The ceiling was wrong.

Wei Hongzhan registered the fact before he registered anything else. Concrete, cracked in three places, stained by years of leaking pipes. Not the smooth steel panels of his last quarters. Not the forest canopy he had fallen asleep under. Just damp grey plaster and the faint smell of mildew that clung to old military dormitories everywhere.

Something warm and heavy rested on his sternum. Small claws pricked through thin fabric, and a soft, rhythmic snore—more like a purr—vibrated against his ribs. He lowered his gaze.

A silver dragon no larger than a housecat lay curled there, scales gleaming like fresh frost under moonlight. Its tail twitched once in sleep, the tip brushing his collarbone. Wei Hongzhan noted the creature’s presence the same way he noted the weight of a new sidearm: useful, unexpected, and not yet a problem.

To his left, on the edge of the pillow, sat a white qilin cub the size of a large housecat. Golden hooves tucked neatly beneath it, a single iridescent horn catching the weak morning light from the single narrow window. Ancient golden eyes regarded him with the patience of something that had watched empires rise and fall and was mildly irritated to be doing paperwork about it now.

The qilin spoke first, voice clear, formal, and carrying the faintest sigh of long-suffering.

“Host. You are awake. Good. I am Língquè, Spirit Throne System, bound to your soul by the terms of your transmigration. You died. Camping accident. Ravine. Very undignified. Your soul has been placed in the body of Bai Yaoling, first-year E-rank omega student at Tianque Imperial Mecha Academy, Room 407, East Wing. The original owner’s consciousness has been… relocated. Politely.”

Wei Hongzhan blinked once. The motion felt different. Lashes longer. Vision sharper. He lifted a hand—slender, pale, unfamiliar—and watched deep crimson strands slide across his knuckles like fresh blood. The hair had been white when the body went to sleep last night. The mirror across the room confirmed it: a face that was not his, framed by waves of violent red that fell past narrow shoulders. Amber eyes stared back, calm and assessing.

He sat up. The silver dragon grumbled, rolled, and resettled in his lap without waking.

Língquè continued as though reading from a contract neither of them had signed willingly.

“Your mission is simple in objective, complex in execution. The original novel’s shou protagonist—Shen Liuqing—must awaken as the SSS-class alpha he was always meant to be. You will guide, provoke, and protect that process. Completion grants return to your original world with full memories and enhanced spiritual capacity. Failure means permanent residency here as Bai Yaoling, E-rank, no powers, no exit clause. The original plot has already begun. Bullying. Arranged marriage. Imminent suicide. None of which will now occur on schedule.”

Wei Hongzhan swung his legs over the side of the narrow bed. Bare feet met cold wooden floorboards. The chill grounded him. He stood, tested balance—slender frame, lighter than he was used to, but the muscle memory of fifteen years drilling soldiers remained. He made the bed with precise corners, the way he had been taught before most of these students were born.

Only then did he speak.

“Fine.”

The single syllable dropped into the quiet room like a calibration weight.

Língquè’s golden eyes narrowed. “That is… your entire reaction?”

Wei Hongzhan crossed to the small desk. An E-rank badge lay there, silver edges already tarnished. He pinned it to the collar of the plain academy uniform hanging on the wall hook. The fabric smelled of old soap and faint fear-sweat that no longer belonged to the body.

He turned back to the qilin. “You summarized the novel. I listened. I assessed. The situation is suboptimal but manageable. I have operated under worse parameters.” He glanced down at the silver dragon, now stretching luxuriously across the blanket. “And I appear to have brought reinforcements.”

The dragon chirped once in its sleep, as if agreeing.

Língquè’s tail flicked. “Most hosts at least scream. Or faint. Or demand explanations for forty minutes. Your emotional range is… concerningly efficient.”

Wei Hongzhan allowed the ghost of a smile—nothing more than a slight curve at the corner of his mouth. “Efficiency is its own reward.”

He walked to the door. The nameplate read, in neat block characters:

**Bai Yaoling / Shen Liuqing — Room 407**

The second bed was neatly made, pillow still indented from recent use. Shen Liuqing had already left for breakfast. Good. Wei Hongzhan preferred to meet new variables on a full stomach.

He stepped into the hallway. Damp stone walls, flickering overhead lights, the distant clatter of students moving toward the East Wing cafeteria. The air carried the universal academy smell: cheap instant noodles, engine grease, and the faint metallic tang of spiritual residue from overnight training.

Wei Hongzhan adjusted the E-rank badge at his collar, felt the unfamiliar weight of long crimson hair against his back, and started walking.

Behind him, inside the now-empty room, a small white qilin rubbed its forehead with one golden hoof and muttered to the ceiling.

“Fine. He said ‘fine.’ I have been assigned to the one host who treats cosmic reincarnation like a minor equipment malfunction.”

The silver dragon lifted its head, yawned, and went back to sleep.

In the corridor, Wei Hongzhan’s steps were quiet, measured, and utterly unhurried. Somewhere ahead, breakfast waited. And somewhere in this building, a quiet omega named Shen Liuqing was about to meet the roommate who had decided—calmly, deliberately, and without a trace of panic—that the entire original plot was going to be dismantled before lunch.

**Author's Note:**

Língquè: I want it on record that I prepared seventeen different emotional support protocols for the standard host reaction. Crying. Denial. Bargaining. The host used none of them.

Wei Hongzhan: They were unnecessary.

Língquè: You said “Fine” to being dead.

Wei Hongzhan: It was accurate.

Língquè: …I am going to need a vacation.

(Author has already fled the premises and is hiding behind the calibration machine.)

---

The cafeteria smelled like boiled cabbage and institutional despair.

Wei Hongzhan stood in the doorway for three seconds—long enough to map the room's layout, identify the serving stations, and catalog the visible social architecture. The space was a long rectangle, concrete floors scarred by decades of dropped trays, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like dying insects. The serving line ran along the far wall, steam rising from metal bins of something gray and something brown.

More telling was the seating.

The western half of the room held newer tables, better lit, populated by students with polished rank badges—A-class and above, their uniforms crisp, their postures relaxed in the way of people who had never been hungry for anything. The eastern half, where the light didn't quite reach, held older furniture, more crowded, students sitting with shoulders hunched over trays. E and D-class. The invisible line between the two halves wasn't marked on the floor, but every student in the room knew exactly where it ran.

Wei Hongzhan walked to the serving line. The woman behind the counter—beta, middle-aged, permanent frown etched between her eyebrows—looked at his E-rank badge, then at the omega marker on his collar, then reached for the bin that had been scraped nearly empty.

"Last serving of protein," she said, not unkindly. "Rest is starch and sauce."

"Thank you," Wei Hongzhan said.

She blinked. Most E-rank omegas didn't meet her eyes. Didn't speak with the calm clarity of someone ordering coffee rather than accepting charity. She almost smiled—almost—before catching herself and turning to the next student.

He found a seat at the eastern edge, back to the wall, facing the room. The chair wobbled on uneven legs. The protein was a gray slab that might have been fish once, covered in sauce that tasted like salt and regret. He cut it into precise portions and ate with the methodical efficiency of someone who had once spent three weeks in a trench eating nutrient paste that came in tubes labeled "Emergency Rations: Not For Extended Use."

Something warm shifted against his collarbone. Yínchén, still small enough to hide in the front pocket of his uniform jacket, poked its silver head out and sniffed the air.

"No," Wei Hongzhan said quietly.

The dragon chirped, offended.

"You are not eating cafeteria fish. You don't have the digestive capacity yet." He slid a small piece of his own bread into the pocket. "That. Only that."

Yínchén made a sound like a disgruntled kettle, but accepted the bread.

The noise level in the room shifted. Wei Hongzhan didn't look up from his tray, but his attention did—expanding to take in the new pressure entering the space. Heavy footsteps. Multiple. The particular rhythm of young men who had never learned that strength didn't require announcement.

"—telling you, the calibration machine in the north wing was glitching all night, they're saying someone actually broke the—"

"Nobody breaks calibration machines. You have to have resonance to break a calibration machine."

"Well, something happened. They're running diagnostics—"

The voices stopped near Wei Hongzhan's table.

He continued eating. The fish was overcooked, the texture like wet cardboard, but it was calories and he needed calories to think. He catalogued the three young men standing at the edge of his peripheral vision without appearing to look at them: all alphas, all wearing B or A-class badges, all wearing the relaxed aggression of people who had found their entertainment for the morning.

The one in the center was the largest. Broad shoulders that strained his uniform jacket, dark hair cut aggressively short, handsome in the blunt way of someone who had never needed to be subtle. Qian Aotian. The name came from Língquè's briefing—head bully, A-class, made the previous Bai Yaoling's life a specific project of misery.

Qian Aotian smiled. It was the smile of someone who had rehearsed cruelty until it came naturally.

"Well," he said. "Look at this. The ghost woke up red."

His companions laughed—the correct response, automatic and empty.

Wei Hongzhan finished chewing. Swallowed. Set down his fork with a soft clink against the ceramic tray. Then he looked up.

Qian Aotian's smile faltered. Just slightly. The eyes he met were not the eyes he remembered—hadn't Bai Yaoling's been brown? Hadn't they been downcast, wet, desperate to look anywhere but at the person speaking to him? These eyes were amber, clear, and completely unafraid. They assessed him the way an instructor might assess a student who had just presented a flawed tactical plan: with patience, with attention, and with absolute confidence in their own evaluation.

"Your left shin," Wei Hongzhan said. His voice was quiet, pleasant, the tone of someone making a helpful observation about the weather. "You've been compensating for a weakness in your ankle stabilizers. When you land from the training platforms, you're favoring the right side. The stress fracture is developing approximately three centimeters below the knee, lateral side. You'll want to see the school doctor before the Calibration Cup, or you'll lose the first round to someone with worse technique but intact bones."

The cafeteria had gone quiet. Not completely—conversations continued at the edges, students eating, the machinery of the room grinding on—but the space immediately surrounding Wei Hongzhan's table had developed a strange acoustic deadness, as if the air itself were holding its breath.

Qian Aotian's mouth opened. Closed. His left shin did hurt—had been hurting for two weeks, actually, a low throb he ignored because A-class alphas didn't complain about training pain. He hadn't told anyone. Hadn't limped. Hadn't even acknowledged it to himself.

"Who—" he started.

Wei Hongzhan picked up his tray. Stood. He was shorter than Qian Aotian, narrower, the E-rank badge catching the light at his collar like a joke. He didn't look like a joke. He looked like someone who had already finished the conversation and was moving on to more important matters.

"Your landing form," he said, pausing just long enough to meet Qian Aotian's eyes—really meet them, with the weight of someone who had watched thousands of young soldiers make thousands of mistakes and had learned to see the future in the present. "You're rolling outward on impact. Correct it, or correct the fracture after it breaks. Either way works."

He walked toward the tray return. His steps were quiet, unhurried, the crimson fall of his hair the only color in the gray room.

Behind him, Qian Aotian stood frozen. One of his companions—B-class, nervous, suddenly aware that something had happened without understanding what—leaned in.

"Aotian? You okay?"

"My shin," Qian Aotian said slowly. "How did he—"

But Wei Hongzhan was already gone, his tray deposited, his path taking him toward the exit that led to the East Wing workshops. Yínchén poked its head out of his pocket again, silver eyes bright, something stolen and half-eaten clutched in its small claws—a piece of dried fruit from the tray of a C-class student three tables away.

Wei Hongzhan removed it without breaking stride, placed it on a nearby empty table, and kept walking.

The dragon made a sound of profound betrayal.

"That was not yours," Wei Hongzhan said quietly. "We discussed property rights. I will explain again tonight."

Yínchén sulked all the way to the workshop wing.

---

The East Wing workshops smelled different from the dorms—metal shavings and ozone, the particular sharpness of spiritual energy being channeled through raw components. Wei Hongzhan walked past the open doors of first-year project bays, noting the students bent over skeletal mecha frames, the instructors moving between stations with the distracted air of people supervising work they had seen a thousand times before.

He found an empty bay at the end of the row. The frame there was a salvage base—standard issue for E-class students who couldn't bond with pre-built units. It looked like a skeleton of titanium and copper wire, half-assembled, abandoned by someone who had given up when the resonance core wouldn't light.

Wei Hongzhan ran his fingers along the cold metal. The previous Bai Yaoling had tried, he realized. Had sat here, hands shaking, attempting to force a spiritual connection that his suppressed biology wouldn't allow. The frame remembered. The tools were still arranged in the pattern of someone who had worked in desperate hope.

"Host." Língquè's voice in his mind, the qilin's physical form presumably back in the dormitory. "You have made an enemy of Qian Aotian."

"I have made him uncertain," Wei Hongzhan corrected, subvocalizing the response. He picked up a calibration needle, tested its weight. "Uncertainty is more useful than enmity. Enemies are predictable. Uncertain people hesitate."

"He will return with greater force. The original plot had him escalating the bullying until—"

"Until Bai Yaoling broke," Wei Hongzhan finished. He set down the needle, picked up a length of copper resonance wire. "I am not Bai Yaoling. Qian Aotian will realize this, or he will not. Either outcome is data."

He began to unwind the wire from the frame's left arm, noting the routing pattern. Sloppy. The spiritual channels were crossing in ways that would create feedback loops, reducing response time by thirty percent at minimum. The previous owner hadn't known better. The instructors hadn't cared enough to correct it.

"Your first mission parameter," Língquè said, "requires interaction with Shen Liuqing. He is currently in the library, eastern wing, researching historical cases of designation suppression. He does not know he is researching his own condition."

Wei Hongzhan paused. The wire hung from his fingers, catching the workshop light. "He suspects."

"He suspects he is a failed omega. He does not suspect he is a suppressed alpha. The distinction matters for the awakening protocol."

"Understood." He coiled the wire neatly, set it aside. "I will finish here first. The frame needs complete rewiring. The current configuration is insulting to engineering."

"Host. The mission—"

"Will proceed more effectively if I demonstrate competence first." Wei Hongzhan selected a new spool of wire, higher grade than the standard issue. "Shen Liuqing has been surrounded by incompetence and cruelty. When I approach him, it will be as someone who builds rather than destroys. The contrast will be instructive."

Língquè was silent for a moment. When the system's voice returned, there was something almost like approval beneath the formal tone. "Your methodology is… unorthodox."

"Effective."

"Unnecessarily dramatic."

Wei Hongzhan allowed himself that ghost-smile again, the corner of his mouth curving as he began threading wire through the frame's shoulder joint with the precision of a surgeon. "The drama is a side effect. The efficiency is the point."

He worked for an hour. The workshop emptied around him—students leaving for afternoon classes, the light shifting through the high windows from morning gold to afternoon white. Yínchén curled on a nearby toolbox and slept, silver scales rising and falling with small breaths. The frame slowly transformed under Wei Hongzhan's hands, the wire routing corrected, the spiritual channels opened into configurations that no Academy instructor had taught because no Academy instructor had thought to try.

When he finally set down his tools, the frame didn't look like much—still skeletal, still unpowered, still waiting for a resonance core that wouldn't arrive until he could requisition one through proper channels. But it was no longer an embarrassment. It was no longer wrong.

Wei Hongzhan wiped his hands on a cloth, resettled Yínchén in his pocket, and went to find the library.

He was ready to meet his mission objective.

And somewhere in the building, Qian Aotian was standing in the school doctor's office, watching the medical scanner highlight a developing stress fracture in his left shin, feeling the first cold touch of uncertainty about everything he had assumed to be true.

Author's Note:

Língquè: The host spent an hour rewiring a mecha frame before meeting the primary mission target.

Wei Hongzhan: The frame was incorrectly assembled.

Língquè: Shen Liuqing was waiting.

Wei Hongzhan: Shen Liuqing will continue to exist. The frame's wiring would not have improved without intervention.

Língquè: You prioritized engineering over social engineering.

Wei Hongzhan: All engineering is social engineering. The frame is a statement.

Língquè: …I need to update my definition of "urgent."

(Author is still behind the calibration machine. The machine is now providing emotional support.)

---

The corridor outside Room 407 smelled of floor wax and evening damp, the particular stillness of a building settling into night. Shen Liuqing stood at the door for longer than he should have, fingers resting on the handle, listening to the silence inside.

Not the right silence.

The room had been empty for two years in the way that mattered—two bodies occupying space without touching, two lives running parallel tracks that never converged. Bai Yaoling had been a ghost even before the red hair, a presence defined by absence: the held breath before entering, the careful avoidance of eye contact, the way he would freeze when Shen Liuqing moved too quickly, as if expecting a blow. Shen Liuqing had learned to move slowly around him. Had learned to be invisible in his own room, to take up less space, to breathe quieter.

He had not learned how to miss that.

The silence beyond the door was different. Calm, not frightened. The silence of someone who was simply present, without apology or demand.

Shen Liuqing turned the handle.

The first thing he saw was the hair—crimson, impossibly vivid, spilling over narrow shoulders like something spilled from a wound that wouldn't clot. The second thing was the posture: cross-legged on the bed that had belonged to Bai Yaoling, back straight, shoulders relaxed in a way that spoke of muscle memory rather than effort. The third thing was the book—Advanced Mecha Resonance Theory, Volume III, the kind of text third-year students struggled with, held in slender hands that turned pages with the idle rhythm of someone reading light fiction.

The person looked up.

Amber eyes. Not brown. Not frightened. Assessing him with the same calm evaluation Shen Liuqing had seen in military instructors, in doctors delivering difficult diagnoses, in people who had already decided how much they needed to care about the outcome of a situation.

"You're Shen Liuqing," the person said. Not a question. A confirmation, as if checking a box on a mental list.

Shen Liuqing's hand tightened on the doorframe. "...Yes."

The red-haired person nodded, returned to the book. "I won't bother you."

Four seconds. Shen Liuqing counted them automatically—one, two, three, four—standing in the doorway like a statue, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the comment about his omega marker. For the smirk, the threat, the casual cruelty that always followed when someone new saw what he was and decided to test the boundaries.

Nothing.

The person on the bed turned another page. Yínchén—silver, small, unmistakably a dragon despite the impossible size—stirred on the pillow beside them, stretching wings like frost-rimed leaves. Beyond the window, evening rain began to fall against the glass, the sound filling the silence without interrupting it.

Shen Liuqing stepped inside. Closed the door. The click of the latch was loud in the quiet room.

He moved to his own bed automatically, muscle memory guiding him through the evening routine he had perfected for invisibility: remove shoes, fold uniform jacket, place books on the small desk, all movements designed to attract no attention, to create no ripple. He was aware of being watched—not stared at, not threatened, simply observed—and found that he did not mind it. The observation carried no weight. It was neutral. Data gathering, nothing more.

"Your pillow is damp," the red-haired person said, not looking up from the text.

Shen Liuqing paused, hand halfway to his pillow. It was damp—the window leaked when it rained, had leaked for the entire semester, and maintenance had never responded to work orders. He had stopped noticing, had simply learned to sleep on the dry side.

"I know," he said.

"Mine doesn't leak. The frame is warped on the left side, not the right." A page turned. "Trade, if you want."

Shen Liuqing looked at the other bed. The pillow there was indeed dry, positioned against the wall where the window frame held true. The offer hung in the air without expectation, without performance of generosity. Simply: a fact, a solution, a choice.

"No," he said. "Thank you."

A nod. No insistence, no wounded pride. "Let me know if you change your mind."

Shen Liuqing sat on his bed, damp pillow against the wall, and opened his own book—Historical Cases of Designation Anomaly, the spine cracked from repeated reading. He had been through it seven times, searching for patterns, for hope, for explanation. He had found none. The text blurred before his eyes now, not from tears but from exhaustion, from the particular fatigue of a day spent waiting for cruelty that had not arrived.

Yínchén chirped.

Shen Liuqing looked up. The silver dragon had crawled off its owner's shoulder, toddling across the narrow gap between beds on unsteady legs, wings half-furled, tail dragging like a forgotten ribbon. It reached Shen Liuqing's pillow, circled twice, and collapsed into sleep with the sudden completeness of the very young.

Shen Liuqing stared at it.

The dragon's owner—not Bai Yaoling, some part of him insisted, that person is gone, this is someone else entirely—glanced over. "Yínchén," they said, "has poor impulse control regarding soft surfaces. I apologize."

"It's..." Shen Liuqing stopped. Swallowed. "It's fine."

He did not move the dragon.

Instead, he sat very still, book forgotten in his lap, and watched the small creature breathe. Silver scales rose and fell. Tiny claws twitched in dream. The rain against the window provided a rhythm, a backdrop, and somewhere in the room Língquè—he had not noticed the qilin before, but there it was, white and golden and ancient-eyed on the red-haired person's pillow—observed the scene with the expression of someone watching a very slow chess game and already knowing the outcome.

"I am Wei Hongzhan," the red-haired person said, the name dropped into the quiet like a stone into still water. "In case you were wondering what to call me."

Shen Liuqing looked up. "You weren't—" He stopped. Reconsidered. "Bai Yaoling."

"No." No explanation offered. No story of transformation, of miracle, of tragedy. Simply: No.

"Okay," Shen Liuqing said.

And somehow, it was. The name settled into his understanding like a puzzle piece clicking home: Wei Hongzhan. Not Bai Yaoling. Someone else entirely, wearing the same face, the same E-rank badge, the same omega marker, and making it all mean something different through sheer force of presence.

They sat in parallel silence. Wei Hongzhan read his engineering text. Shen Liuqing pretended to read his history. Yínchén snored, small and silver and impossibly heavy for its size. The rain continued, and the damp pillow dried slowly against the wall, and the evening passed without hostility.

It was the strangest night Shen Liuqing had spent at the Academy.

---

At 2200 hours, Wei Hongzhan closed his book, marked his place with a strip of copper wire, and stood. He moved to the small sink in the corner—shared between both occupants, never used simultaneously before—and washed his face with methodical thoroughness. The water ran clear, then was turned off. The towel was hung precisely, corner aligned with corner.

Shen Liuqing watched from the edge of his vision, unwilling to be caught looking, unable to stop.

Wei Hongzhan returned to the bed, sat, and began to braid the crimson fall of their hair. The movements were practiced, efficient, fingers working without attention while their eyes remained fixed on some middle distance, thinking. Three strands. Cross, cross, cross. The braid fell past their shoulder, neat and tight, the kind of braid that would hold through combat, through sleep, through anything.

"You braid your own hair," Shen Liuqing said, then immediately wished he hadn't. It was too personal, too observant, too interested.

Wei Hongzhan's hands didn't pause. "I have done so for fifteen years. It is a skill like any other."

"Most people—" Shen Liuqing stopped. Most people what? Had help? Had family? Had someone who cared enough to do such small, intimate things? He had braided his own hair for as long as he could remember, small fingers learning the pattern because there was no one else to learn from. "Never mind."

Wei Hongzhan finished the braid, secured it with a tie from their pocket, and looked at him. Directly. The amber eyes caught the lamplight and held it, warm and steady and completely without judgment.

"Most people," they repeated, "have not needed to be self-sufficient. You have. I have observed this. It is not a flaw."

Shen Liuqing's breath caught. He looked down at his hands, at the book he had not read, at the dragon sleeping on his pillow like it belonged there. "You observe a lot."

"Information is survival." Wei Hongzhan lay down, pulled the thin blanket to their chin, and closed their eyes. "Good night, Shen Liuqing."

It was the first time anyone had said his name in that room without contempt.

"Good night," he whispered back.

The lamp stayed on—Wei Hongzhan did not reach for it, and Shen Liuqing found he did not want to move, did not want to disturb the small silver weight on his pillow. They lay in parallel darkness, two bodies in a space that had suddenly become larger, possibilities expanding into corners that had previously held only fear.

Shen Liuqing did not sleep for a long time. He listened to Wei Hongzhan's breathing even out, slow and deep and utterly unguarded. He listened to Yínchén's small snores. He listened to the rain stop, and the building settle, and the world continue its rotation without collapsing.

I won't bother you, Wei Hongzhan had said.

It was the truth. There was no bother in the room, only presence. Only the absence of threat. Only the shocking, terrifying, impossibly fragile gift of space that did not need to be defended.

Shen Liuqing closed his eyes. For the first time in months, he did not dream of drowning.

---

In the morning, he woke to find Yínchén gone, returned to Wei Hongzhan's shoulder, and a small piece of dried fruit on his pillow where the dragon had been. A gift. A trade. An acknowledgment.

Wei Hongzhan was already awake, dressed, braiding their hair with the same efficient movements. They met Shen Liuqing's eyes in the mirror's reflection and nodded, once, a greeting without demand.

"Breakfast," they said. "You should eat. The East Wing protein is inadequate, but better than nothing."

Shen Liuqing sat up. The dried fruit was sweet between his fingers, unfamiliar, probably expensive. He ate it without asking where it came from, and dressed without hurrying, and walked to the cafeteria beside someone who matched their stride to his without comment.

They did not speak. They did not need to.

Behind them, in the emptying room, Língquè stretched golden hooves and spoke into the spiritual link that only Wei Hongzhan could hear.

"Mission parameter: initial contact achieved. Status?"

Wei Hongzhan's response was subvocal, hidden beneath the sound of their footsteps in the corridor: "He did not move the dragon."

"That is not a mission metric."

"It is the only metric that matters."

The qilin's tail flicked, and for the first time since its assignment, it considered that its host might understand something about human connection that the system had not programmed into its protocols.

Author's Note:

Língquè: The host spent eight hours in proximity with the mission target and exchanged fewer than fifty words.

Wei Hongzhan: Quality over quantity.

Língquè: You gave him a dried apricot.

Wei Hongzhan: Yínchén gave him a dried apricot. I merely failed to retrieve it.

Língquè: You placed it on his pillow.

Wei Hongzhan: Placement is not declaration.

Língquè: He ate it.

Wei Hongzhan: Yes.

Língquè: He smiled when he ate it.

Wei Hongzhan: ...The mission proceeds.

Língquè: That was not a smile of mission proceeding. That was a smile of—

(Author has emerged from behind the calibration machine. The machine is weeping. The author is also weeping. The emotional support has become too emotional.)