The Land of Snow lay near the polar regions. Snow and ice dominated the weather for most of the year, with few warm days.
Still, the snowy scenery here was exceptionally beautiful.
Draped in silver and white, it was especially enchanting.
She pushed the door open. Snow drifted lightly down from the sky, falling like fine rain. A gust of wind swept through, sending it swirling across the sky like fine salt tossed into the air.
Yet to Kazahana Koyuki, this beautiful sight was utterly commonplace.
As a child, she had seen snowy scenes even more beautiful than this.
And after seeing so many, she no longer found anything special about them.
Pulling her clothes tighter around herself, Kazahana Koyuki first cleared away the snow piled outside the door, then lit a fire to cook and heated a large pot of water.
Before long, the heat seemed to dispel the cold, and mistlike steam began to rise.
The water boiled.
Kazahana Koyuki immediately poured all the hot water into a deep bucket she had prepared beforehand, then carefully lowered an egg the size of a baby, its surface dull and gray, into the water.
She was not trying to make a boiled egg to eat, but to save this egg using what she knew!
The egg seemed to react a little upon entering the scalding water. The cracked, dull gray parts of its surface seemed to grow just a little smoother and more lustrous, yet that still could not stop fragments from flaking off from time to time.
It was like an old man whose life flickered like a candle in the wind. No amount of care could do more than stave off the inevitable; it did not address the root of the problem.
Kazahana Koyuki bit her lip. She