The echo of the latch was still in Yueyao's ears when the courtyard outside was already waking up.
She stood by the wall, fingertips still remembering the rough grit beneath the carved strokes. She didn't ask who the "first" was. She didn't ask when the "last time" had been.
Questions didn't always earn answers.
And sometimes answers got you killed.
She drew her sleeves down, hiding the red marks around her wrists, and pushed the door open.
Dawn had barely settled. The rain had paused, but the street looked like it had never slept. Steam rose from vendors' pots, mixing with damp air—sweet soy, hot oil, warm grain. Shouts overlapped. Wheels rattled over stone. Every sound said the same thing:
No one would slow down for her.
Yueyao stepped into the flow of bodies.
She couldn't walk too fast—fast looked like panic. She couldn't walk too slow—slow looked like prey. She kept her breathing even and placed her gaze between shoulders and shoes, the safest height: enough to see a path, not enough to invite stares.
A rolled contract pressed against her ribs inside her sleeve.
At a corner, she opened it just a finger's width and read the line she couldn't afford to forget.
Contract Holder: Yueyao.
The two characters nailed her to the world.
She couldn't explain why they felt familiar, but something in her chest answered anyway—quiet, instinctive, like a body claiming what the mind couldn't reach.
She folded the contract back into place. Her fingers slid automatically to the inside of her collar.
There was a small hard weight there she hadn't dared touch last night. Now she pulled it free.
A worn copper seal.
Its surface was dark with age, but the edges were smooth, rounded by countless grips. She turned it in the pale morning light and saw the engraved mark.
Moon.
Her heartbeat landed heavy.
Not fear—confirmation.
Her name hadn't been thrown at her by strangers. It had lived on her body all along.
Yueyao closed her hand around the seal. The metal's chill seeped into her palm and steadied her spine.
A calm voice rose from deep in her skull.
"Don't drift."
Yueyao answered in her mind, "I'm confirming who I am."
A pause—half amused, half cold.
"Who you are doesn't matter," the voice said. "Whether you can live does."
Yueyao didn't argue.
Instead, she asked the question that mattered.
"Then what do I call you?"
Silence for half a breath.
As if the presence was choosing a name no one could steal.
"Xing'er," it said.
"Star," Yueyao thought back, tasting the word. "That star?"
"Yes." The voice stayed even. "A star doesn't wait for permission to shine."
The sentence chilled her more than it should have.
Because the hollow place in her chest responded—sharp, aching—like it recognized the cost of that kind of light.
Her lover.
Not a face. Not a name.
Only a warmth that used to exist—like a lantern held close in the dark.
She couldn't remember who he was.
But the moment she tried, pain flared in the blank space, a bruise you couldn't see.
"Live first," Xing'er warned.
Yueyao lifted her eyes. The street didn't care about her grief. It only cared whether she would fall.
She needed resources. She needed a way forward. She needed to turn thirty days into something measurable.
She stopped at a small general shop with a faded wind chime at the door. The chime rang thin and clear. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper—an older woman—was mending cloth, stitches tight, fingers calloused.
A woman like this remembered everyone.
And she remembered trouble.
Yueyao stepped inside and placed two copper coins on the counter.
"I want to ask something," Yueyao said.
The shopkeeper didn't look up. "Questions are sold at teahouses."
Yueyao slid a third coin forward.
The needle paused. The shopkeeper finally raised her eyes—sharp as pins. "Ask."
"East Street," Yueyao said. "That sealed shop. Who used to come for the goods?"
The shopkeeper's hand jerked. The needle nearly stabbed her finger.
She stared at Yueyao's face as if comparing it to an old portrait that refused to stay dead.
"You…" The shopkeeper's voice dropped. "You're still alive?"
Yueyao's stomach tightened.
So Yueyao—this name—had already been buried once in people's mouths.
She didn't explain. She only repeated, steady, "Who came?"
The shopkeeper's gaze flicked toward the street.
Yueyao followed it without turning her head too far.
Across the road, two men stood like customers, but they weren't buying anything. Their eyes were too direct. Too cold. Like nails.
Inside her mind, Xing'er struck two short commands, hard and clean.
"Don't look."
"Keep asking."
Yueyao drew her gaze back as if the men didn't exist.
Lowering her voice, she said, "I only need a name."
The shopkeeper's lips went pale. "Why would you ask that… You never asked before. You used to—"
She cut herself off, suddenly aware she'd said too much.
Yueyao's pulse tightened. "I used to what?"
The shopkeeper looked at her like she didn't know her anymore.
After a long moment, she whispered the only thing she dared to say.
"You used to have someone."
One sentence.
And Yueyao's hollow place cracked open.
Have someone.
Just those words were enough to make the emptiness ache.
She wanted to ask who.
But she knew she couldn't.
Because the moment she asked who, she would remember what she'd lost.
And softness was how you died.
Outside, the two men started moving.
Not fast.
Certain.
As if they knew she would be here.
The shopkeeper's voice sharpened into panic. "Don't stay. Go. Someone's looking for you today."
Yueyao left the coins on the counter and turned toward the back door.
As she reached the frame, she heard a laugh from the street—someone calling, drawn-out and gleaming with malice.
"Yueyao—"
The sound dragged across her skin like the tip of a blade.
Yueyao didn't stop.
But in that instant, her palm flashed with a sensation so familiar it nearly dropped her to her knees:
A hand holding hers.
Warm as a lantern.
Then it shattered—paper dropped into water.
Only cold remained.
Cold enough to make her want to turn around.
For the first time, Xing'er said her name out loud inside her head, voice low and forceful—like a hand on the back of her neck.
"Yueyao."
"Don't lose control here."
Yueyao bit down on her breath and swallowed the softness whole. She slipped through the back door into the alley and vanished into the shadow behind the market.
As she walked, she asked Xing'er in her mind, voice tight.
"Are they hunting the debt… or me?"
Xing'er was silent for half a breath.
Then, calm as frost: "The part that was carved out."
Yueyao's throat tightened.
She didn't ask again.
Because she understood.
In this city, a name wasn't a label.
A name was a scent.
And someone had already caught hers.