After an eventful autumn came an Eventful Winter.
After days of drizzle, Yacheng was treated to a rare sunny day. Beneath the clear afternoon sky, the streets were bathed in sunlight, and the puddles at their feet reflected the deep blue heavens, with a hint of warmth emerging.
Ji Jue sat in a folding chair, found a comfortable position, and let out a long, contented breath.
He remembered that when he was little in Shu Zhou, he had dressed heavily in winter, yet the cold wind would still whistle through the gaps in his clothes and burrow into his bones. Every morning after waking, the stretch between crawling out of bed and reaching for his clothes was practically as difficult as hell.
It was truly terrifying.
By comparison, winter in Haizhou seemed to symbolically drop by only a few degrees. You could even keep wearing a T-shirt beneath a light jacket. Even if the locals ceremoniously put a down vest over their clothes, no matter how cold it got, they absolutely refused to change out of their flip-flops.
Even after all these years, despite barely becoming half a local himself, Ji Jue still could not learn that enduring devotion to flip-flops, through mountains of blades and seas of fire alike.
An old man surnamed Zhang from some North Mountain District still wandered all over the city year-round carrying a huge palm-leaf fan, dressed in a tank top and baggy shorts. You might think he was bold because of his great skill, but that was simply the local style.
Plain and ordinary—that was what was real.
At that moment, beneath the afternoon sunlight, the echoes of the tides drifted in from afar.
The weather was clear, with not a cloud in sight.
"What fine weather for murder and arson."
Ji Jue