Qi Zi
In the midst of a severe winter, large snowflakes were falling and drifting in the sky.
Inside the city walls of Fu Huang, thick snow covered the towering walls and rough stone carvings, blurring the distinction between earth and sky, ensconcing the universe in a silvery white.
“Master, what are you looking at?” A stiff voice, accompanied by a strange creaking sound, spoke from the heights of the city.
It belonged to a small puppet. Its aging joints made an inflexible noise as it opened and closed its mouth. In today’s Fu Huang city, it was rare to see such an outdated model of puppet, as even the lowest-ranking cultivators scarcely ever used a style removed from history.
“I’m watching the snow,” a man answered quietly.
The man, draped in a heavy cloak, seemed to have been sitting here for a long time. The snow had piled up on his shoulders and head, even clinging to his long eyelashes in delicate frost. In the turmoil of flying snowflakes, the gray shadow of the cloak revealed half of a young and handsome pale face, surprisingly youthful.
The small puppet squatted on its master’s shoulder, idle and listless. The master could have had any number of obsessions or habits, but it was only this strange whim that it found difficult to comprehend.
Beneath them was the dark and disorderly city of Fuowang, the capital of the demonic cultivators.
This was a cold city, where the sky was always gloomy. Most days of the year were either raining or cloudy. It didn’t understand what there was in the monotonous snowscape that could be worth staring at for years on end.