The bitter winter wind cuts through Qingyan Town like a blade. Bai Xiaoran hunches her shoulders and buries her hands deep in the pockets of her faded padded jacket. The tips of her hair have turned an unusual silvery white, flickering in the moonlight, while a scale-like sheen occasionally flashes across the skin behind her ears. It is the night of her seventeenth birthday, and another sign that she is about to shed her skin.
