Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Afternoon sunlight slanted through the balcony’s enormous floor-to-ceiling window, drawing long bright rectangles across the floor. The air carried the greasy perfume of fried chicken—Yun Xi had wrestled with the budget, then chosen the cheaper take-out to soothe a frightened junior—and a faint, elusive whiff of plant deodorizer.
Milu sat bolt upright on the rug, the weather-beaten pot of Pothos Bro in front of her. She cradled the thick Apprentice Witch Life Guide, cheeks taut, jade-green eyes nailed to the page of runic diagrams, muttering like a priestess at prayer. Her oak staff leaned cautiously against the sofa, afraid of disturbing this vital “practice.”
Yun Xi was curled in her favorite reading chair, apparently scrolling her tablet (actually recalculating every money-saving scheme from group-buy vegetables to second-hand furniture), while her peripheral vision locked on Milu and the pothos like radar. Xing Dian hovered bored above Milu, his indigo flame flickering. Yue Fei lay across Yun Xi’s lap, violet eyes half-lidded, only the tip of her tail twitching—overseer mode.
“Ready?” Yun Xi set the tablet aside, trying for Senior-style encouragement instead of Please-don’t-blow-it-again.
“Mm!” Milu nodded hard, sucked in a breath like charging into battle. She aimed a trembling finger at a fat green leaf. “Target locked... im... impurity molecules!” She’d clearly cast the plant as a filth target.
“Meow. Target is healthy flora, zero notable contamination. Objective is energy-channel stability, not cleansing.” Yue Fei yawned the correction.
Milu flushed. “O-oh! Energy channel! Stable output! Dustless Dance... ready... guide star-source particles... just a bit...” She squeezed her eyes shut.
A mote of indigo light, barely visible, detached from Xing Dian’s flame and drifted toward her fingertip—so slowly Yun Xi’s eyelid twitched; at this speed an enemy would finish afternoon tea before the spell landed.
The mote finally merged. Milu held her breath, face scarlet. “Build circuit... guide oscillation...” She pictured the textbook’s perfect circle and nudged the light along.
The dot began a slo-mo, lopsided crawl, tracing a squashed, irregular oval—more snail than vibration.
“Hold it... hold it...” Sweat beaded on Milu’s temples; keeping the “oscillation” was already consuming her whole mind.
Then a car horn shrieked outside.
HONK—!!!
“Eek!” Milu jolted; the fragile indigo fleck shot forward like a startled flea.
Pop!
It missed the leaf and drilled the plastic bubble-tea cup on the side table—Yun Xi’s half-finished, condensation-beaded, straw-still-inside cup.
Fssss...
A thread of caramel-scented smoke spiraled up as a pin-sized scorch mark appeared. The air froze.
Milu stayed frozen mid-point, mouth open, eyes circles of horror. She stared at the hole, at the spider-web of cracks spreading, then slowly swiveled toward Yun Xi.
Yun Xi’s expression cycled from shock to wallet-pain to watching her last swallow of happiness drip-drip onto the floor—white, red, then green in sequence.
“My... my... milk... tea...” The words squeezed through her teeth in heart-fractured vibrato. Full-sugar with boba, the one cup she’d allowed herself! Every brown droplet was her bank balance weeping.
“Waaahhh—!!” Milu wailed louder than the horn. “Sorry sorry sorry, Senior Yun Xi! Milu will pay! Right now!” She fumbled open her star-moon coin purse, tears and snot streaming. “Milu... Milu still has pocket money...”
Yun Xi looked at the widening puddle, then at the bawling apprentice whose entire purse couldn’t cover one cup, let alone floor-cleaning fees, and felt the full helplessness of poverty. Anger? Impossible against that tear-stained face. Heartache? Real—both for the drink and the budget.
“Xing Dian, clean.” She clutched her chest, half her soul gone with the tea.
Indigo flame swept floor and table; the stain vanished, the holed cup erased, only caramel scent and the hollow in Yun Xi’s chest remained.
“Meow. Accuracy: F-. Interference resistance: zero. Mental fortitude: abysmal.” Yue Fei drove the nail deeper.
Milu sobbed harder, hugging the empty purse like original sin.
Yun Xi exhaled the sigh of the financially ruined. “Enough crying. Next time—practice three meters away from my tea. Minimum.” Her final red line.
Milu hiccupped agreement, engraving the three-meter rule on her heart.
Then the entry-phone chimed.
Both froze, eyes snapping to the screen.
Not courier, not property management: a young man in charcoal uniform and matching cap, visor low, holding an official dark-blue folder stamped with a tangled-vine-ringed tower.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Yun Xi.” His voice came flat, business-cold. “Urgent registration notice for personal collection.”
Registration notice.
That emblem—
Dream Ring Tower!
Last night’s dread—sliced-on-a-slide fantasies—detonated in Yun Xi’s skull. They’re here! Already? Because of the battle flare? Milu’s presence? Eternal Dream: Prime Abyss detected?
Her fingertips iced; breathing stopped. Milu sensed it, clutched her staff, shrank behind Yun Xi.
Ignore? Feign absence? They knew she was home, and official bodies always collect on the fifteenth.
Have Xing Dian blast him? Yue Fei’s warning—violence equals certified dangerous.
Former wage-slave survival mode kicked in.
“Xing Dian, Yue Fei—hide your aura! Absolute stealth!” She ordered mentally, plastering on a just-woke-up scowl while scruffing her pink-white hair. She waved Milu behind the kitchen door (camera blind spot), then shuffled to the screen, injecting sleepy irritation: “Who? What registration? I didn’t apply for anything.”
The man wasn’t fazed. “Mrs. Yun Xi, this is a routine Potential-Person Census from the City Anomaly Management & Coordination Center—CAMCC. Our city-wide Ether Eye grid logged a high-intensity, anomalous energy bleed from this unit. Standard procedure: register and assess. Please cooperate.” He flashed the vine-tower crest.
CAMCC—new skin, same skeleton.
“Energy bleed? Me?” Yun Xi knitted her brows in perfect bafflement. “I’m just a regular tenant—books and tea, that’s it. You sure your toy isn’t broken?”
“Ether Eye error rate: sub-one-in-a-million. Signal source: inside your apartment. Registration is only data collection, no implication of personal ability. Could be an object, could be décor. Public safety and your own rights, Mrs. Yun Xi.”
Pinpointed. Bulletproof wording. Refusal equals suspicious.
Sign and walk into a trap? Or slam the door and confirm “dangerous entity”?
Her gaze snagged on Milu’s oak staff abandoned in the sofa corner—a reckless lifeline blazed across her mind.
“Oh! Wait!” She smacked her forehead in theatrical epiphany. “You mean that new aromatherapy stick I tried last night? ‘Calming Moon Sandal-Plus’ or whatever—friend swears it emits ‘negative-ion energy fields.’ Foreign gadget, smells weird, made the room feel brighter? That the culprit?” She jabbed a finger kitchen-ward, eyes signalling: STAFF—ENERGY—SCAPEGOAT—NOW!
Milu, peeking through the door, caught the frantic mime: incense? high-tech? She’d never heard of it, but Yun Xi’s stare was terrifying.
Just as the officer’s gaze drilled back through the screen—
“Y-yes!” Milu’s teary squeak burst from the kitchen. “It-it was me! I gave Senior Yun Xi the incense! Bought it at the academy mini-mart! ‘Moonlight Energy Aromatherapy’! I didn’t know it... it pings monitors! Sniff... Academy never said I had to file a form!” Perfect picture of a clueless apprentice who’d brought contraband to a sleepover.
The man’s eyes slid toward the kitchen. Yun Xi’s heart hovered at her teeth.
“...Understood.” A pause, rapid internal calculus. “Unregistered energy-release artifact carried by licensed Apprentice Witch Milu; misreport triggered. Primary registration target reassigned to apprentice and her academy. Your personal file closed pending their review.” He lifted the folder. “I’ll forward this notice to her faculty liaison.”
Closed—temporarily!
The iron hand on Yun Xi’s heart loosened; she nearly folded. She kept her smile rueful: “Ah, sorry for the trouble. I’ll toss the stick tonight—never again.”
“Advise your friend to observe artifact regulations.” A crisp nod, and the gray uniform marched away. Screen black.
Yun Xi slumped against the door, gulping air, shirt soaked.
Safe—for now.
“S-sorry...” Milu crept out, pale and trembling.
“You were brilliant! Oscar-level!” Yun Xi ruffled her silver hair, gratitude blazing.
Then her face hardened. “Listen, Milu. Dream Ring Tower—CAMCC—is lethal. If they tag me, I’m dissected. So new survival rules:
1. Never use Eternal Dream: Prime Abyss, Xing Dian, or Yue Fei where monitors might sniff them. Your tiny purification is quietest—only exception.
2. Out there I’m just a ‘sensitive’ civilian who knows one apprentice. Not the Time-Flower Witch. Not the Dream Ruins Sovereign. Clear?”
Milu nodded so hard her ears flapped.
“Third, tell me everything about Dream Ring Tower, CAMCC, your academy—how they track, what loopholes exist, whether runaway apprentices make high-priority lists.”
Milu bit her lip. “Apprentices vanishing mid-mission... academy reports it... Dream Ring Tower probably already looking for me...”
A ticking bomb.
Yue Fei flicked her tail. “Recommend immediate acquisition of non-artifact disguise ability. Also initiate contact with academy to re-frame absence as ‘mission extension.’ Passive flight equals suicide.”
Contact meant risking exposure; flight meant eventual capture.
“Low-threat profiles get ignored,” Milu whispered. “People with useless talents—never summoned if they stay quiet.”
Harmless. Low-threat.
Yun Xi stared at her “soft and fragrant” hands. Apart from screw-in lightbulbs, half-successful fruit-freshing, and a dragon might that annihilates friend and foe alike, what did she have that looked harmless?
“Xing Dian, can you pretend to be a Bluetooth speaker?”
The indigo flame solidified in offense. “...Mistress, I am a divine artifact, not household audio.”
Yue Fei: “Meow—imbecile. Use your dragon blood. A flicker of space-perception can pose as ‘lost-item radar.’ Niche, useless, zero combat value—ideal camouflage. Requires training.”
A glorified lost-and-found talent? Yun Xi’s mouth twitched, but it was the only card in the deck.
She glanced at the pothos Milu had nearly sterilized, at the bracelet hiding a universe, at the teary child clutching an oak stick.
Financial ruin, identity crisis, government manhunt, plus one hungry apprentice to keep hidden and fed...
Yun Xi melted into her chair, soul leaking faster than the tea.
She opened the delivery app and, this time, ordered two cups.
“Full sugar, double boba.”
The chime of her dwindling bank balance sounded like a funeral march for her heroic advance.
“Drink,” she said, shoving one cup into the still-dazed Milu’s hand, voice freighted with the weariness of someone who’d seen through every earthly illusion. “Replenish your glucose... steady your nerves.”
After all, whether she was cosplaying as the campus’s Human Lost-and-Found Radar, bracing for the faculty advisor’s incoming wrath, or simply keeping her “high-risk decorative vase” self hidden in this hazard-riddled city—she needed calories. And sweetness.
Milu cradled the warm cup, watching Senior Yun Xi’s profile: equal parts existential despair and inexplicable resolve—resolve apparently powered by bubble tea. She took a tentative sip. Sugar bloomed across her tongue.
She still had zero clue what was going on, but...
Follow Senior Yun Xi, get boba.
Not... bad?