The dream came without warning.
Jin opened his eyes and found himself lying beneath a pale-barked tree with petals the color of tea blossoms. The noon sun draped over a golden field in front of him, swaying gently under the warm breeze. It was idyllic. Peaceful. It felt almost too still, too unreal. And then he noticed her.
Sitting beside him, her legs folded neatly beneath her, was a young woman. She wore a plain dress the color of barley and sunlight, the kind a commoner might wear—unassuming, but somehow, on her, it seemed like the finest silk. Her white hair flowed down her back like river mist, and though her face remained hazy—fogged at the edges as if memory refused to let her be seen—her presence was unmistakably warm.
Her voice pierced the air, soft and nostalgic.
"You disappeared again. Did you think I wouldn't wait?"
Jin blinked. He wasn't in this memory. He was watching it unfold from beside it, like a ghost haunting his own life. The other him—seated beside the girl—looked older, more composed, eyes carrying something deeper than the boyish confusion he felt now. And he was smiling.
"I didn't mean to go," the Jin in the memory said. "I didn't even know I left."
She laughed—gently, heartbreakingly—and leaned her head against his shoulder.
"That's what makes you dangerous. You don't even know when you're fading from people."
They talked. About the things Jin didn't remember—people, places, old promises. They spoke of a hidden grove beneath moonlight, of sneaking away from the eyes of someone powerful, of their secret meetings. Her voice trembled when she said:
"We weren't supposed to fall in love, were we?"
Jin didn't answer. Not in the memory. But he reached out and took her hand, holding it like he never wanted to let go.
Then she whispered something into his ear—her name.
The world began to collapse around them, petals flying upward like smoke, the field vanishing into nothingness. And the real Jin—watching all this—was suddenly falling backwards through mist.
Jin awoke beneath the dull orange glow of morning. His eyes were wet. He sat up slowly, confused and silent.
"Her name…" he whispered, the pain forming in his chest like ice, "...Mei Lanyue."
He held the name on his tongue like something sacred—and cursed. It hurt to say. But it also felt true.
The morning moved on, and Ruan and Jin were out in the bustling marketplace. The city buzzed with color and life—spices in the air, meat roasting over coals, fruit stacked in pyramids, and voices in dialects Jin couldn't make sense of. He was a child in a museum, pressing his face against every stall. He asked Ruan what everything meant, and she translated with thinning patience.
Still, she said nothing.
He pulled at her arm, gasping at bright silk. Gawked at a merchant demonstrating a mechanical bird. Laughed at a street performer making dragon flames. Ruan, clutching their increasingly light coin pouch, rubbed her temples.
"Meat," she finally said, spotting a butcher stall. "We need meat."
She turned.
"Jin—"
He was gone.
Jin's nose led the way. Something smelled…divine. Not just food—it was calling to him. His stomach had hijacked his body. It wasn't long before he found himself before a massive restaurant, pillars and all, with a gathering crowd. Everyone's eyes were fixed on a long table with monstrous piles of food—duck, pork, dumplings, ribs, noodles, desserts, fruit stacked higher than his head.
Jin tilted his head. People were passed out at the end of the table, groaning, holding their stomachs.
He turned to the sign at the front. The language was gibberish to him, but he recognized two words:
"FREE" and "PRIZE MONEY."
He looked again. The number beside the coins…500 gold.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head. He immediately pointed to himself and raised his hand. The organizer, a portly man with a skeptical eyebrow, didn't understand a word, but waved him in anyway.
Jin sat.
And then—
He began to eat.
It was chaos.
The crowd turned silent. People began to panic. One man fainted just watching.
Jin didn't eat like a man. He devoured like a spirit out of legend. Hands moved faster than sight, mouth stuffed, chewing in rhythm, face lit with absolute delight. No restraint, no pause. Dumplings vanished. Ribs were gone in two bites. Bowls emptied in seconds. Sweet buns disappeared in trios.
A nobleman's wife screamed.
Ruan finally found the restaurant.
Her first thought: "Jin."
Of course. Of course he'd find this place.
She pushed through the frozen crowd, yelling at people to move.
And then she saw it.
Jin.
At the head of the table.
Still eating.
Still smiling.
Still going.
The crowd looked like they were witnessing a natural disaster.
Ruan stared, lips parted in disbelief.
He finished his last bowl with a satisfied slurp, and patted his stomach with a grin.
"More?" he asked, cheerful.
The organizer walked over, sweating, pale. With a shaky hand, he handed Jin a heavy pouch.
"No more. Go. Please."
Jin blinked. Looked inside.
"Gold?" he asked.
Ruan rushed over, smacking his arm.
"You IDIOT! Do you have any idea how much that's worth?!"
Jin smiled wide.
"I made money, Ruan! All I did was eat! Gold must be cheap here! They gave me so much just for lunch!"
Ruan stared at him, her expression unreadable. Half relief, half horror.
"He thinks gold is...cheap," she muttered.
Jin tossed a coin in the air, caught it, and grinned.
"We should do this more often!"
Far North:
The road north to the Yanbei Martial Kingdom was long and uneven, dust rising from the wheels of the creaking wooden carriage as it rolled over cracked stone paths and under swaying canopies of green. Inside, cramped between packs, crates, and weary men, sat Yue Qingshui, silver-haired and red-tipped, stretched across the martial arts master like she owned the world and everyone in it.
Her booted feet rested squarely on his lap, her back lazily leaning against a sack of dried goods. She swayed slightly with every bump in the road but didn't seem to mind in the slightest. In her hands was a map, recently lifted—well, borrowed—with flair and unrepentant smirks from the men she now traveled with. It was far better than the one she had scavenged before. The rivers were marked in sharper ink, the cities carved with runes unfamiliar to her, and mountain paths that hadn't existed in her time were etched as if they'd been there for centuries.
Her fingers traced a faint line curving toward Yanbei, stopping briefly at the symbol of a martial sect she didn't recognize. Her brow furrowed. So much had changed… and yet she remained. How long had it truly been since she walked this world? Time flowed like wine—spilled, gulped, sometimes bitter, often sweet—but always forward. And yet she had returned.
Yue glanced up from the map, the crimson glow of her irises faint beneath her lashes. The martial master—Shi Heng, she thought his name was, though he hadn't exactly volunteered it—sat still, his expression caught somewhere between meditation and torment. His veins twitched slightly every time she moved her feet. She wiggled her toes just to watch him flinch.
"You're very uptight," she said plainly, not expecting a reply. Her words were foreign to him, just as his were to her.
Still, she had found a way to communicate. She'd studied his technique while they camped two nights ago—Iron Wind Eight Limbs, an ancient martial art that revolved around flexible momentum and reinforced strikes. It wasn't something she had ever seen before. Not in her era. That fact alone told her one thing: more than decades had passed. Perhaps centuries.
So she used hand gestures—not sign language, just pure audacity—to make her point. She jabbed two fingers at him, mimicked a punching motion, then jabbed at herself and nodded enthusiastically. His eyes narrowed. She repeated the gesture, this time adding a dramatic kung fu stance and a grin full of wolfish teeth.
He sighed. "No."
She made the gesture again, more exaggerated.
"No."
She leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking him dead in the eyes. Her voice dropped to a low hum, teasing. "If you don't teach me, I'll steal it."
He didn't understand a word, but the tone carried across languages, and his grimace deepened.
She snorted and leaned back again, tossing the map to the side and pulling out her gourd of wine. With practiced ease, she twisted it open, took a long, satisfying gulp, and exhaled like she'd just tasted divinity.
A memory came without warning.
It wasn't loud or violent—it arrived softly, like dust settling on a forgotten altar.
Her eyes glazed slightly, and in the darkness of her mind, three faces emerged. Clear. Familiar. Their names stirred somewhere just beneath the surface, like fish under ice. She saw the curve of a grin, the tilt of a blade, the golden shimmer of a talisman held in soft hands.
"…You're here too," she murmured, eyes half-lidded. "Aren't you?"
She opened her eyes. The scenery outside had changed slightly. There were mountains in the distance now, grey spines slicing the horizon. She felt it in her bones—their presence. The others. Those three. They had returned just like her.
But where?
Where?
She didn't know. But she would find them.
She lifted her gourd again, took another swig, and turned to the driver, whose long beard trembled as he avoided her gaze. "Hey, old bastard!" she shouted, slurring just slightly. "If you don't wake me when we get somewhere that serves food, I swear by the stars I'll eat your fingers instead!"
The driver gave a terrified nod.
"And you," she pointed the gourd lazily at Shi Heng, who was now visibly regretting his decision to allow her aboard. "If I die of starvation, you'll be the first I haunt."
He sighed. Again. Long and deep. The kind of sigh only men who'd lived too long without alcohol or proper therapy could make.
"I should've left you in that forest," he muttered in his native tongue.
Yue Qingshui grinned, eyes twinkling. "Too late for regrets, master. We're married by journey now."
She slid down a little lower in her seat, closing her eyes. The carriage rattled on.
In her sleep, her fingers twitched with old forms—fists curling, wind rising. The technique was already bleeding into her bones.
And far away, in some distant direction the map didn't name, three others looked to the same stars, feeling the same tug.
Yue Qingshui, the wine-soaked storm, was coming.