The past year had been longer than any other year in the life of the South Sea's Storm Goddess.
Perhaps... I should not have turned around when I heard his voice that day...
Beside the secluded, desolate lake, the lonely goddess often thought this.
Before that day, Xi Ying had harbored many dreams. Yet beside that utterly silent, empty lake, even the richest thoughts were thinned by the boundless, pale lake mist into insubstantial fancies, until they drifted away like the elusive clouds above the water. After that day, however, the long, tranquil hours suddenly surged like a sea tide. Night and day changed in a bewildering rush, and the heart she had thought as still as stagnant water suddenly heaved with breathtaking waves, leaving her restless whether sitting or lying down. From then on, the South Sea's second princess, who had secluded herself because of her blemished face, like a still reflection of jade sunk beneath the water, suddenly longed to know every clamor beyond her little realm of lake and mountains.
That unprecedented interest had briefly fallen silent after a certain heartbreaking day. Yet a terrifying discovery in recent days had awakened it as though from a dream, drawing her gaze there once more.
Without a doubt, the gaze of Xi Ying, the Storm Goddess and second princess of the South Sea, was fixed on the youth named Zhang Xingyan.
Her feelings toward that uninvited visitor were exceedingly complicated. To Xi Ying, he was the first outsider in many years to enter the forbidden sanctuary where she cultivated in seclusion. He was also, throughout her distant memories, the first man outside her immediate family to treat her sincerely despite her mottled face.
Perhaps no outsider could imagine how grateful a young woman would feel for such sincerity from