The moon had climbed high by the time Jin Yue reached the lower wharves. Its reflection trembled in the dark river, shivering each time the current shifted...as if the water itself feared what it had witnessed these past nights.
Jin Yue moved along the bank with unhurried steps, rod slung casually over his shoulder, book tucked beneath his arm. Anyone watching might assume he was simply out for late night fishing…
but no one watched.
The docks were nearly abandoned at this hour, save for a few drunk workers stumbling home and the occasional boatman tying up his vessel with heavy, clumsy knots.
It was quieter than it should be.
Quieter than it had been three nights ago.
The same night two young porters vanished.
The same night someone claimed to hear a muffled cry near the water.
Jin Yue crouched low near a piling where lantern light didn't quite reach. The sand here was coarse, mixed with gravel and bits of broken pottery washed down from the upper markets. It should have shown nothing unusual...only the passing of feet and time.
But tonight, the ground told a different story.
A faint drag mark cut through the sand, barely visible in the starlight.
A second mark overlapped it...wider, deeper, made by something heavy being pulled.
He touched the grooves lightly.
"…rope."
The sand crumbled softly beneath his fingertips.
Heavy rope.
Dragged recently.
Toward the water.
He followed the faint trail, letting instinct guide him. His senses sharpened, breaths thinning. Being an omega meant his body often reacted to the world in ways he could not help...keen scent, heightened awareness, the ability to read shifts in hostility like shifts in wind.
Tonight, every instinct told him: something was wrong here.
A few steps farther, and he saw it.
Caught between two rocks, half buried by a careless tide, lay a thin, frayed strand of rope.
Jin Yue lifted it gently.
The fibers were rough, not the usual hemp used by local porters. They had a strange stiffness, almost waxed. He rolled the fragment between his fingers, letting memory search for its origin.
Then...
A spark of recognition.
He had seen rope like this before.
On a ship far from here.
Docked at an island port where the gulls screamed day and night.
Where men spoke little and hid their eyes behind long hair and brine stained hoods.
Where knotwork was taught before language.
A cold breath of wind stirred the river.
Jin Yue's fingers stilled around the rope.
"Island style knots," he murmured.
He remembered them clearly...intricate loops and twists designed to secure cargo even during storms. Knots that could not be undone unless one knew the precise point to pull. He had once watched a sailor from that island secure a barrel with three motions.
These fibers were from that same world.
That same people.
The same kind of ship he wished never to see again.
He stared at the strand of rope for a long, silent moment.
Demon pirates.
He did not speak the words aloud, but they echoed all the same, as if whispered by the river itself.
He closed his fist around the rope fragment.
The city wasn't ready for that truth.
He slid the rope into his sleeve and straightened. The wind carried the smell of river silt and tar, but beneath it lay another faint trace: old blood, washed away but not forgotten. His pulse steadied...not with fear, but with the cold clarity that always settled before a hunt.
The night market still flickered with life nearby...dim lanterns swaying between shuttered stalls, smoke curling from late night food vendors, murmured conversations drifting through the thin walls of taverns. He walked toward it, blending effortlessly into shadow.
The path wound between narrow alleys, still damp with river mist. A group of porters slumped by a noodle stand, too tired to speak. A woman sold steamed buns from a basket covered with cloth. A stray dog nosed through trash, tail wagging at nothing.
Jin Yue walked past them unseen.
His presence thinned itself like mist.
A hidden omega instinct...survival at its purest.
People rarely noticed him unless he allowed them to.
He paused at a stall selling ropes and nets.
Most were coarse hemp, thick and practical. A few were silk threaded for fishing weights. None resembled the rope fragment in his sleeve. The vendor, half asleep behind a pile of nets, did not bother looking up as Jin Yue brushed a hand over the display.
"Anything rare come through this week?" he asked softly.
The vendor snorted without opening his eyes.
"Rare? In this damn place? Only cheap stuff. Poor folk don't buy fancy nets."
Jin Yue nodded once and drifted on.
The truth lay elsewhere.
He walked deeper into the market, past lanterns swaying gently like dim fireflies. The smell of grilled fish filled the air, mingling with the sharper scent of alcohol. A small group of fishermen argued loudly over the price of bait near the pier.
Jin Yue's ears pricked.
"…saw a boat come late last night," one of them muttered, lowering his voice only slightly. "No lanterns. No sound."
"Pirates?" whispered another.
"Don't talk nonsense. Pirates don't come this far upriver."
"Then what did you see?"
"…nothing. Not clearly. Only shadows."
The conversation collapsed into nervous laughter, each man insisting the others had imagined it. Jin Yue did not interrupt. He simply kept walking, letting their voices fade behind him.
He stopped at the edge of the pier and looked out over the water.
Reflections rippled.
Lanterns rocked.
A faint hush swept the surface.
Something had moved here.
Something that did not belong.
He crouched again, touching the wooden planks.
A faint scrape...like the mark left by a boat dragging something heavy aboard.
Too light for cargo.
Too uneven for crates.
Too small for barrels.
A person.
Two people.
He let the night settle into his lungs, breathing slowly, softly. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of river mud, fish, damp rope… and something else.
Fear.
Not fresh...faint, washed thin by time and wind...but present.
The kind of fear soaked into wood when someone struggled, gagged, clawed against being lifted away.
Jin Yue's jaw tightened.
He stood and walked toward a darker corner of the market where an old book seller kept night hours. Rows of scrolls and battered manuscripts lined the tables. Jin Yue paused before shelves of sea logs, fishermen's notes, and maritime sketches.
The old vendor blinked up at him.
"Another travel book?" he asked, voice gravelly. "You finished the last one already?"
Jin Yue didn't smile, but his tone softened a fraction.
"Yes."
"You read too fast," the vendor grumbled. "Books aren't fish. They don't get away if you take your time."
Jin Yue glanced at a sea chart pinned to the side wall. On it, several small islands dotted the coast like teeth.
His gaze lingered.
The vendor followed his eyes.
"Looking at the islands?" he asked casually. "Good fishing there, they say. But dangerous currents."
"Dangerous people," Jin Yue corrected quietly.
The vendor shivered without knowing why.
Jin Yue purchased a small maritime log with notes about knotwork and currents...paying with three copper coins. The vendor waved him off with sleepy gratitude.
He stepped back into the night.
A low fog drifted off the river, curling around his ankles as he walked. The lanterns blurred into soft halos. Somewhere, a boatman's oar cut through water with a single rhythmic splash.
Jin Yue paused at the riverbank one last time, opening the book under the weak lantern glow. Sketches of knots filled a page. Most were common...figure eight, clove hitch, anchor hitch...familiar from any fisherman's work.
But on the next page, drawn in hurried, angular lines…
A foreign knot.
Three loops.
Crossed under.
Twisted back.
Island knot, the scribe had written in sloppy ink.
Used by those who live beyond our waters.
Jin Yue's pulse tightened in his throat.
The same knot he had seen years ago.
The same fiber he had found tonight.
The same shadow now creeping back into the kingdom.
He closed the book.
The wind shifted, brushing cool fingertips across his cheek.
Somewhere in this city, two boys waited.
Somewhere in this river, a trail still lingered.
Somewhere beyond the horizon, memories he did not want to revisit stirred with the tide.
He tightened his grip on the rope fragment in his sleeve.
"Demon pirates…" he whispered into the dark.
Then he turned away from the water...
...and walked toward the heart of the night.