A midnight snack rich as moonlight, a shower warm as spring rain, then sprawl on the couch like a lazy cat, and finally rest my head on my favorite sister’s soft thighs. Ah—this is, for me as a younger brother, the most wonderful thing in this World.

“Sis… what are you doing?”

“Hm? I’m reading your inner monologue, little brother.” Her long legs pressed together, she lounged with quiet grace, wet hair fanned behind her like willow in rain, smile bright as peach blossom.

Yexiaobai covered his face, heat rushing like a summer tide. “I wasn’t thinking that! And I’m not—uh—not resting on your… thighs!”

“So you want to?”

“I refuse.”

“They’re really soft.”

She poked the pale, round skin of her thigh peeking from her hotpants, like milk-lit marble.

“And very white.”

“Ah, if you keep this up, I’m going to bed.” Yexiaobai raked his hair, frustration crackling like dry leaves.

“Okay, okay. No pillow then. Stingy.” She pulled back, her face aggrieved, like a kitten pretending to be the one kicked.

“Eh.” Yexiaobai could only sigh; with a sister like this, what could he do but float like a leaf in her current?

He was about to say more when the TV report hooked him like a sudden hook in dark water.

On screen, a host in a neat suit spoke in a stern cadence, each word landing like iron on an anvil: “Here’s a short bulletin. A string of malicious assaults has struck Puyah District in Qinghai City. The assailant is still at large… Police say they hold conclusive evidence and expect progress soon… Citizens are urged not to go out at night lightly… travel with company… lock doors and windows…”

Each clipped syllable fell like a hammer, pounding Yexiaobai’s heart into a drum of dread.

His gaze glazed; a cold surge crawled up from his core like winter well-water, a chill born of vast malice. He recalled the bad omen beneath the school building, and the text he’d sent after dinner sinking like a stone. In an instant, his face drained white as paper, vision dimming like dusk.

“Xiaobai, what’s wrong?” Concerned eyes drove back the dark like lantern light. Yexiaokong grasped his sweat-slick, icy hands, calm steady as a lake. “Are you sick?”

“Ph—phone!” Panic hit first, then motion; he scrambled, snatching his phone from the tea table with hands that felt like sticks.

“No—no reply! Even when she’s mad, it’s never like this.” His face paled further, the phone almost slipping away like a fish.

“If it’s urgent, call.” She didn’t know the details, but her voice was a clear bell.

“Right—right.” In storms, an adult is a mooring. Grateful, he shot her a look, then dialed Mu Xiaowei.

“Beep… beep… beep…”

The phone pressed to his sweat-cold cheek, Yexiaobai loathed that connecting tone like a mosquito whine, each second stretching like taffy.

Fear spiked—if Mu Xiaowei ran into that night-stalking assailant, he’d never forgive himself, not even under a thousand suns.

Why did he stand her up? Why let her go home alone? If he’d walked Mu Xiaowei back, none of this would bloom into nightmare.

“Pick up! Pick up! Please—connected! Hey! Mu—”

Static rustled in his ear like wind through wires, the breath of the line opening. His smile began to unfurl—then snapped.

“Beep-beep-beep… The number you…”

Ash-gray settled over his face. “She hung up.”

“Again—call again!”

“Beep-beep-beep… The—”

“No, no way!”

“Beep-beep-beep…”

Cold poured down like a basin of ice from a black sky.

Though the night burned humid, Yexiaobai felt dropped into a frozen pit, shaking like a leaf in sleet.

His trembling hand lost its grip; the phone slid onto the sofa with a dull thud.

“Mu Xiaowei?” From a single name, Yexiaokong caught the shadowed outline. Her brows pinched, then she lifted her own phone, moon-cool and decisive.

She picked up his phone, checked the number, and dialed it from hers, motions crisp as a blade laid flat.

Yexiaobai stared, mind blank as an erased slate.

“Hello.”

That one word snapped him back like a soul tugged by a bell.

“Connected?!”

“Is this Mu Xiaowei? Are you safe at home? Were you hurt? Dead? Not dead. Missing an arm, a leg? No. Your phone wasn’t near you? Then why ignore my brother’s call? Me? Who am I? I’m Yexiaokong. What am I—” Her voice climbed like a storm wind, brows lifting like drawn bows, twin pupils gleaming with a sharp, frost-bitten edge.

“Not good! Sis is about to blow!” Relief had no time to bloom; alarm flared and he lunged, grabbing for the phone like a diver for air.

“Don’t move, little brother! I’m going to teach that woman a lesson!” Yexiaokong’s brows nearly stood up like quills. “How dare she toy with my adorable brother!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Sis! Look—I’m fine, aren’t I?” He hid the phone behind his back, pleading smile soft as snow.

“Xiaobai…” Yexiaokong faltered. Whenever he wore that look, her anger melted like sugar in tea. She sighed. “Ah. Foolish Xiaobai.”

She lifted the bath towel and gently wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, hands warm as sunlight. Seeing him dazed, she huffed, half tender, half annoyed. “Still frozen? Weren’t you about to call that woman?”

“R-right!”

He came to, phone at his cheek. “Xiaowei? It’s—”

…

…

Nightfall.

“So absurd.”

Hugging a tiger Doll that hogged a third of her bed, Mu Xiaowei lay sprawled, grinding her teeth, glare twin to the Doll’s painted scowl.

“I was the unlucky one, and I still got scolded for no reason.” She lifted a leg and bared her small feet, staring at her swollen big toe, heart aching like a pricked fruit.

“S-sure… I didn’t text back or answer—my bad… but cursing me about missing arms and legs? Yexiaokong… that woman…”

She didn’t want to admit it, but as Yexiaobai’s childhood friend, Mu Xiaowei knew Yexiaokong. Some people are born oil and water—though both were close to Yexiaobai, they rubbed each other wrong like flint and steel.

As kids it was like this; grown up, still like this. Time didn’t sand it smooth; it sharpened the edge. Every visit, Mu Xiaowei slipped in only when Yexiaokong was out, like a cat crossing a wall. Otherwise she’d meet not tea and warmth, but a cold, awkward front—an aura that practically wrote, Not welcome. Scram.

“But still.”

She rolled with the heavy Doll, awkward as a beetle, then stared at the moon pinned over the window, Nightfall pooling like ink in the room. A filament of fear rose in her eyes, fine as smoke.

She remembered crossing that abandoned elementary school tonight, corridors hollow as throats.

“That terrible gaze… whose was it?”