But the next day, Wen Quan didn’t show up for cram classes; the teacher said she’d caught a cold, and needed a few days of quiet at home, like a bird nursing a frostbitten wing.

When Nana Toki heard, she stayed for one period and then cut class, slipping away like a shadow at dusk, because how could a husband sit still with books when his wife lay sick at home like a wilting lily?

System: “...” Stripped bare, the host just finds school dull and wants to bail, like a fish slipping the net.

“Yeah, and what can you do about it?” To her, the lessons here were like prenatal lullabies—soft noise in warm water, learn or not, it changed nothing.

Backpack in hand, Nana Toki vaulted the back-hill fence by the track, light as a cat over a garden wall, but the moment she landed, she spotted the school’s Dean of Discipline under a big roadside tree, eating breakfast amid steam curling like morning mist.

If he were just eating, she could have clipped her line of sight and ghosted past like fog, but dreams wear silk and reality wears sandpaper; the dean’s eyes were weasel-bright, sweeping the back hill like a hawk hunting mice, silently saying, Let’s see which brats ditch class today—once I catch you, you’ll chew bitter fruit.

Truancy had been a flood lately; substitute teachers swallowed the trouble like pebbles, didn’t report it, yet whispers still flowed into Aomori High’s dean’s ears like wind through pine needles.

Guarding the school’s name like a lantern in rain, he chose today to strike hard, posted himself on patrol by the back hill, and waited like a hunter by a snare for truants to stumble in.

In just ten-odd minutes, six or seven had been nabbed at the fence like sparrows trapped in a net; if not for Nana Toki’s extra bit of caution, she would’ve stepped right into the dean’s cunning loop.

Nana Toki: “...” Why did this guy pick today of all days to patrol, like thunder arriving the instant she thought of rain?

Hiding behind a tree, she watched him scold a knot of students, his stance parked right at the only exit like a boulder plugging a stream; what was she supposed to do, grow wings and fly?

While she plotted, at the same time elsewhere, Wen Quan stirred at home, waking slow as frost melting on stone.

Her head felt heavy, as if poured full of lead, and a chill like an ice needle crawled up her spine to her skull, until last night’s storm finally flickered back through the fog.

Ah… so that’s how it was… did that man come again, like a shadow slipping under the door?

Splayed on the floor, her body felt unstrung like a broken lute; even the smallest shift sent knives of pain biting deep, and she couldn’t tell when she’d blacked out, only the rough, wrenching grip in her mind like dirty hands on silk.

So cold…

The floor kissed her back with metal chill, like an iron plate bristling with needles pressing into bone.

What time was it now? The room was as dark as midnight, walls soaked in night water, and the only sound was the drip-drip of a loose faucet, a metronome tapping time on a hollow drum; she lay there and fought to move, yet even lifting a hand was like dragging an anchor through mud.

So tired… so drowsy… so much hurt… the words rose like mist and fell like stones.

Her eyelids sank again, heavy as wet leaves, and her mind slid back into an old dream like a boat drifting into a fogbound cove.

“So, even if it ruins this family, you’re going with that man?” The man in memory screamed with a blade of blame, and Wen Quan saw, for the first time, how a human face breaks like cracked porcelain.

Even the gentlest person turns strange and ugly in the split-second when reason snaps, like silk tearing under a hidden hook.

That slightly unfamiliar man in the memory… ah… he was her birth father, a moon she could name but barely recall.

“I told you it’s all business entertainment, and besides, don’t you think this is your fault too? You’re out all day like a drifting reed, home so rarely I chat with the neighbor more than with you!”

“Why do you think I work myself to the bone, if not for this family? You think daily food and drink fall like fruit from the sky?”

“Work, always work—Wen Xuntian, how many times have I told you to drop that worthless pride? You grind yourself outside and still don’t earn as much as I do from one dinner deal! All I wanted was more of your time, yet you never bend, not an inch.”

Raging in the entryway, the woman trampled the pride her husband prized, grinding it under heel like ash; that woman was her mother, a winter wind with a familiar name.

So long after, Wen Quan could no longer recall her mother’s face, but the cold, scornful tone she used on her father burned bright like a brand in snow.

“Get out…”

“What?” The woman at the door reeled as if slapped by thunder; the man who’d bowed for years now threw a stone back up the mountain.

“Adultery during marriage, and cozy photos with another man—you think I’ll swallow that like sand? Wait for the court’s decree—divorce.” His eyes were knives, his words a hammer, and the house, already cracked, shook like a tower in wind: “You’ll see the judgment.”

“Mm…” The woman let out a strained sound like a flute misblown, then smoothed her face and sneered, a mask snapped back into place: “Don’t forget, Wen Xuntian—who do you think gave you all this? Your job, your house, your car—I gifted them like beads on a string. Without me, you’re nothing.”

“Are you threatening me?” His breath smoked like winter air.

“So what if I am? You raised divorce first, didn’t you?” She gathered the reins again, steady as a rider on a tamed horse: “And if anyone’s leaving, it’s you. By the letter, this house is my private property.”

“You—” Something in him hit a limit, and he trembled like a bow at full draw: “Fine. Fine. I’ll go.”

He spat the words like pebbles, and turned to wrench the door open like ripping a bandage.

But—

“Wait, Wen Xuntian, aren’t you forgetting something?” Shoved aside, the woman’s eyes flashed viciously, a snake peeking from grass, then she pressed it flat again.

“What?”

“The little bastard you sired is still here.” Her gaze pinned Wen Quan huddled in a corner, and the cold in her voice was a northern wind; Wen Quan shivered, wondering if this iceberg was really the woman who birthed her.

“You don’t think a woman who cheats has spare love for her ex-husband’s child, do you? The court will hand this thing to you, the failed father. Don’t expect me to feed that little bastard.”

“Why should I raise your child? She’s got your filthy traitor’s blood in her veins!” Her father’s voice cracked into a howl, nothing like the warm man she once knew: “I get it—you want to punish me, make her face your face in my mind every time I look! No way! I’m not taking Wen Quan!”

Their quarrel sharpened like broken glass, and all that was once good popped like bubbles; in the end, the court awarded Wen Quan to Wen Xuntian, and as balance, he got a house under her mother’s name, a hollow refuge under a cold roof.

Did I really come to this world to be loved, or to be offered up like a paper lantern to wind?

A crash of shattering glass burst by her ear like lightning, and the warmth that followed rolled over her like a fire in snow, thawing ice in her bones.

“Hey! What nonsense are you mumbling?” A familiar voice broke like dawn at her ear, bright through the dark.

She fought to open her eyes, and in the black room she saw the outline of a woman she knew, a silhouette like a willow at the river.

Lu Qiqi… why was she here, like a star where there should be none?

Questions crowded her tongue like sparrows on a wire, yet none flew out; her lips were stone.

“Hey, hey, are you okay? You didn’t die, did you?” The voice teased, a pebble skipping across still water.

“Emmm, looks bad. Hey, crappy System, get out here and heal her!” Nana Toki’s near-hysterical shout cracked the hush like a bell.

“Huh? You’re out of heals? Another use costs a hundred points? Seriously? At a time like this you still gouge me for points—you’re shameless as a flea!”

“Fine, you win. I’ll do it myself. I’ll just build spiritual qi again later.” Her words tumbled out like dice on a table, bright and hard.

Before Wen Quan could catch up, something soft pressed her lips, a petal-light touch, and a faint fragrance bloomed in her nose like tea in hot water; something slid down her throat like warm springwater and spread through her limbs like dawn light through frost.

The tearing pain in her body ebbed like a tide, and in its place rose a gently glowing warmth, the kind of heat Wen Quan had never known, like a hearth lit in a winter house.