The healer's tent smelled of bitter herbs, burnt incense, and old blood.
Feng Kuan lay on a thin straw mat, his body slick with fever-sweat. The stump of his left arm was wrapped in fresh linen, but the bandages were already dark with seepage. Every breath felt like fire crawling through his veins. The world kept tilting, even when he lay perfectly still.
A team of three healers moved around him with quiet efficiency. They had put him on a strict schedule the moment he was carried in, herbal decoctions every two hours, acupuncture needles in his remaining arm and legs to "rebalance the qi," cold compresses on his forehead, and forced rest between treatments. They spoke in low voices about "corrupted qi" and "the bite's lingering poison," as if naming the problem could fix it.
It wasn't working.
The fever refused to break. His skin burned hotter with every dose. When they tried to make him drink the thick, black medicine, he gagged and spat half of it onto the dirt floor. The healers exchanged worried glances but kept to their schedule anyway, as if rigid routine could conquer what fire and steel could not.
Feng Kuan stared at the canvas roof above him, eyes glassy. In the corners of his vision, the cracked figures still watched, Little Sparrow and the dead bandits, standing silent just beyond the tent flap, faces split by thin black lines. They no longer screamed. They simply observed, waiting for him to join them.
He closed his eyes. The baby's face flashed behind his lids, the little ghost, safe for now, but already slipping further away from him.
Outside the tent, in the softer light of the commander's private quarters, the real world continued without him.
Commander Zhao's seventeen year old daughter, Lan Mei, sat cross-legged on a woven mat with the baby nestled in her lap. The little ghost was awake, dark eyes curious and calm for the first time in days. Lan Mei had bathed her gently in warm water scented with jasmine, then dressed her in a tiny silk robe she had sewn herself from spare cloth, soft red with tiny embroidered cranes.
"You need a proper name," Lan Mei whispered, tracing a finger along the baby's cheek. "He never gave you one, did he? That broken man… he treated you like a burden instead of a gift."
She lifted the baby higher, smiling softly despite the exhaustion in her own eyes.
"I think… Xiao Ying," she said, testing the name. "Little Shadow. Because you followed him through darkness, yet you still shine."
The baby made a small, contented sound and grabbed a fistful of Lan Mei's robe.
Lan Mei laughed, a quiet, warm sound that felt out of place in the grim rebel camp. She rocked the infant gently, then tried once more to feed her. She loosened the front of her own robe and brought the baby to her breast. For a moment there was hope. The little ghost latched on… but nothing came. Lan Mei's body had not yet begun to produce milk. The baby fussed, then cried in frustration.
Lan Mei's face tightened with irritation. Not at the child, never at the child, but at the situation. At the one-armed soldier lying feverish in the healer's tent who had brought this fragile life into her world without any plan to care for it.
"You poor thing," she murmured, rewrapping her robe and picking up a small bowl of goat's milk mixed with rice water. "He carried you like baggage across half the empire and never even gave you a name. What kind of man does that?"
She fed the baby carefully with a clean cloth dipped in the mixture. The little ghost drank hungrily, tiny hands waving. Lan Mei smiled again, but the irritation lingered in her voice when she spoke to the empty air.
"That man… Feng Kuan. He's lucky my father gave him the month. If it were up to me alone, I would keep you and let the fever take him. You deserve better than a broken drunk who can't even hold you properly anymore."
She dressed the baby in another tiny outfit, this one pale green with embroidered bamboo, and played a gentle game of peek-a-boo with a corner of silk. The little ghost cooed, reaching for Lan Mei's fingers.
Lan Mei's expression softened completely. "Xiao Ying," she whispered again, tasting the name. "My little shadow. I won't let them throw you out. Not ever."
Inside the healer's tent, Feng Kuan stirred. The fever had climbed higher. One of the healers pressed fresh needles into his legs, muttering about "dark qi" that refused to be balanced. They had begun whispering about stronger measures, old Taoist rituals that bordered on the forbidden. Blood talismans. Spirit-binding chants. Things that flirted with black arts in desperate times.
Feng Kuan heard none of it. His mind drifted in and out of darkness. The cracked figures of Little Sparrow and the dead bandits stood closer now, just inside the tent, watching him with silent, broken faces.
He tried to speak, but only a dry croak escaped.
The healers exchanged glances. Their schedule was failing. The one-month clock had already begun ticking.
Outside, Lan Mei cradled Xiao Ying against her chest, humming a soft lullaby her own mother had once sung to her. The baby's eyes were growing heavy with contentment.
In the distance, beyond the camp walls, the faint moans of jiangshi still drifted on the wind, a reminder that the world outside had not forgotten them.
One month.
That was all the commander had granted.
And in the healer's tent, Feng Kuan burned.