So this is a side arc. Containing the stories of the three husbands before they met Bai Yue! I hope we like it!
There was an art to pouting.
Not everyone understood this. Most people, lesser people, simply stuck out their lower lip and hoped for the best. They let their face do the work without any real commitment, without intention, without the carefully cultivated misery that separated a true pout from a common sulk.
Zhāo Yàn had been perfecting his pout since he was three years old.
He sat on the highest rock he could find, which was the flat grey stone behind the elder's meeting hut, and arranged himself vwry carefully.
He had obviously thought very carefully about the angle of light and the dramatic potential of his own silhouette.
His three tails wrapped around his feet. His chin rested in his palm. His red eyes stared at the middle distance as though he had been deeply, personally wronged by the universe.
He was six years old.
He was suffering.
