Dongfang Huaizhu and Dongfang Qinlan (1)

Drizzle fell without end.

It pattered against the bluestone paving.

Against the eaves.

It also pattered against the floral paper umbrella.

"Ugh... what awful weather."

"Nothing but endless rain."

"Everything's damp. It's so annoying."

At the borderlands of the Human Race, near the southern frontier, at the edge of a mountain forest, a little girl in a white ruqun dress with a purple sash walked idly along a fairly clean bluestone road. She had a pretty face, a flame mark in the center of her forehead, and a patterned Oiled Paper Umbrella slung over her shoulder.

Two others accompanied the little girl.

One was a young attendant dressed as a bookboy.

He did not look very old.

Around ten, perhaps.

The other looked somewhat older.

Around sixteen or seventeen.

It had to be said that appearances truly were deceptive.

Without measuring bone age, merely judging by appearance, no one would have realized that this poised young girl—who looked sixteen or seventeen, with elegant yet strikingly beautiful features and the same red flame mark between her brows—was only two years older than the ruqun-clad little girl who stood more than a head shorter beside her.

Yet that was the truth.

The girl in the goose-yellow long dress, draped in a green outer robe and carrying an Oiled Paper Umbrella herself, had developed early. The little girl in the white ruqun had developed late. Back and forth, the gap had naturally appeared.

Fortunately, though.

One could still tell from their appearances who was the elder sister and who was the younger.

There was no need to worry about mixing them up.

Thus, upon hearing her younger sister complain, the beautiful, gentle-tempered girl chose to speak up and patiently comforted her. "All right. There's a town not far ahead. Let's go there and