Letting out a long sigh, I let Yuche carry me farther into the house.
I looked at the ceiling again and felt my mood get worse.
The crack was not small.
It ran from the font hallway all the way toward the front sitting room. It was thin in some places and jagged in others, as if the impact of whatever had caused it had traveled through the bones of the house and left a warning behind.
Dust clung to the edges of it, and tiny crumbs of plaster had fallen onto the floor below. I did not know much about construction, but I knew enough to recognize when something was not supposed to look like that.
All that to say that this was not one of those cases where I could just paint it white and move on.
I was 90% sure that I was going to need to do something about it, but just to be sure, I turned to Zhenlan, feeling slightly hopeful.
"Is the ceiling supposed to do that?" I asked. "I mean... a can of paint can fix it, right?"
