Chapter 28
Chapter 28
The air in the apartment’s living-room had finally flipped from library-bloodbath mode to post-battle R&R plus take-out time. The disinfectant the CAMCC logistics guy left behind was still brawling for top-billing with the smells of fried chicken and bubble tea.
Wei Wu, cradling the freshly repaired communicator, was screaming friendly insults at whoever was on the other end. “Malfunction? Malfunction my ass! My buddy almost died in there! Signal interference? Interference your head! Compensation—mental-damage, lost-wages, and a new communicator, or I’m coming down there!”
He stabbed the air with his free hand, as if he could drag the technician through the screen.
The room had silently sorted itself into two camps.
Grand-master Red Cloud was star-fished on the couch, long legs flung across the coffee-table as far from the Eternal Dream: Prime Abyss core as physics allowed. Her illusion-spiked leather jacket hung open, flashing the skull T-shirt underneath and broadcasting a don’t-mess-with-me storm front. She flicked one finger at the hovering orb of Xing Dian; the indigo sphere spun like a kicked top, whining in protest, the angry crimson inside it fading to pink. Her face was still pale—she’d let her guard down back in the stacks—but her eyes stayed cocky, as if the woman who’d nearly bitten through her lip was somebody else entirely.
Goddess White Xi knelt on the single sofa, spine ruler-straight, the picture of serenity. Yue Fei draped across her lap, snowy tail flicking: mortals, silence please. White Xi’s gaze rested on the soft silver-blue phantom of the Abyss coiled around her left wrist while she sorted her power and, on the side, monitored the nasty silver crack on the coffee-table. Damn it—the fragile calm they’d bought in the library was gone again. The crack’s background hum sounded like a fly staging a rock-concert inside her skull.
Milu hugged her oak staff like a security blanket, curled in the farthest corner of the sofa from the Abyss core. Her eyes bounced between Red Cloud the orb-poker, White Xi the power-arranger, and Wei Wu the human air-raid siren. She was trembling in real-time.
“Bunch of useless idiots!” Wei Wu slammed the communicator on the table—CRACK—making Milu jump and Red Cloud flick a dagger-glare at him.
Rubbing his throbbing temples, Wei Wu swept the room, landed on Milu, and tried for a gentle grin. “Xiao Milu, scared spitless, huh? All fixed, promise. Something sweet to steady the nerves?” He glanced at Red Cloud. “Redhead, what’re you drinking—same as always?”
Without looking up: “Duh.”
Wei Wu’s eye twitched. “White Xi—usual?”
A small nod. Ethereal voice: “If you please.”
“Coming right up! One full-sugar double-pudding boba roasted milk, one unsweetened jasmine, one pearl milk tea for Xiao Milu—” He snatched the communicator again, ordering with the weary expertise of a man watching his credit card cry. “And chuck in a family bucket. I need a calorie bomb too.”
Take-out saved the world. Greasy chicken and sugary milk-tea conquered the living-room; the mood flipped from DEFCON-1 to guilty-pleasure happy-hour.
Red Cloud, shark-scenting blood, snapped awake. She seized the vat-sized cup labelled FULL SUGAR, stabbed the seal, and up-ended it.
“Glug—Ahhh! Hits the spot!”
Pink lips ringed with whipped cream, eyes half-lidded in bliss. The caramel-bomb liquid rolled over tongue and memory alike—
Flash-cut:
Summer-night grill stall, smoke curling.
Young Wei Wu, buzz-cut and tank-top, slams an identical cup on the plastic table. “Old Yun—catch! Bet you’re dying of thirst.”
Yun Xi in tee and shorts, hair a nest, eyes shining: “Bro, you read my mind.” They clink cups, inhale skewers, sweat and laughter flying.
“—Hits the spot!” Red Cloud echoed—then her stomach dropped like she’d swallowed a block of ice instead. The crimson phantom on her wrist dimmed; satisfaction cracked into irritation. “What the hell?” She shook her head hard, trying to fling the memory and the nausea away.
Across the table White Xi lifted her cup in textbook tea-ceremony form, steam painting her face. A sip: floral, faint, lonely as snow. What, she wondered, was this “hits the spot” miracle her red-haired counterpart had just tasted—and why did her own drink taste only of plants and solitude?
A whimper: “S-senior... waaah...”
Milu stood beside a drooping pothos, tears poised to fall. “I—I barbecued Pothos Bro again!”
She’d tried a nature-soothe spell; a flicker of green fizzled like a bad bulb and crisped an already-curled leaf.
White Xi glided over, Yue Fei tailing. “Mind steady, power like silk...” A pearl of moon-light gathered at her fingertip—then the crack’s static roared, the spell rippled, and the leaf only twitched, still limp.
“Move, amateurs.”
Red Cloud shoved in, slapping Wei Wu’s half-empty cup back at him. She slapped her bare hand into the soil—no gestures, just raw irritation. A pin-prick of indigo—pure, primal life-force—shot into the roots.
The pothos snapped upright, leaves glossy, stems creaking taller, new shoots unfurling like time-lapse. A couple fringes curled neon-green, screaming overfed.
“Whoa—!!!” Milu’s tears reversed; her mouth formed a perfect O of worship.
White Xi’s pupils dilated: that life-spark was kin to her own order-force. This berserker... comforting a kid?
Red Cloud herself blinked, palm still warm. “Piece of—” The boast died. She stared at her unfamiliar, slender hand. “...used to kill plants, I think?”
Flash: a sunny balcony, wilted greens. Yun Xi in house-clothes, hair wild: “Crap... dead again? I swear I watered you!”
The memory stung; her triumph fizzled.
Wei Wu’s laugh bulldozed the moment. “Nice hidden talent, Redhead—switching to gardening now?” He clapped her on the shoulder with old-brother weight, yanking her back to the present.
“Screw you—garden your whole family!” She shrugged, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
Wei Wu dragged her toward the couch, rattling off Yun Xi’s ancient embarrassments—hamster “Steelie” fatally over-fed on sunflower seeds, first date ending with Yun Xi face-planting in a flowerbed. Milu turned crimson trying not to laugh; Xing Dian did victory laps above Red Cloud’s head.
Red Cloud landed a soft punch on Wei Wu’s arm. “Jerk.” Her eyes, hidden from him, sparked like live wires.
Nobody noticed White Xi.
But as Wei Wu roared through Yun Xi’s hapless youth and Red Cloud fought a losing battle against her own smile, the goddess’s lips—motionless for centuries—curved a micrometre. A quantum smile. The crack’s hum, for one heartbeat, seemed farther away.
Then—
tick
A ceramic bunny in a polka-dot dress, Milu’s favourite knick-knack, perched beside the now-hyper pothos—
turned to ash.
A soft grey stream poured onto the carpet, forming a bunny-shaped ruin.
Milu’s new smile froze; tears refilled her eyes.
Wei Wu’s laughter choked mid-bellow.
Red Cloud’s ease vaporised; the crimson phantom on her wrist flared in warning.
White Xi’s gaze snapped to the coffee-table: the silver crack in the Abyss core had pulsed—once—like a wink from something old and hungry.
Danger screamed through the room louder than any alarm.