"...Sorry. I still have some unfinished matters on the Luofu to deal with — and there are things I need to reflect on."
Dan Heng's voice was as light and still as morning mist drifting over the Luofu.
"Then stay here and rest."
With the easy camaraderie of true bros, Caelus clapped a hand on Dan Heng's shoulder.
"Mm. Dan Heng's sitting this one out, Himeko's swamped with work and can't get away for now, and Uncle Yang... he's been coughing between every other word lately. Besides, at his age, he'd never want to be dragged into this kind of crowd."
"So that leaves — Seele, Bronya, Bronie, Stelle, Caelus..."
Her pink hair swept bright arcs through the air as March 7th's fingertip jabbed at the space in front of her, quick as a sparrow pecking for seeds.
She suddenly sprang up and spun half a circle. On tiptoe, her skirt hem swayed, sweeping across Stelle's long fair legs — the phantom-limb synesthesia passing the sensation straight to Caelus — and her peace-sign hand naturally ended up pointing at herself:
"And Super Little March!"
"That's six of us going to the Jarilo-VI festival together!"
"Ohhh!"
The silver-curled beauty who wore the face of a Big Duck but had the heart of a Little Duck — White Seele and Haxxor Bunny — both gave March 7th the courtesy of enthusiastic cheers and applause.
Dan Heng was in secluded recovery, Old Yang was taking it easy in his middle-aged way, and Himeko was buried in work — naturally, none of the young people still brimming with energy were going to miss Jarilo's festival.
"When do we leave?"
Miss Haxxor Bunny rubbed her palms together, her pretty face practically radiating impatience.
Starskiff cruises! Night market lights! The splendor of the Xianzhou had blown the mind of this rebellious girl from the backwater little Arc City — a place she used to think was the whole world.
Through the net she'd come to know the countless wonders of the galaxy universe: a world brilliant as a painting, civilizations blooming in a hundred colors. She had long wanted to go out and see this dazzling cosmos for herself!
She'd always had a burning interest in interstellar travel — the kind she used to only read about in comic books!
How could she possibly pass up the chance to visit another planet, take in a festival, and see the sights?
The reward for the job where she'd surfed the net and toppled the Xianzhou fox immortal's online chat had already been deposited — even at a ten-percent cut, that was a full fifty million credits!
Miss Haxxor Bunny's wallet was stuffed!
Now she just needed somewhere to spend it!
"Since we're going to a festival, we have to prepare properly! Isn't that right, Bronya~"
March 7th gave up trying to consult Stelle, who paid absolutely zero attention to her own appearance. That girl had never once worn makeup in her life!
"Bronya..."
Little Duck didn't have much interest in makeup and dressing up either — but Silver Wing, on the other hand... The silver-haired beauty revealed an elegant, gracious smile and inclined her head: "Mm. Little March is right."
"Then everyone head back to your rooms, get your things packed, and meet in the main hall in one hour!"
Caelus snapped his fingers, setting off a cascade of cheers like a string of silver bells.
"My formal dress has finally found its moment!"
Little March bounced and twirled in circles.
Seele smiled softly and turned back toward her own room.
A festival, huh.
Haxxor Bunny narrowed her eyes slightly. This was a perfect opportunity to get closer to Seele!
She wondered if there would be a fireworks show or something like that.
"Seele."
The same word, the same moment — two voices speaking as one. The two owners of those voices shifted their gazes, eyes slowly converging. Bronie and Little Duck stared at each other and fell into silence.
Little Duck's eyebrow twitched. She thought: does this girl actually want to—?
Haxxor Bunny's eyebrow twitched in turn. She thought: can Caelus not keep tabs on his own fiancée?!
"Sister Bronie, Sister Bronya — what's up?"
Seele's eyes curved upward at the corners, ocean-blue irises brimming with a warm smile, joy quietly tucked beneath the surface.
She was considering — should she invite Silver Wolf to come to Jarilo for the festival?
Three ducks in one place. Who would win Seele's favor?
Would it come to blows?
Probably not between Little Duck and Haxxor Bunny — if it was going to happen, it would have already. But Silver Wolf Jiejie~ that was a different story.
The wardrobe door creaked softly open. Caelus yawned lazily, casting a bored eye over the clothes inside.
In a game, a Trailblazer only ever gets one standard outfit — because the devs need to sell skins and save the modelers some work. It was the same logic as a manga artist giving their protagonist one outfit from first page to last, just to avoid the hassle.
In real life, though, even your favorite clothes get old if you wear them every single day.
His fingers drifted over the neatly folded garments and paused on a gray-green trimmed dress shirt. Caelus had always been casual about clothes — day-to-day, he just wore whatever was comfortable.
For a festival though, maybe he'd pick up something new.
"Caelus-cub, do you think I should wear a qipao?"
In the adjacent, connected wardrobe alcove, the gray-haired girl rested her chin in her hand, deep in thought.
Stelle had her own room in the manor, but after surviving the supposed feng-shui gauntlet of the first three nights after moving in, she'd grabbed her pillow and migrated over — determined to make sure Caelus-cub didn't spend his nights cuddling his girlfriend without including her.
"I think you should."
What else could he say? This Stellaron spirit was fair-skinned and beautiful, slender-waisted and long-legged, with a figure that could stop traffic — model height, the whole package. She could make a high-school uniform from her previous life look stunning on herself.
Let alone a qipao dripping with ancient elegance.
As long as Stelle kept her mouth shut and stood still, she'd be the reigning queen of radiance across ten thousand galaxies.
"Emmm..."
Stelle ran a small hand along her delicate jaw, then pulled out two qipaos with her left and right hands simultaneously, grinning as she asked:
"These two — which one do you think suits me?"
Both qipaos were black. One long, one short.
The long one had a high slit embroidered with silver thread along the opening; a backless design with fine chains and a subtle red-petal pattern along the neckline, the connecting point veiled by a golden lotus motif, the slit edges trimmed with red four-petal floral accents — paired perfectly with black stockings.
The short one had a gold-button mandarin collar in a classically republican-era style; slender metal chains hung at the slit, and its three-quarter sleeves were hemmed with flowing gilt cloud embroidery — paired with a matching black skirt-trouser combo.
"You think I can choose when you can't?"
Caelus grabbed Stelle's soft cheeks between both hands and stretched them outward into a pancake face. In a tone of theatrical, aggrieved envy he wailed: "Why is she so ridiculously beautiful?!"
"Hmph, hmph~ That's just how it is when you have taste!"
Her face kneaded like dough, Stelle — in a rare departure from her usual habit of flipping things around and pinning him — leaned into it adorably and nodded with great conviction:
"She really is gorgeous!"
The two of them launched into their usual routine of mutual self-admiration — the kind that made bystanders want to give them the deadest of dead-fish stares.
"So — which one, then?"
Stelle held both qipaos up by the collars and swung them side to side.
"Only kids make choices. Adults take both."
Caelus scooped every qipao out of Stelle's wardrobe and tucked them all into his spatial ring. "You can cycle through them."
"Fair point. Then I'll start with this one — save the formal gown style for when the festival actually begins."
Stelle's golden eyes blinked, and she shot Caelus a smug, sidelong look.
"What are you doing?"
Caelus raised an eyebrow, his expression shifting to alert wariness.
"Oh, you foolish little Caelus-cub — that's not a question you should be asking me~"
Stelle laughed and pulled the carved folding screen between them, cutting off Caelus's line of sight.
"Oh? Nani?!"
Caelus couldn't help a soft laugh at that. He stopped picking through the clothes, crossed his arms, and watched the shadow play on the screen.
His relationship with Stelle could be called romantic — but it wasn't entirely that, either. The bashfulness of new lovers surfaced occasionally, but most of the time, Stelle changed clothes without sparing Caelus a second thought about modesty.
So why had she pulled the screen across now?
What did that mean?
It meant she was provoking him. Blatantly.
"If winter's your offer, come — exchange it for a city cloaked in snow. Fancy some Cantonese cuisine?"
Stelle hummed lightly — a little snatch of a general's ballad.
The screen slid open. She stepped out.
The qipao clung to every curve. Bare feet in black high heels.
As she turned sideways to adjust the gold mandarin collar, the chain ornaments at the slit swayed gently, and the gilt cloud embroidery caught the warm light with a refined, understated gleam.
She lowered her hands — and caught sight, by chance, through the mirror, of a gilt-inlaid pipe sitting on the stand. She'd picked it up at the market a few days ago as a trinket. Stelle blinked.
The next second, she plucked up the pipe and set it lightly between her lips. As she turned, she sank into the sandalwood chair in one fluid motion.
Her waist gave a languid twist; the qipao's slit parted like butterfly wings, and the long legs laid bare in the direct sunlight gleamed with a nacreous, pearl-like luminescence. One black heel hung half-off, the butterfly ornament at the toe trembling with each lazy swing of her ankle.
Fingers poised lightly on the pipe. Silver hair tumbling from its high ponytail. When the corners of her eyes tilted to regard Caelus, those gilt irises held something pure and otherworldly — which only made her languid, devastatingly alluring posture all the more striking.
Innocent — yet radiating the bewitching beauty of a celestial being.
And she just sat there, wide eyes fixed on him.
"Okay okay, I surrender — LOYAL!! TY!!"
Caelus threw both hands in the air and declared his allegiance at full volume.
What was he supposed to do? She looked like that.
Stelle's charm had activated!
Hands still raised, Caelus walked toward her, bent down, and pressed his lips to hers — those soft, cinnabar-pink lips.
"Hmph~"
Stelle made a sound like she'd just won a game, and let Caelus cup her face in his hands and kiss her deeply.
She could sense it with crystalline clarity — the sweetness of her own lips, the warmth, the softness — phantom-limb synesthesia carrying her twin's sensation back to her, layered over hot breath, forming that singular loop of kissing oneself.
The mischievous light at the corner of Stelle's eye flickered. Her right leg swept out like a striking serpent.
Their minds linked, Caelus sensed her intent — but it was already too late to dodge.
His center of gravity vanished. He tumbled with a thud onto the brocade rug beside the sandalwood chair, blinked, and found himself looking up at the gray-haired girl peering down at him with playful contempt.
"Hey, what are you— GUH—!"
Caelus let out a strangled yelp.
Stelle swung her smooth, pale foot idly; the black heel that had been half-off went flying. She bent her knee and pressed down lightly, the pad of her adorable little toes resting at Caelus's throat.
Coaxing a very strange sound out of him.
"Do you yield?"
As Stelle leaned forward, the trailing ends of her hair swept across the tip of Caelus's nose — but her foot slid down from his throat in the same motion, translucent manicured nails dragging a faint pink line in their wake.
"That's cheating."
When that smooth heel suddenly pressed into the groove of his abdominals, Caelus let out a low grunt — and opened his mouth to bite down on Stelle's calf.
"Ah!"
A twinge of pain. Stelle hurriedly used her big toe to pry his teeth apart.
She pulled her saliva-dampened toes free from his mouth and used them to grip the hem of his shirt, wiping off the wetness.
A small tic appeared at the corner of Caelus's eye.
Not because of the shirt-wiping — the truly lethal part was Stelle leaning down to drag her tongue across the corner of his mouth, while one bare foot still planted itself firmly on his hip bone and the other ground slowly across his pubic bone, sliding toward his waist...
...
"Caelus! Weren't you the one who said to meet in one hour? It's been almost an hour and a half! Why are you two only just showing up?!"
A gradient princess gown — pale lavender fading to deep blue — ice-crystal patterns shimmering across the fabric with every step, as though rippling with flowing light. The blue butterfly bow at the bare shoulders quivered softly, echoing the small purple flowers on the leg garter, the lace at the stocking tops tracing gleaming arcs with every movement.
The ice-crystal tiara in her pink hair caught the warm light and scattered it in sparkling shards. March 7th looked every inch a princess stepped out of a fairy tale.
Both hands on her hips, she glared at the two gray-haired stragglers who had taken their sweet time.
"Blame Stelle. Her decision paralysis flared up — she couldn't figure out which one to wear."
Caelus ruffled Stelle's hair, his gaze passing — imperceptibly brief — over her black high heels, where, through the gap, one could just make out a few glistening drops of something white left behind inside.
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