[”Yun…”]

I couldn’t tell if the timer was being unusually generous or if our arrival had somehow been categorized as nonstandard. Either way, when we finally caught sight of them, a comfortable 00:17:11 still lingered on the clock.

The moment we got close enough to hear the low murmur of voices, however—the groan of wood bending against water—a notification shimmered into view:

[Nao Chunhua found.]

[Beginning scenario…]

If I’d harbored even the slightest doubt about the source of all this chaos, it vanished alongside the timer. The black ship anchored in the Ganghe’s placid waters practically radiated menace. Its silhouette seemed to scream, “Villains here!” Or perhaps more eloquently, “Behold, an evil sect!”

For something that was probably meant to meld into the night, to slip through shadows like a whisper, it didn’t do a particularly good job once detected.

The ship wasn’t large—enough to hold maybe thirty crew, if they packed in tight—but it carried itself with an air of theatrical menace. Mist clung to its hull like the ghost of some bygone sin, curling around the cages lining its deck. And where the rest of the town burned with the vivid chaos of reds and oranges, its lanterns alone burned with a greenish glow, sickly and wrong, like light dragged up from the bottom of a poisoned well.

They might as well have painted a skull and crossbones on the hull and hung a banner declaring their villainy.

From where we crouched, sheltered behind the last row of scorched buildings overlooking the bay, I could feel the weight of its presence—a gravity that pulled the eye and tightened the chest.

The armored soldiers were there too, more of them than we’d seen back at the pavilion, though no more than fifteen in total. Their armor was spattered with blood, a few plates dented or gouged, but none bore wounds that would explain the ruin smoldering around us. They moved with unnerving purpose, calm and collected, as if they had marched through the burning town without the chaos touching them.

And then there was Nao.

She knelt in the mud, trembling just enough to be noticed, her head darting this way and that each time one of the soldiers passed close by. They delivered hushed words to a figure standing before her—a man who, by posture alone, could only be their leader.

Not that it was easy to tell one soldier from the next. Their helmets were identical, their armor devoid of ornamentation, their movements eerily synchronized.

Some reckless part of me itched to creep closer, to slip into the shadows and eavesdrop on whatever secrets passed between them. But I didn’t. If I moved even a hair, they would see us. Of that, I had no doubt.

But it wasn’t fear that kept me rooted in place—at least, not entirely. It was something deeper, a weight in my chest and a stillness in my limbs, as if the world itself demanded that I watch. It felt like a cutscene in some cruel game, something scripted and immutable, a moment I had no power to change.

Everything stilled, as if having accepted that the scene was set. The leader moved, and that was enough. It wasn’t much—a slight turn of his helmeted head, a shift of his weight—but it drew every ounce of my attention. All sounds seemed to fade into the distance—everything but their voices.

“Their bodies have yet to be brought before me,” he said as if the world itself was at fault for that. His voice was cold and creeping, seeping through the cracks where his armor didn’t quite close. It wasn’t loud, yet it carried, filling the air like smoke.

The recognition hit me like whiplash.

I knew that voice. I knew the inevitability it carried, the way his words weren’t a command but a statement of fact, as if the universe itself bent to accommodate them. This was the man from the pavilion, the one who had marked us for death.

“I-I told you,” Nao stammered, her voice tight and sharp as a bowstring ready to snap. “There was something strange about him. He spoke the line you said h-he would. He should be dead…”

“Excuses.”

The word fell like an axe. I felt it, a pressure that stole the breath from my lungs, that made my heart stutter in my chest. Nao collapsed, clutching at her throat, her fingers clawing against some invisible grip.

Then it was gone. She gasped, gulping air in frantic, greedy gulps, her words tumbling out in a rush, wild and broken.

“He knew!” she cried. “He knew all of this would happen. H-he, he…”

Her voice faltered and died as the man slowly crouched down over her. It was not a quick motion, not a sharp jerk of attention. It was deliberate, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world. The gleaming black visor was featureless, reflecting only the distant firelight, but it might as well have been the face of death itself.

“He knew?” the armored man said. His tone was mild, almost curious, but the weight of it carried all the way to where we hid. It wasn’t a question, not really.

He leaned closer, his imposing frame towering over Nao as if to blot her out entirely. His face hovered just inches from hers, and she tried—oh, how she tried—to shrink away, to retreat into herself, but there was no retreat to be had.

He said something else, low and quiet, too faint for me to catch. I saw her lips move in reply, trembling as she formed words I couldn’t hear. The exchange went on like that for what felt like an eternity. His questions came slowly, deliberately. Her answers tumbled out in desperate, shivering fragments.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

It was maddening, this silence. Vexing to be so close yet hear nothing but the distant crackle of flames and the faint murmur of their voices. But that silence gave me time—time to think, to piece together what little I had.

“He spoke the line you said h-he would. He should be dead…”

Did they know about Liang’s scripted dialogue? How he was supposed to die shortly after revealing his family’s business secrets? To me, those words had always been the nail in a well-crafted coffin, sealing Lian’s fate. Yet here I was, alive in his body, my corpse conspicuously absent from the scene before me.

Corpses, I realized. Not one. Several.

Who were the others? Mei? Someone else entirely?

There were so many questions, so many loose threads. And then, as if to mock my lack of answers, a notification blinked into view:

Story fragment unlocked.

Someone tried to murder the Feng Clan’s third son before the Dao of the Divine could even descend upon this world.

To unlock a new fate-strand: Survive the Resplendent Harmony Festival.

Survive. As if that were the simple part.

Then came the rest of them:

Objective Completed: Find Nao Chunhua.

Mei Faolang has learned of your innocence.

Reward: Relationship increased.

Mei Faolang will be available as Companion even after the tutorial ends.

New Objective: Reach Nao Chunhua

Before it’s too late, learn what words the mysterious man whispered to Nao Chunhua.

Requirement: Don’t let Nao Chunhua die.

Reward: Fate Event "The Truth Behind the Resplendent Harmony Festival"

A new timer flickered into existence at the corner of my vision: [00:15:00], but its numbers remained frozen for now. Just like we were.

Then the leader of the armored men moved. Unhurriedly, he straightened, his imposing figure silhouetted against the burning remnants of the town. The veiled head of his helmet turned, scanning the scorched ruins and smoldering streets with a deliberate patience that felt far too knowing.

He was searching. I could feel it.

A sickening churn twisted in my gut as his gaze swept over the burning wreckage. Somehow, I knew he was looking for us. For a moment, as the blank sockets of his helm passed over the shattered wall where Mei and I crouched, I was certain he’d found us. My breath caught, heart hammering against my ribs as I braced for a sharp order to reveal ourselves—or for him to come wading through the ruin toward us.

But then, his arm rose, cutting through the night like the shadow of a blade. A sharp, commanding gesture, and two-thirds of the soldiers broke away from the group in perfect synchronicity.

They scattered. Moving with purpose, they disappeared down empty streets, vaulting over rubble and slipping through the smoky haze. Like wolves loosed upon a wounded deer, they fanned out, methodical, precise, and swift.

I exhaled, trying not to make a sound as my breath left me in a shaking rush. Mei, beside me, had drawn taut as a bowstring, her lips pressed into a pale, bloodless line.

Warning!

Increased hostile activity detected. Escape no longer available.

Warning!

Jiangshi sentry mode has been activated. Carelessly engaging the undead will alert their masters.

New Objective:

Find a way out of Hé Jiē before you are found.

??:??:??

This timer didn’t even give me an estimate.

Whatever relief I’d found when we were not found immediately vanished. We still needed to get out of here before we were found, we needed to reach Nao before whatever fate befell her, and my body still wouldn’t obey my commands. There was still something here for us to see, and as if beckoned by my thought, Nao Chunhua’s voice cut through the smoke and tension.

“M-my brother?” she cried, her voice cracking where she stared at the back of the armored leader. “You… you promised you would bring him back to me…”

With his arm still raised half-way into the air, something about his ominous frame became unnervingly still. I braced myself. For a second, I was certain he’d spin around and silence her with a single gesture. A flick of his wrist, a surge of that suffocating pressure, and her life would snuff out like a guttering flame.

It would’ve been simple. Clean. Perfectly in line with the cold inevitability that clung to this entire scenario like oil to water.

But he didn’t.

Instead, his raised hand shifted, a new signal.

This time, the response didn’t come from the soldiers. Instead, something aboard the black ship shifted. At my first assessment, I’d thought them fixtures—grim decorations upon an even grimmer ship—the silhouettes holding those sickly green lanterns. But now, as one of them moved, I realized they were living things.

The lantern within the shadow-bound being’s hands swayed lazily, the flames along its edges seeming to dim as it was raised higher. It didn’t behave like any light-source I’d ever seen, and as it swept through the air, a strange, greenish glow cut through the night.

And then, from the ramp leading down to the dock, a lone boy staggered into view.

He was young—no older than ten. His face was pale, his eyes dull and glassy, and his movements stiff, like a puppet held by strings too loose to control him properly.

Nao gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as she stumbled onto trembling legs. “Yun?”

Her voice was filled with something raw and painful, a hope so fragile it sounded like it might shatter. But the boy didn’t respond. He merely stood there, staring blankly at her with eyes that didn’t see, his head tilting slightly as though responding to some silent command.

Beside me, Mei’s breath hitched, sharp and quiet.

She didn’t need to say anything. I could see it, feel it in the air, in the eerie sway of the lanterns and the dead stillness of the boy.

Whatever promise had been made to Nao Chunhua, it had come at a price. And from where I crouched, it looked like she was about to pay for it.

“Yun!” Nao’s voice cracked the silence like a brittle branch breaking. She scrambled forward, rushing toward the boy with an almost frantic desperation.

But the sound that answered her wasn’t a name, nor any recognition of the sister who called to him. It was a guttural snarl, low and hungry, a sound that scraped against the bones of the night.

“He… died from disease earlier this spring,” Mei murmured. Her voice was quiet, but her words carried the weight of something bitter and unyielding.

“Yun!” Nao called again, louder this time, her relief so raw it felt like a wound torn open. “It’s me, Nao, your—”

But she wasn’t his sister. Not anymore. Not to that thing.

The boy—if he could still be called that—lurched forward, his movements jerky and unnatural, his head tilted at an odd angle as if his neck had forgotten how to hold itself upright. His eyes were wrong, glassy and unseeing, but brimming with something primal and ravenous.

Nao froze mid-step, and for a single, agonizing moment, it seemed as though hope still lingered in her eyes. That was before it lashed out.

Its small, pale hands swiped at her, fingers clawed and grasping, and she stumbled backward. As she fell to the ground, the truth finally settled over her.

“Yun…?” Her voice was barely a whisper now, trembling with disbelief.

But the thing that had once been her brother didn’t answer. It didn’t even pause. It kept snarling, shambling toward her with relentless intent, its bare feet dragging through the soot-streaked mud.

Nao scrambled to get away, but before she could rise, one of the soldiers stepped forward, blocking her retreat. His metal-plated boots struck the ground with a heavy finality, and his shadow loomed over her like a storm cloud.

“It’s your brother,” their leader said, his voice cold and unfeeling, each word like a blade twisting into the scene. “Savor your reunion.”

But there was no brother to reunite with. Only a grotesque mockery of his memory.

00:15:00…

00:14:59…