The wind moved differently that night.
It carried the scent of chrysanthemums — faint, ghostly, and older than the mountains themselves. In the Kingdom of Yunliang, people said the wind was a messenger between souls. Tonight, it whispered the name of a man who would defy heaven itself.
Li Wei, the youngest general in the empire's history, stood at the edge of the Mirror Lake, where the surface reflected the stars with unnatural clarity. His armor was black lacquered with jade trim, but his eyes — those eyes burned with exhaustion beyond his years.
He was twenty-four, but he had killed enough men to fill a river.
And tonight, the river was whispering back.
"Do you ever wonder," said a soft voice behind him, "what the stars see when they look at us?"
He turned sharply, hand on his sword — but stopped when he saw her.
Meilin.
She wore white silk that shimmered faintly, like dew on snow. A silver ribbon crowned her hair, and her eyes held the kind of calm that only came from eternity. He had met her just once before — at the Spring Festival, when she played the qin so beautifully that even the Emperor had forgotten his wine.
But here, by the lake, she didn't look like a court musician.
She looked like something older.
"I didn't think the Emperor allowed his musicians to wander at night," Li Wei said carefully.
"The Emperor doesn't own the wind," she replied, smiling faintly. "And the wind brought me here."
There was something disarming about her — as if she could see straight through his armor, his ranks, his sins.
They stood in silence for a long time, until she whispered, "Do you know why this lake is called the Mirror Lake, General?"
He shook his head.
"Because it remembers every face that has ever looked into it. Some say if you look long enough, it shows you who you were before you were born."
Li Wei laughed lightly. "You speak as if souls live more than once."
Meilin's smile faded. "You wouldn't laugh if you remembered yours."
And just like that, she turned and walked away, her reflection lingering a moment longer than her body — as if even the lake couldn't bear to let her go.
Two Weeks Later
The kingdom trembled with whispers of rebellion. The Emperor's armies marched east, led by Li Wei, while the court diviners spoke of omens — comets in the sky, storms without thunder, and a white fox seen circling the palace walls.
Before Li Wei departed, he visited the Temple of Eternal Threads, where an old woman named Lady Hua, the Oracle of Fate, awaited him.
She was blind but saw more than any man alive.
"You seek victory," she said, running her fingers across the golden threads that hung from the temple ceiling — each one representing a human life. "But your fate is not written on the battlefield."
"Then where is it written?"
She smiled, toothless and knowing. "In her eyes."
"Whose?"
"The one you cannot have."
Before he could reply, a thread broke — golden strands falling like dust. The Oracle shuddered. "A bond has been severed too soon. Go, General. The wind will tell you when to look back."
The War in the East
Blood turned rivers red. Li Wei fought for honor, for country, for the Emperor's glory — but in his quiet moments, he remembered the girl by the lake.
In dreams, he saw her — standing barefoot on the water's surface, her reflection shimmering like light itself. She would reach out her hand, whisper his name… and he would always wake before touching her.
His second-in-command, Shen Yu, noticed his distraction.
"Thinking of ghosts again?" Shen laughed, trying to lighten the mood.
"Perhaps I am one," Li Wei murmured.
"Then make sure you die with a sword in your hand, not in a dream."
But that night, when the enemy camp fell silent under a crimson moon, Li Wei's dream was different. Meilin stood beside a shattered mirror, tears streaking her face.
"They are coming for you," she whispered. "You mustn't trust—"
And then the dream burned away.
At dawn, Commander Han — Li Wei's rival and former ally — turned his troops against him. The Emperor had been deceived; letters forged, loyalties traded like silver.
Surrounded on all sides, Li Wei fought like a storm. Shen Yu fell at his side, laughing through his last breath. "Looks like you'll die in the dream after all."
By dusk, Li Wei's army was ash and silence.
Bleeding, he rode alone toward the lake. The wind howled as if mourning him already.
When he arrived, Meilin was waiting.
She didn't look surprised. She only said, "It is not yet your time."
He collapsed before her, eyes glassy. "Then tell me… when is it?"
"When your soul remembers," she whispered, pressing her hand over his heart. "When your duty no longer kills your love."
From the lake rose a faint light — rippling threads of gold connecting them like veins of destiny.
He felt her warmth, her sorrow, her heartbeat merging with his. "Who are you?" he gasped.
"I am what you loved before you were born."
And then — pain, blinding and white. The world split.
Far away, the Emperor watched from his jade tower. Lady Hua knelt before him, trembling.
"What have you done?" he demanded.
"I only showed them their fate," she whispered. "And they chose love."
He turned to Priest Yun, the guardian of the reincarnation mirror. "Seal them," the Emperor ordered. "Let their souls wander until they learn that love is weaker than duty."
Yun hesitated. "And if they never learn?"
"Then they will die in every lifetime, never knowing why."
As Li Wei took his final breath, Meilin's form began to fade. Her silver ribbon unraveled, dissolving into the golden threads still binding them.
"I will find you," he swore, reaching through the light.
"I know," she whispered. "You always do."
The lake surged upward, swallowing them both — reflection and reality merging.
When the water stilled, there was no trace of them — only the faint echo of a qin melody carried by the wind.
Centuries later, a young soldier named Wei Lin stood at the edge of the same lake, unaware that his soul had once died there.
He bent to wash his hands, and for an instant, he saw two faces in the reflection — a man and a woman, looking back at him with eyes full of sorrow.
Then the image shattered, as if the water itself remembered what he could not.
And somewhere, deep beneath the lake's surface, a voice whispered through the ages:
"The thread is never broken — only forgotten."
— End of Part I —