Another day. A loose hand flitting over the array of masks she had on display, Yilin’s finger caught on the porcelain-painted one facing west.

Incense burned. Before the altars she knelt, hands pressed tight in imitation of a sword threatening the roof. Smoke veiled her mirror. Eyes blurred, she lifted the porcelain mask with practiced ease and pressed it gently against her eyebrows, nose bridge, and chin, careful to leave a meticulous circle of bare skin around her eyes.

No matter what masks you wear, she remembered her A-Po saying, your eyes cannot lie.

Your eyes are the most beautiful part of you, Linlin, her Gong-gong would add with a chuckle, don’t cover it up.

Their voices blended together. Never choose to lie to your own eyes.

The mask sank in. Ink bled across her face, blooming into features not unlike her own: eyebrows in the gentle scythe of willow leaves, cheeks touched by the blush of an early peony. Yet her eyes remain: dark, downcast, dreary in a way even weather no longer could stand to be.

She turned her gaze to the window – or really, it’s less of a window and more of a screen, with an artificial sky constantly displaying simulated weather conditions outside. There is no natural weather anymore. No real sky.

How would it feel, Linlin wonders, to have the sun on her bare skin?