As expected, like frost settling on cold glass.

He watched the little girl, jaw clenched, refusing a cry, a small willow braced against rain.

She only had to speak; help sat within arm’s reach, like a rope thrown over a flooded stream.

But she chose to swallow the foul blood, like rain-soaked mud forced down in a storm.

Her figure, slender yet tough, fell into Ye Weibai’s gaze like a reed in still water. Then it thinned to glass, emptied to air. Deep in his pupils, the girl became the thing left after masks, thorns, and armor were peeled away—the Real.

Ye Weibai saw it—the Real hiding behind her so-called stubbornness and strength, like a cracked seed under hard soil.

Twisted and fragile, like a moth’s wing caught in frost.

Disgust rose like a chill draft. “Tenacious? Fearless of hardship?” Ye Weibai spoke inwardly, flat as slate. “No—fragile to the limit. Pathetic, like wet paper.”

Ye Weibai loathed it, like mold creeping under damp boards.

“Rest easy. I won’t help you.” He enunciated each word, gaze steady as winter rain on stone.

After that, he sat back on the sofa like a cat settling and crossed his leg. He scrolled the app to re-order and sipped tea like a cool stream.

Across the low table, the girl jolted, a sparrow startled by sudden hail. She hadn’t expected her uncle to be that blunt. His distance fell like the cold rain outside.

“Fine. Better this way.”

She told herself that, yet a soft place in her chest throbbed, like a bruise under silk. She felt wronged, even though she’d asked for it.

She bit down and pushed herself upright, a fawn limping through rain. She staggered into the kitchen. She picked rice grains and leaves off her dress, like burrs off wool. She found the broom and came back. She swept the warm, still-steaming mess from the floor.

Ye Weibai’s lids drooped as he watched the TV, a pond without ripples. In his periphery, her right knee, flushed red from the hit, wobbled like a bruised apple. He looked as if he saw nothing, face a frost mask.

No scolding, no comfort, no hand—just a wall of dry stone.

As if the spill had been a mirage. As if the girl were air, a breeze through an empty room.

Soon, Shaohan had the floor scrubbed, dull tiles now a little brighter like rain-washed stone. The oil smeared on her dress shone ugly, like tar on snow.

Shaohan put the broom away and returned, careful as a nesting bird not to touch her wounds. She sat on the sofa, hands on knees, lips pressed, silent.

Ye Weibai’s gaze skimmed her knee, red under the sleep dress, and her swollen elbow, a plum puffed by frost. If he didn’t treat it now, tomorrow it might be useless.

His heart softened, like snow under dawn sun. By memory, he slid open the drawer under the table and found a medicine box, cedar-plain. He took out the bruise liniment.

“I can—”

Her words were cut, a knife through silk. “Listen to me first,” Ye Weibai said.

His voice was neither warm nor cold, empty as fog. It made her heart jolt like a struck bell, and she closed her mouth on instinct.

“Shaohan, I’m going to ask you a question.” Ye Weibai fixed his eyes on her, a blade laid on the table. “Your answer will decide what I do next. Do you understand?”

She started, then nodded, a reed touched by wind.

“It’s simple,” Ye Weibai said, tone flat as overcast sky. “When you fell just now—what did you want to say?”

“Say... what?” Her voice flickered, a candle in draft.

“Right. Start from your heart. Think—what would you say?” Ye Weibai paused, then pressed on, steady as rain. “It’s an important question—you can be wrong, but don’t lie.”

She met the stark black-and-white of his eyes and felt pricked, like sunlight off snow. Her lids fell; words fluttered, moth-soft. At last she lifted her head, stubborn steel under damp bark. “I’m sorry. Next time, I won’t make that mistake.”

At the instant her “sorry” left her lips, Ye Weibai sighed inside, a wind moving through pines.

A child makes a mess, then owns it and mops it up—how many can do that? Most would cry like summer thunder. Fewer still would bow and admit.

Isn’t that good? It sounds like sunlight after rain.

Good, yes—but the river bends.

What Ye Weibai wanted wasn’t this polished stone. He wanted something ordinary, a simple pebble—words like “it hurts” or “help.”

“Then I understand.”

Ye Weibai said it and looked at the girl. The emotion in his eyes went clear, like spring water stripped of silt.

It was calm as water, without a fleck of sediment.

No dote, no blame, no tease, no chill—just a blank sky.

Under that gaze, the girl felt hollowed, as if something important melted away like first snow under newborn sun.

“Uncle—” The chill of it ran through her chest like a draft. She straightened, blank face cracking into a fragile haste, ready to speak.

But Ye Weibai’s next move cut the thread, like scissors through twine.

He took her hand gently and dabbed medicine on the wound, his touch fine as a brush. He moved with extraordinary care, like handling a fragile piece of porcelain in a quiet room.

Under those broad hands, her wound didn’t spark pain; the medicine spread like warm lake water, bringing a faint comfort.

It should have felt right, like a blanket set over winter bones.

But watching this uncle, she felt no heat. Instead, a heavy stone sat in her chest like slate in a riverbed.

This feeling... familiar, like touching an old scar beneath new skin.

“Then I’ll take out the trash.” Her voice rose like a small kite.

After the meal, clear white takeout boxes lay stacked on the table like ice slabs.

“No.” Ye Weibai raised a hand, stopping her like a barrier in rain. His gaze swept her knee. “You should rest.”

“I—” Her word snapped like a twig.

“I’ll go,” Ye Weibai said, tone unquestionable, a mountain planted in place.

She watched him lift the plastic bag and head out, like a river flowing past. Her mouth opened, but no words flew.

Too gentle... gentle like touching a treasured artifact. It pressed a heavy stone onto her heart, weighty as wet earth.

For no clear reason, her heart ached, and her vision dimmed like dusk. The swooning from earlier welled back up, a tide pulling. Cold sweat beaded on her brow. She sank onto the sofa, limp as wet cloth.

“What’s wrong?” Ye Weibai returned and saw her sprawled across the sofa like a fallen swallow.

“No, it’s nothing.” She lifted her head a little, a strained smile like paper pasted on wood. “Maybe I’m just sleepy.”

“Mm. Then go sleep,” he said, voice low as evening.

Shaohan nodded, a small leaf nodding in wind.

As he sat, Ye Weibai sniffed the air; his face shifted like a cloud shadow. He looked up toward her slender back fading around the stair’s bend.

“This level…” His face went still as deep water. “Already, the scent of Misfortune is close to what Philia carried back then… How is it rising so fast? No. Tomorrow I have to investigate Bai Rong’s place.”

Then Ye Weibai turned inward, thoughts circling like crows.

“Is this tied to what I just did? Was I too impatient?” Ye Weibai muttered, voice like wind behind a door. “No—time is tight; the sand runs fast. I have to push Shaohan to act herself. People can only self-rescue; otherwise it fails. What I’m doing is absolutely right.”

He didn’t notice—the old Ye Weibai would never say the word “absolutely,” a red flag flapping on a bare ridge.

After all, even grade-schoolers know—you never choose the “absolute” option on a test, like avoiding the black X on a quiz sheet.

A bed too large, unfamiliar, like a cool, empty lake.

Maybe his scent lingered like cedar smoke, wrapping her. She didn’t sleep as poorly as she feared.

Soon, sleep crept in like night fog.

Between wake and drift, a good dream slipped in, soft as blossom drift.

In the dream, what she’d long awaited bloomed like fireworks.

She stood at the heart of the bursts, a figure in a rain of colored sparks.

The darkness got eaten by flame; her mind fell into mist. Soft fire-tongues licked her skin, yet she wanted to sink deeper, like a stone in a quiet pond.

The one she had longed to see finally took the stage at the end of that dazzling dream, like a figure stepping through a falling curtain.

She wanted to tell them about tonight. If she could, she wanted to answer that question again.

She only hoped he wouldn’t wear that “gentle” look again, silk over a blade.

Because it hurt—like a thorn pressed into the heart.

But the dream had come to curtain call, velvet falling.

Everything in her senses broke and drifted away inside a smothering warmth, like snow melting on a hot stone.

“Honestly… you came too slowly,” she thought, a train late into a foggy station.

Thinking that, the girl fell wholly into sleep, like a boat sliding under moonlight.

Day X.

“Senior, senior! Hey, senior, stop sleeping!”

A playful voice, kitten-soft, burrowed into his ear and drew the picture of its owner—small and sweet as a sugared plum.

Ye Weibai woke fully from the dark, like a curtain pulled back to morning.