The mild sun hung in a blue bowl of sky, not blinding, like warm milk. Time was the fresh hour of eight or nine.

Villagers of Xibei Village were already up, clustered in twos and threes along the gravelled lane like sparrows on a low wall.

Daily talk flowed like a small stream. Near the archway, the little square was the busiest pond of gathering.

From afar, Ye Weibai heard chatter threaded with laughter, a woven harmony like sun on wheat, a lazy breeze of life rolling soft.

But when Philia led him into that square, the music cut off mid-note, like a hand snuffing a candle.

When the red-haired, red-eyed girl stepped into their sight, the air felt sucked dry, like a bell jar lowered over a flame.

In a heartbeat, every villager fell silent, voices folding like paper cranes left unfinished.

Motion froze into stillness, a pond turned to glass. The naked special treatment knocked Ye Weibai off balance, his breath snagging like a torn thread.

Smiles still hung on faces like masks not yet stored away, but they’d gone cold, lips pressed thin, bodies rooted like stakes.

Eyes slid from corners to watch Philia, the “outsider,” like frost peeking in. That look was a knot of things.

There was awkwardness, there was pity, and there was…fear, braided tight like three strands of winter reed.

Twisted together, those moods became a sharp knife, shredding the soft harmony like silk torn along the grain.

In their eyes, the girl who “shouldn’t” be here was the hand on that blade. She broke the plain calm like a dropped stone.

Where she passed, villagers on both sides edged back, like wheat leaning from wind, and the warm air split clean like fruit under a knife.

Philia seemed unaware, her smile bright as morning glaze, skipping on blue stone, leading Ye Weibai forward, humming a light tune like sparrow song.

In the dead hush, only distant birdsong and wind chimes under the eaves answered the dawn breeze like silver threads.

Her soft, crisp voice rang clear, falling into Ye Weibai’s ears like beads, and his breath tightened, a drum beating a bit fast.

Just walking behind her, he felt a heavy pressure, like ice made solid pressing in from both sides to clamp his frame.

His smile had long vanished. He followed, watching her move as if that huge rejection were smoke, as if “oddity” slid off like rain.

She even offered friendly greetings, her voice like a small lantern held up to neighbors.

No doubt, her warmth earned only false smiles, paper-thin and pale.

Those smiles were forced and hollow, bare of any ornament, only the mouth tugged up like a string pulled tight.

From those faces, Ye Weibai read unwillingness and…fear, words written in frost on a window.

A great doubt rose in him like mist: if they truly disliked her for some past thing, why force a smile at all?

If it was courtesy, pity for a child, why did that smile carry the chill of fear, like a shadow in noon light?

He felt this: their smiles weren’t human courtesy alone, but something driven by an unknown rule, like a bell that must be rung.

If they didn’t smile, great Misfortune would fall, like thunder waiting above a bare field.

If that’s so, then why? What cause, what event, what emotion stirs this river?

Hints whirled in his mind like leaves, but no main thread stitched them, and the truth hid behind fog.

Even so, Ye Weibai caught a key of this “game” like a fish flicking silver.

The biggest conflict might not be the villagers’ why, nor the Misfortune clinging to the girl like cold dew.

It was this—why could this red-haired, red-eyed child still smile bright and cloudless, like sun after rain?

That was the true strange, a bell that wouldn’t stop ringing in mist.

“H-Here we are!”

They were almost at the village’s end when the girl smiled and said, “H-Here we are,” stopping at a doorway like a bird alighting.

Ye Weibai looked up at her home. It was a common two-story, medieval-styled house, like its neighbors, with a small yard up front.

No grandeur, just a simple roof and a modest gate, quiet as a stone set in grass.

“L-Little Bai, you, you first, w-wait here—”

“I get it. Go tell your family,” Ye Weibai waved, wind in his hand. “Listening to you talk is exhausting.”

Philia puffed her cheeks like a little drum, turned, pushed the gate, and skipped into the yard toward the house.

Standing outside, Ye Weibai caught the blur of her voice with a man inside, like voices through thin paper.

“B-Brother, there’s a g-guest!”

Brother… was he Philia’s blood brother, a branch on the same tree?

The man said something, too soft to hear, like rain on moss.

“No, I’m not j-joking! It’s t-true!” Philia’s tone held petulance, a kitten’s paw.

A gentle, weak laugh answered, warm with fondness like winter tea.

These siblings seemed close, a pair of swallows under one eave.

Philia came back out, smiling. “C-Come in, L-Little Bai~”

Ye Weibai followed her into the yard. On both sides, green potted plants stood like little forests.

There were sundries, all set in order, a care that showed like broom marks on sand.

“C-Come in.”

They crossed the door and stepped into the main room. Philia moved aside, and Ye Weibai saw her brother.

He sat in a chair with a white blanket over him, smiling gently, like moonlight on still water.

He looked twenty-something, thin and pale, gray shirt and pale-gray trousers wrapped tight like clouds.

He shared Philia’s red, tousled hair, and the same red eyes, burning even in the dim room like embers.

He seemed frail, a candle behind glass, sitting there with the blanket upon him.

Sunlight fell through the window, landing an inch beside him, while he sat bathed in shadow, offering Ye Weibai a gentle smile like spring rain.

He was the sort of man who sparked goodwill at first sight, like a warm hearth.

He should have been just that, a picture without cracks.

Yet under that scarlet gaze, Ye Weibai felt a deep discord, a stone in his shoe. Something was wrong.

It thickened as the red-haired man kept smiling and staring, his head still, only those scarlet eyes crawling in their sockets like ants.

They slid up and down, measuring him carefully, like a tailor’s tape around bone.

Just as the word in Ye’s mind was about to leap out like a fish, the man drew back that look, snapping the line.

“Hello, I’m Owen—Robert Owen.”

“You can call me Owen,” he said, smiling, his voice soft with sickness, like breath through gauze.

“Forgive me for looking at you that way. You’re rather…special,” he added, a pause like a distant bell.

“Our house hasn’t had guests in a long time,” he said, the sentence settling like dust.