Chapter 2: Assignment

“I understand.” Yi Ke nodded with fake gravity. “So a mortal saved a god, room and board included. Shouldn’t Lord Immortal say thank you?”
The beauty frowned. “Didn’t I do your homework for you?”
Yi Ke spread her hands. “That’s separate. On Earth, when someone helps you, you say thanks. Good tradition.”
“…Thank you.”
Lord Cold Beauty was helpless—but powers gone, living under someone’s roof, she had to compromise.
Turns out Lord Jade Rabbit was kind of cute. Yi Ke’s interest spiked.
She held out her hand, bright smile: “Proper introduction. I’m Yi Ke, design major at Jintian University. Immortal sister—are you from the moon? What’s your name?”
Three questions in a row. The beauty looked up, arched a brow, surprised: “Mortal, you don’t seem shocked at all.”
She meant the rabbit turning human.
Yi Ke was an ability user. Strange things were routine; rabbit-to-human wasn’t that earth-shattering.
What did shake her was the beauty’s cold, otherworldly face—exactly her fantasy of a fairy.
The face she’d wanted in dreams!
“Big world, all kinds of wonders.” She didn’t care. “Even stones turn into monkeys. A rabbit becoming human makes sense.”
The beauty’s expression shifted slightly. After a long pause, three words: “Bai Yanci.”
“Beautiful name!” To her ears, it sounded perfect.
She stretched and yawned. “Lord Jade Rabbit, fairy or spirit—sleep early. I’ve got SI tomorrow. Won’t keep you company.”
“Special Investigations?”
Bai Yanci’s eyes dimmed at once—but Yi Ke had already rolled over. Sleep quality legendary: pillow, out. A human miracle.
Next morning Yi Ke was up unusually early.
Bai Yanci’s powers weren’t back; she was a fluffy rabbit again, curled in the corner of the bed, deep asleep.
If the immortal sister wasn’t an ordinary rabbit, that bag of premium feed would have to bless some other rabbit.
Yi Ke ate irregularly herself and barely remembered breakfast—but she didn’t want to wrong Bai Yanci.
She thought a moment, ordered delivery, set it carefully on the table, left a note, and left with peace of mind.
Lately Jintian had been restless. Higher-ups wanted her personally on the investigation.
Especially the suburbs—cluster after cluster of group suicides. Bureau specialists tied it to spiritual flame. They wanted SI to coordinate.
Spiritual flame, in the narrow sense, was life—but not only life.
People said humans carry three fires.
In her view, a person only burned one.
That fire was fate and pure emotion together. The purer the heart, the closer the color to true blue.
When the spiritual flame went out, life ended.
She’d barely reached the station when an urgent message popped up.
【Officer: Team Leader Yi, yesterday’s suspect was taken by an ability user. Tracking shows the suburbs.】
She sighed heavily.
Was the interrogation room a sieve? Broad daylight and they lost a suspect? Were those officers decorative?
She didn’t dare delay and rushed to the suburbs again.
The suburbs were a long haul from downtown. She pushed her ability again and again to move faster. Sweat ran down her face; her vision swam.
Overusing abilities drained stamina fast.
But this suspect was their only thread to whoever was behind it. She couldn’t gamble.
Yesterday she’d read the suspect’s spiritual flame and knew its scent. Now she followed the residue to an abandoned warehouse.
Empty, bleak, wind cutting through. Dim light through broken windows fell on two figures leaning on each other in the corner.
The abducted suspect rested in a blue-clad woman’s arms—face pale, breath thin, the last of their spiritual flame almost scattering into the wind.
Footsteps at the door. The woman in blue looked up. The instant she saw Yi Ke, dull eyes lit with a faint glow.
She staggered up, gently draped her coat over the person in her arms, fingertips brushing cold lips, then a colder face.
“Team Leader Yi. You came.” Soft voice. “I knew you would.”
Eager eyes—love and hope twisted together. “They say you’re SI’s best. You have abilities. You cross life and death. You can save her… right?”
In the dim light her haggard face looked paler still.
Even wrecked and bare of makeup, her beauty held.
Yi Ke stayed silent. Her gaze fixed on the suspect’s crown.
In just minutes that already weak flame was visibly dimming.
“Too late.” She closed her eyes, unwilling to watch.
The person in her arms was at the end—beyond anyone’s reach.
The woman in blue froze. Something in her eyes seemed to crack quietly.
Still she wouldn’t give up. Pleading: “Team Leader Yi—if it could trade for her life, I’d give mine!”
Yi Ke rarely offered comfort.
Since joining SI she’d seen too many scenes like this. She knew words were thin before life and death.
That was why she refused comfort duty.
But seeing the woman look half-dead herself, she finally softened, low: “The dead are gone. The living have to keep walking forward.”
The words cut deep.
The woman in blue hugged the body going cold, laughed upward through tears: “Forward? How does someone like me go forward?”
Yi Ke fell silent again and could only watch the flame burn out its last light, powerless.
If there’d been any chance, wouldn’t she have taken it?
As one who governed spiritual flame, she never gave up on a life lightly.
“We struggled so long. We thought we could finally live in the sun. Fate never favored us. Light never touched us.”
Suddenly the woman looked up, eyes blank: “Team Leader Yi, I never believed in fate. Now I do. The price of a wish… is this heavy. This painful.”
Her voice ended. A faint smile—eyes resolved.
She conjured a dagger and drove it into her own heart. Blood burst forth.
Too fast. Yi Ke couldn’t even shout in time.
Two flames went out together.
“Dead… dead?”
Jiang Ran from SI arrived panting—still too late.
“Yeah. Dead.” Yi Ke closed her eyes, forced reason forward. “Let’s go back. Reports to write. Cleanup crew will handle this.”
Jiang Ran still worried: “Leader, you okay?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine, Jiang-jie. Let’s go.”
She’d seen worse—yet when the woman in blue chose death, her own heart had cramped.
For a moment it felt like… empathy.
Jiang Ran was older than Yi Ke and always watched the young leader’s mood.
They used different honorifics for each other—strangely harmonious.
Strictly speaking, everyone on SI except Yi Ke was full-time police. She was the exception.
Jiang Ran had five years on the unit, rich experience—and still served as deputy to a parachuted part-time leader.
Jiang Ran had no complaint.
Since SI was founded, the leader’s seat was often empty.
Like a curse: whoever took it ended badly.
Yi Ke thought her fate was hard enough not to fear that.
When Ji Chengfeng brought her in, he’d asked seriously for her opinion.
Fearless Yi Ke had only smiled: “Someone has to sit there.”
So she took the SI leadership without fuss.
A full day at the bureau. Walking home in the dark, the suburban scene wouldn’t leave her head. She was so distracted she used the wrong key.
Several tries—the door opened from inside.
Bai Yanci leaned in the doorway. Moon through the window silvered her shoulders.
She glanced at the keys in Yi Ke’s hand, faint smile, teasing: “Mortal, gone one day and you forgot how to open your own door?”
“Nonsense. Not even a full day.”
Seeing Bai Yanci, the tension of the whole day eased. Her voice softened without her noticing.
At the bureau she had to be lightning-fast Team Leader Yi—not Yi Ke.
She poured herself water by habit, paused—remembered there was someone else now—filled another cup and held it out to Bai Yanci.
“Immortal sister, I have a name. I’m not ‘mortal.’ I’m Yi Ke.” Her eyes rested on that beautiful face; her voice tired and rough. “I’m the one who took you in. I’m not the same as other humans… am I?”
Bai Yanci took the cup awkwardly, eyes down, small sip.
Water in the mortal realm was sweet—like the immortal realm.
After a long blank, Bai Yanci asked slowly: “Is there a difference?”
“Of course! I can take you in. Can anyone else?” Thirsty, she drained her cup. “Say my name.”
…
Bai Yanci looked away. The faintest pink at her ears. She ignored the request.
Yi Ke caught it anyway and edged closer, low: “Sister, is my name that hard to say?”
Still silence. She leaned nearer—warm breath almost at an ear: “Sister… is my name… too hot to touch?”