The tunnel opened into a breath of cold, salty air. The cave emptied into a motionless lake, so black it seemed a mirror without a world. The ceiling, seeded with gleaming veins, imitated a sky that had been buried; here and there, falling drops drew circles that took too long to die.
The fox stopped at the shore. The bond to Li Jiutian thrummed in her chest like a string being tuned. The water sang. Not with a voice: with memory. Each ripple carried back a fragment of someone's life—low promises, lost laughter, a cry that had learned to quiet.
—The Lake that Remembers —Jiutian said, with an unlearned reverence.
He knelt by the edge and laid the jade on his open palm. The amulet answered with a faint pulse. The crack, like an old mouth, wanted to speak.
—If you accept our imprint —he whispered—, you will hide us.
The water demanded no tribute of blood or power. It asked for something else: a name.
The fox felt it. The melody turned into a question, and the question was sharp as a crescent blade: Who are you?
She lowered her muzzle. The first memory she found was not hers: a girl's hand filling a bowl with shells, a voice singing to remember on behalf of others. The song carried a round syllable.
—Xin —Jiutian repeated, surprised to hear it rise onto his tongue—. Hai… Xin.
The water approved with an almost invisible shiver. The fox lifted her gaze. She did not know why that syllable warmed her from within, but the bond tightened.
—I am not Hai Xin —Jiutian said, as if answering the same question—. She is… someone who remembers for me.
Pale lines lit along the lake's edge, forming a ringed path. There was no boat and no bridge; there was a way made of memory. Jiutian drew breath: one, two, three stars taking their places in his chest.
—Breath of Nine Stars —he murmured—. Full‑Moon Step.
He set foot on the first ring and the water held him as if the lake had decided to believe in his weight. The fox followed with a light leap, her two tails sketching a silver mark that lingered a few beats and vanished.
Halfway across, the lake offered its mirrors. They were not foreign visions but returns. Jiutian saw a brother's back receding between jade columns, the edge of a laugh that tasted of betrayal, a hand that did not take his at the cliff's brink. His throat tightened; one star slipped.
The fox saw moon over snow, a temple with shut doors, an inverted lotus like a caress turned backward. She saw her own shadow with nine tails… and the likeness of a young woman with light in her eyes. When she tried to draw closer, the mirror broke into ripples.
Then the lake asked a second price: a memory they did not wish to keep.
Jiutian looked at the jade. The crack returned him to the burning clearing, the fall, the instant someone spoke his name like a sentence. He closed his eyes and offered that edge of guilt; let the lake drink it.
The fox searched and found a night of wet leaves, hunger and cold, a nameless fear. She pushed that cold into the water, trembling. The lake warmed her back.
The path opened to the far shore, where a submerged stone arch waited like a gate.
The gate shivered early. Not from them, but from an intrusion. In the tunnel behind, disciplined steps; the acrid scent of resin returned with a drier bite. A voice that knew how to command.
—Open it, —said Xie Moran, and his Ash‑and‑Thorns Seal touched the water.
The lake defended itself. The rings closed like petals. Small silver carps rose from the dark and chewed the ash into sludge. Xie Moran smiled without mirth.
—Qi‑Devouring Palm.
The surface blackened where his hand fell; the carps scattered as if an eclipse had run down their spines. Jiutian clenched his teeth.
—We have to cross now.
The fox nodded with her whole body. The bond tugged them both in unison. They leapt for the gate. The jade vibrated, the amulet understood, and the stone yielded with an ancient sigh.
—After them, —Xie Moran ordered.
He did not jump. He marked first: two fingers aimed, and a thorn of ash flicked across the gate's rim, grazing the jade before it could close. The pain was clean, a line along the thumb meridian in Jiutian's hand. The amulet creaked; the bond shuddered.
The water on the other side was not black: it was clear and deep as a long breath. The tunnel swelled into a dome; at its center, an eye of light filtered moon through some crack above. The salt‑song rose until it became a full melody. It was beautiful and dangerous; it invited them to stay forever.
—Don't listen to all of it, —Jiutian said, recalling an instruction he did not know who had given—. Only what we need.
The fox tipped her head. The melody offered her a name that was not hers and another that might be. The first burned; the second was a river.
—Huli, —the water said in a murmur that felt like a tease—. Xiao Huli.
She blinked. The bond vibrated with a joy that almost hurt.
A whirlpool opened beneath them, gentle. It did not drag; it guided. Jiutian took the jade in his less injured hand and let the Lunar Bridge choose direction. The bond pulled taut as a bowstring, and the whirl carried them to a stone platform furred with pale moss.
There, on the skin of the water, the fox again saw the reflection of a young woman. This time it was not a blink; it was a full breath. Eyes bright with silver, hair slicked to her cheeks, two tails sketched behind like a shadow. The young woman opened her mouth.
—Li Jiutian, —she said.
Her voice was barely more than feather on water. It was enough for the bond to blaze into pure silver. Jiutian stepped toward the reflection; the water returned him to his shore with firm kindness.
—When you are three, —the lake whispered—, the door will recognize your form.
—Three… tails, —Jiutian understood under his breath.
The pain in his thumb brought him back. The ash‑mark throbbed like a spine lodged in the amulet.
—He marked us, —he said—. He can track us.
The fox touched the jade with her nose. Her Qi, thin and faithful, licked the thorn. It did not tear it free, but she covered it with a film of lunar light, the way wounds are bandaged so the body remembers to heal.
—Thank you, —he said, and the lake repeated the word until it sounded ancient.
They submerged again. The whirl delivered them to an upward passage. At the end, a crack let in cold air and the keen smell of stars. They emerged onto a high ledge behind another, thinner water‑curtain. Outside, a clean night. The moon nicked by a cloud.
Jiutian sank to sit, spent. The fox curled against him and warmed his side with patience. The lake's song remained behind like a distant heartbeat.
—Xiao Huli, —he said, testing the name in his mouth—. If you don't mind, I'll call you that until you remember your own.
She lifted her face. Her two tails drew a slow, content ring. She accepted.
—He will hunt us, —Jiutian added—. Xie Moran does not release prey.
The forest answered with silence. The bond, with resolve.
—Then we won't release each other either.
Far away, beyond the trees, the rumor of an unknown sea brought with it an echo of the song. It was barely a phrase, as if someone sang not to be heard but so that no one would forget.
—Hai Xin.
The night seemed to keep the name with care.