“Why?” the two little witches asked in unison.
The Night-Watcher jumped, startled by their sudden outburst. Seeing the inquisitive light dancing in their eyes, she instinctively asked, “Are you both witches?”
“We are!”
Of course…
Only witches possessed such an insatiable, almost dangerous curiosity.
The Night-Watcher pursed her lips and gripped her hands tight, her voice turning grave. “I know you witches pride yourselves on your power and your desire to unearth every secret in the world. But this matter is far from ordinary. Since the beginning of the year, girls have been vanishing one after another. The Explorers’ Guild has already stepped in to investigate, but so far, they’ve turned up nothing.”
She sighed, adding a final warning: “The only thing they’ve confirmed is that these disappearances are linked to the moon turning silver.”
Later, as the two of them carried their hoard of supplies back toward their lodgings, the topic remained at the forefront of their minds. Medeili seemed more talkative than usual, clearly stirred by the mystery.
“Aren’t there any Lantern-Bearers handling this?” she asked.
“You’re a Lantern-Bearer’s daughter, yet you still have to ask?” Wang Yue explained patiently. “District-assigned Lantern-Bearers can’t just leave their watchtowers whenever they want. They’re responsible for the safety of every town within the lighthouse’s range. They’re only deployed elsewhere if an incident is confirmed to be an otherworldly threat beyond local control. Besides, Lantern-Bearers are primarily combatants. Soldiers and detectives are two very different professions; the investigation work is left to specialized Night-Watchers.”
“What about us? What if the Silver Moon descends tonight?”
“We’ll adapt,” Wang Yue replied.
The most urgent matter was still shaking off the nagging call of Blue Lake. Wang Yue needed a quiet environment, an assistant like Medeili, and access to White Fish’s library.
In Full Moon Town, they didn’t have a grand villa to retreat to. Instead, they had taken up residence in a small cottage on a street corner. It was clean enough, consisting of three interconnected rooms—a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen—all with doors leading out to a small courtyard. The bathroom was tucked away in a corner of the yard.
Wang Yue gave a flick of her wand. A transparent current of air swept across the floor, driving out the dust and moisture until the interior felt crisp and dry.
Medeili sprinkled water onto the tatami-style bed-stove. She swirled her fingers through the air, and the water began to scrub the surface with a cheerful rhythm. Once she was finished, she tapped the tatami, and the droplets leaped into the air, coalescing into a sphere of murky, black waste.
Wang Yue stepped over with a basin. The water sphere dropped into it, sloshing heavily.
“So dirty,” Medeili muttered, her little fingers twitching in a gesture of disgust.
“You did great, Plum. Even witchcraft couldn’t have scrubbed it that clean,” Wang Yue praised.
By the time they finished cleaning the house inside and out, the place was spotless. Her chores done, Medeili let out a long breath. She pinched the collar of her color-blocked hoodie and slid out of it like a caterpillar shedding its skin. She shook out her messy hair and turned to look at Wang Yue.
“Want to bathe together?”
“You go first.”
“Okay.”
Medeili lifted her heels and caught the edges of her pinkish-white stockings with her fingertips. She peeled them away slowly, the fabric sliding over skin as smooth as fine silk.
While Medeili bathed, Wang Yue went into the kitchen. She scrubbed the stove and utensils before parboiling some ribs and setting them in a pot to simmer.
Suddenly, she paused.
It was a strange, novel feeling. Living together, cooking for two… the quiet peace of the moment felt surreal. Wang Yue leaned down and added a few logs to the hearth. The flames licked the bottom of the pot, and the wood crackled with a gentle, rhythmic pop.
An hour later, Medeili emerged from the bathroom.
The soak had left the little girl’s skin supple and flushed with a healthy glow. Tendrils of steam rose from her, and with her damp orange hair, she looked like a fresh custard bun straight out of a steamer. Her feet were porcelain-white, her delicate calves kicking up slightly as she walked across the stone floor. Her toenails shimmered with a pearly luster, her feet so tiny and dainty they evoked a sense of protective pity, as if one should hold them in the palm of a hand.
Medeili walked up to Wang Yue and bowed her head, her wet hair shining under the kitchen light. She huffed a small breath of air.
Ah, how cute.
Without needing a word, Wang Yue raised her wand. A warm breeze billowed from the tip. As Medeili’s hair fluttered in the heat, she ran her small fingers through the strands, releasing the pleasant scent of shampoo into the room.
“Thank you.”
Medeili smoothed her warm, fluffy hair back from her forehead, though a few stubborn cowlicks still poked up defiantly. Then, she crouched down in the kitchen to keep an eye on the fire.
It was Wang Yue’s turn to bathe.
Ten minutes later, she returned to find the stove perfectly tended. The logs had been partially pulled back to reduce the heat to a slow simmer, ensuring the pot didn’t boil over. The aroma of the meat broth was now rich and heavy.
“You’re very attentive, Plum,” Wang Yue complimented her.
She, too, lowered her head to have her hair dried, though her posture was stiff. Her hands hung at her sides and her back was ramrod straight, looking more like a student saying goodbye to a teacher than a friend.
Medeili raised her wand, summoning the warm wind.
Wang Yue’s black hair tossed and turned, revealing glimpses of her pale, clean scalp.
“You’re so beautiful, Wang Yue,” Medeili whispered. She bit her lip, her eyes fixed on the girl’s face with an almost obsessive intensity.
Wang Yue had a pointed nose and thin lips, though the lower lip was slightly fuller and soft to the eye. Medeili shivered, suppressing a sudden, sharp urge to bite down on it. Her jawline was narrow, making her face appear small and delicate. But it was the black-haired witch’s eyes that were truly captivating—the corners were thick and lush, practically an invitation to sin, yet her pupils were so clear and steady that they commanded a sense of untouchable reverence.
Medeili felt caught in a state of agonizing suspension. A longing like liquid fire filled her chest, choking the breath out of her.
“Beautiful? I think I’m just average,” Wang Yue replied, oblivious. She spent every day fighting against one bizarre horror or another; she hardly had the time to care what she looked like.
The two of them sat at the stone table to eat. They didn’t speak, the only sound the occasional clink of a spoon against a plate.
The thick clouds outside suddenly parted, allowing a brilliant moonbeam to spill into the courtyard. The light reflected into the room, making everything around them flare with sudden brightness.
Wang Yue froze, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. She could have sworn the moonlight was flecked with shimmering bits of silver.
High above the town, the Crow Sentinels she had deployed earlier all craned their necks toward the night sky. The lunar disc was as bright as molten silver, its surface now etched with geometric, mechanical patterns—beautiful, cold, and utterly alien.
Wang Yue quietly set down her spoon and blurred toward the door to look out into the street.
A thick fog had rolled in out of nowhere.
The loss of visibility was unsettling. She summoned a dozen more Crow Sentinels to act as a perimeter guard, her X-ray Eye piercing through the mist to seek the truth.
Suddenly, a girl’s scream pierced the air from the distance!
Wang Yue kicked off the ground and lunged into the fog, her movements agile and swift. Within a few strides, she reached the source of the sound.
There was no one there.
The fog swirled behind her as Medeili caught up.
“That’s strange,” Wang Yue muttered. Her eyes were fixed on her compass instrument, monitoring for high-energy fluctuations.
She didn’t trust her own eyes. The instrument’s needles were the closest things to reality in this world, followed by the Crow Sentinels, and her own sight last of all. Even as a witch who could level a city block with a wave of her hand, she had to be cautious when dealing with the incomprehensible. Often, strength wasn’t measured by destructive power alone.
Wang Yue lingered in the street for a while, her nerves wound tight. But after a long silence where nothing happened, she signaled for Medeili to head back.
Suddenly, she felt her connection to the Crow Sentinels weakening. In her mental map, the hundreds of signal terminals began to wink out, one by one. Eventually, only a few stray signals remained.
Wang Yue’s expression darkened. She realized that an unobservable change was taking place.
The fog vanished as quickly as it had appeared. But the street she had been standing on was gone. In its place stood a silent, deep, and eerie garden.
