On the edge of a bustling city stood an unremarkable convenience store.
One of its employees was a white-haired, red-eyed girl. Quiet and taciturn, she carried a deep-sea loneliness in her eyes.
She was trapped between two worlds: the land she longed to join but could never truly belong to, and the vast, empty ocean where she was all alone.
Every day, she disappeared at dusk, returning to the bonds of the tide. Day after day, like a mermaid stranded ashore, she kept watch in silence, alone.
Then one afternoon, a girl in a tattered red-and-white shrine maiden outfit followed a wave of emotion unlike anything she had felt before into the convenience store.
She walked up to Ling Xi, looked straight into her scarlet eyes, and softly asked a question that went straight to the soul:
“Excuse me... are you lonely?”
