The sun set that day and never rose again.
The world was dark — a blackness vast and deep, like an abyss waiting to swallow everything. Daylight had long since become a memory, a legend told to children.
Snow fell across the frozen earth, piling half as high as a man. Twin Tree Village was half buried. Forty or fifty households, forgotten by time, their shapes barely visible in the dark. In the howling wind, roofs creaked and rattled, as if the storm meant to tear them off.
Qin Ming woke hungry.
His stomach growled in the cold darkness, and at the thought of any food at all — a steaming piece of meat, a sweet fruit, even a hard, cold bun — saliva flooded his mouth.
Inside and out, the night pressed in with a suffocating blackness. He pulled the threadbare quilt tighter, but even the heated brick bed could not hold back the cold. Each breath felt like ice shards scraping his lungs.
He forced himself to stop thinking about food, or his stomach would flood with sour acid.
Then, slowly, a realization surfaced: his mind was clear. No more fog, no more drowsiness. For the first time in a month, his head felt like his own.
*Is the mountain sickness leaving me?*
Hungry and frozen — but hope kindled in his eyes. He waited for the Shallow Night.
The wind died down. The blizzard softened to scattered flakes. From the yard next door came voices: the young couple, Lu Ze and Liang Wanqing.
"Where are you going? To feed Qin Ming again?" Liang Wanqing's voice rose.
"He was gravely ill, and he's only sixteen or seventeen, living alone. The poor kid." Lu Ze kept his voice low.
"Do you know how little food we have left? If this goes on, our own children will starve!"
"The blizzard has stopped. We'll find a way," Lu Ze said, looking into the dark.
---
Qin Ming heard the argument and felt terrible. He did not want to accept Lu Ze's kindness anymore — in these times, every household struggled.
He got up from the bed, put on his padded coat, still cold, and dug an old animal-hide cloak from the chest. He paced and rubbed his hands in the pitch-black room.
After his illness he was thin, his shoulder-length black hair lacking its old luster, his handsome face pale. But his eyes were bright and clear, and a stubborn resilience clung to him.
A month ago he had crawled out of the mountains, hands and feet black with frostbite. His companions had died the day they returned. Everyone said the mountain sickness would take him too.
He had outlasted it — and now, clearly, he was getting better.
The darkness outside shifted, like ink thinning in water. The Shallow Night had come — the nearest thing this world had to day. It was only a little better than the deep night; the far distance stayed veiled.
The yard gate scraped open. Lu Ze came, sturdy and strong, clearing a path through the snow with an iron shovel.
Qin Ming unsealed his snow-blocked door. "Brother Lu."
Lu Ze upended a glowing cloth sack into a stone basin by the path. A pile of bright red stones clattered out, casting warm light across the yard — sunstones, named for the very wish they carried in this age: that the sun would one day return.
Lu Ze looked at him, surprised. "Xiao Qin, you look much better."
Qin Ming invited him in and told him the truth: the fog was gone from his head, and he believed he was truly recovering.
Lu Ze said he was tough as nails, surviving the mountain sickness when others had died. He emptied the rest of his glowing stones into the brass basin indoors, filling the room with light.
The night outside howled on — but for a while, at least, the house was warm and bright.