Otto's Carefully Laid Trap to Save Li Sushang at Just the Right Moment

Tai Tan suddenly laughed, his booming voice full of admiration. "Hah. I thought she was a fussy old master with rotten luck. Turns out she'd seen through everything and planned it all out. For eighteen years, Su Mei thought she was fishing. She never realized she was the fish Fu Hua had hooked and left by the shore."

"Is this... what an adeptus can do?" He Caitou stammered. "Even without her powers, she could turn the tables on an entire gang with nothing but a mortal body?"

"It wasn't the power of an adeptus," Tang San said, his voice deep and steady. "It was the judgment of someone who'd lived through fifty thousand years of upheaval. She knew how greedy the Golden Sand Gang was, how valuable Li Sushang was, and how far her remaining reputation could carry her. So she walked in without a sword or armor, armed only with a name that had nearly faded into nothing."

He paused, gazing at the darkening Sky Vault on the Light Screen. "That's what truly makes Fu Hua frightening. She saw through Su Mei and Otto, but more than that, she saw through herself. Even stripped of every external power, someone like her could still overturn the board."

Huo Yuhao let out a slow breath. "Then... the 'ending' we saw wasn't an ending at all. It was only the close of her first move in a much longer game."

In the Light Screen's final image, snow swept past the iron door of the dark prison once more. Fu Hua supported Li Sushang as they walked, step by step, into the endless white. Leaning weakly against her shoulder, the girl whispered, "Grandma... will you ever come back?"

Fu Hua turned her head slightly, her voice blurred by the wind. "Whether I come