The world beneath the Maiden's Falls was not made of water, but of sheer violence. When Chen Ying hit the surface after the forty-foot drop, the impact was equivalent to slamming into a wall of solid concrete.
The air was ripped from her lungs in a single, painful burst of bubbles, and for the first time in two lives, the cold wasn't just an external force—it was an invasive parasite. It filled her mouth, numbed her throat, and began the slow, heavy process of dragging her into the lightless depths of the river basin.
Her consciousness flickered like a dying candle. Her ribs felt as though they had been crushed, and her vision was a blurred, spinning mix of dark moss-green and frothing, suffocating white.
As she drifted into the crushing weight of the undercurrents, a familiar, mechanical chime echoed—not in her ears, but directly in the center of her receding mind.
