In June, Jiangcheng was hot as hell. The sun hung over the city like a giant furnace, roasting the ground until even the air seemed to burn.

Finn Ashwood wore a faded, old Daoist robe, a peachwood sword strapped to his back, and carried a white woven bag in one hand. He moved with the crowd, weaving through all kinds of people as he anxiously searched for the station exit.

This was his first time in Jiangcheng.

His master, Bertrand Calnan, had sent him here to seek out his senior sister, Autumn Mercer.

But the second he thought of Autumn Mercer, Finn’s face heated up. His ears burned, and his heartbeat instantly sped up.

Autumn was three years older than him. Like him, she had been an abandoned baby picked up by their master. The two of them had grown up together in Baiyun Temple, eating together, living together, relying on each other for basically everything.

Then, when Finn turned twelve, Bertrand Calnan started making them sleep in separate beds.

Finn had hated that.

He didn’t want to sleep apart from his senior sister, but he didn’t dare go against his master either.

Still, late at night, Autumn would secretly slip into his bed.

Every single time, Finn would be so happy he could barely sleep. She would make him promise not to tell anyone, and he had guarded that little secret tightly all these years, never letting their master find out.

It was just that sometimes, in the middle of the night, Autumn would wake him.

Whenever he opened his eyes a crack, he would find her legs tightly wrapped around him, rubbing lightly against him. Her hand would move over him too, gentle at first, then lingering in ways that made his whole body tense.

Finn had been so scared back then that he didn’t dare make a sound.

But at the same time, heat would surge through him like fire. And in the dark, he could hear Autumn’s breathing—strange, uneven, soft and urgent. He didn’t understand it at first, yet hearing it gave him a thrill he couldn’t even put into words.

He never knew whether he should stop her.

So he could only keep pretending to be asleep.

Later, little by little, he started to understand some things between men and women. He finally realized what Autumn had been doing. And he also realized her hands were getting bolder and bolder.

The craziest part was... he liked it.

He liked that strange, dizzy feeling so much that he kept pretending he knew nothing.

Until one night, he came back late from outside and accidentally walked in on Autumn while she was bathing.

At that age, he was already in the thick of puberty, full of awkward curiosity about the opposite sex. The moment he saw her, he felt like he’d been nailed in place. His eyes simply could not leave her body. His heart pounded wildly, as if it might jump straight out of his throat.

That was when he truly noticed it.

Usually Autumn dressed in worn, shabby clothes, so he had never looked too closely. But that night, under the water and dim light, he saw how fair her skin was, how slim and graceful her figure had become, and how pretty her face really was.

That night, Finn lay in bed wide awake.

For the first time ever, he waited for Autumn Mercer to crawl into his blanket with a kind of desperate anticipation.

He waited and waited, until deep into the night, before she finally came.

But this time, Autumn seemed unusually worked up.

The moment she slipped in beside him, her trembling hand went straight into his underwear.

Finn’s whole body went hot in an instant. His blood rushed so hard it felt like it was roaring in his ears. The image of Autumn bathing earlier flashed through his mind again and again, looping like crazy, impossible to shut off.

And then—maybe because he was too overwhelmed, maybe because he couldn’t hold back anymore—Finn suddenly reached out and pulled Autumn into his arms.

Autumn’s body froze at once.

She went completely stiff, then trembled slightly as she whispered, her voice shaky and uneven, “L-Little... Finn... you’re awake...”

Finn Ashwood’s head was a mess, half dizzy, half burning up with excitement. His voice shook as he blurted out, “I... I wasn’t asleep... I was waiting... for you...”

The moment the words left him, he threw himself forward and pinned Autumn Mercer beneath him.

But as soon as his scorching body touched hers, Autumn Mercer jolted hard, like she’d been shocked. Panic flashed across her face. She shoved him away with all her strength, her voice trembling. “I’m your senior sister... you can’t... do that...”

The next second, smack.

Her hand landed clean across his face.

Then she turned and bolted out of the room as fast as she could, not daring to look back.

After that night, Autumn Mercer left Baiyun Temple.

She was gone for five whole years.

All those years, Finn Ashwood never stopped thinking about her. He carried her in his heart the entire time, like a knot he couldn’t untie. But Autumn Mercer had vanished without a trace, as if she’d evaporated from the world. No letters. No message. Nothing.

It wasn’t until last year, during Mid-Autumn Festival, that Autumn Mercer finally returned to Baiyun Temple.

When she came back, Finn almost didn’t recognize her.

She was wearing a white hollow-cut short dress, elegant and eye-catching, with a designer handbag in her hand. Compared to the scrappy wild girl from back then, the one who used to run around in worn-out Taoist robes, she had changed completely. She looked refined, graceful, expensive even.

So much so that Finn suddenly had the sinking feeling that the two of them no longer belonged to the same world.

This time, Autumn Mercer had come back to thank their master, Bertrand Calnan, for raising her all these years.

But when she saw Finn, there was none of that old closeness left.

No teasing smile. No secret little warmth in her eyes. No easy intimacy like before.

Compared to the way Finn had spent years missing her like crazy, Autumn Mercer now felt strangely distant, like someone familiar wearing a stranger’s face.

Still, before she left, she said one thing to him.

“If you get the chance, go see the big city,” she told him. “Baiyun Temple isn’t your future.”

That single sentence stayed with him.

And because of that sentence, after Finn turned eighteen this year, the old master finally told him to go down the mountain and seek out Autumn Mercer.

Truth be told, Finn was ridiculously happy about it.

He wanted to go to Jiangcheng.

He wanted to find his senior sister.

As for why he wanted to see her so badly... even he couldn’t really explain it. It was just there, buried in his chest, tugging at him nonstop.

And now, standing in a completely unfamiliar Jiangcheng, surrounded by strange streets, strange people, and the sticky heat of June pressing down on him, Finn stared at Autumn Mercer’s phone number and hesitated.

Five years.

Five whole years without a single call, without a single proper word exchanged.

On the way here, he’d rehearsed all kinds of things in his head, one line after another, like he was preparing for some huge moment. But now that the moment had actually arrived, his mind went blank. He had no clue how to start.

Just then, a sharp cry rang out from not far away.

“Thief! Catch the thief! Someone stole my bag!”

The second Finn heard that, his body moved before his brain did.

He’d always had a soft heart, the kind that couldn’t ignore trouble, so he immediately took off toward the noise.

After only a few steps, he saw a young guy sprinting straight toward him, clutching a woman’s handbag.

The guy had yellow-dyed hair, a shifty, rat-faced look, and the kind of expression that practically screamed bad news. One glance and Finn could tell this wasn’t any decent person. Total petty thief vibes.

When the punk rushed up close, Finn didn’t even bother making a big move.

He just lifted one leg lightly.

That was enough.

The yellow-haired thief instantly lost balance and went down face-first with a brutal thud, crashing into the ground like a sack of bricks.

A classic full-on faceplant.

“Ah—!”

The young punk clearly hadn’t expected someone to trip him out of nowhere. He hit the ground hard, pain flashing across his face as he gritted his teeth. The handbag he’d just snatched flew out of his hand, skidding more than a yard before stopping right at Finn Ashwood’s feet.

The moment Finn bent down and picked it up, the yellow-haired thief had already scrambled back up, one hand clutching his stomach as he bolted like his life depended on it. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Right then, a stylish young woman came hurrying over on bare feet, one hand carrying her high heels, hopping toward Finn as she shouted breathlessly, “Someone stole my bag! Somebody stop him!”

“Your bag is here.”

Finn turned around with the bag in hand.

And then he froze.

What he saw was the face he had replayed in his mind for years, over and over, so many times it was practically carved into his bones.

His heart slammed against his chest.

“Senior Sister!”

Autumn Mercer stood there, and for a second even the scorching June heat seemed to lose its edge.

She wore a low-cut white blouse with a tiny white skirt, simple but impossibly eye-catching. Her figure was on full display, every curve sharp and vivid, impossible to ignore.

She had clearly run a fair distance. Her breathing came fast, her chest rising and falling in quick, uneven rhythm. The line at her collar was deep enough to make a person’s gaze lock in place before they could even stop themselves.

Her purple hair spilled over her shoulders in soft waves. Her lips, rosy and full, looked almost unreal, and the anxious look on her face made her seem fragile in a way that tugged right at the heart.

But the instant her eyes landed on the man in front of her—the one in a worn, old-fashioned Taoist robe, staring at her like he’d seen a ghost—she visibly blanked.

“Lin… Finn?!”