People always say Xiao Ming is like a little sun blazing brightly. At seventeen, the light in her eyes seems warm enough to melt the depths of winter. But no one knows that beneath that light lies a fog even she cannot see through. She cannot remember where she came from, and there is always an aimless ache in her chest. Like duckweed swept along by a storm, she doesn’t even dare hope to put down roots.
Then her master found her. Her master taught her to learn restraint before clenching her fists, to keep kindness close to her heart when someone treated her well, and that a strong person’s blade should be turned against wolves, not cowering lambs. She thought those hands would lead her through the fog, and that the love she had been taught would slowly warm the ache in her chest.
But one day, she watched helplessly as her master fell into a pool of blood.
Afterward, Xiao Ming still smiled at people, but her smile was coated in a thin layer of ice, as if the slightest touch might break it. She stopped asking where she came from. No past could matter more than her master’s unfinished final words. She locked away all her warmth and vitality, along with the gentleness her master had taught her, in the deepest part of her heart. The key was buried in the ground with her master.
Some people say she seems unchanged, still the girl who offers others a hand warmer. Others say she has clearly changed, that the light in her eyes now carries a chill.
But there is no one left in this world who can see through her smile and recognize the sob hidden inside it, the way her master once could.
