The bridge was still swaying.
The fog was still rolling.
But Wei's world felt as if someone had pressed it into pause.
The wind, the low groan of the bridge ropes, the distant roar of water in the abyss below—all of it faded, pulled far away, as though he were hearing it through a thick layer of water. He saw only her.
She was fighting back.
In a situation like this.
Pinned down. Locked in place. A bone blade pressed tight against her throat—and she was fighting back with no thought of retreat, savage as if she had gone mad.
The bone blade slid.
A thin line of red opened.
Blood ran down along her collarbone, slipping beneath her clothes, dripping into the mud like broken red beads falling one by one and shattering.
She seemed not to feel it at all.
Her hand had found the hunting knife. She gripped it and struck backward over her shoulder, slashing at the dark assassin hiding in her own shadow.
The first blow caught him across the face.
Then another.
It was not defense.
Not struggle.
It was pure—
reckless, desperate attack.
"Get away from me!"
Her voice tore out of her, hoarse and ragged, like a throat scorched by smoke and fire. It did not sound like her.
Not like the girl who would argue over a rabbit, who would smile until her eyes curved into crescents.
And then Wei's hearing sharpened all at once.
The crisp crack of bone breaking.
The dull sound of flesh tearing.
Her breathing, rough and heavy, almost inhuman.
The assassin's head tilted.
A thin crack split across the black mask. Under the moonlight, the fractured edge gleamed coldly.
Beneath it, something pale showed through.
Bone.
That was when Wei snapped back to himself.
He ran.
But the distance stretched unnaturally.
The dozen steps at the end of the bridge seemed endless.
Every step landed on swaying emptiness.
Every step felt as if he were stamping on his own heart.
And then the thing he feared most happened.
In the next breath, the shadow moved.
A hand shot out and seized her hair.
Hard.
Her head was slammed into the damp, icy mud.
The sound was heavy and blunt.
It cut deeper than any blade.
Wei felt as if someone had poured molten lead into his legs from the knees down.
The more he ran, the heavier they became.
The more he ran, the more panic rose.
And then, absurdly, a memory broke into his mind.
The first time she had gone into the mountains with him.
She had pushed aside the bushes excitedly and found a nest of wild rabbits.
"I caught them!" Her eyes had shone.
But when they reached the village entrance, he noticed her clothes bulging at the front.
"What are you hiding?"
She looked down, smiling guiltily.
When she opened her coat, three baby rabbits, their eyes still sealed shut, were curled together in her arms.
"They're my children," she had said seriously.
Wei had snorted. "When they grow up, won't you just eat them?"
She had stopped smiling then.
She pressed the tiny rabbits to her chest. Her voice had turned soft.
"…If one day we don't have to live by killing them, wouldn't that be better?"
He had been startled for a moment.
She had looked up at him, eyes steady and sincere.
"Next year, when I turn that patch of wasteland into fields, we won't have to come into the mountains anymore."
"Stay with me and try for a year. All right?"
He had not taken it seriously.
"Can farming fill your stomach?"
She had glared at him in mock anger, yet still smiled.
"So will you?"
"If you cry from hunger, I'm not responsible," he had replied lazily.
She had not been angry.
She had only said quietly,
"Can't you be a little kinder to me?"
At the time, he had not understood.
Her "a little kinder" had not meant giving her a bigger share of meat.
It had meant staying beside her when she chose to do something everyone else thought foolish.
Later, she really did clear that wasteland bit by bit.
She planted wild fruit.
Medicinal herbs.
She kept those rabbits she could not bear to eat.
She had said, "One day, people in the village won't have to risk their lives in the mountains anymore."
She was not foolish.
She was gambling on a future.
The abyss below the bridge churned.
Reality crashed back down.
Her face was pressed into the mud.
Blood mixed with soil.
She had always protected the small and the weak.
But now no one was protecting her.
If she died, that freshly turned land would return to weeds.
Those rabbits would be slaughtered.
The "one day" she spoke of would never arrive.
Wei's chest clenched violently.
At last he understood the weight of her words.
Can't you be a little kinder to me?
Kinder.
It meant standing on her side when she was about to collapse.
Even if the whole world laughed at her for being foolish.
But he had no time to stop.
He did not even have space to steady his breath.
It felt as if a dying beast were trapped inside his chest, clawing at his lungs with every gasp.
He had already reached his limit.
Yet the bridge still swayed.
The distance still stretched.
The wind tore the mist apart and rolled it back again.
This time, the assassin did not pause.
He bent down.
The bone blade rose.
It was pale and dreadful, like the finger bone of a corpse.
Wei's roar ripped through the night.
"No!"
The blade fell.
A wet sound split the air.
The bone blade pierced flesh.
Her entire right arm was nailed into the mud.
Her body jerked violently.
She did not scream.
She stared only at 'Little Butterfly.'
Her fingers were still reaching forward.
An inch.
Another inch.
Before she died, she wanted to touch her once more. Even if it was only the edge of her sleeve. At least let the child know she was still alive.
'Little Butterfly' had only fainted. She was still breathing. She was not a corpse.
Yet even that small wish could not be fulfilled.
Wei lost his mind.
The narrow wooden bridge shook wildly beneath his feet. The ropes shrieked under the strain.
He did not care.
Even if he fell.
Even if he died.
He would reach her.
The assassin suddenly bent again.
He grabbed her hair.
Roughly.
Without hesitation.
Her scalp tightened under the violent pull, as though the skin would be torn away.
Her face was yanked up from the mud.
Water dripped from her chin.
Her neck was forced back.
Her throat lay fully exposed under the moonlight.
The bone blade moved slowly.
It pressed against her artery.
Time truly stopped.
Wei saw her eyes.
There was no fear in them.
Only urgency.
She was trying to look forward, trying to confirm something.
Trying to see if he was all right.
Wei stopped running.
He leapt.
His entire body launched from the end of the bridge.
The night wind exploded in his ears.
He did not know if he would make it in time.
He knew only this.
If he was too late this once,
there would never be another bridge left in his life to cross.