Dawn split the night into two greys. The smell of salt arrived first; then the ocean's murmur like a breathing chest. Before them rose the Shell‑Cliff, a wall of quicklime seeded with fossil shells. When the wind brushed them, they rang like a thousand distant bells that sometimes repeated other people's words.
The fox lowered her head and tasted the mist. Her two tails drew a thoughtful arc. The bond to Li Jiutian beat even, still tired. The ash thorn slept beneath the lunar film she had woven, but each swell woke it a little.
"Here the song is stronger," Jiutian said, the jade between his hands. "If Hai Xin exists outside the song…"
He did not finish. The mist vibrated with a clean, effortless note. Not a call, not a cry; memory held in the air. From the shore stepped a figure with the sea's light clinging to her skin: a young woman with ocean eyes, hair gathering foam. She walked not so much as she kept time.
"Welcome, Li Jiutian," she said softly. "Not because I remember you, but because the sea remembers on my behalf."
Her eyes fell upon the fox. She smiled like someone finding a distant relative in a portrait.
"And you… moon‑sister. Xiao Huli."
The fox tipped her head; the bond quivered like a greeting. Jiutian inclined his brow.
"Hai Xin?"
"Hai Xin," she affirmed. "The Song of Remembrance isn't mine. I only lend it a throat."
At the cliff's foot, a stone apron held tide pools. Hai Xin knelt beside them and took—without touching it—the pulse of the jade.
"Ash thorn," she said, with a precision that hurt. "Anchored to the thumb meridian by malice and by technique. I can put it to sleep—or cloak its trail—, but tearing it free will ask a price I refuse right now."
"What price?" Jiutian asked.
"Blood," she answered, calm. "Or three tails."
The fox felt the sea look down her spine. Her second tuft trembled.
"We have no time," Jiutian said. "We have pursuit."
"I know." Hai Xin smiled faintly. "I can hear his dust."
She stood. In her palm appeared a small snail, made of hardened salt. She lifted it to the wind and it began to sing north, as if smelling a trail that was not there yet.
"Counter‑song," she explained. "If Xie Moran uses an Ash Snail to find you, my salt snail will tell him another story."
"Will it work?"
"The sea does not lie," Hai Xin said. "But it can keep quiet. And it can teach quiet."
She spread both hands over the jade. She did not touch it. She sang. Not a melody for ears: a pattern for meridians. With each note, a small shell in the cliff answered with a wet gleam. The pools made chorus. The fox's lunar film thickened like wet silk; the thorn stopped pulsing.
"Tide Braid," she whispered. "Your heartbeats, the jade's pulse, and my voice, three strands. While the braid lives, the ash cannot send news to its master."
"Thank you," Jiutian said, and the word returned from a thousand shells.
The fox stepped forward and brushed Hai Xin's wrist with her nose. The young woman did not flinch; she inclined her head and called gently:
"Sister."
The bond widened for an instant, as if it accepted a third stone into the water.
They rested in the shade of a cave open in the rock. Hai Xin washed Jiutian's thumb wound with saltwater and herbs that tasted of mint and iron. The fox, jealous without wanting to be, nestled closer against his chest. Hai Xin smiled at the tiny claim.
"The sea heals what it can, and teaches you to wait for what it cannot," she said. "Tonight, low tide will open the Shell Path. I'll guide you to a place where your Qi won't ring like a bell."
"And Xie Moran?"
"He'll hear bells inland," she answered, showing the salt snail. "And if he still arrives… the sea will know what to do with his ash."
The tide fell like a curtain. Between the rocks a corridor of wet shells emerged, burnished by centuries of steps. The wind carried strangers' memories: farewells, promises, a laugh that belonged to none of them and yet made them smile.
Hai Xin walked ahead, singing just enough for the sea to weigh her as a friend. Jiutian followed her back with the sensation of having done so for many lives. The fox moved between them, tails up, leaving in the foam two silver arcs that the night gladly drank.
At the corridor's end, a shell‑scored stone door opened without hands. Beyond, a vaulted hall beat with the undertow's rhythm.
"The Sanctuary of Tides," Hai Xin announced. "Here, promises spoken softly last longer."
Jiutian looked at the fox.
"I promise not to let go," he said.
Hai Xin did not look away. Her voice, just a thread:
"I promise to listen for you when the world's noise is too much."
The fox touched them both with her nose, one and then the other. The bond became a triad. For a single beat, the jade's crack was not a crack.
Far off, at the edge of a forest, Xie Moran lifted his head. The Ash Snail vibrated with a song he did not know: sea climbing inland, shell tracks on a river's sand, foam in an empty granary.
"So you sing as well," he said, without anger. "I'll listen until you tire."
He stroked the Black‑Bone Claw and followed the patient lie, like someone letting prey tire before the leap.