The flute's voice still lingered when dawn broke, soft and pale over Zhuyin. Shen Qiyao had not truly slept. His body lay on the inn's bed, but his mind kept circling the grove, chasing echoes that refused to fade.
When he finally opened his eyes, the morning light felt thin, almost fragile. His chest was tight, as though the notes had followed him out of the dream and settled inside his ribs. He sat up slowly, his hair spilling loose across his shoulder, strands clinging to his face where the night air had cooled his skin.
He tried to move as if nothing pressed on him — folding his bedding, washing his hands, dressing with quiet precision. Yet his own body betrayed him. His fingers twitched faintly, as though they were shaping invisible notes on a phantom flute. His breath slipped in odd rhythms, catching where it should have flowed smooth.
At the table, his chopsticks slid from his grasp. The clatter against the bowl startled him more than he wished to show. He stilled his hand, but not before he noticed the inn keeper servant glance at him from the corner of her eye. She did not speak, only whispered something to the servant, her voice lowered as though it carried weight.
By the time Qiyao stepped outside, the whispers were already waiting.
His steps did not falter, his expression remained unreadable — but the words clung to him like damp air, sinking through cloth and skin, all the way to his chest. He told himself he did not care. And yet, the unease grew heavier with each breath.
A young villager carrying two buckets of water stumbled on the road ahead. Qiyao instinctively reached out to steady him, but the boy recoiled so sharply that the water sloshed out, spilling across the dust. Qiyao's hand hung in midair, fingers curling slowly back to his side. The boy whispered a rushed apology and fled, leaving wet footprints behind.
The water that had splashed onto Qiyao's sleeve clung cold against his skin. He looked at it for a moment, eyes dark and unreadable. Then, without a word, he turned toward the inn again.
Inside, he set ink and paper before him, intending to write — anything, a poem, a line, a fragment — to quiet the restless noise in his head. But the brush would not obey him. The strokes slipped, uneven, breaking into curves and lines that looked less like words and more like music, like notes.
He dropped the brush. Ink bled across the paper in a spreading bloom.
The bamboo chimes outside stirred with the wind, their clatter soft, ordinary to anyone else. But Qiyao froze. To him, even that sound seemed like another reminder — a whisper pressing at the edges of his thoughts.
He stood there for a long time, his sleeve stained with ink, the air heavy around him.
For the first time, Shen Qiyao felt as though he was no longer the one watching the forest.
The forest was watching him.
The weight of that thought pressed on his chest until he could not sit still any longer. The walls of the inn felt too narrow, the murmurs outside too sharp. Without planning, without even gathering his things, Qiyao stepped out into the pale morning light. His feet carried him past the well, past the market stalls, until the roofs of the village began to fall away behind him.
The path that wound toward the old shrine was little used. Dust lay undisturbed except for the prints of stray dogs and the tracks of birds. Bamboo leaned close on either side, their thin shadows striping the ground like bars of a cage.
Qiyao walked without hurry, yet his heartbeat would not steady. The jade at his waist pressed cold against his side with each step, as if reminding him of its presence.
By the time he reached the shrine, the sun had risen high enough to paint the stones in a clear light. In the night, this place had seemed like a mouth swallowing shadow; now, in daylight, it looked only abandoned. Moss climbed the worn steps. The offering bowls sat empty, their rims chipped and forgotten. Spiderwebs shimmered faintly between the carved beams of the roof.
Qiyao stood before the altar for a long moment, listening.
Silence. Only the sigh of wind through bamboo, the faint rattle of dry leaves.
He lowered himself onto the cool stone steps, one knee bent, his hand resting loosely on it. His hair fell forward as he leaned, black strands brushing his cheek. He let his eyes close, waiting.
Nothing.
The forest was still.
The longer he sat, the more he felt the absence of it. The music that had haunted his nights, that had filled his chest until he could not breathe — now, it refused him. As if the moment he came seeking, it had chosen to vanish.
His fingers twitched again, restless. He pressed them into his palm until the urge dulled.
For a brief second, he almost thought to call out. To speak into the silence. But the words withered in his throat. What would he even say?
Instead, he sat with it — the stillness, the ache, the weight of waiting. The shrine, the grove, the wind. His own breath.
Time slid by, slow as water.
When at last he opened his eyes, the sun had shifted, the shadows of bamboo falling at sharper angles across the stone. His body felt heavy, his thoughts heavier still.
He rose quietly, brushing dust from his sleeve. No music had come. No answer.
And yet, as he turned to leave, the silence itself felt too deliberate. Not emptiness, but refusal.
Almost… like being ignored.
Shen Qiyao lingered at the bottom step of the shrine, his back stiff, his sleeve heavy with dust. He had meant to leave. His body had already turned away. But his feet betrayed him — stalling, dragging, circling back toward the hollowed stone like a tether pulled him there.
He breathed once, slow. Twice. The quiet pressed around him thicker than before, as though the air itself had grown suspicious of his presence.
And still, behind his ribs, the flute's shape lingered. Not the sound — no, there was nothing here but silence. But his chest carried its memory too clearly, each note replaying like an old wound that refused to close. He could feel it thread through him even now, like a shadow burned into vision long after the flame was gone.
He closed his eyes.
Up. Down. Pause. Again.
The melody retraced itself, insistently.
To be continued...