They didn't speak as they broke camp. Something in the shrine had changed. The carved symbols now glowed faintly, lines of red spreading like veins across the stone.
The jade no longer pulsed. It ached.
Zhou's phone buzzed weakly—against all odds, a signal had returned. It was a message from a secure server he used for archival backups. His security camera feed—set up weeks ago back at the original well in Xiangyang—had triggered.
Yang leaned over his shoulder as Zhou played the footage.
Static.
Then: the well cover trembled.
A mist began to rise—not white, but gray-black, thick and twisting like smoke underwater. And then, something emerged. Not fast. Not violent. Just... inevitable.
A hand.
It was skeletal, but coated in wet flesh, fingers too long, the skin too taut. Its movement was unnatural—fluid and jerking at once, like a marionette.
Zhou stopped the footage.
Yang's voice was hollow. "We unsealed it."
"No," Zhou said slowly. "That was only a reflection. The real one… is still beneath."