Back Alley District — Dusk
The city was sinking into evening.
Streetlights buzzed weakly overhead, flickering against narrow alley walls stained by years of rain and smoke.
By the time NánXuě realized she had taken the wrong turn, the restaurants on the main street had already started preparing for dinner.
The smell of frying oil drifted into the alley, mixed with the sound of dishes being stacked and someone shouting an order from a kitchen window. A few streets away, traffic continued as usual, but here the buildings stood close enough together that most of the evening light had already disappeared.
Nán Xuě looked down at the tablet in her hand. She wore a pale oversized hoodie beneath a dark jacket, black pants, boots slightly dusty from walking too long.
She had been following the route for nearly twenty minutes.
According to the map, she was going in the right direction. According to her eyes, she absolutely was not.
She tapped the screen once. The map rotated. She frowned and tapped it again. It rotated back.
"Seriously?"
She turned the tablet in her hand and examined it from both sides as if the answer might have been printed on the casing.
Her long hair, tied into two loose ponytails, had come undone in several places. A few strands stuck to her cheek as she leaned closer to the screen.
"How does this thing even work?!"
She tapped the screen again. The map zoomed in.
The alley in front of her became three blue lines, a building outline and a collection of labels that were now far too large to be useful.
Nán Xuě closed her eyes for a moment.
"Good. Very good."
She tapped the screen repeatedly until the map returned to its previous view. The cold around her fingers had strengthened without her noticing. A thin layer of frost spread across the metal edge of a nearby dumpster.
She glanced at it. Then at her hand.
"Don't start."
The frost stopped spreading. Unlike Nán Lín's cold, sharp pressure, this one felt… quieter.
Winter-like, natural and almost gentle.
Nán Xuě looked back at the tablet. Her brows furrowed, then she smacked the side of the tablet twice. She had been sent here alone for a simple observation mission. She was supposed to locate the area, confirm whether the reported Specialist activity was genuine, and avoid attracting attention. Instead, she had spent one hundred and twenty minutes getting lost.
The screen rotated sideways. She stared harder.
"…Why are there suddenly three arrows?"
She tapped randomly again. The map zoomed in so far it became useless.
"Oh, come on."
She sighed and turned the tablet upside down... and paused.
"...Wait."
She looked at it again. Her expression changed.
"Was I holding this wrong the whole time?"
Nothing answered.
Nán Xuě slowly looked over her shoulder. The alley behind her remained empty.
She narrowed her eyes.
"Nobody saw that, right?"
A shadow stretched across the wall behind her. It had not been there a moment ago. Nán Xuě stared at it. The shadow immediately settled back into place.
She nodded.
"Good."
She turned around and continued walking. A few steps later, the tablet gave a soft beep. Nán Xuě looked down. The screen displayed a new message.
TARGET AREA: 500 METERS
She stopped. Then looked at the alley ahead. Then at the tablet.
"Oh."
She walked a few steps then pressed the screen once.
The distance changed.
480 METERS.
Her eyes widened slightly.
"…THAT'S how this thing works."
She held the tablet closer.
"Why didn't anyone tell me this?"
She looked personally offended.
The cold around her feet spread over a shallow puddle. Frost crept across the surface in a thin, almost transparent layer.
Nán Xuě noticed it and sighed.
"Don't start acting scary now," she muttered.
"I'm already annoyed."
The shadow immediately settled.
"Okay. Fine. I get it."
She continued walking. The shadows followed. They moved differently from ordinary shadows, sometimes stretching too far along the walls before drawing back again. Nán Xuě never looked directly at them, but she was aware of every movement.
By the time Nán Xuě reached the end of the alley, she had stopped blaming the tablet.
Mostly.
She held it in front of her and studied the map again. The little blue marker was finally sitting where it was supposed to, which meant she was, for once, standing where she was supposed to be.
She looked at the street ahead. Then back at the tablet.
"See? We're getting along now."
The tablet, unsurprisingly, said nothing.
Nán Xuě lowered it with a sigh. Behind her, one of the figures shifted. She glanced over her shoulder.
Three humanoid ice sculptures stood along the alley wall.
At first glance, they looked like ordinary figures carved from pale stone. One was crouched beside a drainpipe, another leaned against the wall with its arms folded, and the third stood farther back beneath a broken security light.
None of them moved.
Nán Xuě raised an eyebrow.
"You can come out now."
The nearest sculpture turned its head.
The movement was smooth enough to make the frost along its shoulders tremble.
Nán Xuě looked at it for a moment.
"Much better."
She had made them herself before leaving the main road. It was a habit she had picked up years ago. When she didn't know what was waiting ahead, she didn't like leaving her back exposed.
The Nánclan called the Craft; 冰塑之术 — Bīng Sù Zhī Shù, "Art/Technique of Ice Sculpting."
It wasn't an Art. Nán Xuě hadn't awakened one yet. She didn't particularly care.
Her control over Bīng Sù Zhī Shù had already reached a level that most people in her generation couldn't touch. She could shape the ice quickly, give the sculptures enough detail to pass for living people from a distance, and control several of them at once without needing to constantly look in their direction.
They were not alive. They did not think much. But they listened. And when she moved, they moved.
Nán Xuě stepped onto the street. The three sculptures followed. Their feet made almost no sound against the pavement.
She glanced at the nearest one.
"Don't scare anyone."
The sculpture tilted its head.
"I mean it."
The figure straightened.
It was shaped like a young man, down to the folds in his clothes and the strands of hair falling across his forehead. Frost covered the surface of its skin so finely that, from a distance, it could easily be mistaken for a real person.
Nán Xuě nodded with satisfaction.
"Good."
She continued walking.
The location on her tablet had brought her to a residential district she had never visited before. There was nothing unusual about the place itself. Apartment blocks stood along both sides of the road, with small shops occupying the lower floors. A woman was carrying groceries toward one building while talking on the phone. Somewhere nearby, someone was arguing with a delivery driver about a missing order.
Nán Xuě slowed as she passed the entrance to another alley.
The tablet vibrated.
She looked down.
TARGET AREA: 50 METERS
Her eyebrows lifted.
"Already?"
She checked the map, then her eyes drifted to the building numbers. It soon went back to the map again.
"...Wait."
She looked up.
The building across the street had the number she was looking for.
Nán Xuě stared at it.
"So I really did get lost."
One of the sculptures quietly turned its head toward her.
"And don't look at me like that. You can't read maps either."
The sculpture stared back.
"Exactly."
The sculpture remained perfectly still.
"You were there. You saw me."
It continued standing there.
"Fine. Keep your secrets."
She turned back toward the building.
This was where things became inconvenient.
Her mission file had been simple enough: observe a possible Specialist contact, confirm identity if possible, and report back.
There was no instruction to approach him. There was no instruction to interfere. And there was certainly no instruction telling her what to do if the person she was looking for happened to be living with two other people.
Nán Xuě raised the tablet again. The file displayed a photograph.
She compared it with the building. Then with the photograph again.
"Yè Yī."
She tilted her head, lowering the tablet.
So this was where he lived.
She hadn't expected anything special. ET's information on him was sparse, and most of what existed concerned his connection to the Yè clan and his Ice/Void Arm.
But there was another name in the recent reports.
Qiū Huà Bǐ.
That one had appeared repeatedly over the past few days... And there had been unusual activity around him.
Nán Xuě's eyes narrowed slightly.
Interesting.
She looked toward the upper floors.
A window was lit. Two figures moved behind the curtain. Then a third crossed the room.
Nán Xuě couldn't make out their faces from the street, but she didn't need to.
She checked the file again.
"Three people?"
Her brows lifted.
"That's not in the report."
One of them was Yè Yī. The other two were probably the people mentioned in the recent observations.
She slipped the tablet beneath her arm.
"Well, that makes things easier."
One of the sculptures moved closer.
Nán Xuě glanced at it.
"No. We're not going inside."
The sculpture stopped. She looked back at the apartment window.
"I said we're observing."
She paused.
"Besides, if I walk in there and they ask why I'm here, what am I supposed to say?"
The sculpture offered no opinion.
"Exactly."
Nán Xuě took a few steps toward the building entrance, then stopped beside a parked car. From here she could see more clearly through the window above.
Yè Yī was sitting at a table... probably. Qiū Huà Bǐ was there too, leaning forward as he spoke. Violet stood across from them. The three appeared to be discussing something serious.
Nán Xuě watched for several seconds.
...Or.. maybe not?
Whatever.
Then Qiū Huà Bǐ suddenly leaned back. Even from this distance, she could tell he was talking too much. That she was sure of. Her lips twitched.
"So that's him."
She had seen photographs. Photographs didn't explain much. The person in the picture looked ordinary enough. In person, even from several floors away, there was something different about the way he moved. His attention never seemed to stay in one place for long.
Nán Xuě's gaze shifted to Violet. She couldn't identify her from the file... That was interesting.
She checked the tablet.
Nothing.
No photograph. No background information. No name. Only a few redacted observations.
Nán Xuě stared at the blank section for a moment.
"Who are you?"
The question was quiet enough that only the nearest sculpture could have heard it.
Inside the apartment, Violet suddenly looked toward the window.
Nán Xuě froze. The distance was too great. The glass was reflective. There was no reason Violet should have noticed her. Yet Violet's gaze remained fixed in her direction for several seconds.
Nán Xuě slowly lowered the tablet. The ice sculpture beside the car shifted its weight. Nán Xuě didn't look at it.
"Don't move."
It stopped.
Violet eventually turned back toward the table? or whatever platform was there.
Nán Xuě exhaled through her nose.
"Okay."
She looked at the apartment again.
"That woman is a problem."
She said it without annoyance. Almost with interest.
Then her tablet vibrated again. A new instruction appeared.
OBSERVE. DO NOT ENGAGE.
Nán Xuě stared at the words. She laughed quietly.
"Now you tell me?"
She slipped the tablet into her jacket. The three ice sculptures quietly repositioned themselves around the street, each taking a different angle without drawing attention from the people passing by.
Nán Xuě leaned against the parked car and looked up at the apartment. She had come here expecting to watch one person. Instead, she had found three.
And somehow, the one ET hadn't even bothered to put in her file was the one she couldn't stop looking at.