Yunhai didn't move back when Huiya stood her ground.
Her smile curved,it was razor-fine. "You're the system. You've got all the information anyway. You just like hearing me ask."
His lips tilted in a mockery of a pout. [True. But asking nicely is a form of payment. You used to say that yourself.]
"That was before you took my face and made it prettier."
He hummed. [I didn't make it prettier. Just, refined the angles. Gave your bone structure the reverence it deserved. Besides aren't I the older one here? Doesn't that mean you're the one who took my face?]
".."
"I was 33 when I died and this body is 22 years old, technically speaking that makes me 55."
".."
[Haha, even if you were two dynasties old. I'll still be older than you, because I've been here for an awfully long period of time.]
She rolled her eyes, stepping past him. "You are so lucky I don't have a reboot protocol for you."
Yunhai followed, hands tucked behind his back like a well-behaved guard [But if you did, you'd miss me. I'm the only one who tells you when you're being stupid.]
"You're the only one who calls it stupid," she shot back, tapping the side of her neck where the internal connection flickered faintly with pale gold. "Everyone else uses words like 'risky' or 'bold.'"
"Everyone else doesn't live in your head. I do."
She didn't answer. Not right away.
The corridor bent again, glowing softly under their boots, casting both their reflections in doubled lines along the walls. Two shadows. The same face, hers in bone and wires, his in code and will.
"Run the scans.." she said finally. "Cuttlefish first. Then Zhao'kyr. Cross-check for Guang'li leaks. Anything that connects them."
Yunhai nodded. [Already done. Cuttlefish is off-grid, lives five layers under Xeron's public tech sector. Ex-Daybreak tech division. Vanished after the Glass Vow incident. If Guang'li trusts her, it's because she knows how to stay dead.]
They got back into the ship, and the camouflage was turned off, the ship's system started running alerts of trespassing attempts.
"27? That's a whole lot.."
[People can be so greedy, if our tech wasn't so high, this ship would have been gone. You should thank me] he said this whole poking her shoulders.
"Thank you"
Qingran headed to her room, to change her clothes so they could prepare for Xenon.
"Set a course for Xenon. The pass will expire in 2 days, so we must get there before that time."
Yunhai crossed his hands. [You want to head to Xenon at maximum speed? I'm afraid you don't have the fuel for that little minx]
-_-
"Then we get more?"
Yunhai laughed, he really liked this clueless version of Huiya.
[Perhaps you didn't remember but you're shit broke. You have nothing to your name sister]
-_-
"Then we'll steal it."
Yunhai clutched his chest like she'd wounded him.
[Steal it? Steal? You used to be the proud General of Ambrosia. Now look at you, a common space trash.]
-_-
Huiya raised a brow as she slipped her clothes off and tossed it toward the auto-fold rack. "We both know I was never proud. And I've been trash before. At least trash can move quietly."
He clicked his tongue. [Philosophical and criminal. A woman of many sins.]
"Don't forget hungry.." she said, tugging on the compression suit and adjusting the collar. "Plotting high-speed theft on an empty stomach is pain."
Yunhai made a sweeping gesture and the food unit blinked awake, unfolding from the wall like a flower in bloom.
[You get soy strips and fermented paste. That's what rebellious has-beens deserve.]
She glared. "You made this taste worse, didn't you."
[Absolutely. I added regret.] He gave a cherubic smile. [Pairs well with failure.]
She sat down anyway and wolfed down the food in quick bites. "We steal the fuel. Then we buy a new face for the ship, so the scans don't match. And after that...Xenon."
Yunhai leaned against the wall, the lighting bending slightly around his form like he bent space by existing.
[You'll need three things for that: access to a black-socket refinery, a legit burner manifest, and someone dumb enough to help you load illegal siphoned fuel onto a unregistered ship.]
"I've got one of those three already.." Huiya said.
[Oh?]
"You." She looked up at him, her lips stained dark with soy oil. "You're the dumb one."
He placed a hand to his heart again. [Words hurt.]
"But not when they're true."
---
The ship's engines purred back to life as they broke atmosphere, wrapping itself in old algorithms and a borrowed registry from a dead courier vessel.
Huiya stretched out across the cot as the interface lights dimmed to navy blue. "Ping me when we reach Sector 8. That's where the last unsupervised depot is."
[The one with no cameras, dead comms, and zero patrol activity for three days straight. Honestly, it's like they want to be robbed.]
"Then let's make their dreams come true. We should take as much as we can.."
Hours later, the ship hovered low over a shrouded quadrant of the wastelands, its light muted, its presence veiled.
Huiya stood at the edge of the exit ramp, dark coat now fitted over her stealth suit, her hair tied back.
[No sudden movement. No lights. You get in, fill the capsule pods, I keep the siphon valves steady. You trip any alarm..]
"I know..." she said, already leaping down.
"You start screaming in my head."
He didn't scream. But he did murmur. [You're going to get caught one day.]
"Then I'll blame you for that."
[You always do.]
The depot was a broken-back skeleton of what used to be a military resource station.
The shell of its upper dome had long collapsed, eaten out by storm rust and time, but the lower levels still pulsed with old reserve fuel.
Perfect for siphoning if you didn't mind the residual radiation or occasional plasma flares.
Yunhai guided her through the dark.
[Lower corridor, two lefts. Red pipes. Look for the one labeled 14A, the cap should be easy to crack.]
"Copy."
She crouched beside the marked valve and pulled out the modded siphon line. With a hiss and a blink, dark amber fluid began to pulse through, winding into the sealed tank Yunhai had linked to the ship.
[Pressure is stable. You've got five minutes. Four, if you want to keep all your eyelashes.]
"Why do you even have warnings like that in your head?"
[Entertainment.]
Suddenly a flicker of motion lit up at the corner of the ruined hallway.
She froze.
"...Yunhai?"
[Seeing it. Stand by.]
Another flicker, this time clearer. It was shaped like a person. But at the same time, it was not.
It was too tall. It's shoulders too narrow.
Head tilted at an impossible angle, like it had been poured into the space instead of born into it.
[It's not from Xeron. And it's not registering heat.]
"What is it?"
[A watcher.]
Huiya didn't like that word.
"Watcher for what?"
[For you dumbass..]
It turned its head.
Even though it had no face, she knew, it saw her.
"Its just there to watch me, not harm me right?"