White Thought’s state slipped off-kilter, like a candle guttering in a draft. Qianli moved in at once, quick as a swallow cutting air. Aileaf drew a calming draught, clear as springwater, and poured it like rain past the girl’s lips.

After her storm quieted and she fainted, they set White Thought on the bed like a leaf on still water. Cerqin glanced at Aileaf, doubt pooling like a dusk shadow.

“What is this about?” Her voice fell like a pebble into a calm pond.

“Something brushed the world’s fate,” Aileaf said, her tone cool as moonlight on stone. “She took backlash, and a third-tier body is still too thin a reed.”

She checked White Thought with fingers light as moth wings, then let out a breath like fog. “At least we confirmed a few things.”

“So what even is that Four Pole Stars?” Qianli’s relief broke like a thaw after seeing the girl safe, and he shot Cerqin a look as sharp as sleet before turning to Aileaf.

“Mm… I don’t know much,” Aileaf said, eyes deep as a forest well. “The year I was born, our Littlefolk Great Sage left a prophecy at his ascension, feathers scattering like snow.”

She didn’t bother to hide it, and after a long look at Cerqin, needle-fine beneath silk, she went on like a stream finding its course. “Bloodline gifts that touch fate are rare birds, and you know it—most carry heavy backlash, and many skew off-true, like compasses near lightning.”

“The Great Sage’s prophecy said, in broad strokes, that within a century the world would face a great calamity, and four stars would save it,” she said, each word slow as falling ash.

“Sounds like the kind of myth that drifts through alleys like incense smoke,” Qianli muttered, and Cerqin nodded, a quiet reed in the wind.

“I thought so at first,” Aileaf said, steady as a lantern in rain, “but what he spoke has come true, one ember after another.”

“So the Four Pole Stars likely exist for real,” Cerqin said, brows knitting like clouds before rain.

“Not just that…” Aileaf hesitated, her silence a held breath under ice. “He was strong, and he spent his life at the brink—so his words cut truer, and there were more of them, like constellations no one maps in one night.”

“In any case, we should tell Spring Tide,” she added, the decision dropping like a seal on wax.

“A world-scale calamity…” Qianli said, his heart floating like a leaf in a flood. “It still feels unreal.”

For mid-tier practitioners, a century is a long dusk, not a grave; for high-tier, even human years stretch like old pines on a cliff. If the prophecy is true, the edge of the blade might already glint like dawn.

“No need to panic yet,” Aileaf said, voice like a hand smoothing ripples. “A calamity that sweeps the whole world will cast omens long as shadows. For now, we only see more wielders of divine abilities in one age, like stars crowding a winter sky. We’re safe for the moment, but we should still lay stores like ants before rain.”

“Almost feels better not knowing,” Qianli said, a wry smile thin as frost.

“For real. My mood’s already gone gray like a wet sky,” Cerqin replied, and they traded a look, their helplessness light as smoke. Even if doomsday rolled in a few years like a tide, mid-tier strength was a reed against a storm.

Such worries belonged to gods above the heavens, clouds on a peak they couldn’t climb.

White Thought woke soon, dazed as a fawn in mist, one hand pressed to her temple like sheltering a fragile flame. The three shook off their talk like dew, and Cerqin drifted close with a crescent smile that gleamed like a new moon.

The sudden nearness jolted White Thought like a bird flushed from grass. Her small hand clutched the quilt, retreating inch by inch like a crab before a wave, and Cerqin drank in the sight like sun on frost.

Cerqin ignored Aileaf’s small hand at her waist, gentle as ivy, and the girl’s instinctive shiver, quick as a startled ripple. She spoke slowly, voice soft as velvet rain. “Spring Tide should’ve told you, right?”

“You mean Her Highness the Holy Maiden…” White Thought answered on reflex, her daze lifting like fog to reveal a lady’s poise. Then Cerqin’s face drew so close the world narrowed like a tunnel, and fear flickered back in her eyes like a candle in wind.

“…”

“Why’re you that scared?” Cerqin laughed, bright as sun through leaves, and fished a small bottle from her storage bracelet, its glass cold as a dew bead.

It was the new medicine Aileaf had handed her that morning, clear as a trapped drop of rain. White Thought squeaked the moment she saw it, the sound quick as a sparrow.

“Hehe. Spring Tide should’ve told you she’d keep you in the Sanctuary,” Cerqin said, words lilted like a carefree tune. “Being a Nun’s not bad at all. How about it? Want to run with me?”

“What are you doing, Cerqin…” Qianli’s face darkened like gathering clouds, and Aileaf cut in, voice flat as slate. “Cerqin, what are you plotting? Spring Tide won’t allow it.”

“Huh? I just want a Nun to help with chores, like a steady hand in a busy kitchen. Why wouldn’t she agree?” Cerqin’s blink was innocent as rain on bamboo.

“A helper?” Aileaf frowned, a crease like a drawn string. “You want an obedient underling—so why pick her?”

White Thought’s identity was a bright lantern; even as a Nun, she’d be a protected flame under a glass. After returning to Eastern Sea City with the Holy Maiden’s convoy, she’d be watched like a jewel in a coffer. Until she grew strong and proved loyal to the Sanctuary, the lid would stay shut like night.

Cerqin knew all that like the pattern on her own palm, yet during these months of the Holy Maiden’s tour, she still wanted a hand to send like a swift.

She tossed out a few light words like leaves, and Qianli nodded, understanding flowing in like tide. Cerqin might be close as breath with Spring Tide, but the knight-guards who shielded the Holy Maiden were iron as spears; Cerqin couldn’t order them like wind.

Aileaf fell quiet for a beat, silence clear as winter air. “You sure this isn’t for some other purpose?”

“Come on, little Aileaf, what do you take me for?” Cerqin’s grin flashed like a fox in snow. “If someone isn’t into me, I don’t make a move. I’m a purely reactive creature.”

It was her creed: only when feelings echoed like call and response would she step. Whether Spring Tide, Silver Luan, or Aileaf—it was the same river rule. Thoroughly passive, Cerqin felt the need to lay it out again like a boundary stone.

“I might ‘borrow’ some clothes like a magpie, sure,” she added, palm up like a harmless breeze, “but I don’t touch lines I shouldn’t, not even a thread.”

“Have a little faith in me, okay?” Her wink was playful as sun on waves.

“Fine… I don’t mind one more person anyway,” Aileaf said, the concession light as a falling leaf.

“Nope. Spring Tide and Silver Luan would kill me!” Cerqin threw up her hands like a girl dodging rain.

White Thought listened, her mood a tangle like vines, because the pink-haired girl who’d once abducted her left a thorny impression. The bottle was the main thorn, glinting cold as ice.

Just thinking of that medicine’s feel turned her bones to frost, fear rising like a winter wind.

“I’m not good at serving others…” she said, voice small as a whisper through reeds.

“I know,” Cerqin said, half amused, half helpless, a sigh like warm tea. “I never asked you to serve me. I’m not into you.”

“…”

“I was thinking, if I ever develop some fun restraints and instruments…” Cerqin mused, eyes bright as cat’s eyes at night.

“…”

“Why that face?” She waved both hands like fluttering fans. “I wouldn’t use them on you!”

“Then… could you put that potion away? I’m scared,” White Thought said, her usually composed face crumpling like wet paper, tears threatening like rain.

“Uh… fine,” Cerqin said, tucking the bottle away like a moon into cloud. “I want an assistant for magitech apparatus, and a hand for procurement, bookkeeping, and all the little tides of work.”

“I see,” White Thought murmured, her gaze clearing like a rinsed sky.

“So, want to run with me?” Cerqin asked again, her look warm as a hearth. She could’ve asked Spring Tide and gotten a helper in a snap, rain to a field, and if Spring Tide spoke, White Thought would never refuse. But Cerqin still preferred to recruit with her own two hands, thread by thread.

White Thought hesitated, her heart a skittish bird. The bad memories pushed her toward refusal like wind at her back, yet fear tugged her sleeve—the fear that this pink-haired girl would force that potion down again like a storm.

“Um… I…”

“If you agree to be my little brother,” Cerqin said with a grin sharp as a blade of light, “I’ll beg for White Feather. I’ll get them to go easy on her, fewer storms, fewer ropes.”

“I agree!” White Thought’s answer leapt out like a spark to tinder.

“Hehe, then it’s settled,” Cerqin laughed, pleased as a cat in sun. “The wise ride the wind and know the season.”