You Celebrate Like This Here

It was snowing.

Snow was always breathtaking, especially in a small town.

But in Nanshui Town, snow wasn't a good omen.

The faces of the townspeople who had frozen to death or suffered frostbite were still vivid in Yu Xing's mind. He reached out and caught a snowflake as large as a goose feather. Its icy chill seeped into his palm, where it settled without melting.

His hand was cold, too.

Fang Xiao stopped talking. First, he stared for a moment at the skin that let his younger brother hold onto a snowflake, then he abruptly looked up.

Beneath the deathly pale sky, goose-feather snowflakes drifted down in thick, swirling sheets.

The snowfall had come out of nowhere. On the most "joyful" day of the year, the white seemed intent on burying the red, sweeping in with ferocious force.

The smiles on the townspeople's faces froze.

Their movements grew slower and slower, until at last they all stood motionless, gazing up at the sky.

"What a heavy snowfall." Yu Xing rubbed his arm and murmured in admiration.

He paid no attention to the strange behavior of the puppets, focusing only on Fang Xiao's expression.

Fang Xiao looked awful, his face faintly pale.

For nearly three months, the world of Nanshui Town had been showing signs of trouble, teetering on the brink of collapse. The heavy snow was the clearest sign of it.

The Snow Festival might be called an auspicious snow festival, but in years without the threat of the world collapsing, the townspeople believed heavy snow promised happiness in the coming year.

This year was different.

This year's snowstorm was a harbinger of the apocalypse.

The only self-aware characters created by the book were the ones here on Baibao Street. The townspeople outside it were soulless extras in the