Thunder rolled across the sky like iron drums.

Slivers of light skimmed the cloud-belly and vanished like fish.

Then the wind tore loose, and rain crashed down like a river.

The clean earth turned slick, a sheet of dark silk.

Umbrellas bloomed like bright flowers along the street.

Raincoats shone like koi scales, a sudden burst of color in the gray.

People lifted shields of cloth and plastic, but their spirits stayed bright as lanterns.

Some even laughed, strolling through silver threads of rain, crossing street after street as if walking a gentle song.

Smiles spread like ripples across a pond, and the rain felt warm as a shared hearth.

One smile infected another, sweeping away grumbles like dust in a gust.

Those who had cursed the downpour now savored the scene like tea after frost.

People were truly happy; they liked this rain, the way it washed the day clean.

A girl moved step by step through the rain, each footfall a soft splash of glass beads.

Her hair hung in wet tangles like riverweed; her smile was sallow, a faded leaf.

Bare feet kissed puddles, leaving small stars on the pavement.

She was only twelve in spring years, yet her face carried rusted sorrow, a hope hollowed by winter.

Red marks bloomed on her skin like crushed hibiscus—obvious wounds.

Her clothes were torn like storm-torn paper, making her look like a beggar cut from shadow.

“Who’s that?”

“So creepy—she’s hurt. Gross…”

“Should we call the police?”

A tide of voices rose and fell, startled eyes flashing like startled birds.

Fear pricked the air like thorns; curiosity flickered like moths to a candle.

Yet no one stepped forward, and no hand reached out through the rain.

For some, rain draws out sorrow like ink in water; that’s how Yun Shi felt.

Her chest clenched first, a cold stone, and then she lifted her gaze to the Outer World and let the rain write lines on her face.

“I thought the Outer World would hold a soft echo of home,” she thought, the words heavy as wet cloth.

“But outside is also thick with grief.”

She looked up, and bitterness swelled like a storm tide under her ribs.

Maybe fear was stronger here, like frost over grass, but she couldn’t deny the scene: sleeves tucked back, eyes turned away, no hand extended.

It was only slightly kinder than the Underworld, where blood sprang out like sparks at the slightest strike.

She had climbed out of the Underworld into the Outer World, expecting dawn, and met dusk instead.

A twelve-year absence hung over her like long winter, and coming back to this felt like stepping into an old wound.

Her heart could not help breaking, a bowl cracked by cold water.

Yun Shi glanced at the crowd again.

Faces tightened like closed fans; feet scraped back two steps, as if the rain itself had teeth.

Smiles vanished in an instant, scattered like leaves in a squall.

A thin, self-mocking smile tugged at her mouth, a reed bent by wind.

She turned, weak as smoke, and walked on through the rain; the path had no head or tail, only an endless ribbon of gray.

So she kept going, like a small boat with no harbor.

The rain thickened, stitching the air with heavy threads.

Even umbrellas sagged like tired wings, and coats clung to bodies like cold bark.

Only the girl kept moving, unafraid of the raindrums; her clothes were already soaked to the bone, a second skin.

Cars hissed past and threw up street filth like brown waves.

The splash struck her, icy as mountain melt, leaving stains like bruises on stone.

Unlike rain’s clean chill, that water carried human bleakness, a taste of iron and ash.

Yun Shi stood at the roadside and watched faces flow like a painted scroll.

They wore the happiness she lacked, bright as sunlit apricots.

“Mia, Eil…”

A low ache filled her first, warm and hurting, and then the names slipped out like threads.

She wanted familiar silhouettes beside her, friends walking like twin lamps under the rain, the way those others did.

But her friends were dead, gone like candles blown out for her path.

They died so she could make it here, and the price hung on her like a wet cloak.

Sometimes she couldn’t understand why two lives had to be traded for this cold arrival.

She had come, but she’d found no resting place, no roof, no name.

Her stomach drummed, hollow as an empty barrel, and the pain pulled her mind back like a tug on a kite string.

She touched her belly, and her face dimmed further, like dusk swallowing a lane.

It had been two days without food; every limb protested like a chorus of sparrows.

In the Underworld she could still find water, but food was a locked gate, and money was a bird she’d never caught.

“Forget it. A few days hungry won’t kill me,” she breathed, the words brittle as dry bamboo.

She forced a bitter smile and tugged her weak body toward a shallow shelter, a shadow under a roof edge.

She sat on the ground, borrowing the awning’s narrow kindness like a thin blanket.

Behind her stood a shop with its door shut tight, wood cool as a grave; only the rain had opened this corner for her to hide.

But how long could she hide under a borrowed eave?

It worked for now, but her body was a frayed rope; when it snapped, she would spill into night.

She didn’t want to die; the plea rose first like a small candle, then her fingers trembled after.

“Mom, why is that big sister sitting there?”

“Yumi! Don’t look. Hear me—if you don’t study, you’ll end up like her.”

A mother and daughter drifted by like two petals, and pity did not stop with them.

Most people stepped aside like water avoiding a stone; a few paused only to watch the rain make a play of suffering.

The human heart is the hardest riddle, like a locked box with no key.

Yun Shi held no hopes now; she only wished the rain would end, a curtain lifted from a stage.

“Mia, outside isn’t so beautiful after all…”

The only difference from the dark world was the quieter streets, a night without knives.

Her body weakened minute by minute, strength draining like sand through fingers.

Her thoughts blurred, drifting like mist, and even lifting a hand felt like hauling a mountain.

She had reached her limit; her body’s rope had broken, and fate was a dark lake ahead.

Whatever would happen no longer mattered; the words fell like stones into deep water.

With that last thought, her mind went dark, a lamp blown out.

…

“Mm?”

When she woke again, Yun Shi was inside a stranger’s quiet, like stepping into a new season.

A ceiling she’d never seen spread overhead like pale bark; an unfamiliar bed held her like a soft raft.

Had she stumbled into rebirth, some trick of heaven?

No—the ache answered first, and the bandages wrapped her wounds like white vines.

Someone had treated her while she was adrift in rain-sleep.

A woman stepped in through the door, her presence gentle as warm tea.

“You’re awake, little sister.”

Her face didn’t look like trouble; a kind smile hung there, soft as spring sunlight, and concern sat steady in her eyes.

“Who are you?”

Guarded heat rose in Yun Shi’s chest, then her voice followed, thin as reed.

Someone who saves in a world like this might carry a hidden knife.

“Is that how you speak to your savior?”

The woman’s mouth curved in a half-smile, a crescent over still water.

Yun Shi fell silent, tongue caught like a fish in net.

No matter the angle, the truth stood plain—this woman had pulled her from the rain.

Even if her heart hid shadows, the rescue was real.

“Thank you…”

The words were small, but they glowed like an ember.

The woman only smiled and let silence settle like snow.

No new thread pulled the air taut, until—

“Don’t you want to say something, Yun Shi of the Quadra Eye Family?”

“You’re from the Underworld?!”

Alarm sparked first, sharp as flint; then Yun Shi’s posture tightened like a bowstring.

“Mm. You could say that. I’m half-retired now,” the woman said, voice smooth as river stones.

“How do you know about me…”

Suspicion pricked like needles; she weighed escape like a cat measuring a leap.

“It’s simple. I heard the Quadra Eye Family’s young lady had defected.”

“A week ago I saw you collapsed by the roadside, rain hammering like nails.”

“So I asked around. The odds were high you were Yun Shi of the Quadra Eye Family. Am I wrong?”

Yun Shi had no words, her mouth a sealed jar.

“My name is Weiyang. You can choose to trust me.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“You can only trust me. Besides me, you have no one.”

Silence folded over Yun Shi again, soft as heavy cloth.

“Why are you helping me?”

The question rose after a long pause, like a slow bell from fog.

She wanted to understand—there was no tie between them, so why lift her from the rain?

“No special reason.”

Weiyang let her shoulders slump, casual as a bird brushing its wings.

“I’m from the Underworld too, though I washed my hands of it years ago.”

“I still know its streets like old scars.”

“When the Quadra Eye Family erupted, there was no way I wouldn’t hear.”

“I saw you there, knocked down by the sky, and I couldn’t leave you.”

“And I felt… you were like the old me,” she said, a faint nostalgia drifting like incense.

“So I did what my hands wanted.”

“Like the old you—me?”

“Yes. Back then, I fought the chains of the dark world like a wild horse kicking a pen.”

“I failed.”

“After that, I walked deeper into the dark, hoping to find my road, and all I gathered was more blood, like stains that wouldn’t wash.”

“Then I understood—endless killing is hollow as a drum with no song.”

“So I left the Underworld.”

“When I saw you, I remembered my first self, and I couldn’t help reaching out.”

“I see…”

Warmth rose in Yun Shi’s chest like dawn, quiet and real.

Someone would help for such a reason—she didn’t dislike that at all.

Maybe the world still held kind people like hidden springs.

Right, Mia?

“Thank you. I lost my dearest friends and thought the sun would never break through again.”

“But today I think different.”

“Miss Weiyang, truly, thank you.”

Her future road would be rough, stones under bare feet, but that was fine; one day a gate would open.

She would live in place of Mia and Eil, carrying two lights forward.

“I’m glad you think so. I’ll get you a fake identity.”

“A fake identity?”

Confusion fluttered first like a moth, then the words followed.

“Since you’ll live in the Outer World, you can’t use the old name of Yun Shi from the Quadra Eye Family.”

“I’ll arrange a new identity. It’ll make life simpler.”

A thought rose in Yun Shi’s mind like a hidden spring breaking rock.

If a new name was possible, did it mean she could walk back to the long-ago and erase the soot?

“Miss Weiyang, about the new identity… can the gender be changed too?”