"What stops me from handing you over to every guild that’s going to hate this plan?" Leona asks, the smile still too easy for the threat. "A genius head is worth more than four Plates on the black market. A lot more."

Zhang Xi doesn’t move, but her face hardens enough for me to notice. Leona stays relaxed, like she asked my opinion on the drink. That’s the problem with people who are too strong. Past a certain point, they start treating danger like small talk. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

I let the question breathe.

"Nothing stops you."

Leona raises an eyebrow.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. You could sell my name to the Deepwarden, to Silver Flow, or to any guild bothered by clean air and new money. You could even sell my head, if you find a buyer willing to deal with the consequences." I set the Crest of Azurea to one side and touch one of the Plates with a finger. "But that profit happens once."

Her smile shrinks, just a little.

"Go on."

"My contract is worth years. My patent is worth as long as Thirstfall has rotten ducts. My LDP is worth as long as healers run out of OXI in battle hospitals. Sell me out, and someone worse buys the information before you find out the real size of the gold mine."

Leona takes a sip but doesn’t look away.

"Just money?"

"No." I lean forward. "You wouldn’t sell someone who can save more lives than the bounty would pay to bury. Not because you’re a saint. Because it’d be an stupid waste. And from what they say about the Silver Fang, you hate waste almost as much as you hate a coward dressed up as an administrator."

For a moment, the loud part of her goes quiet.

Zhang Xi lowers her eyes to the tea. Leona laughs right after, but there’s weight in the laugh now.

"Xi, he’s insufferable."

"Yes," Zhang Xi says.

"You like him."

"I didn’t say that."

"You said it with your soul." Leona sets the glass on the table and snaps her fingers. A silver-blue screen opens in the air, thin lines of OXI forming letters between us. "All right, interesting disaster. Let’s register this before I get my good sense back."

She lays a blank sheet on the table, but the virtual header appears first.

[Operational Cooperation Contract — Silver Fang / Safe Harbor]

1- The Silver Fang would receive thirty percent of the operational revenue from the duct cleanings run under the Alchemical Condensation Rune. It would also receive a ten percent commission on LDP batches sold through the guild’s referral or direct channel.

2- Safe Harbor keeps full ownership of the patent, the formula, the production methods, and any technical derivative tied to the process.

3- House Azurea would be the initial political face in Thirstfall, with no control over the patent or the LDP.

4- Safe Harbor shall not be cited in any political or public context, until further notice from the parties mentioned herein.

Leona adds the protections without my asking: absolute confidentiality, a ban on copying, reverse study, teaching, unauthorized execution, or handoff to third parties.

Then comes the heavy clause.

[In case of deliberate violation, after formal warning from Ocean’s Law and conscious confirmation of the act by the violating party, the penalty will be: 15 years of continuous OXI Bleed and payment of 1 Plate to the injured party.]

Zhang Xi breathes deeper. "Fifteen years is extreme."

"So is stealing a primordial patent," Leona answers. "And there’s prior warning. Nobody pays that by accident. You read it, understand it, confirm it, and continue. After that, it isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice."

Cruel, but clean. For Thirstfall, almost merciful.

I read it all twice. There are advantages for the Silver Fang, of course: priority on LDP purchases for guild-linked hospitals, preference in nominating the first technical teams, and a right to participate in the expansion after the Red Squid pilot.

Nothing that hands over the heart of the machine, and the Safe Harbor remains hidden.

"I’ll sign."

Leona presses her Diver Mark onto the blank sheet. "So will I."

Zhang Xi places hers in the right corner as witness.

A light turns the screen into small razors of OXI, and everything drafted falls onto the sheet like a laser burn.

"You register it," I say, placing my Diver Mark below Leona’s.

Leona lifts her eyes to me. For an instant, her smile loses its play. She understands.

"You’re giving me too much trust, interesting disaster."

"No. I’m giving you a choice."

Leona folds the contract carefully and tucks it into her inventory.

"With the clauses intact," I say.

"With the clauses intact," she answers.

Leona empties half her glass and looks at me with a dangerous satisfaction.

"Now that you’ve left me in emotional debt over an irritating amount of money and future lives, let’s solve another problem."

"What problem?"

"You."

She opens her inventory and takes out an oval piece, white as polished bone, threaded with golden veins so fine they look like trapped light. The object carries no weapon’s aura. It’s too calm, too deep, like a hand holding someone at the edge of the end.

I recognize it before I want to.

"Primordial Healing Token," Leona says. "There are five in the world. I made all of them. One’s already been used. Two are with people you shouldn’t annoy. One is in a vault that takes three keys and a royal decree. This one was mine."

Zhang Xi loses her composure for a second. "Master Leona, that’s too much."

"I know. That’s why it’s a gift, not a discount." Leona pushes the token to me. "Take it. You’ve got the look of a man who’ll need it before he learns to ask for help."

In my past life, rumors about one of these caused enough deaths to become a statistic. The token doesn’t raise the dead or mend a broken soul, but it stabilizes a body at the edge of the end, closes critical damage, regrows lost limbs, and holds an OXI collapse until a healer arrives.

I take the token.

[Item received: Primordial Healing Token — Rank SS]

Its weight feels too small for the value.

"And Xi stays with you for now," Leona adds.

Zhang Xi blinks. So do I.

"With me?"

"Temporarily. She learns your rune, observes the LDP, shares medical experience with your team, and tells me if you try to turn genius into an early grave." Leona turns to Zhang Xi. "You wanted to help. So help."

Zhang Xi looks at me, then at the contract. "If Dryden accepts, I accept."

"Dryden accepts," Leona decides.

"Dryden would have liked to be consulted."

"Dryden will survive the frustration."

Unfortunately, probably.

The meeting ends soon after. The Plates go back to my inventory, and the Silver Fang has stopped being a possibility and become a consequence. I stand to leave with a guild bound to the plan, an elite healer tied to my group, and a token plenty of people would kill just to touch.

That’s when Leona moves.

She comes too fast for an ordinary goodbye, but with no intent to fight. She grips my jaw and presses two fingers to the side of my neck, just below the jawline. My body freezes before my head decides whether it’s a threat, an exam, or pure Rank S arrogance. A cold line of OXI crosses my skin and sinks deep enough that my muscles answer a beat late.

Zhang Xi stands at once. "Master Leona." Her voice comes low, but hard.

Leona breathes in near my neck, and I feel the cold climb my spine like a gunshot. Then she lets go of my face as if nothing happened.

"Easy, Xi. It was just a reading."

"You crossed the line."

"I did." Leona smiles. "And I found something useful."

"Does it always have to be like this?" I step back half a pace, rubbing my neck.

’I thought this lunatic was about to devour me...’

"No. Consider it a bonus. I needed direct contact to read your flow."

"You could have asked."

"Wanting and being able are two different things. I wanted, and I could."

She says it as if the possibility were curious but not especially important. Then her smile loses its surface.

"Your body is wrong."

The sentence cuts deeper than the touch.

"Wrong how?"

Leona studies me too long.

"Like a new door with old hinges."

Zhang Xi says nothing.

Leona, still standing, picks up her glass and finishes the drink in one swallow. Then she flashes that impossible smile again before heading for the door.

"Sleep better, interesting disaster. Or at least try to get yourself killed during business hours, so I can be there."