And for the briefest moment, Qiyao swore the flute faltered. Just a fraction. A breath too quick. A pause too sudden. As if it had heard him.
The sound of his own whisper lingered in his ears long after the words were gone.
"What… are you saying?"
The grove swallowed the syllables.
The flute did not stop. It flowed onward, but something in it had shifted. A single breath drawn too sharply, a pause that had not been there before — so small, so delicate, yet Qiyao felt it pierce him like a blade.
As though the music had listened.
As though it had heard him.
Qiyao's body stiffened. His palms were damp, his pulse uneven. He stood rooted to the soil, a man confronted not with a ghost, but with something far more dangerous: acknowledgement.
The thought was unbearable. And yet, unbearable was not enough to make him leave.
The flute played on, circling back once more to its repeated phrases, folding over itself like waves.
But Qiyao could no longer follow. His own thoughts were louder now, breaking him from within.
He took a step back. The earth underfoot crunched softly.
The figure in white did not turn, did not falter — as if unaware of him, or perhaps too aware. The music carried on, rising through the mist, unbroken.
Qiyao bowed his head, a gesture born of something between fear and reverence.
And then, without another word, he turned and left.
The grove's silence chased him.
The moon lit his path.
By the time he stumbled back to the inn, the lamps in the corridor had already burned low. His boots scraped against the wooden floorboards as though carrying a body not his own.
The innkeeper raised her eyes when he passed, but whatever she saw in his face was enough to keep her silent.
He did not ask for food.
The wine set on his desk remained untouched.
Qiyao sat in the narrow room, the walls pressing too close, the air too thin. His hands would not stay still — twitching as though they held a flute that was not his. His breath came uneven, like he was catching someone else's rhythm.
He dragged the inkstone forward, ground the stick until the water blackened, dipped his brush. His wrist trembled so badly the first stroke bled into the paper, the fibers drinking it greedily.
He tried again. Only one line came out, shaky, uneven, desperate:
"It is speaking."
Qiyao dropped the brush. His chest heaved, the words staring back at him like an accusation. He could not bring himself to write more. To name it further would be to trap it, and he feared what might follow.
The jade pendant he carried clinked softly when he leaned forward, the single sound loud in the quiet. He touched it without thinking, as though the smooth stone could tether him. But it was cold, distant. Useless.
On the desk beside it lay a few fallen petals, picked up on his walk back from the shrine — their pale edges already curling, drying. He turned them over with a fingertip. Fragile. Mortal. Nothing like the figure in the grove.
He stared at them until his vision blurred.
Then he whispered into the darkness, voice breaking against the walls:
"Why me?"
No answer came.
Only silence.
But the silence was no longer simple emptiness. It pressed on his ears, wrapped around his ribs, filled his lungs until he could barely breathe.
Qiyao lay back onto the thin mattress, eyes wide open, the ceiling beams swimming above him. The sounds of the inn faded — the cough of a drunk in another room, the creak of wood settling — until all that remained was the echo of the flute, replaying inside his skull.
He turned onto his side, then his back, then his side again. His body would not rest. His mind refused release. Sleep came near but never touched him.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the reflection in the pond: white robes, pale hands, flute at his lips, the impossible beauty of that grove glowing in the moonlight.
He told himself it was only exhaustion. A trick of his mind.
But another truth gnawed deeper.
He wanted to see it again.
The thought settled into him like a seed planted in soil — too small to matter now, too quiet to notice. But it would grow. It would split him open from the inside, no matter how he resisted.
And so, as the night bled into morning,Shen Qiyao lay sleepless.
His wine untouched, his ink drying black, his eyes unblinking.
The grove had claimed him fully.
To be continued...