“To appreciate the light, one must first know darkness.”

It was a snowy, winter day. The very last day of the year, in fact. December 31st, New Year’s Eve, with a raging blizzard outside. On this particular day, a certain girl was born. But unlike other childbirths… there was no sound of a baby crying coming from within the room.

“The baby… she is not crying at all,” the old maid breathed, utterly perplexed and confused as she held a female baby in her arms. “I cannot believe this… in all my years and experience as a housemaid… I have never witnessed a child who did not cry upon being birthed…”

“She will surely grow up to be a fine young lady,” the butler said with a warm smile, standing beside her and stroking his beard. “Able to control her emotions so well, despite only just being born… what a miracle.”

“Haha! That is my daughter, all right!” Qi Yaoxuan, the head of the Qi family, declared with a bold laugh. “My beloved wife, are you seeing this? You have given birth to a miraculous child! One that will grow up as a prodigy!”

His wife, Qi Mian, sobbed softly on the bed while letting the tears of joy run down her cheeks. “Yes, my dear… I see it… our daughter… she will be both beautiful and extraordinarily talented.”

Pause.

Fast forward a few years.

That was the story of how I was born. My mother and father have told me this many, many times, to the point where I’ve gotten sick and tired of hearing it. My name is Qi Ling, and I am the only child of the powerful Qi Family, an honorable lineage of Ghost Hunters that dates all the way back to the First Expungement.

It is said that my ancestor was amongst the first generation of Ghost Hunters, but really… I didn’t care. Not at all.

I didn’t care about anything, really. Growing up, I was a talent, a child prodigy, just as my father foresaw. I excelled in whatever I did, and I awakened a rare Angelica known as the Everfrost Angelica, granting me powers and freedom over ice. They say a person’s Angelica is closely tied with their personality.

They would be right.

The only flaw there was to me, according to my parents, was that I was extraordinarily cold. Distant. Not only towards strangers, but also towards my own family. I didn’t have friends, mainly because I didn’t bother trying to make any.

But my parents didn’t care too much about this. I was a talented child, bringing them even more fame and glory than they already had, and that was enough for them. Everyone showered me with praise and presents. I was treated like some kind of celebrity, a role model to all other kids my age and a thorn in the rear-end to any other wealthy Ghost Hunter family.

Eventually, I was made into one of the Big Five in one of the top Ghost Hunter forces in District A, the Phantom Slayer Squadron led by Patriarch Lei. Not only that, I was made into the leader of the five despite only being twelve at the time.

The previous team members were all frustrated that their old leader had been replaced by a mere kid, and didn’t accept me at first. But after witnessing just what I could do and how terrifying I could be, they slowly submitted obediently. After that, my treatment only got better from everyone around me.

Anything I wanted, I received. Anything I asked for, I was granted. My mother and father were the leaders of the house, but really, no matter what I asked them to do, they would do it without a second thought (unless, of course, I told them to go kill themselves, which I have contemplated more times than I would like simply for experimental purposes).

It should have been enough. It should have been everything a child could ask for.

But it wasn’t.

There was a void in my heart. One that I struggled to find the answer to, one that I could not fill no matter what. On the surface, I was cold, distant, emotionless to everyone. But deep down, I was lonely. Frail. In desperate need of a partner, someone who saw my true image underneath this stone-cold mask I donned.

But as the years went by, I found myself wondering.

Does such a person really exist?

If they did, why have they not come to me yet? Why do I feel like everyone around me, even my own parents, could only see who I was on the surface? Why couldn’t they touch upon my true feelings, gaze upon my real, empty heart? Why couldn’t they understand?

Eventually, I shut these questions to the back of my mind, silencing them forever. I would be the good, cold little girl they wanted me to be, and meet, then surpass all of their expectations time and time again. I would become the perfect, exemplary definition of a child prodigy, the type other parents compared their own children with.

But then, I met him.

By now, I was 18 years old. I had long sealed away those immature questions, those desperate, weak thoughts. And so, at first, I looked down on him.

He was blind. I was fine with blind people becoming Ghost Hunters and trying to contribute in their own way, but the patriarch had brought these people over to aid us in exterminating a powerful Baron-level Ghost in this very District. This was not some children’s playground. This was a dangerous mission, one in which only the elitest of the elite would succeed in.

But by the time the Baron Hunt was complete, I was certain I was wrong about him. I was a hypocrite this entire time. While others only saw the surface me, I only saw the surface him. I’ve done the very thing I once hated others for doing to me, to him.

Slowly, I began seeing something else in him. A dark, burning fire, that could melt away my sheets upon sheets of white, cold ice. An aura that spoke and sang to me, as if beckoning me closer and threatening to never let me leave again.

Before I knew it, I found myself wanting to spend time with him, even if it was indirectly and with others as well. I found myself acting abnormally nervous around him, quite out of character. But the most surprising factor… is that I actually found myself feeling jealous towards that white-haired, heterochromia-afflicted girl who was always by his side.

She was exceptionally beautiful. That was undisputed. Yes, she was unable to walk with her injured legs, but ‘angel’ was a fitting word to describe her nonetheless. Yet… I can’t help but feel I wasn’t inferior to her in any way. Be it appearance, power, or intelligence, I don’t lose to her in any department.

So what was it that let her bond with that boy so much, whereas I could not? Time spent? No, their bond goes deeper than that. Was it simply because of the difference in our personalities?

Since that boy was also cold and emotionless, just like me, neither of us would make the first move to bond with one another. The white-haired girl, on the other hand, seemed to also be quite introverted most of the time, but when she was with the boy, she seemed a lot more talkative and comfortable.

Perhaps, one day, I will too be able to accomplish that.

Perhaps, one day, I will too discover that quality needed to stay by his side.

And when I do… we will meet again, Finn Thresher.

“I apologize, but you have already stolen my heart. You cannot give it back, therefore bear the responsibility forever.”

That is what I will say when our paths cross once more.