The day's scenes still lingered in her mind. The mud trampled by the rat tide, the sky whale's long, disorienting cry, and that little golden creature—even Fuzhu, a spirit beast from the Primordial Era, had backed away from it.
What exactly was it?
As she wondered, a squeak came from downstairs.
Soft. Brief.
Chen Siyao sat up.
Without turning on the light, she stepped barefoot onto the wooden floor, opened her bedroom door, and peered toward the stairs.
In the downstairs living room, Xiao Yue had stopped gnawing her bone. She lay in the corner with her ears pricked, twitching her nose twice toward the door.
The door wasn't fully shut.
—Wait, no. I remembered closing it when I came in.
Chen Siyao went downstairs and walked over to the door.
The loft's front door stood open a crack, about a fist wide. Outside, starlight had dyed the blue grass a deep indigo.
A pair of golden eyes watched her from the bottom of the gap.
Chen Siyao crouched down.
That little creature.
It sat on the doorstep, its big, fluffy tail curled in front of it. The scabbed wound on its hind leg looked dark brown in the starlight. Its round face tilted to one side, both pointed ears angled forward, timid and uncertain.
"Hey, cutie." Chen Siyao kept her voice low.
The little creature blinked.
"Do you have nowhere to rest? Want to come inside?"
She beckoned to it.
The tips of its ears twitched twice. It shifted its front paws on the step and hesitated for a second.
Then it padded inside, one step at a time.
Its paw pads made almost no sound against the wooden floor. It stopped in the middle of the living room and turned in a circle, sweeping its big tail through