Innocence Can't Be Hidden

[Urban Life | Slice of Life | Heartbreak | Sweet and Sassy | Devoted Romance | Beastfolk]

The city of Xialan is imprisoned beneath blue mist that never lifts. Amid the ebb and flow of everyday life, countless beastfolk each bear their own loneliness.

Xu Dan is a solitary snow leopard dwelling among the urban sea of clouds.

He wears a thin frost of cool detachment, makes his living through words and images in a gleaming office tower, and seems as still and reserved as a cold stone on a snowy mountain. Yet deep within him lies a burning tenderness. Alone, he makes his way through the ceaseless traffic, keeping the ups and downs of work and the exhaustion of life to himself, and finding his way through ordinary, lonely nights in the glow of evening fires and the breeze.

Yu Baibai is a pure white spirit hound fallen into the dust and bustle of the world.

He enters society with wholehearted sincerity. Gentle and open-hearted, he is full of warmth and goodwill, and gives others his whole heart. Yet even the purest innocence can fall into a cold, muddy mire.

He hides his sharp edges and suppresses his own desires, humbly clinging to a hopeless love. Time wears down his passion; others trample on his kindness. Layers of gloom veil his once-vibrant, bright self, leaving only a body covered in wounds and a bitterness no one knows, as he falls silent alone in the dark.

Mist blankets the lonely city, and their paths cross.

Everyone else rejects his innocence. Only this cool, aloof snow leopard sees through his carefully obedient mask and his fractured tenderness.

He brushes the dust from his body and catches the innocence he has nowhere to put.

Lone frost meets warm sunlight; desolation finds tenderness.

From then on, the mist clears and the winds fall still. Through years of everyday warmth, two lonely beastfolk souls fall for each other, and remain together for life. Every unhidden trace of sincerity and every flutter of the heart becomes a rare tenderness that belongs to them alone.