Diamonds’ mind was a chaotic blur as he stared at Madame Spades, completely at a loss for words.
He recalled the very first time he had met her. Back then, Hearts had just been defeated in a brutal battle against Monkey Face, the Director of the 2030 Branch. Diamonds himself had only recently undergone the grueling surgery to donate his own organs to Hearts, leaving his body in a severely depleted state. The rebel army, Clepsydra, had been stripped of its vital energy; many members had deserted, and one had come to him weeping: “Mr. Diamonds, Boss Hearts is completely delirious, and the Corporation is tightening its dragnet. So many of our people have been captured! The rest of us are cooped up in that dilapidated cathedral all day without even enough food or water. Clepsydra is about to fall apart!”
At that time, Diamonds’ spirit was broken. Slumped listlessly over a small oak table in front of the bar, he had simply waved a dismissive hand: “What are you yelling for? Do you take me for the God of Wealth? Do you think banknotes just fly out of thin air if you bow to me?”
The Poker Bar had only just been erected—nothing more than a bare, concrete shell completely lacking furniture or decor. Diamonds was already expending every ounce of his strength just taking medication to suppress the post-transplant complications; he didn’t have a single penny to spare on renovating the bar or recruiting rebels. The frantic Clepsydra member urged: “Mr. Diamonds, I know everyone is tight on cash, but without money, we truly cannot take a single step forward!”
Diamonds remained limply slumped over the table. “Then don’t step forward. I don’t even have enough money for myself; I was actually about to ask to borrow some from you! Look at this bar—we don’t even have the funds to hang a proper sign. I’m just a commander without an army.”
Right at that moment, a calm, poised voice drifted from the side:
“If that is the case, if I provide the capital right now, would that make me a shareholder of this bar?”
The two spun around toward the sound, only to find an elderly woman standing before the bar. She wore a pure black bustle gown paired with a dark veil, beneath which a sliver of exposed skin gleamed with a deathly, corpse-wax pallor.
That was the exact scene of Diamonds’ first encounter with Madame Spades.
Her sudden appearance had been entirely shrouded in mystery, yet Diamonds hadn’t felt the slightest bit of aversion; instead, she had felt strangely like an old acquaintance. Behaving like an extraordinarily wealthy widow, Madame Spades had easily produced a massive sum of money, thoroughly renovating the Poker Bar and rejuvenating the dwindling spirits of Clepsydra. When Hearts finally recovered from his injuries and returned to the rebel army, his jaw had hit the floor. He found the members of Clepsydra well-fed, bursting with energy, and working with exceptional fervor—they had even dyed their hair a dazzling array of vibrant colors, resembling a gang of wildly enthusiastic youths.
Diamonds had later conducted a thorough investigation into Madame Spades, discovering that her true name was Daisy Spades. The name “Spades” carried connotations of a shovel or a trowel, suggesting perhaps her ancestors had been gardeners who cultivated medicinal herbs. He had theorized that she might have been a historically renowned pharmacologist, but he had never been able to unearth any deeper data.
Yet now, Madame Spades had given him an entirely different, far more absurd answer—
She was the Director of the 1805 Branch of the Chrono-Entropy Corporation.
Diamonds felt the world spinning violently around him. Pressing a hand to his forehead, he stammered:
“Madame… you aren’t… playing a joke on me, are you?”
Madame Spades looked astonished. “What joke? Is the version of me you are so familiar with someone who jokes around, or are you implying I am not the Director of the 1805 Branch?”
Quicksand interjected, “Far from lacking that identity, we’re actually members of the rebel army, Clep—”
Before he could finish the word, Diamonds moved with blinding speed, snatching a scone from the table and stuffing it directly into Quicksand’s mouth. Quicksand fell instantly silent, his cheeks bulging as he chewed like a hamster.
Clutching his forehead, Diamonds felt completely trapped. The two of them had braved the temporal labyrinth specifically to salvage Madame Spades’ life, only to find out she was actually an enemy chieftain.
As he chewed on the pastry, Quicksand leaned close to Diamonds’ ear, mumbling indistinctly, “This is what happens when you don’t do proper background research. What do we do now? How about we just abandon the rescue and jump back to the year 2026?”
Diamonds kept his voice down to a harsh whisper. “We’re already here. Shouldn’t we scout out the situation before heading back? So what if she’s the Director of the 1805 Branch? With my silver tongue, I’ve even managed to turn the Chief Cleaner against them, haven’t I?”
Quicksand let out a cold, muffled scoff, crumbs flying from his mouth. “Pure bravado.”
Wiping a bead of cold sweat from his brow, Diamonds crossed his legs and forced a smooth, unbothered smile, adopting the posture of someone settling in for a long chat. “Madame, although we are well-acquainted in the future, I never dared to pry into your past out of courtesy. It wasn’t until you encountered peril in this era and vanished from the future that we stepped in. Though it is somewhat improper, to better guarantee your safety, we would like to understand a bit more about your circumstances. Would it be convenient for you to enlighten us?”
“Since you are friends who have traveled from the future, I shall hold nothing back.”
Diamonds took a deep breath. “Thank you, Madame. What I wish to ask is… when exactly did you become the Director of the 1805 Branch?”
“Haha, to call me a Branch Director is to exaggerate; in truth, it is merely an honorary title.” The copper kettle whistled softly over the flames. Madame Spades’ gaze drifted toward a distant horizon, the deep, valley-like wrinkles on her face shifting beneath the flickering firelight. She murmured, “I am merely… someone utterly consumed by pharmacology, wishing to have nothing to do with worldly affairs. The Corporation was simply willing to act as my agent, providing me with every single raw material required to brew my chemical formulas. Ours is merely a relationship of mutual cooperation.”
Quicksand mumbled through a mouthful of food, “Helping a tyrant commit atrocities.”
Diamonds promptly snatched a cucumber sandwich and stuffed it into his mouth as well. This time, Quicksand fell completely silent. Fortunately, his words had been thoroughly muffled, and Madame Spades hadn’t caught his remark.
“This is an era where experience and rationality intertwine,” Madame Spades continued, a genuine spark of joy igniting in her eyes. “Once, Hippocrates believed the human body was composed of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, using highly toxic hellebore to treat ‘melancholy caused by an imbalance of black bile,’ which cost countless souls their lives. But today, mankind measures the world with pure reason. The phlogiston theory has been utterly overthrown, and the law of conservation of mass has become the new gospel for modern pharmacologists. With the assistance of the Chrono-Entropy Corporation from the future, a monumental revolution is bound to sweep across this era!”
As she spoke with such vibrant fervor, the two travelers found themselves momentarily dazed. This was the absolute first time they had ever witnessed Madame Spades exhibiting such intense emotional passion.
The striking of a grandfather clock echoed through the quiet rooms of the estate as a mechanical maid presented a dish of candied orange peels. Diamonds idly popped a piece into his mouth, but he couldn’t taste any sweetness; it felt entirely bitter. He inquired:
“In other words, the Corporation recognized your genius and handed you the title of Branch Director?”
This was exactly the same situation as Monkey Face, the Director of the 2030 Branch. Both Monkey Face and Madame Spades had originated from the lowest rungs of society, yet because of their unique talents, they had been elevated by the Corporation, transforming into the very oppressors who exploited the lower classes. Thinking of this, Diamonds couldn’t help but sigh, deeply curious about where the true boundary between the oppressed and the oppressor lay. The victimizers had once been the victims themselves; the enemy they were currently fighting felt bizarrely like a future iteration of their own selves.
Madame Spades smiled and nodded gently. “Rather than talent, it would be more accurate to call it luck. I am merely an individual who possessed slightly better fortune among the throngs of people searching for truth—someone who happened to win a straight bet on a single number.”
With a elegant wave of her hand, the mechanical maid presented a silver platter, pulling back layers of velvet cloth to reveal a small, transparent vial containing a liquid. The fluid was mesmerizingly ethereal; it didn’t belong to any known color in the world. It was neither water nor dew, resembling the first clearing of mist over distant mountains from afar, or a swirling eddy of early morning stardust up close.
Diamonds asked, “What is this?”
Madame Spades replied softly:
“This is the physical entity of time.”
Diamonds and Quicksand froze dead in their tracks.
“The acquisition of this substance was entirely accidental,” she explained. “A few months ago, on a tempestuous night, I tied a crystalline triangular flask to a kite and flew it into the heart of a thunderstorm, successfully harvesting ‘æther.'”
“You essentially performed the exact same experiment as Benjamin Franklin.”
“Haha, precisely. Yet, I achieved an entirely different result. Afterward, while distilling gentian root, I introduced the æther alongside a Stone of Chronos—or what you people of the future would refer to as magnetized iron powder. The result was this very substance. The exact moment I touched it, a miraculous phenomenon occurred: I experienced a brief lapse of memory. No, rather, it had completely frozen my time. Memories flashed before my eyes in vivid successions, seeming as though they were coiling backward. It was then that I became absolutely certain—I had discovered a physical state, a tangible manifestation of time. You could call it a fragment of time.”
The two travelers listened, their minds thoroughly boggled, while Madame Spades continued to gaze at them with a serene smile, resembling an ancient and flawless portrait. Her vocabulary was saturated with the common sense of an older era—notions deeply believed back then, but recognized as absolute fallacies today. Yet, standing upon the foundations of those very fallacies, she had achieved a breakthrough that vastly outstripped her current era.
Quicksand crossed his arms, evaluating flatly, “You discovered time in a fluid, physical state? That is utterly absurd.”
Diamonds fell into deep contemplation. “No, although it sounds like pure fantasy, she might have truly stumbled her way into knocking upon the gates of absolute truth. In this era, people view ‘æther’ as the medium through which light and fluids propagate. But in modern ‘optical fluid’ experiments, photons confined within quantum microcavities can indeed exhibit liquid-like behavior. The temporal fluid she has discovered can be viewed as a type of condensed æther—freezing space-time within a fluid medium through quantum interactions.”
“An entirely incomprehensible discovery,” Quicksand remarked, keeping his arms crossed.
“And in truth, this fragile, accidental discovery likely radically altered the entire course of history.”
Diamonds’ expression turned profoundly solemn, his sharp gaze piercing straight into Quicksand’s face.
“Don’t you see it, black-hearted employee? This means the Chrono-Entropy Corporation’s technology was directly inspired by Madame Spades—she is the ultimate pioneer of time-jump technology.”
That night, a violent rainstorm descended upon the city. The heavy moisture of the River Thames mingled and twisted with the thick coal smoke, rising into the atmosphere as the streetlamps flickered through the sheet of rain like a gathering of staggering drunks. Diamonds lay within the guest bed prepared by the mechanical maid, inhaling the scent of aged vanilla, completely devoid of sleep.
Suddenly, a faint, rhythmic knocking echoed against the oak door. Diamonds looked over to find Quicksand standing in the sliver of the doorway, expressionless, clutching a mint-scented pillow and wearing his star-patterned nightshirt.
“What’s wrong? Scared of the thunder? Can’t sleep?”
“I truly cannot sleep. The bed in my room is far too massive; you can roll around for days in it. I’m not used to it,” Quicksand muttered. He was far more accustomed to squeezing into cramped, narrow single beds.
“How pathetic. You finally get to experience luxury and all you do is complain,” Diamonds remarked, rolling over in bed. “Come on in, then. I happen to be suffering from a bit of insomnia myself.”
Quicksand walked over and unceremoniously crawled under the covers, instantly colonizing four-fifths of the mattress. Suddenly, he braced one hand beside Diamonds’ pillow, casting a heavy shadow directly over him.
“What, are you going to interrogate me again?” Diamonds looked up at him, his gaze perfectly calm, the diamond stud beneath his eye glinting in the dark. Looking down past his unbuttoned shirt collar, a stretch of pale skin was visible, alongside the faint, jagged scar of a brand near his collarbone.
Quicksand abruptly pulled Diamonds’ shirt open further, his fingers tracing downward until they came to a halt right over the branded image of the Penrose stairs. His voice turned cold. “This is the mark of the laborer class within the Chrono-Entropy Corporation. You were a slave to the Corporation?”
“So what if I was? I am a liberated peasant now, fully qualified to act as your master. Do you have a problem with that?” Diamonds glared up at him.
Without warning, Quicksand bit down fiercely on his neck. Diamonds shuddered, grinding his teeth as he barked, “What kind of madness has possessed you now?!”
Quicksand replied flatly, “I haven’t gone mad; I am merely expressing my dissatisfaction with absolute reason. I also wanted to check if this brand was simply drawn on—to see if water could rub it off.”
“Using your saliva?” Diamonds shoved him away. “The bed is plenty big. Keep your distance.”
Quicksand ignored him completely, pulling the wool blanket clean over both of their heads. Within the absolute darkness beneath the covers, his eyes shined like polished glass. Cocooned in the bedding, he whispered softly:
“Sleeping in separate rooms isn’t safe. I suspect Madame Spades made these arrangements with deliberate intent. This estate is massive; she could easily arrange for five hundred axemen to hide behind the walls of any given room.”
“Where on earth would she find five hundred axemen?” Diamonds murmured. He thought to himself that while five hundred hidden soldiers might be a stretch, Quicksand himself was a terrible employee perfectly capable of swinging an axe at his boss at any moment. He inquired, “You don’t trust Madame Spades?”
“Seeing that this person truly exists makes me glad you didn’t lie to me. But she is our enemy, and she has hidden her past from us. I am afraid she might turn out to be the snake from the fable of the farmer and the viper—turning around to bite the very hand that saved her once she is revived. Are we truly going to save her?”
“If she’s a snake, then you’re a white-eyed wolf—beating up your boss and demanding wages every single day without giving me a moment of peace. Forget it, we take it one step at a time.”
Diamonds sighed. Right at that moment, they heard a soft, delicate knocking against the door, resembling the light patter of rain against a windowpane. Diamonds slipped out of bed, pulling the door open to find a timid, trembling maid standing in the corridor.
In an estate thoroughly saturated with mechanical maids, her living presence was a stark anomaly. She wore a simple black dress paired with a cotton apron that still carried the faint scent of a hearth. A heavy face mask woven from multiple layers of gauze covered her features; the exposed skin along the edges was severely blistered and cracked, resembling sun-baked earth.
“What is it? Is something the matter?” Diamonds asked gently.
The maid’s gaze shrank back nervously. “To… to disturb you so late… my profound apologies. I was wondering if you had seen the… the gentleman who arrived with you?”
“What, are you conducting a curfew check?” Diamonds pointed a thumb back into the room, chuckling. “He’s in my bed.”
At that moment, the top two buttons of his red shirt were undone, exposing a patch of pale skin adorned with fresh bite marks. His face carried a faint flush from the punch he had imbibed earlier, and the diamond stud beneath his eye glintered like a demonic eye, radiating a highly provocative allure. The maid’s face flushed crimson as an incredibly scandalous imagery flashed through her mind. She stammered out nervously:
“My deepest apologies for… for interrupting the two of you… I brought two cups of warm milk spiced with cinnamon. Please, take your time and enjoy them.”
Diamonds casually accepted the tray from her hands, setting it down on a nearby table. But just as she turned to leave, he gently caught her by the wrist. “Are you a maid of this house as well? Are you the only non-mechanical servant here?”
The maid lowered her head. “Yes. Madame Spades is tended to by the Corporation’s mechanical entities; she only kept me as the sole un-modified, living human.”
“Looking at your condition… did you previously work at the Mining Camps?”
The maid suddenly shielded her pitted, uneven face out of sheer shame—her features resembled a bruised, ruined tomato, a devastating consequence of living in a high-radiation environment. “In truth, even if we didn’t work at the mining camps, we would still end up looking like this. Where else could we possibly go? Just by living in the surrounding shanties, our skin gradually peels and blisters away. The people back home always say that this is a badge of honor earned through labor—it’s different from the medals the noble lords pin to their chests, because our medals are displayed right on our faces.”
Diamonds fell silent for a long moment before asking softly, “What exactly are you mining out there?”
“Sir, I do not know. I have heard it is a mineral similar to pitchblende, but it contains mutated isotopes of æther. The Corporation claims it is a glorious line of work—that the mined minerals will be used to sustain the energy consumption of their time-jump technology. They say that with time-jump technology, every ounce of suffering, conflict, famine, and cold in the world will be erased from the past.”
The maid’s eyes sparkled with a profound intensity, like a pair of luminous glass beads. Quicksand, curled up beneath the blankets, remained entirely silent, thinking to himself: Con artists. The Chrono-Entropy Corporation is an even greater con artist than Diamonds.
Diamonds’ gaze turned immensely complex. Beneath the dim, amber firelight, his eyelashes cast long, shallow shadows across his features. He murmured softly:
“Then how do you feel about Madame Spades?”
The maid’s cheeks flushed red. “The Madame… is a good person. She provided me with food and a roof over my head.”
“Even though your misfortunes, your blistered skin, and your drastically reduced lifespan from the irradiated mines all trace their lineage directly back to her?”
The maid’s eyes welled with tears, making her look like a small woodland creature startled by the sudden crack of a gunshot.
Diamonds didn’t press the matter further, deftly changing the subject.
“What is your name?”
“Morana. The Madame took me in when I was working at the mines. She told me… it was the name of a goddess.”
Diamonds offered no opinion, merely offering her a faint smile. It was indeed the name of a goddess, but it belonged to the Slavic goddess of winter and death.
Suddenly, a voice sliced through the shadows:
“Morana, what are you doing standing there?”
The voice was bone-chillingly cold, carrying the sharp, heavy ring of an iron sheet crashing onto solid ground. The two travelers turned their heads to find Madame Spades standing within the dark shadows, her lips pressed into a tight line, her eyes flashing with a freezing light.
The second the maid laid eyes on her, her entire body shuddered violently.
“M-My deepest apologies, Madame. I was merely delivering warm milk to the two gentlemen.”
“Delivering milk is one thing, but you appear to have uttered words that have absolutely no business crossing your lips. Come here; I have a word to say to you,” Madame Spades commanded. She strode forward with sharp, rapid steps, catching the maid firmly by the wrist.
To his horror, Diamonds noticed that Madame Spades held a heavily blood-stained carriage whip in her hand, radiating a terrifying, unmistakable aura of violence. He took a step forward, interjecting:
“Madame, there is no need to reprimand her. We were merely engaging in a bit of idle chatter; I was the one who initiated the conversation.”
Madame Spades glanced back at him. For a fraction of a second, Diamonds caught a clearer glimpse of the skin beneath her black veil—withered, heavily wrinkled, and pulsing rhythmically like the throat of a toad. He was left utterly stunned; this was the absolute first time he had ever witnessed such a sinister, menacing expression on her face. The Madame let out a smile that was simultaneously gentle and bone-chillingly cold:
“My friends from the future, Morana is an adopted daughter I took in. There is no need for you to interfere in my domestic affairs. For a loose-tongued child like her, if she were to leak the Corporation’s top secrets, whatever would we do? What she requires is a small bit of discipline.”
Quicksand, who had been lying flat on the mattress, tensed up and sat straight up in bed, his instincts screaming. He could distinctly hear the heavy, metallic thud of mechanical soldiers marching outside, surrounding the perimeter of the estate like an impenetrable wall of iron.
“Goodnight, gentlemen. May you enjoy sweet dreams tonight.” Madame Spades left behind a cryptic, chilling smile as she turned and departed.
The maid, Morana, was dragged away, leaving Diamonds and Quicksand alone in the room. Knowing that they could not afford to startle the snake in the grass, they both recognized that this was not the ideal moment to strike.
Yet, throughout the long night that followed, they questioned that choice multiple times. Because through the walls, they could hear the vicious, sharp cracks of a whip tearing through the air of the drawing room—one after another, shredding the silence of the night. Following the cracks came far more agonizing sounds—the desperate, weeping shrieks of Morana. Madame Spades’ silhouette danced hysterically against the curtains, completely maddened and out of control. Diamonds sat in absolute silence, burying his face in his palms, wondering if his decision to travel to this era had blown open a Pandora’s box. The Madame Spades they had set out to save might very well be an deeply entrenched, sinister demon.
The following morning, the two travelers descended to the drawing room, where the air was thick with the rich, charred aroma of toasted bread. Madame Spades sat before a table intricately carved with acanthus leaves, sipping lemon black tea from a fine bone china cup. The horrific brutality of the previous night seemed to have vanished without a trace, and the maid named Morana was nowhere to be seen.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Did you sleep well last night?”
Diamonds and Quicksand exchanged a flat look. Far from sleeping well, the two of them had essentially been left entirely awake throughout the night. Looking back at Madame Spades, her pleasant smile felt exactly like a piece of cake that had been left out for far too long—the exterior was covered in a layer of stiff, hardened frosting, while the core inside had already turned completely rotten.
“Madame, regarding Morana…”
Madame Spades raised a finger to her lips, letting out a soft “Shh” as she smiled warmly. “Gentlemen, there is no need to concern yourselves with her affairs. Your sole purpose in coming here is to guarantee my physical safety, is it not? Do not allow irrelevant matters to distract your minds.”
Quicksand spoke up abruptly, “The Madame Spades we are so familiar with is not someone who would brutally discipline a servant over minor blunders.”
Madame Spades chuckled. “Human beings always possess multiple faces, to the point where they barely even understand themselves. Can you truly guarantee that you know every single facet of another person?”
Quicksand knitted his brows. “With all due respect, Madame, what exactly do you think of the ‘temporal entity’ you have discovered? This breakthrough is a double-edged sword; it is entirely capable of unleashing unprecedented catastrophes upon the future, plunging the world into absolute chaos. Thousands of children just like Morana will never find happiness in the future; instead, they will be ensnared within the cages erected by the Corporation in the deep past.”
A fleeting, sinister gleam flashed across Madame Spades’ eyes, though her smile remained saturated with that sour, sickening sweetness:
“No, your perspective is far too pessimistic. I continue to believe that my invention is monumentally grand.”
Quicksand was left entirely speechless. Diamonds promptly leaped into the fray to smooth things over. “Madame, this kid is just a hot-headed brat; please don’t take his words to heart. What other world-shattering inventions do you have stored away? The two of us would love to marvel at them.”
Leaving the suffocating atmosphere of the drawing room behind, the two travelers were guided by Madame Spades into her pharmaceutical display room.
The Spades family had originally established their reputation through pharmacology. The moment they stepped inside, shafts of sunlight cut diagonally through the stained-glass windows, causing the dust motes drifting through the atmosphere to dance like glittering gold leaf. The walnut cabinets were packed with a dizzying variety of chemical mixtures: deep purple gentian infusions, pale green chamomile extracts, amber-hued laudanum tinctures, and countless other substances whose names they couldn’t even begin to guess.
The two men marveled at the sight, letting out soft whistles of appreciation. Diamonds turned to Madame Spades, inquiring: “Mady I ask, Madame, do you happen to have any tonics here capable of reinforcing one’s physical constitution or boosting vitality?”
Seeing the two men showering her personal collection with endless praise, the Madame’s irritation from earlier vanished into thin air. She smiled and asked, “Boosting vitality?”
Diamonds let out a couple of theatrical coughs. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been physically frail since childhood—delicate as a weeping willow. My personal family physician went missing recently, and I haven’t taken my medication for days, so I was wondering if you had a suitable tonic for me.”
He thought for a moment, then added, “Ideally, something with a pleasant flavor profile. Don’t make it too bitter; I can accept fresh fruit or red wine flavors. Even round pills that taste like Skittles would do.”
Madame Spades chuckled. “I do indeed possess such mixtures, though I would need to rummage through the back room to locate them, which might take a bit of time. Why don’t you look around here first while I retrieve it for you?” She pointed toward a specific cabinet. “There are some substances here that are highly novel and entirely harmless to the human body. If you are interested, you are welcome to sample them.”
Once Madame Spades had departed, Quicksand leaned close to Diamonds, whispering with immense frustration:
“Why did you stop me when I was interrogating that old witch earlier?”
“You idiot, we are currently living under her roof. Can’t you learn to exercise a bit of restraint? This place is essentially the absolute heart of the 1805 Branch; the mechanical soldiers outside are dense as mountains and oceans. We cannot afford to make any reckless moves. We observe first.”
Diamonds remarked, picking up a vial. The fluid inside possessed the distinct color of red wine, and the label read: “Rainbow Eggplant Extract.” Diamonds took a small sip and let out a burp, which unexpectedly manifested a cloud of brilliant, seven-colored smoke. Seeing this, Quicksand remarked flatly, “Boss, you are literally blowing smoke up my ass.”
Diamonds grabbed another vial and stuffed it directly into Quicksand’s mouth. Quicksand swallowed the fluid, his vision instantly spinning as he mumbled, “Tiny people… so many tiny people are dancing around.”
Diamonds remarked, “That one is mushroom soup.”
Every single tonic in the room possessed a bizarre, miraculous effect, many allowing them to perceive whimsical, fairy-tale-like illusions. The two of them experimented for a while, having the absolute time of their lives, until Madame Spades finally returned holding a glass vial. Finding them completely dazed and holding hands while clumsily dancing a ballroom waltz together, she chuckled: “Have you had your fill of fun? Mr. Diamonds, the vitality tonic you requested is here.”
Diamonds accepted the vial. Although he had already plundered a massive stockpile of pharmaceutical goods from Hua Tuo previously, he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to fleece Madame Spades for free merchandise. The tonic was a deep purple color, and the moment he opened the cap, a sharp, pungent scent of evaporating alcohol washed over him, resembling a highly concentrated gentian tincture. He took a sip, and a wave of intense warmth instantly flooded his entire body, causing his bones and muscles to feel remarkably limber and rejuvenated.
“As expected of the Madame. A single sip brings instantaneous results.”
Madame Spades smiled gently. “Though this tonic is harmless, its molecular stability is rather volatile. A light sampling is perfectly fine, but it is best not to overindulge.”
Once she departed, Diamonds and Quicksand left the estate, wandering idly through the streets.
During the daytime, the cobblestone streets carried a damp sheen, the smooth stones glistening under the light. They encountered women carrying tin buckets selling milk, gentlemen sporting powdered wigs, and young girls selling violets—the entire scene bursting with far more vibrant life than the night before. As they strolled, Diamonds took another sip of the tonic, savoring the flavor as he remarked, “The taste is actually quite good—resembles an aged medicinal liquor. Her palate here is vastly superior to her taste two hundred years in the future.”
However, before long, beads of sweat began to pour from Diamonds’ forehead as he grunted, “How bizarre… this tonic seems to possess an immense amount of internal heat. It’s causing my entire body to burn up.”
Quicksand shot him a sidelong glance, observing his intense restlessness. Diamonds accelerated his pace, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his collar, yet he still appeared suffocated by the heat. Quicksand remarked, “Boss, you didn’t accidentally mix things up and drink an aphrodisiac designed for stamina, did you?”
Diamonds’ face turned pale. “Don’t talk nonsense. The Madame explicitly stated that this was a tonic designed to reinforce physical constitution and health.”
Quicksand countered, “Depends on which part of your constitution it’s reinforcing.”
Diamonds was left speechless. Quicksand continued with absolute coldness, “I know how this trope works; I’ve read about this exact plot development in the web novels stored in Clubs Cat’ archive. Next up, you’re going to forcefully pin me down and kiss me, claiming ‘the effects of the drug made me do it.’ Let me make this clear right now: I am not going to help you relieve your desires. If you dare try anything, I will sue you for workplace sexual harassment.”
Diamonds snapped, “I am truly at a wits’ end with you! Has your brain been permanently damaged by a falling neon sign? What on earth is going on inside your head all day?!”
He threw a punch at Quicksand, intending to engage in their usual playful bickering. However, his fist effortlessly shattered the brick wall beside them into powder. It was only then that Diamonds realized the fluid he had consumed was an exceptional stimulant capable of instantaneously multiplying his physical muscle strength. Staring open-mouthed at his own fist, he delivered a few experimental punches into the empty air, throwing off sharp, whistling gusts of wind. He marveled:
“No way… it seems Madame Spades didn’t lie to me. This tonic doesn’t just numb pain; it truly reinforces physical strength. If I were to down ten vials of this stuff, wouldn’t I transform into an absolute martial arts legend?”
Seeing this, a hint of genuine envy surfaced in Quicksand’s eyes as he muttered, “Give me a sip. I want to be a martial arts legend too.” Diamonds scoffed, “In your dreams. Didn’t you just insist this was an aphrodisiac? I’m not giving you a single drop.”
The two of them chased and wrestled with each other all the way down to the harbor. In the distance stood a dense forest of ship masts, with colossal cranes hoisting wooden barrels swaying back and forth. Quicksand desperately wanted to sample the tonic, but Diamonds refused to hand it over. After running around for a bit, the heat within Diamonds’ body grew incredibly fierce, burning like an unquenchable fire. Giving up, he stripped off his outer coat. Right at that moment, Quicksand executed a sudden lunge toward him; Diamonds staggered back a few steps, losing his footing completely and plummeting straight into the ocean.
At this hour, the sun hung high in the sky, its rays blindingly harsh. The sunlight danced across the rippling water, making the surface resemble a floating sheet of shattered glass. Submerged within the cold ocean water, Diamonds’ mind cleared up slightly. However, a strange hallucination suddenly blossomed within his consciousness—the shimmering points of light across the water began to resemble a sea of brilliant stars, or countless shifting fragments of time, completely enveloping his body. He froze in place, feeling as though he were gazing upon a temporal labyrinth of infinite proportions, leaving him utterly lost within its depths.
As he drifted deeper into the ocean, endless sequences of imagery erupted from the points of light. At times, he saw himself gathering everyone in front of the Poker Bar to snap a group photograph—Madame Spades, Hearts, and Clubs Cat all standing together, smiling warmly at him from behind the lens. At other times, he saw himself brandishing a trowel-axe, slicing through the pouring night rain to ruthlessly eliminate one adversary after another. Yet, all his memories would inevitably freeze upon a final, absolute scene: a landscape carpeted with corpses, bleak and silent, where he engaged in a high-stakes game of Russian roulette, spinning a blood-stained cylinder with trembling fingers before a blinding white light consumed the entire world, and the child named Marble smiled warmly back at him.
Every single one of his nightmares initiated with that very smile, and every single one of them would conclude right after that laughter. Diamonds suddenly felt a wave of intense vertigo wash over him as a crushing sensation of sorrow and despair flooded his heart. The burning heat of the tonic and the freezing chill of the ocean water intertwined around his body as the ghosts of his past dragged his limbs down into the abyssal depths. His strength evaporated instantaneously, and he began to sink toward the ocean floor.
Suddenly, a pair of powerful arms reached down, gripping him with immense force and violently dragging him back to the surface.
Drenched from head to toe, Diamonds opened his eyes in absolute astonishment. He could feel a wave of hot, rapid breathing pouring across his face as a figure aggressively overshadowed his vision, pinning his lips shut, forcing his teeth apart, and ruthlessly drinking in his breath.
The person was none other than Quicksand. His expression remained entirely cold and unreadable, making his true thoughts impossible to decipher. Diamonds’ mind went completely blank. It took several seconds before he violently shoved Quicksand away, gasping:
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
His lips had been bitten raw, stinging with a sharp, throbbing pain. Diamonds didn’t even have the capacity to feel embarrassed; he was thoroughly shocked. Quicksand’s mind was supposed to be completely vacant, yet at some unknown point, he had clearly picked up some terrible habits—resembling a pristine white canvas that had been quietly splattered with dark, chaotic ink.
Wiping his mouth, Quicksand replied with absolute righteousness, “Who told you to hog the tonic all to yourself and refuse to let me taste it? I had no choice but to harvest the flavor directly from your mouth.” He added flatly, “It’s incredibly bitter. Tastes like gentian root.”
Diamonds was utterly flabbergasted. “If you wanted to taste it, you should have asked Madame Spades! Why on earth are you harvesting it from your boss’s mouth?!”
Imitating a generic cartoon villain, Quicksand let out a menacing, low cackle. “Going to her to beg for a taste would make me look far too submissive. Snatched it directly from you allows me to hold my head high.” Diamonds took a deep breath, completely rendered speechless as he buried his face in his hands. Dealing with an absolute blockhead, he truly didn’t know whether he should fly into a rage or simply laugh it off. Finally, he muttered, “You just stole my first kiss.”
“You stole mine too,” Quicksand countered. Diamonds let out a cold scoff. “That was entirely self-inflicted.”
Submerged within the ocean water, the two of them glared at each other like a pair of drenched rats, entirely devoid of any romantic tension, leaving behind nothing but immense resentment. Quicksand was the first to swim back to shore, immediately splashing water toward Diamonds, who was still wading in the waves. The two of them engaged in a furious water fight, barking savagely at each other like a pair of feral dogs.
It wasn’t until a short while later that Diamonds suddenly snapped back to reality, realizing that the dizzying, suffocating hallucinations from earlier had completely vanished. The ocean surface remained nothing more than the ocean surface, the light continued to ripple, and the sound of the waves remained eternal and unchanging.
He turned his head to look across the water; the silhouettes of Madame Spades, Hearts, Clubs Cat, and Marble had completely vanished without a trace. The past could no longer be chased, and the future remained entirely unpredictable; he possessed nothing more than the fleeting, transient present.
He lowered his gaze to look at the water’s surface. Quicksand’s reflection shattered across the churning waves, leaving nothing but thousands of fragments of sunlight dancing around him—lonely yet brilliantly radiant, resembling the golden foil showered across a festive celebration, or the delicate flower foam strewn across the interior of a funeral casket.
