Chen Wei woke to the smell of smoke.
Not the sharp, choking smoke of a fire right in your face—this was the kind that lingered after something had already burned. It clung to clothes and hair. It lived in the cracks of wood and the seams of fabric. It made the air taste bitter even when the flames were gone.
For a moment, he didn't remember where he was.
Then his body reminded him.
He couldn't sit up properly. His arms were weak and awkward. His legs didn't feel like tools—more like weight. When he tried to move, he made a small frustrated sound, and the sound came out as a baby's noise again.
Soft. Useless.
He hated it.
He blinked hard and tried to focus.
The room was dim, lit by gray morning light leaking through the window. The oil lamp had burned down to a small trembling flame. Shadows moved in the corners like they were tired too.
Nearby, Lin Yue sat with her back against the bed frame, still in yesterday's clothes. Her hair was a mess, stuck to her face. Her eyes looked swollen, like she'd cried and then forced herself to stop because there was no time.
When she noticed Chen Wei stirring, she leaned over him immediately.
"You're awake," she whispered.
Her voice was hoarse, and it made him think she hadn't slept at all.
She touched his cheek with the back of her fingers—light, careful—then pulled the blanket tighter around him as if the cold itself was a threat she could fight.
Outside the house, voices carried through the street. Boots. A cart wheel squeaking. Someone coughing hard enough to sound like it hurt.
Lin Yue froze for a heartbeat, listening.
Then she exhaled slowly, like she'd been holding her breath since last night.
"It's morning," she murmured. "Still morning."
Chen Wei couldn't answer. He couldn't even lift his head properly without it wobbling.
So he listened.
The town didn't sound like peace. It sounded like damage control. Like people counting losses, moving bodies, stacking broken things into piles so they could pretend order still existed.
A door slammed somewhere. Someone shouted, "Bring him here!" Another voice answered, "He can't walk!"
Lin Yue's hands tightened around the cloth she was using to wrap Chen Wei.
Then she moved.
Not rushed, but quick in the way of someone who had learned to be fast without looking panicked. She lifted Chen Wei and held him against her chest, and he felt her heartbeat—too steady for how tired she looked, like she'd trained herself to stay calm even when she wasn't.
She stepped to the door and opened it.
Morning light spilled in. Cold and gray.
Chen Wei's eyes squinted. The brightness hurt, but he forced himself to look anyway.
The street outside was narrow, packed dirt with stones pressed into it. Houses were close together, built from wood and plaster, with patched roofs. Smoke drifted between them in thin lines.
People were everywhere.
Not relaxed people. Moving people.
A man limped past with his arm wrapped in bloodied cloth. Two women carried a bucket together, their faces hard and blank. A boy ran by holding a bundle of arrows, looking too young to be running errands like that, but nobody stopped him.
At the center of the street, a cart stood with dark stains on its side.
Chen Wei didn't need to ask what those stains were.
Lin Yue's body stiffened slightly as she looked at it. She didn't turn away, but Chen Wei felt the tiny pause in her breath.
Then she walked forward.
Someone saw her and called out, "Priest Lin!"
Lin Yue raised her chin. "Where?"
"By the east wall," the voice said. "Three wounded. One's bad."
Lin Yue nodded once and went.
Chen Wei was carried with her, pressed close, his face half-buried in her shoulder. He could smell smoke in her hair and dried sweat on her collar.
As they moved through the town, Chen Wei tried to take everything in.
He had no notebook. No phone. No system. No way to record anything except memory.
So he memorized.
He watched how people moved around each other without colliding, like they'd practiced this chaos. He watched how everyone's eyes kept flicking toward the walls, toward the gates, toward the treeline beyond the town.
Even in daylight, nobody trusted the world outside.
The east wall wasn't tall like a fortress wall. It was high enough to matter, built of stacked stone and reinforced wood. But parts of it were blackened. One section had fresh scorch marks like something had splashed fire against it and failed to break through.
On the ground near the wall, three men lay on rough blankets.
One was sitting up, breathing hard, face pale. Another had his leg bandaged thickly and kept clenching his jaw like he was trying not to scream.
The third… the third was barely moving.
His chest rose, but not evenly.
A militia man stood nearby with blood on his hands and dirt on his knees. When he saw Lin Yue, he looked like he might cry from relief and stopped himself.
"Here," he said quickly, shifting aside.
Lin Yue knelt without hesitation.
She didn't ask questions first. She didn't panic. She placed two fingers against the third man's neck, checked his pulse, then moved her hand to his chest.
Chen Wei watched from her arms, eyes wide, because this wasn't fantasy healing.
This was work.
Lin Yue's lips moved silently. Not a dramatic prayer—more like someone repeating words they knew by heart. Her hand pressed down, and a faint warmth shimmered in the air around her palm, barely visible like heat distortion.
The injured man gasped.
His back arched slightly, then settled.
Lin Yue's face tightened. Sweat appeared on her temple almost immediately, like the act took something from her.
She kept going.
Her other hand traced a quick pattern in the air—three short motions, controlled and precise.
The warmth spread.
The man's breathing steadied.
But Lin Yue's shoulders sagged, just a little, as if the strength was being pulled out of her bones.
Chen Wei noticed that.
He noticed the way she didn't look surprised by the cost.
She expected it.
When she finally lifted her hands, she swayed. Just for a second.
A nearby woman reached out to steady her. "Priest Lin—"
"I'm fine," Lin Yue said, too quickly.
Her voice was thin.
She turned to the other two wounded and began working again. Shorter prayers. Smaller effects. Less shaking afterward.
Like she was rationing herself.
Chen Wei stared at her profile.
His mother wasn't a miracle worker.
She was a resource.
And resources ran out.
That thought settled into him quietly, the way hard truths do.
A shadow passed over the wall.
People looked up instantly.
Not screaming, not running—just alert.
A militia man on the wall called down, "False alarm. Bird."
The tension eased a fraction, but not fully. Nobody laughed.
Lin Yue finished bandaging the second man with a cloth soaked in herbal paste. She tied it tight, then sat back on her heels.
Her hands shook.
She clenched them into fists, like she was angry at her own weakness.
Then she stood, adjusting Chen Wei against her chest. Her breathing was controlled, but her skin looked pale around the lips.
The militia man bowed his head slightly. "Thank you."
Lin Yue nodded once. No pride. No softness. Just acknowledgment.
As she turned to leave, a voice called from behind them.
"Lin Yue."
Chen Wei's eyes followed the sound.
An older man approached—gray hair tied back, face lined like carved wood. He wore a thick cloak even in morning, and two younger men walked half a step behind him, like guards or assistants.
His gaze flicked to Chen Wei, then back to Lin Yue.
"Your husband returned," the elder said.
Lin Yue's shoulders tightened. "Alive?"
"Alive," the elder confirmed. "Injured. Not badly."
Lin Yue exhaled, and for the first time since Chen Wei woke up, her face softened for half a heartbeat.
Then the elder continued, voice calm and heavy.
"The Chief wants to see him. And you."
Lin Yue didn't react with surprise. Only a tired nod, like she'd expected that too.
"We'll come," she said.
The elder's eyes dropped to Chen Wei again.
"A boy," he said quietly. Not quite a question.
Lin Yue's hand tightened around Chen Wei's blanket. "Yes."
The elder hummed, then said words that made Chen Wei's newborn stomach feel cold:
"Good. The town needs heirs."
Lin Yue's expression didn't change, but Chen Wei felt the tension in her body.
The elder stepped closer, and his voice lowered, like he didn't want the street to hear.
"The rule stands," he said. "Eighteen years. The chief seat passes by law."
Lin Yue's eyes flickered. "He was born last night."
"I know," the elder said. "Which means the countdown begins."
Chen Wei's mind latched onto those words.
Eighteen years.
Not adulthood.
A deadline.
A noose.
Lin Yue didn't argue. She only nodded again, because what could she argue with? A law that had probably existed longer than her life.
The elder turned away, already walking off. "Come when you can. Not too long."
Lin Yue watched him leave.
For a moment, she stood still in the smoky morning street, holding her newborn son while the town limped around her, half-broken and still moving.
Then she lowered her head and whispered, so softly Chen Wei almost didn't hear it:
"Eighteen years…"
It didn't sound like hope.
It sounded like fear pretending to be patience.
Chen Wei pressed his cheek against her shoulder and stared past her at the blackened wall, at the ash-streaked stones, at the people still carrying buckets and bandages like this was normal life.
His body was small. Weak. New.
But his mind remembered what it meant to lose time.
Eighteen years sounded long.
Here, it probably wasn't.
And as Lin Yue began walking back toward their home—toward Chen Rong, toward the chief's summons—Chen Wei held onto one thought like it was something solid in a world that kept moving:
I have to learn fast.
Not to be strong.
To be ready.
--