the unlucky girl’s strength with a touch, the three of them arrowed for the lair, wind in the pines at their backs.

On the way, the unlucky girl sketched herself in quick strokes, like a name brushed on wet silk, and told how she slipped the snare.

“She’s Qiqi,” Cerqin thought, tasting the name like spring water; she looked young, yet older than Cerqin and Silver Luan, a fallen noble’s daughter blown off the main road by a headwind.

She’d angered a powerful noble in the imperial capital, lost any fair work like seeds washed off a terrace, and took up adventuring with the grit of a wildflower in stone.

Cerqin felt a prickle of respect first, a lantern’s warm halo before the words; you rarely heard of common folk offending a lord and walking away unburned.

“Anyway, that noble’s my brother-in-law… but that bastard wanted to ship me off to Princess Nimi as a maid,” Qiqi spat, like a thorn flicked from the tongue.

“Princess Nimi? Right, that pervert,” Cerqin said, a shadow crossing her gaze like a cloud over the moon.

“Right? That’s throwing me to the fire pit,” Qiqi snapped, heat in her chest like a brazier, “so I ran.”

Hearing Cerqin knew the little princess’s nature, Qiqi’s emotions jumped like sparrows in bamboo.

“Mm. The right choice,” Cerqin said first, calm settling like dew; she’d seen the imperial princess’s twisted tastes, and told Qiqi the girl was currently missing.

“Taken by cultists? For real?” Qiqi’s voice trembled like a plucked string.

“For real,” Cerqin said, flat as a pond at dawn.

“His Majesty dotes on her,” Qiqi muttered, picturing storms over the royal capital, “the palace must be upended right now.”

Cerqin nodded, a quiet leaf-fall.

“Her life’s probably safe—for now,” she said, voice like cool shade. “That cult wants to forge a divine artifact. Until the goal’s done, they won’t end her life.”

“As for other kinds of hurt,” Cerqin added, a smile thin as a blade of grass, “who knows.”

Qiqi flinched at that, memory stinging like salt in a cut, the last few days rising like black smoke.

“I’d say even if she ends up a toy, it’s her karma,” Qiqi said, bitterness like old tea.

“Fair,” Cerqin murmured; the thought of that pervert finally paying a price felt like frost on a fever.

Honestly, the bottle she’d crammed in earlier hadn’t felt satisfying enough, an itch under the nail.

They moved deeper and stopped before a dense copse, a thicket like ink strokes clustered near a stream—the center of the area, close to water like a camp craving a well.

It had been one of their likeliest guesses, a red pin stuck on the map.

“Inside that grove is their camp,” Qiqi whispered, voice like a reed whistle.

“Mm. Looks right,” Silver Luan said after a slow sweep, her gaze catching hidden sentries on the fringe like owls tucked in leaves.

“Do we fire the signal?” Cerqin asked from the weeds, her head low as a fox, eyes on the shadowed trees.

Before splitting up, Baili had given them signal-arrows; shoot one skyward, let it bloom with a crack, and you mark your spot like a flare over water.

“Not yet. Watch first,” Silver Luan murmured, a hand like a stayed wave; the bandits were mediocre, but the reports said at least one Fifth Rank lurked like a deep current.

Spook them, and they’d scatter like starlings, gone before the net fell.

The Sanctuary guard squad had strong averages but few hands; the forest was large as a sea, and they’d barely waded in.

Even if they saw the flare, gathering the ring would take time like ropes pulled tight.

Better to wait, let the teams tighten the circle like a noose, then call.

But bare waiting wasn’t Silver Luan’s way; the edge in her tone was a drawn bow.

“I’ll slip in and scout,” she said, steps already angling like a hawk’s glide.

“Wait,” Cerqin blurted, emotion first like a palm to a chest, and grabbed her sleeve.

“What?” Silver Luan’s eyes narrowed, steel under frost.

“You’re not the stealthy kind,” Cerqin said, wincing at the memory of the ambush on the Holy Maiden’s convoy, a carriage shattered like lacquerware.

“…”

“Let me.”

“Too dangerous,” Silver Luan said, warning like a bell.

“I’m Fifth Rank. Their strongest is Fifth Rank. My life’s not on the line,” Cerqin said, steady as a stone in current.

“…”

Silver Luan frowned, an ink crease between the brows.

“And I’m better at hiding,” Cerqin added, a small glow of pride like lantern-fire. “Back at Second and Third Rank, I was the alley ghost.”

Half a chest of trophies slept in storage—spoils won before she ever learned the Hand of Space, all under low moonlight and quick feet.

If she hadn’t ticked off the Holy Maiden Spring Tide and blown her cover in a flash, she’d still be a shadow-artist among her peers, a cat between rafters.

“Fine,” Silver Luan yielded at last, the word a sheathed blade; like Cerqin said, a Fifth Rank with legs was hard to pin, even for a Sixth Rank one-on-one.

“Heh, I’m off,” Cerqin grinned, joy pricking like cold air; she damped her aura down to a whisper, the way you pinch a candle to a coal.

Beyond footwork and a few concealment spells, the heart of stealth was holding your own power still, like tea gone clear.

If you let it spill, anyone near your level would feel the ripple as soon as you stepped into their pond.

She flattened to the earth, using raised stones as a low ridge, and slid forward fast; she moved like a grass snake, silent as mist.

“This girl had this kind of gift?” Silver Luan breathed, surprise like a lifted brow.

“So good,” Qiqi whispered, eyes wide as twin moons.

“You said you cut your ropes with your ability and slipped when they weren’t looking,” Silver Luan added, voice a quiet reed. “Feels like they never noticed.”

“Mm… I think they did,” Qiqi said after a beat, thought curling like smoke, “they just didn’t care.”

“They kept me in that room with no rest, like a wheel that never stops, someone coming every hour,” she said, words tasting of iron.

“They knew you were gone and still didn’t chase,” Silver Luan mused, doubt like a seed.

“They’ve got plenty of captives,” Qiqi said. “And they already moved camp once. I’m guessing after they… release a batch of hostages, they’ll shift again.”

“So they’ll move soon,” Silver Luan concluded, a line drawn in sand.

The camp had about seventy to eighty bodies; the leader’s strength was a fog, and if not for those few Fifth Rank among the captives, a clean suppression would be simple as sweeping leaves.

If that woman leader was Fifth Rank, better to wait until the other knights pressed close and made a full ring, then strike and bind.

If they learned the net tightening was Sanctuary knights, the woman might fight like a cornered wolf and bolt.

Inside the grove, Cerqin slid past two sentries; Third Rank senses couldn’t catch Fifth Rank speed, like moths missing a silent owl.

She slipped to the outer rim of the central camp, a spine of tents and wood huts raised like mushrooms after rain.

A dozen-plus tents and seven or eight huts stood there, work rough and temporary; broken half-built walls lay like ribs in the grass.

Many were loading baggage, the scene bustled like ants shifting nest, clearly ready to pull stakes.

They’d noticed someone fled, but hadn’t expected footsteps so soon, thunder rolling just beyond the ridge.

Cerqin scanned and found no obvious hostages, yet the bandits skewed female; among the thirty-odd she could count, more than half were women, faces like winter and summer mixed.

Most sat around Third Rank, a shallow pool; she didn’t spot a Fourth Rank at all.

Weaker than the guess, she thought; maybe a straight strike to seize the head, then talk the rest down like calming a herd.

She fixed on that plan and started a quiet circle to head back, but the camp’s hum suddenly tangled, noise rising like a flock kicked up.

A girl stepped from a hut, with a touch of big-house grace, like plum blossoms in worn wood; those who saw her bowed one after another, a field bending to wind.

“That’s the bandit boss?” Cerqin frowned, doubt fluttering like a moth; the girl’s aura barely stirred the air—a low Third Rank at best—yet the respect around her was a tide.