Sleek and graceful, the immortal fox, its tail long and lush.
Fyxestroll Garden had originally been built by a Foxian master craftsman — a garden grotto-heaven meant for his kin to rest and wander, to compose poetry and feast in good company.
"They say that thirty years ago, during the war with the Denizens of Abundance, the Foxian aerial corps sent out their finest, and suffered tremendous casualties. After the war ended, many people made their way to the Fox Slumber Mound in Fyxestroll Garden on their own initiative, to pay their respects to the fallen."
"From that point on, visitors grew sparse, and laughter rare."
"Over time, pale ghost-fires began flickering in and out in the shadows of Fyxestroll Garden, and the sound of weeping seemed to drift through the air from nowhere. Word that the place was haunted spread through the residents of Xianzhou Luofu before anyone could stop it."
"That's a reasonable enough backstory — but Little Gui, since when do you know the local customs and folklore of the Xianzhou so well?"
Caelus tilted his head in thoughtful surprise, gaze landing on the orange-haired girl beside him — who was holding up her phone to livestream and simultaneously rattling off a detailed history of Fyxestroll Garden without pausing for breath.
"Master, a good magician never reveals her sources," Guinaifen said.
She swiveled the phone lens toward the two Sushangs, who had gone off to speak with the Ten-Lords Commission Judges, neatly redirecting the livestream audience's attention. Then she leaned in and lowered her voice:
"The script for this video? I paid Mr. Xiyan to write it. Of course it's professional."
"Mmm. A promising student," Caelus said with an approving nod.
As Guinaifen stepped aside and began introducing tonight's new guest — newly-debuted magical girl March 7th — in her most bright and bubbly voice, Caelus took out his phone and opened the Luofu Myths app.
With practiced ease, he switched to his alt account — username: SolelyAdoreLittleGui — and clicked into Little Gui's livestream.
[I Finally Tasted the Goddess's Seafood After My Bro Locked Me Out: Such a cute girl, she makes me think of my first love, my original goddess — Little Gui, don't contact me after this, I'm scared March 7th will misunderstand.]
[Delacier Heng: Magical girl? What's that?]
[FreeMagicCat: A magical girl! Someone on the Xianzhou has debuted as a magical girl? Is she a streamer? Someone send the link to her stream! I'm going to show up and cheer her on!]
[Big Sis Yo: Follow Little Gui please meow, follow Little Gui please meow~!]
The livestream comment section — same as ever. Every single one of them a talent. Every comment a delight.
The galaxy was vast, and culture bloomed in a thousand shapes across a thousand worlds. Many of them had animation and concepts similar to magical girls — but on the Xianzhou, the concept wasn't particularly well-known, and Luofu Myths in particular was a platform dedicated to horror and the supernatural.
The kind of person who was curious about ghosts and weirdness and happened to love magical girls was a fairly rare overlap.
Some enthusiastic commenters had already begun explaining the concept, recommending their personal favorite magical girl series to each other.
Caelus sent a few comments at random, then scrolled his finger lightly — and across the stream, Guinaifen, who had been rattling off magical girl trivia like she'd memorized a wiki page, felt her expression flicker. Her dainty little body instinctively gave a tiny flinch.
Not because a certain electronic toy had been switched on. Just a simple application of psychic ability.
"Thank you to [SolelyAdoreLittleGui] for the donation — thank you, family~! Dà-ā-si-ki~! Kon'ni wa arigatō, you're too generous~!"
She hadn't started doing mascot-suit work yet. Since taking Caelus as her master, Guinaifen had picked up quite a few standard streaming phrases alongside her more abstract antics — and she thanked the donor with genuine warmth.
This SolelyAdoreLittleGui wasn't just a whale — he was her truest, most loyal fan.
Ever since he'd wandered into her stream a while back, he'd been drawn in by her charm and her chaotic energy, tipping generously and regularly. He'd eventually locked in the top spot on the leaderboard. Every time she went live, he always came back.
Little Gui had even tried to probe, in her roundabout little way, whether [SolelyAdoreLittleGui] harbored certain intentions — after all, she, Guinaifen, sold her performances and not herself. His reply had been that he simply appreciated her content, believed she had the potential to become a major streamer one day, and wanted to leave a strong early impression.
Tch. To have a fan like this — what more could a streamer ask for?
You've got this, Little Gui! Don't let [SolelyAdoreLittleGui]'s support and faith go to waste!
Watching Guinaifen's streaming enthusiasm climb another floor, Caelus gave a satisfied nod, switched back to his main account, handed the alt to Bronie and set it on a script to idle-watch the stream, occasionally sending comments to blend in.
As the master of the young female streamer industry — even if it cost him a little — he had an important lesson to impart to Little Gui.
"Hai-hai-hai~! Family, we're not done yet — Little Gui has had the honor of inviting a very special heavyweight guest tonight~"
Guinaifen smiled with theatrical mystery.
[General Chow-Down Rua: Another expert?!]
Before the introduction of magical girl March 7th, Team Star Rail had already set off a wave of comment-spam in the livestream. Caelus wasn't exactly a professional streamer, but a few chaotic bits earlier had given him a decent amount of notoriety online.
For most things, the internet has no memory — but when it comes to abstract comedy, once a new meme takes root, it might not last forever, but keeping people laughing for a few months, or even a year or two, was entirely doable.
Even someone who'd never heard of Team Star Rail could take a few minutes to watch the garbage-can proposal video, and the "I am Miss Jingliu's dog~!" declaration — and come away with a very strong impression of both of them.
"So then — please welcome our guest. This is a Judge of the Ten-Lords Commission, code name Xueyi, responsible for 'arrest, bind, punish, and interrogate' — she's the 'arrest' among the Four Judges. As for the rest... ehehe, that's not for me to say."
Guinaifen held up the phone and trained it on the brown-haired girl in the black dress who stepped forward two paces to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Caelus.
The girl wore a beret decorated with purple lilies. Her black dress framed a face that was exquisitely cute and utterly expressionless. Her amethyst-like eyes glanced at Caelus, held for a moment of silence, then turned to the phone's camera. Her lips parted slightly:
"The Ten-Lords Commission reminds all residents: there are no ghosts on the Xianzhou. This is absurd superstition. As Xianzhou inhabitants, you have a responsibility not to believe or spread rumors."
As she spoke, the Xueyi-Herta puppet crossed both arms in a big ×.
[7.62mm Professional Hole-Puncher: ???]
[Ci Nan Listens to Rain and Wind: ???]
The comment section erupted in a unanimous cascade of question marks, scrolling like a waterfall.
[Milk-Red Powder Tip: A Ten-Lords Commission Judge? Is this real or fake?]
While the name of the Ten-Lords Commission was known to everyone on the Xianzhou, no one knew where its base of operations was, who commanded it, or how many members served it. It was, by any measure, the most secretive of the Xianzhou's commissions.
The identities of Ten-Lords Commission members were entirely confidential.
Whenever a Judge appeared, all Ingenium birds would malfunction and ignore their movements — so no one had ever managed to capture their likeness.
Only in the rarest of cases, when something escalated completely out of control, did they leave behind traces too obvious to conceal.
And now, a legendary Ten-Lords Commission Judge had appeared — in a livestream?
[Streamer-Girl Heavy Dependence: The stream hasn't been taken down, Little Gui hasn't been dragged off — so… could this actually be real?]
[Old Luofu Native of the Zheng-Lan Banner: The Ten-Lords Commission has really come up in the world, huh — they're actually collabing with Little Gui now.]
[Real Name Online: This… why does she look kind of familiar?]
Inside the Seat of Divine Foresight, at a long table buried under stacks of administrative documents, Jing Yuan took a stolen moment from his work and watched the livestream featuring the little 'Grandmaster' with a smiling squint — then did a double-take when the Xueyi-Herta puppet came on screen.
[Risking Life With Tiles: No way, no way — isn't that Lady Herta, Genius Society member #83?]
[SoPureTheIce: Yeah, I just searched it — it really is Lady Herta the Genius!]
[Galaxy Batwoman: SHOCKING! Genius Herta joins the Ten-Lords Commission as a Judge! Xianzhou goes HARD!!]
[???: ???]
Another waterfall of question marks flooded in. Every member of the ghost-hunting squad who was watching the stream snapped their head up at the same time, staring at the gray-haired raccoon who was on her phone, whipping the comment section into a frenzy.
"Why is everyone looking at me like that?" the Stellaron spirit asked, scratching her head sheepishly.
"You didn't switch to your alt account," Caelus reminded her.
"Oh. I forgot."
Stelle smacked her own forehead in exasperation.
"..."
The Xueyi-Herta puppet was silent.
"Mr. Caelus — doing things this way, spreading it like this for Lady Herta to see — won't it actually cause accountability issues?"
Despite the words being a worried question, spoken from the mouth of Raven, they carried not a shred of emotional inflection. Flat to the point of being eerie.
"Just call me Caelus. Xueyi and I are friends who've had in-depth discussions on the topic of extending the lives of inorganic beings. As for accountability…"
"Of course there will be. Herta has that narcissistic personality of hers — she definitely won't be happy about someone tarnishing the image of her puppet. And even if she doesn't personally care, the rabid little haters over at Herta Space Station will probably mail cease-and-desist letters to the Xianzhou."
The Starskiff had autopiloted itself to Fyxestroll Garden, and when they disembarked, Caelus had already spotted Xueyi, Raven, and the soft little matcha cake speaking with the Sushang-Guinaifen-Shangshang trio.
Under normal procedure, the Ten-Lords Commission's Judge-wardens would have instructed civilians to leave an area where a Heliobus had taken up residence, to prevent them from running into danger.
But who told Li Sushang to be in that group?
The Ten-Lords Commission held a special status across all Xianzhou vessels, and knew a great deal about the inner workings of the Ambrosial Arbor disaster and the great battle in the Scalegorge Waterscape.
Surely a Heliobus fragment couldn't be more dangerous than a Lord Ravager?
On top of that, the person who had done the most to quell the Ambrosial Arbor disaster — Team Star Rail — had all shown up in person. Turning them away would be a serious breach of courtesy.
Raven proposed that everyone act together alongside the Ten-Lords Commission, with the Underworld Guard escorts protecting their guests' safety.
The real intent, of course, was to keep an eye on the group and make sure no one went off script — no broadcasting the news of Heliobus shards running loose and roosting here en masse, which could potentially cause a panic.
Caelus had no objections. Having Xueyi and Raven on hand as witnesses in case they ran into any Ingenium Beasts was convenient, and they could help with the cleanup afterward.
They'd walked straight into his hands. What reason did he have to refuse?
Preventing 'rumors' from spreading was also simple enough — just have Xueyi go on camera and issue an official statement.
Technically, Ten-Lords Commission regulations required that Judges and wardens minimize their exposure to the public eye.
But Xueyi wasn't wearing her own skin — she was wearing the Herta puppet Caelus had generously provided. It wouldn't reveal her appearance or voice. So it didn't matter.
Caelus's matter-of-fact tone made the corner of Raven's eye twitch.
Knowing full well it might cause trouble for the Ten-Lords Commission, and he still made her sister go on camera with that… adorable face?
Raven had a whole stomach full of complaints ready to go — but then she remembered that it was Caelus who had saved her sister, and swallowed every last one of them.
Her sister had told her why she now wore this form.
In a previous mission, her body had been damaged to the point where she could no longer move. Caelus had lent her a puppet body to use.
For Raven, her sister's affairs mattered far more than any inconvenience.
"Thank you for saving my sister."
A puppet body being damaged wouldn't cause her sister's soul to perish — but knowing her sister's personality, in a critical moment she would absolutely force herself to remain in the field for the sake of the mission, and that could very well result in damage and memory loss.
The reason she hadn't switched back to her own body even after the disaster ended was the same — every 'rebirth,' every transfer to a new body, placed strain on the soul.
"It was nothing," Caelus said, smiling like a warm, easygoing young man basking in open sky.
This seemingly dead-eyed, three-no Judge was, at her core, an absolute sister-devotee. She normally ran ice-cold — but the moment she spoke to Xueyi, she was a completely different person.
"By the way — you said you discussed something with my sister?"
Raven was puzzled. When had her sister developed any involvement in scientific research?
"A question worth deep investigation: can a machine doll get pregnant?"
"Oh↘...Hm↗!?!?"
Raven's eyes went wide.
What?!
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