Mai Mingle had lived for eighty-six years, but this was the first time she had ever met a young man like Fu Tailan.
She had always felt that the process of a child growing up was like a small world gradually solidifying.
Orange juice, eggs, and bread; the scoldings or stories they heard; the pocket money lost in an arcade; their first crush; tenderness or neglect; love or abuse... All things either flowed past them or were absorbed into their bodies, becoming the soul and flesh needed to grow.
But it seemed the things inside Fu Tailan had dissolved before they ever had a chance to solidify.
He was shrouded in a vast, hazy mist. The image he presented wasn't one molded by the mortal world, but merely an accident of the shifting fog—in a different situation, it would dissipate and transform once more.
