The gray clouds that once blanketed City Z gradually drifted away, allowing the silver moon to peek through. Its soft light cast an ethereal glow over the pristine blanket of snow that now covered the city's landscape.
Trees stood like statues, their frost-laden branches creaking softly in the wind's gentle push.
The snow muffled the world, silencing the usual sounds, erasing roads and footprints beneath its untouched surface. Shadows shifted across the ground, dancing in rhythm with the flicker of distant lampposts, adding movement to the otherwise frozen stillness.
The air was crisp—tinged with the sharp scent of pine and the earthy perfume of frozen soil—creating a rare, delicate serenity.
But inside the greenhouse, attached to the quiet French mansion, Yue Ling felt none of it.
Within those glass walls, silence had a different meaning.
It was the silence of grief. Of emptiness.
