Shen Qiyao woke with the morning sun sliding through the inn's thin curtains. The light painted his room in a pale gold, but for once, he did not flinch or curse at the hour. He lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling beams, his chest steady, his breath even.
Something had changed.
The night before, he had walked back with his steps uneven, his mind reeling. Yet now, when he opened his eyes, the weight did not crush him—it simply sat within him, quiet, undeniable. Not comfort, not peace exactly, but a strange calm.
He thought: I can't run. Even if I left Zhuyin, the sound would follow me.
The thought didn't sting. It settled like truth.
He rose, washed, and dressed without hurry. His fingers, which had twitched like a madman's the days before, now moved with ease. His reflection in the water-basin was still the same—sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, the same man scarred by roads and storms—but there was something new in the way his gaze held itself. Like he had stopped pretending.
Inside the inn, the keeper placed his breakfast on the low table without a word—steamed buns, a bowl of porridge. Qiyao ate silently, each bite measured. His chopsticks did not slip this time. His hands were steady, almost too steady, as if the stillness of the grove had seeped into his bones.
He finished without haste, wiped his mouth, and rose. For a moment, he stood at the doorway, watching the bustle of Zhuyin's morning—the ordinary rhythm of lives untouched by music in the bamboo grave.
And then, without deciding, his steps turned.
Toward the shrine.
The path was already familiar: the stones worn underfoot, the scent of moss and wet earth lingering in the air. Yet today the walk felt different. The trees no longer loomed like threats; they stood like silent watchers. The wind, soft against his hair, no longer teased him with secrets—it guided him forward, like a hand on his back.
The shrine did not look any less abandoned in daylight, but to Shen Qiyao it no longer seemed broken. The cracked stone, the chipped bowls, the roof half-eaten by moss — it all breathed with a kind of dignity, as if the place had only been waiting for someone to notice it.
He sat again on the veranda, drawing in a slow breath. The air carried the faintest sweetness of old dust, like pages left unopened too long. A strange comfort lived in that smell. He closed his eyes and let it settle in his chest.
Yesterday, I wanted an answer. Today… He exhaled softly. Today I only want to listen.
The bamboo swayed at the edges of the clearing, whispering in long sighs. Shadows of their leaves danced on the shrine floor, slipping over his sleeve. A beam of sunlight touched the stone steps and caught on a thin strand of spiderweb, making it glow like silver thread.
He sat without counting time. There was no flute, no voice calling through the air. Only the stillness, the weight of silence, and his own heartbeat that seemed, somehow, no longer at war with it.
His thoughts shifted gently, like water moving around stones. If it is watching me, let it watch. If it means to speak, let it speak. But I will not run again.
He stepped onto the veranda and ran a finger across the wooden beam. A fine layer of dust clung there, gray and soft. He wiped it away with his sleeve, leaving a streak of clean wood behind. Such a small thing, almost meaningless. Yet, when he looked at that streak, something in his chest felt lighter.
His gaze wandered to the courtyard stones. Some had toppled and lay half-buried in weeds, tilted like teeth from a broken jaw. He knelt and righted one, the weight pressing against his palms. He set it upright, patting the dirt firm around its base. Another stone. Then another. Each one small, but with every lift and every press of earth, the shrine seemed less abandoned.
"Ridiculous," he muttered under his breath, brushing soil from his fingers. "As if the dead would care about moss or stones."
But he kept going anyway.
The offering bowls sat neglected near the altar, one rim cracked, another overturned. He gathered them, placed them neatly in a row. He did not know the prayers that once belonged here, nor the gods whose names had been worn away, but order felt better than ruin. He brushed away cobwebs, not with disgust, but with a strange gentleness, as though apologizing to the spiders for intruding.
The smell of old dust rose around him as he moved. It wasn't unpleasant. Instead, it reminded him of attics, of books left untouched, of the quiet that lingers after people have gone. It was the smell of memory itself. And Qiyao found he liked it. The dust settled on his sleeve, clung to his hair, but he didn't shake it off. He let it stay, like a mark of belonging.
When he finally straightened, his breath was deeper, steadier. He looked around at what he had done—it wasn't much, the place was still broken, still half-forgotten—but it no longer felt so much like a ruin. It felt… as if someone cared again.
And maybe that was enough.
Qiyao stepped back into the courtyard, watching sunlight tilt through the bamboo. The air carried no flute, no echo of last night's impossible song. Yet he could not shake the sense that something had been watching. He touched the sleeve of his robe, where the dust still clung, and felt strangely as though he had made a promise without meaning to.
For the first time, he did not leave quickly. He lingered. He let the silence stretch and settle around him, not empty, not hostile, but waiting.
He whispered, not quite knowing why:
"If you're still here… you see this, don't you?"
Only the wind moved in answer, lifting a few petals across the stones. Yet his chest ached as if something unseen had leaned closer, listening.
Qiyao sat down on the veranda again, He sat with his back straight, knees drawn loosely together, watching the still air before him.
His thoughts, of course, did not stay with the dust or the broken bowls. They slipped back to last night as if pulled by invisible threads.
The grove.
To be continued...