In a world divided into dozens of clans, in a remote mountain village belonging to one of the poorest and weakest clans, a beautiful child with unique gray eyes was born into a poor and shunned family consisting of a father, a mother, and this child.
The mother named this newborn "Hairo," after his gray eyes that resembled lenticular clouds.
The mother used to work as a maid in the house of one of their clan leaders, but a year before Hairo's birth, she was dismissed from her job and shunned because her husband, "Ching Jing," had publicly embarrassed the clan's chief in front of the elders. The clan leader then accused him of practicing dark magic that harms people.
The wife was given a choice to separate from Jing and live a normal, pleasant life, but she refused, for her love for him was too great.
During that time, this false news spread like wildfire, and all the villagers began to despise and avoid Ching Jing and his wife "Yumi."
They were banned from working in the village markets or the homes of the wealthy, and their lives became extremely difficult. The husband would sneak out at night to gather food from the forest to feed them during the day.
But… after ten months, when Hairo learned to walk and began to speak, the greatest tragedy occurred — his mother contracted a skin disease that made her look like a mummified corpse.
This was not a natural illness or a chronic disease. It was a curse cast upon her by the clan chief after he sought the help of one of the most powerful witches in the allied "Zu Wing" clan.
The father knew nothing about this curse and believed she had been struck by some unknown illness. He traveled to distant places searching for a cure, but no one could identify the disease. He tried many times to get help from members of his clan, but they all continued to shun him.
Two months later, when Hairo turned one year old, his mother passed away after a two-month struggle with the curse.
The husband's heart broke, and he felt the world had taken everything from him.
He was so devastated that he refused to eat for days until his body became like a moving skeleton, and his face turned pale as if life itself had been drained from him. He became a body without a soul.
The only thing that kept him alive was his little son, whom he saw as his last hope and the only memory of his loyal wife.
Hairo was very sad and asked his father every day about his mother and where she had gone, but his father would always answer with a fake smile that she had gone to a better place now.