Wei was ten steps from the bridge when he saw Chun's silhouette swaying in the mist—
a tiny flame about to be swallowed whole.
The cold wind surged over him,
sharp as a handful of tiny knives shoved into his nose and throat.
Every breath he dragged in felt like he was forcing ice water straight into his chest,
pain so fierce it bent his whole body inward.
A ragged sound tore from his throat.
It felt as if some dying animal were trapped inside his ribcage,
each gasp ripping him open from the inside.
But he had to keep breathing—
even if every breath felt like bracing for the next blade.
And in that agony,
his mind betrayed him with another memory entirely—
Her first time hunting with him.
She'd come running back, triumphant, clutching a whole nest of wild rabbits—
only for the rabbits to vanish shortly after.
"They're my children…" she'd muttered,
her jacket oddly round at the front.
Turned out she'd hidden the baby rabbits against her chest,
like a kid caught doing something she wasn't supposed to.
Wei had thought she was joking—
until she hugged the rabbits tighter and snapped,
"No! They're too cute. How could we eat them? I'm keeping them."
And she did.
One rabbit became two, became three…
until her yard was packed full
with animals she"couldn't bear to eat."
She would rather starve herself
than pluck a single hair off them.
The village laughed at her.
She only laughed louder:
"I'm accumulating good karma!"
Chun had always been like that—
bright, warm,
gentle to anything that carried a spark of life.
But now—
The Black-Iron assassin didn't stop.
He lifted his arm.
The bone blade gleamed pale and merciless in the night.
"NO—!!"
Wei's scream shredded in the wind.
The undead warrior drove the blade down.
Thwip—
Not the sound of metal slicing flesh—
but the sound of a wet branch punched through in a single motion.
The bone blade punched straight through Chun's right arm,
pinning it to the cold, soaked planks beneath her.
The motion was terrifyingly clean,
like a killer completing a step drilled into muscle memory
after a thousand repetitions.
The air froze.
Even the fog seemed to lose its flow,
as if the sudden strike had frightened it still.
Chun's body jerked violently.
Her head snapped back with a sharp, broken gasp—
a breath severed halfway through.
And then—
she swallowed the scream that should have followed.
Her throat bobbed twice, trembling,
but not a single sound escaped.
She didn't faint.
She didn't surrender.
It looked as if she were clawing her way up
from the bottom of a pit carved out of pure pain.
Her left arm braced in the blood-soaked dirt,
fingers digging deep into the earth
as she forced herself up
half an inch off the ground.
But the sound of bone grinding against bone—
grrk—grrk—
Sharp, cold,
like someone drawing a rasp across a human joint.
Wei felt his scalp peel open from the inside.
The assassin gave her no chance.
The second strike came faster—
so fast it felt like it shared the same breath as the first.
The bone blade stabbed straight into her shoulder joint.
Shuk—
Chun's right shoulder collapsed instantly,
her entire arm dropping limp,
a kite with its string slashed.
She toppled sideways,
yet still braced herself with her remaining arm—
refusing to let her body fully fall
under the monster's feet.
The sight made Wei's chest ache
like his ribs were splintering inward.
The assassin's third blade was already falling.
Fast as lightning.
A gray tear through the fog.
The edge swept across Chun's left arm joint—
the cut so light it barely made a whisper,
yet more brutal than any scream.
Something heavy slammed into Wei's chest.
He couldn't hear his own heartbeat—
only the explosion of cracking bones echoing in his skull.
Chun's body sank inch by inch toward the ground,
but she clenched her teeth,
her fingertips clawing into the mud,
refusing to fall.
It wasn't strength holding her up.
It was will.
It was her refusal—
utter, stubborn refusal—
to let Wei see her as a burden.
Wei's chest felt crushed under something heavy—
so heavy it threatened to split his ribs apart.
The faster he ran, the more that pressure swelled,
as if his chest might burst open from the inside.
He almost wondered if his heart had twisted itself out of shape
from pounding too hard—
but he couldn't stop.
Not even for a second.
Stopping meant one second less for Chun to live.
She had always liked hunting with him.
Not because she was weaker—
but because she ran faster,
and her eyes were even faster than her legs.
She could always spot the prey before he did.
Sometimes when a boar or deer charged toward them,
she'd actually step in front of him.
"I'm tougher than you," she'd say, shaking her hands out.
Then she'd laugh—
and that laugh alone could shake off all the fear.
But now—
now she lay on the ground like a little dog with its spine snapped,
fragile in a way he had never seen.
Yet even then, her hand reached instinctively toward Little Butterfly,
as if needing to know the girl was still alive.
Terror stabbed straight through Wei's vision,
turning the world white around the edges.
The ground under his feet felt hollow—
as though something had scooped out the earth beneath him,
and taken his heart with it.
The bridge swayed violently.
Every step landed like he was running across a collapsing cliff face.
His footsteps grew heavier,
as if he was dragging an entire mountain behind him.
His soles slipped dangerously on the wet planks,
the slick wood threatening to throw him sideways.
The vine-ropes swung with the wind,
tilting his body until it felt like the next breath
would send him tumbling into the abyss below.
But he forced himself forward—
like a man sprinting while carrying a stone peak on his back.
He needed to cross no more than a dozen meters,
and he would be at Chun's side.