The night’s frolic didn’t run long; as the firepit breathed like a red bellows, Cerqin’s foursome, plus Baili and Qianli, slipped back to their wagons like embers drifting.
Before turning in, Spring Tide told Baili to ease up on punishing the scarred woman, White Feather, like banking a flame to let coals rest.
Another bout raged through the dark, a storm between sheets, lingering on the lip of heaven like clouds snagged on a peak.
At dawn, resolved not to drown again in that honeyed mire, Cerqin rolled over, eased three clinging bodies aside like ivy, and opened her basic magitech text.
Let only one head of the toy buzz—simplest would be to leave the other half untouched, like a blade sharpened on one side.
But that felt dull as stale tea, an arrow without fletching, so her plans forked like a river: twin ends, separate toggles, two systems joined into one.
She’d merge control at a single switch, one stem for two blooms, but the circuits would need gutting like a house stripped to beams.
The wagon wasn’t a workshop; the road jolted like restless hooves, so she’d wait for the capital to try a prototype under still lamps.
Born in the Holy Dragon Empire, she still felt a child watching dragon banners ripple, eager to see Holy Dragon City’s walls coil like a stone serpent.
It was the fattest city under heaven’s lid, granaries like seas and nobles like stars, the roost of emperors and their gilded feathers.
Thinking of the capital tugged another thread: the little princess gone missing in Eastwind City, her scent cut off like a lamp snuffed in wind.
Clues and guesses pointed to a cult’s black nets; whether they’d stir trouble again was smoke that needed no soothsayer to read.
From Eastwind’s chaos, Cerqin had emerged a strange beneficiary, lifted straight to Fifth Rank, a peach dropping from nowhere into open hands.
Sometimes she still heard wails and whispers like wind under the eaves, but a windfall like that drew envy like knives in a crowded alley.
Half reading, half drifting, she felt a light smack bloom on her rear like a plum blossom; the culprit’s identity rose with the sting.
“What is it, little Aileaf?” Her voice was a hush, a leaf brushing water; Spring Tide and Silver Luan still slept, breath warm as mist.
She tilted her head and found Aileaf staring, eyes steady as moonlight; memory pricked—Aileaf’s punches last night had landed with unusual zeal.
Because of her height, Aileaf’s small head angled up at Cerqin’s lower back; a hand slid to Cerqin’s waist, kneading like dough under soft palms.
“What’s wrong…?” The question was a thread of steam; Aileaf said nothing, only watched Cerqin’s face, a lake with no ripple.
Cerqin asked again in a murmur, but the restless hand crossed the threshold like a thief at dawn, slipped inward, and began a slow tide in and out.
Cerqin’s body went taut like a drawn bow; she tried to trap that bold hand, but Fifth Rank met Fifth Rank, and strength met water.
“Hey—wait—ah—” She kept the sound caged like a bird in palms, afraid to wake the other two and be judged by a trio of gavel eyes.
When Cerqin finally softened like silk under rain and stopped resisting, Aileaf didn’t press further; her hand stayed inside the doorway, and her body pressed close like moss to stone.
Warm breath fanned Cerqin’s lower back like spring wind; her voice trembled a little leaf. “What’s going on? Why so sudden…”
Gentle as she was by day, Aileaf ruled sleep like a queen, but she rarely stormed the gate without a word, especially at first light.
No foreplay, no teasing game, just a sudden push—it left Cerqin at sea, an oar skimming for bearings.
Aileaf finally spoke, a whisper falling like dew. “Didn’t you promise Silver Luan you’d visit the Half Dragonkin enclave with him in a few years?”
Her tone was flat as calm water, and Cerqin couldn’t see her face; she blinked, then answered simply, clouds parting. “Yeah.”
“I thought it over. After that, come back to my hometown with me.” The words dropped like pebbles into a well, rings spreading with hidden weight.
Emotion shifted beneath the surface, currents crossing; Cerqin went quiet for a few beats, then answered breezy as a wind that hid a blade. “Okay.”
She wanted to quip about saying it earlier, but didn’t dare; a gut omen rang like a struck gong—ask that, and she wouldn’t leave bed today.
Silence deepened like dusk, then Aileaf pulled her hand free in a sleek arc, drawing a small splash and a soft note from Cerqin’s throat.
“Then it’s settled~” Her sing-song curled like ribbon; the morning interlude folded shut like a fan.
Soon, Spring Tide and Silver Luan woke in turn, sunlight pooling like warm milk; Cerqin refused Silver Luan’s bright-eyed invite to storm heaven again.
Sitting on a chair nearby, book in hand like a shield, Cerqin called to Spring Tide as she dressed, linen whispering like reeds. “By the way, I forgot to ask—what’s your senior sister like? Why is the Sanctuary hunting her?”
At the table, Aileaf tinkered with bottles that chimed like glass rain; curiosity lifted her gaze, a cat peeking from curtains.
They’d avoided probing before, but saying none were curious would be a lie dressed as a monk.
Spring Tide paused; thought brushed her fine face like a shadowed wing, and she tied her green hair into a ponytail, fingers moving like willow twigs.
“Mm… she’s a very dangerous person.” The words landed like frost on early grass.
In the Eastern District, Archbishop Mingxi took many disciples besides the Holy Maiden, Spring Tide; some senior ones climbed to city-bishop rank within the Sanctuary.
The Sanctuary’s bishop in Northfort was one such branch grown strong from that root.
Among Spring Tide’s elder sisters, one had been closest to her, almost a twin flame, and the brightest candidate for this generation’s Eastern Holy Maiden.
Her name was Ming Duo, the sharpest talent of the Eastern youth, adopted daughter of Archbishop Mingxi, the sister Spring Tide worshiped as a child.
But that summit star fell; brilliance curdled into shadow, and the peak turned to a cliff.
She attacked Divine Officers and fled the Sanctuary, then did evil again and again, crimes and skill weaving like thorns around a path.
The Law Enforcement Hall hunted her; she slipped their nets many times, earning a cold nickname: the Bean Hunter.
“What even is a Bean Hunter…?” Cerqin’s brow creased, doubt flickering like a moth to flame.
Spring Tide’s face shifted into something unlike her usual calm, a mask laid aside. “Mm, it’s… literal?”
“Literal…” Silver Luan and Aileaf traded looks, confusion like mist; Silver Luan rolled his eyes. “Don’t speak in riddles.”
Cerqin connected a few dots like stars in a bad constellation. “Ming Duo isn’t… a pervert, right?”
“Mm.” Spring Tide nodded; her expression twisted stranger, a smile with a thorn.
“It’s tied to her bloodline’s trait.” Her voice ran cool as a stream through stone.
“A trait?” Cerqin echoed, a pebble skipping twice.
“Yes. Ming Duo can plunder others’ bodies, take an organ or a part as simply as picking a fruit.”
“That’s… terrifying.” The word fell like a shutter.
“Many Enforcers who tried to seize her lost their ‘beans’ in the clash—plucked and taken.” Spring Tide’s tone stayed even as rain.
“…You mean, their nipples.” The air thinned like high altitude.
It’s a brutal power over flesh; when a part is taken, you lose it as if you were born without it, bloodless and clean like a page erased.
Take the eyes, and there’s no gore, just absence, yet the removed eyes still pass along sight like mirrors held at a distance.
The stolen part can be set back, and the severed piece and the body remain linked, sharing sensation like two ends of one wire.
So when the “beans” are taken, even miles apart, a light pinch there is a lightning kiss here; the body knows, helpless to stop it.
Many knights and Law Enforcement Hall members suffered, teeth grinding like gravel, and had no cure at hand.
Meanwhile, the culprit, Ming Duo, walked free as wind over grass, her shadow lengthening.
After years uncaught, the Bean Hunter has become the Sanctuary’s new scourge in the Eastern District, a lingering illness no purge has cured.
