A few days later, at the Hundred Lotus Manor.  0

Unlike little Ping’an, who was constantly in tears, Sheng'er was all giggles. 1

Tap, tap, tap… Using her tiny walking cane, she struck the ground under the eaves, listening to that clear, crisp sound, and watching herself walk from the crow’s vantage point.0

If someone always saw themselves from a third-person perspective, what would they feel in their heart? For an adult, it might be like playing a video game. Putting it nicely, you could call that detachment. Put less nicely, it was outright indifference.0

But for a child who’d never once seen the world from her own eyes, who also realized that, aside from her father, everyone around her was entirely different—well, that was something beyond any mere game. No one else had ever experienced such a thing, so no one really knew what it was like.0

After a snowfall, the sky cleared.  0

Sheng'er, dressed in soft pink and fair as jade, was a delight. Though only a bit over one year old, she was already toddling around without much fuss, to the utter envy of Xue Ning. It was easy to imagine she’d soon become one of those other children whose shining example would cast poor Ping’an’s childhood under a long shadow.0

Once...0