When the Drunken Cat Imperial Lady opened her eyes, she was lying in a bed.

Princess Qianqian was sitting on the edge of it, thinking about something.

Wasn’t I just helping with the experiment?

That was her first thought. Then the rest came back — she had been helping Yueyang complete the Seventy-Two Star Spiral formation, and had passed out from the sustained mental expenditure.

The Seventy-Two Star Spiral was only the upper tier of the three-composite formation, but finishing it was a breakthrough of generational significance for the war beast wrist device project. With that as the proven standard, the other two composite formations would follow. And she had contributed something real — before losing consciousness, she had been there for the hardest piece, the upper-tier Seventy-Two Star Spiral mapping.

She breathed out and sat up.

She had nothing on.

The memory arrived unhurriedly: the explosions had taken care of that, one after another, across three days. She hadn’t thought about it at the time. She was thinking about it now, and the embarrassment of it — sitting unclothed with him for three days, absorbed in research, neither of them registering anything unusual about the arrangement — hit her in a slow, warm wave.

She wondered what Qianqian thought.

“You’re awake.” Qianqian turned, smiling. “You were exhausted. I looked in several times — I’m surprised it took this long.”

She poured a cup of tea and passed it over.

The Imperial Lady tugged the quilt up around herself, accepted the cup, and realized she was in Qianqian’s room — which meant Qianqian was the one who had carried her out of the lab. The embarrassment deepened. She took a small sip to settle herself, then said quietly: “I was very absorbed in the work. I forgot to—”

Qianqian laughed. “Sister, don’t explain it to me. Setting aside being completely immersed in research — even if something had happened between you and him that wasn’t research, I wouldn’t be jealous. You’re the bride of the Night Clan that His Majesty personally selected for him, and Fourth Mother gave her blessing.”

“That’s not — I can’t — the seniority difference is too much.” The Imperial Lady looked away, coloring. This was the thing she dreaded most having brought up. She couldn’t defy His Majesty. She held Fourth Mother in deep respect. And as for Yueyang himself — she could admit, privately, that she didn’t dislike him nearly as much as she claimed to. If she were being honest, marrying him seemed like the best outcome imaginable. The only thing standing between her and simply accepting the arrangement the way Luohua and Yinan had was the seniority problem — she was a full generation above Wuxia, Wuhen, and Qianqian, technically, whatever the informal titles suggested. If she joined their group, the awkwardness of that—

“Generation means nothing,” Qianqian said, with unusual seriousness. “The Night Clan’s numbers have always been the smallest of all the clans. His Majesty and the Night Empress both carry divine curses — that burden is already heavy enough. If you don’t go, if you don’t have a child with that terrible boy and continue the Night Clan’s line, the Night Clan may simply cease to exist.”

“Don’t bring this up again.” The Imperial Lady buried her face in the quilt.

“I didn’t understand the full history before. Neither did Wuxia. Now that I do — if he hadn’t appeared, the Hundred Flowers Clan would probably already be a footnote in the Sky Stairway’s history.” Qianqian’s voice softened. “When I look back at how we all found each other, I don’t think it was accidental. Maybe it was the mercy of the ancient gods. Maybe it was his mother’s years of effort. However it happened — we’re lucky.”

“Is that what you think?” The Imperial Lady lifted her head with a startled expression.

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe… maybe that’s right.” She couldn’t meet Qianqian’s eyes. Her voice faded as she said it, down to something nearly inaudible.

“If it’s fate, then what are you still worried about?” Qianqian reached out and touched her shoulder lightly. “Chasing happiness isn’t simple. It takes Yinan’s courage, Luohua’s warmth, Wuhen’s generosity — and in the end, Wuxia’s determination.” A gentle pat. “I know you’ll work it out. Get some rest. I’m going to practice.”

“Qianqian—” The Imperial Lady spoke before she could stop herself, and then when Qianqian turned around, shook her head quickly. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“You’ll do well,” Qianqian said, and her smile was bright enough to fill the room. “One more thing — because of what you contributed, Yue Yu and Wuxia and Wuhen have used your work as the foundation and finished the soul-contract rune formation for the wrist device. There are only two small things left. First: a test subject. Second: the final material synthesis. In recognition of your exceptional contributions, they’ve decided to give those two tasks to you.”

“No — you can’t — you can’t do that—” Half alarmed, half something she wasn’t ready to name.

It was obvious what this meant. The biggest remaining credit handed to her. And the other part of it — time alone with him, created deliberately, by people who understood exactly what they were doing.

She thought about what a physical test subject trial would involve, and her face went incandescent. She wanted very badly to find a crack in the floor and disappear into it.

“Mama, are you sick?” Niunu pattered in, a large kite in one hand, clearly mid-outing with Yue Shuang. She noticed her mother lying down and came to check.

“I’m not sick. Go and play.” It came out more affectionately than usual — she brushed the top of Niunu’s head with her hand rather than reminding her to train. The little panda gave a delighted squeak and ran for the door, then paused when the Imperial Lady called after her: “Niunu — do you like your brother?”

“Of course! Next to Mama, Brother is the best!” Pure sweetness, no hesitation.

“Good. Go play.”

Niunu disappeared, and the Imperial Lady heard her telling Yue Shuang outside: “Mama’s not crying today! And she let me go play! Let’s go find Brother—”

“Brother just fell asleep, Mama said not to bother him. Let’s find Xiao Wenli and fly the kite.”

“Okay—”

Her face burned fresh. Niunu had noticed the crying. Had she mentioned it to him? If he knew, he would assume things, and she would never hear the end of it, and she would deny everything, absolutely, if it ever came up.

She lay back down.

For the first time in a long time, something in her chest felt lighter.

Something that had been sitting there, heavy and shapeless and unacknowledged, had dissolved without her noticing when it went.

Marriage? Never. Even if His Majesty had selected her. Even if he begged. Her name was not going on that list alongside Qianqian’s and the others’ — what would people think? Absolutely not. She had decided.

She fell asleep amid a current of feelings she couldn’t quite sort, and she was smiling when she did.

Niunu, if she’d seen it, would have known: Mama hadn’t smiled in her sleep for a very long time.

When she woke again, the impulse to go find him immediately was strong enough to surprise her.

She didn’t act on it. She made herself wait three days, going about everything normally, not mentioning him in front of the others. But when they talked about him, she listened to every word.

Yue Yu had returned and, in a single day, helped him finalize the soul-contract rune formation for the wrist device. Wuxia and Wuhen’s designs had produced three standard prototype configurations. The Imperial Lady registered this with a private and somewhat complicated feeling. Three days of explosions for one upper-tier rune formation. Yue Yu, one day, final product. The distance between where she was and where Yue Yu was — it was considerable. She acknowledged it without bitterness, and went back to thinking about other things.

Midnight.

A knock at her door.

“Are you asleep?”

She had been lying awake replaying certain scenes from the research, warmth collecting along her collarbone, not quite settled into sleep. His voice at the door made her startle upright.

“I’m asleep. What do you need?” Her voice came out less steady than she intended. “Can it wait until tomorrow? I’m resting.”

She was afraid he’d push the door open and do something irreversible. And she was afraid of what she’d do if he did.

The door opened.

He pulled her out of bed — out of the quilts, out of her careful arrangement — and started toward the corridor with her in tow.

“Yue Yu won’t be my first test subject. Qianqian and the others have apparently vanished. If I catch them, I’m going to spank every one of them. Come and help me.”

“Don’t call me that—” Cat-cat. She didn’t dislike the sound of it. She disliked how warm it sounded. “I’m not — that’s not my—”

“Come on.” He wasn’t paying any attention to the name debate. He was already pulling.

“Let me change clothes at least.” She was in her sleeping clothes. She reached back toward the room with her free hand.

“Too much trouble. That’s fine.”

She let herself be towed along, heart working at an unusual tempo, telling herself she was being dragged against her will and not that she’d been wanting an excuse to follow him for three days.

When she entered the lab, she picked up the project notes while he prepared the setup. The fastest way to be useful was to understand the full process as quickly as possible.

She read three lines and covered her mouth.

The protocol, as designed by Wuxia, Wuhen, and Qianqian, was detailed and specific about what the first test subject trial required. Physical contact — that was one thing, that could be endured. Soul-sense interface — also manageable, in principle. But the critical requirement, the element that made the soul-communication pathway accessible, was listed plainly in the specifications: the test subject needed to engage with Yueyang at a level of intimacy no lower than that of a romantic partner. The soul’s defenses only fully opened in a state of emotional resonance — a genuine exchange, not a performed one. Without that, he couldn’t properly observe the soul-contact process and develop it into something replicable.

That’s why Yue Yu refused.

If the trial ran to completion, what remained afterward would be indistinguishable from what remained after something else entirely. And if Yueyang, in the middle of that state, lost his composure—

She stared at the specifications.

She was already here. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t read this. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand what it meant.

Was tonight the night she stopped being what she’d always been?

Her hands were shaking slightly.

She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t decided. She’d been three days convincing herself she hadn’t decided anything, that the name on that list wasn’t hers, that everything was still open and she was still choosing—

But she was already here. Already in his lab, at midnight, in her sleeping clothes, because some part of her had followed him the instant he asked.

Tell him she couldn’t. Leave now.

Or stay, and follow Wuxia’s protocol to its conclusion, and let whatever happened happen.

One of these paths led forward. The other one led back to exactly where she’d been.

What do I do?