I buried the jade fragment in my pack beneath a spare shirt, like a child hiding a stolen coin.
Not because I didn't trust my team.
But because I didn't trust what I'd seen.
Back at camp, the world returned — radios crackling, kettles boiling, the smell of instant noodles and wet nylon. Normal.
Human.
Safe.
But my hand wouldn't stop trembling.
I sat at the folding table, pretending to log GPS data while tracing the nine dots on my palm with the tip of my pen. They weren't bruises. Not burns. Just… marks. Like freckles that hadn't been there yesterday.
And they didn't hurt.
They pulsed.
Faint, rhythmic — like a second heartbeat.
"Meifeng?"
Liang, my assistant, leaned over the tent flap. "Dr. Zhou from the Cultural Relics Bureau is here. Says he's been sent to 'assess the site.'"
His voice dipped on sent. We both knew what that meant.
Bureaucrats didn't show up for minor Daoist ruins.
Not unless someone higher had taken notice.
I wiped my palm on my pants and stood.
"Tell him I'll be right there."
Dr. Zhou was waiting by the mess tent, crisp in a charcoal-gray overcoat, his badge clipped neatly to his lapel. Mid-fifties, sharp eyes, the kind of man who smiled with his mouth but not his eyes.
"Dr. Li," he said, extending a hand. "Your preliminary report mentioned unusual pigments. I had to see for myself."
His tone was polite.
His gaze was not.
"I didn't file a report," I said.
Yet.
He smiled. "You will. And when you do, it's standard procedure for oversight. You know how it is."
Yes. I did.
Standard procedure didn't involve a personal visit from a senior researcher in the middle of a monsoon season.
We walked to the cave together, Liang trailing behind with a camera. Zhou didn't speak. Just observed — the rock formations, the landslide debris, the way the entrance faced northeast, toward the rising sun.
When we reached the chamber, he paused at the mural.
"A dragon and phoenix," he murmured. "But the joints… nine segments. That's not symbolic. That's specific."
He turned to me. "You know what that number means, don't you?"
"Multiple things," I said. "Emperor's robes. The Nine Realms. The cycles of cultivation."
"But not in Daoist temple art," he pressed. "Not like this. This is Ziyan-style."
My breath caught.
He shouldn't know that. It's not in any public text. Only in fragmented manuscripts — the kind my father used to quote.
Before I could respond, Liang gasped.
"The sensors—"
He held up the handheld monitor. "Magnetic field just spiked. And there's a low-frequency pulse… every 18.3 seconds. Like a beat."
Zhou didn't look surprised.
He looked… satisfied.
"Fascinating," he said, pulling out a small recorder. "Document everything. And Dr. Li?"
He met my eyes.
"If you experience anything… unusual… I'd like to know immediately. We wouldn't want history to repeat itself, would we?"
The words hung in the air.
History to repeat itself.
As if the past were a disease.
Or a crime.
Back in my tent that night, I locked the flap and pulled out the jade fragment.
It was warm again.
Not hot. Not threatening.
Waiting.
I placed it on the table.
Stared at it.
And then, without meaning to, I spoke.
Not in Mandarin.
Not in any language I knew.
A single phrase, low and clear:
"Yǒu wǒ zài, bù yòng wèi."
"With me here, no need to fear."
I froze.
I didn't know that sentence.
Had never heard it.
But my mouth had formed it like a memory.
And as the last syllable faded, the jade glowed — soft, golden, like dawn through fog.
Then, from deep in the mountain,
the gong sounded again.
But this time,
it wasn't alone.
Somewhere in the dark,
another answered.