In a few months, Eastern Sea City had changed in one clear swell, like a new current under old piers.

Now and then you’d see folks on the street with a black plate and its comm-stone, faces flickering like lanterns as they spoke.

At the pier reserved for the Radiant Sanctuary, the Black Dragon Battleship slid in like a black whale and moored.

Cerqin waved to Silver Luan and Aileaf, then slipped ashore first, light as a cat leaving a roofline.

Guilt pricked like cold drizzle; she moved with that furtive air of someone caught with ink on her hands.

She veered from the Sanctuary’s pier into the fishers’ docks, all bustle and brine, like ducks rushing to grain.

She wasn’t going straight back.

That one-month line Spring Tide set had already been washed away, like chalk under rough rain, thanks to the sea platform’s core retrofit.

On the return leg, Spring Tide’s call hit the Black Dragon Battleship; dread flooded her, legs going soft like kelp in surf.

Fear first, then flight—Cerqin chose to stall, to drift the market like a kite on a breeze, and forget for a heartbeat the thing that made her knees wobble.

Would stalling worsen the switch? The tide had already run past; even kneeling now wouldn’t blunt the blade.

Better steal a moment of comfort, like warming hands over a street-side brazier.

She slipped through the port bazaar’s crowd like a fish through reeds, and let the Hand of Space roam.

In a blink, her stash swelled by dozens, trinkets glinting like caught minnows in a net.

Girls’ surprised squeals rang now and then like silver bells, and joy rose in her chest like steam from tea.

To keep the ripples small, she never lingered on one street, cutting across alleys like a swallow.

Step by step she reached the square where the market lanes opened wide, a stone pond ringed by stalls.

A few prison wagons caught her eye, dark as crows on snow.

From the whispers of the onlookers, she learned the prisoners were nearshore pirates, nabbed that morning by Sanctuary knights with the City Lord’s knights, like a dragnet hauled at dawn.

Even strapped to the wagon chairs, their faces still held a knife’s edge, unlike those long-schooled by the Sanctuary’s hand.

Cerqin eyed those pirates—some almost handsome—and her gaze drifted to the chairs humming beneath them, iron bees in a hive.

That was one of her designs, the Automated Punishment Chair, a little engine with a long sting.

Sit on it, and twin implements run in rhythm, pouring steady penalty like pounding rain.

Every so often, it releases a surge of lightning mana, a jolt like a thunderclap under skin.

“Didn’t think the chair had already gone live,” she breathed, surprise flickering like a candle in wind.

She hadn’t built them herself; she’d drafted the schematics months ago, before sailing out.

Seeing them in play so fast felt unreal, like seedlings suddenly tall after one night of rain.

The crowd flowed after the convoy toward the square’s center, a tide drawn to drumbeats.

Just as she wondered if the chair’s bite was too light, she saw the temporary stage, a spine of timber hosting a row of grim devices—iron thorns under noon sun—and her doubt cleared like mist.

Her puzzlement had roots: the chair was a light tool in that forest of schematics and upgrades, a sparrow among hawks.

It was a tweak from a restraint chair, never the star of the Law Enforcement Hall, more broom than blade.

What waited today were the lines of what Cerqin called the Restraint Horse, the true gallop of punishment.

Its rhythm ran several times faster than the chair, and it wore extra yokes that pinned upper body and head, like a vise catching a plank.

Pirates were yanked off the chairs like radishes from loam; many couldn’t handle the sudden pull, and their bodies went limp in a rush, spent as broken bows.

Knights of the Law Enforcement Hall hefted them one by one, set them belly-down on the Restraint Horses, and locked them in like carp clamped to cutting boards.

Cerqin watched from the crowd with relish, fingers tapping like rain on lacquer, her gaze lingering and nibbling at details.

The onlookers’ faces shone with expectancy, like fields waiting for thunder; this wasn’t their first harvest.

Once all were mounted, the Restraint Horses began to work, cruel metronomes, punishing the pirates crouched along their backs.

She noticed a knight stood by each Horse, holding a black plate whose runes glowed with mana, faint as foxfire.

That tool heightened pain, and Cerqin had helped revise it, weaving the pain-amplifying glyphs with a bit of magitech, like stitching copper into cloth.

The new version added sting and smear; with each strike, it could lay a trace of special concoctions on skin, like ink brushed into pores.

It was simple magitech, nothing grand, but the Hall loved it like a favored baton.

She wondered why the knights only stood ready, hands idle as cranes.

Then one knight stepped forward and raised his hand to the crowd; noise blossomed like sparrows from a hedge.

Under the press of bodies, a handful of girls pushed onto the stage, quick as cats, and lined up before the restrained pirates.

The pirates’ heads, held low by the devices, were at a very particular height, a wicked geometry under public sun.

Under the machine’s rhythm, faces twisted like masks, and soon even their heads found no rest.

Cerqin stared, startled and impressed—Law Enforcement Hall did love its stagecraft.

Letting ordinary onlookers help with pirate “education” was killing two birds with one stone, like using the same broom for ash and petals.

Those who balked tried to dodge with their heads, but nearby knights swung their black plates down, hard as oars, and the rebels quieted after a few rounds, docile as tethered oxen.

Cerqin spared them a little pity, a cool sip in a hot noon.

Piracy in Eastern Sea City was a grave sin, the kind that could steal a lifetime of freedom, like iron swallowing shorelines.

Even without blood on their hands, sentences ran twenty years, a long winter behind bars.

Their road ahead was ink-dark and narrow.

Still, excitement fluttered in her chest, red as a banner; the stage’s scenes alone were a stirring drum.

She had no plans to join, to let pirates “serve” her, not with eyes on the square like crows on a field.

If Spring Tide heard, her own fate would be worse than theirs, like a storm saving its fiercest gale for her.

She never doubted that.

She wavered, wondering whether to keep watching, when a familiar voice cut through like a bell.

“Miss Cerqin?”

“Uh—”

Embarrassment bloomed like blush on peach; Cerqin pulled her hand out from under her clothes and turned, finding the An Sisters after a long spell apart.

She hadn’t expected to meet acquaintances here, under such noon light.

“Anran, Anya, what brings you here?”

The elder, Anran, looked puzzled, calm as a willow; in public she always felt steadier, older sister in posture and tone.

“A few shop owners agreed to transfer their places,” she said, words even as a plumb line. “We came to sign the contracts and play a little. But Miss Cerqin, why are you here?”

It wasn’t truly that long since they’d met; once comms linked the sea platform and Eastern Sea City, the An Sisters had called Cerqin several times.

As a co-owner of the An–Cer Trading Company, Cerqin checked in with her two managers regularly, and sent fresh product schematics like swallows bringing notes in spring.

“Ah… I’m just out to wander,” Cerqin said, gaze skittering like minnows.

Anya, hand linked with her sister’s, took the thread like a seamstress taking cloth.

“I went to the Sanctuary yesterday to visit Miss Spring Tide,” she chirped, eyes bright as glass. “She said you weren’t back. She looked… well. Cerqin-jie, don’t tell me you just returned and haven’t gone in yet?”

Her lips curved, and even the address shifted from ‘Miss’ to ‘jie,’ delight rising like music.

From the look yesterday, Cerqin shouldn’t have had time to stroll; Anya had braced to wait ten days, half a month, before heading to the Sanctuary again to hash out guild matters.

“Why were you seeing Spring Tide?” Cerqin blurted, like a sparrow startled from a branch.

“To discuss buying shops in Eastern Sea City,” Anya said, sweet as honey. “You told us, if it’s urgent, go straight to Miss Spring Tide at the Sanctuary.”

“Uh…”

Cerqin’s sudden squawk made Anya grin wider, a crescent moon.

Anran’s look softened with pity, like dew on grass, the same gaze Cerqin had just cast on the punished pirates; she even murmured, gentle as silk.

“I think it’s better to go confess early.”

“Mind your own!”

Cerqin wanted to cry, a kettle boiling over, staring at the sister so unlike her first impression and the younger one so like her own troublemaker.

She sighed, helpless as fog.

“Anyway, we had some things to discuss face-to-face after those comm calls,” she said, trying to herd the topic like sheep. “I’m free now. Let’s find a place, talk, and eat.”

The thought settled like a stone; if she didn’t seize this window, the Sanctuary might keep her pinned for ten days, half a month.

Even if Spring Tide was busy, she could leave Cerqin restrained while working, like hanging herbs to dry.

“Great, great… I know a really good spot,” Anya said, eyes sparkling like stars.

The An Sisters exchanged a look and nodded, easy as reeds in wind.

Anya had noticed a knight on the stage glance over with a frown, then with dawning surprise, and her smile bloomed wider, bright as a peony in sun.