Qiyao's brow furrowed. It wasn't wandering. Not the loose drift of mourning carried by wind. It had pattern. The rise and fall circled back, again and again, like footsteps retracing the same path until the dirt wore thin. It was—repetition.
He knew repetition. Discipline. The way an army trained until breath and bone both obeyed without thought. The way banners rose, dipped, shifted, each color carrying orders wordlessly across a field. He had heard the same in the sharp crack of war drums, in the curt whistle that could send men into a charge or pull them back from death's teeth.
So why… why did a flute, hidden in a forest, echo that same sharp clarity?
His hand twitched at his side. He fished inside his sleeve and brought out a slip of paper, a thin brush. The shrine's step was rough beneath him as he crouched, knees folding awkwardly, brush clutched in restless fingers.
He wasn't a musician. He had never learned the markings that bent sound into script. But the rhythm in his chest begged for shape.
The first stroke was long, slanted. Then a sharp cut upward. Then another downward, jagged. His hand moved as though he were mapping strategy lines across a battlefield — each mark a thrust, a pause, a retreat. He worked furiously, the strokes crooked, uneven, until the page was littered with harsh black scratches.
It was nothing. And yet, when he lifted the brush, he could see it — the pattern. The insistence. A voice repeating, again and again, until someone chose to hear.
Qiyao stared down at it, his lips pressed tight. A bitter sound escaped him, half a laugh, half a sigh.
"What am I doing?" he murmured. His voice sounded strange in the emptiness, too sharp, too alive. He almost flinched hearing it. "I'm chasing ghosts with ink."
The brush slipped from his hand and clattered softly on stone. He pressed both palms to his knees and leaned forward, head hanging. His breath came hard, chest rising and falling as though he had run a great distance. But all he had done was sit here, listening to silence.
The silence thickened. Heavy. Smothering. Not emptiness — no, it was too full. It was silence with weight, silence that refused. As if the forest itself were holding its breath, choosing to turn its face away from him.
Something in him snapped. His chest clenched, and before he could stop himself, his voice ripped loose:
"What do you want from me?"
The words tore out raw, breaking against the stones, reflecting off the empty shrine walls, scattering into the grove. His own shout startled him. It sounded too much like desperation. Too much like confession.
The bamboo beyond the steps only shivered in the faint wind, their thin leaves clattering like distant chimes. No music. No answer.
Qiyao stood frozen, breath sharp, eyes wide. His fists had balled without him realizing. The shout hung in his ears long after it had faded. He had not raised his voice like that in years — not in grief, not in battle, not in solitude. To hear himself sound so broken unsettled him more than the silence did.
Slowly, his fists uncurled. He stooped, picked up the fallen brush, and stared at the paper again. Jagged lines, crooked strokes, a mess of ink. But to his eyes, it no longer looked like nonsense.
It looked like… an answer he didn't know how to give.
His chest ached. For a moment, he thought of the boy he had once been, younger, shouting into the night for reasons the world had no time to care about. That same helpless fire burned now — shouting for a response that would not come. Only this time, he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't emptiness denying him.
No. He had not spoken into nothing. He was certain of it.
Someone had heard. Someone had chosen silence in return.
The thought sent a chill down his spine, but also something else — a pull, sharp and deep, the way water pulls a body under when the current hides below the surface. He wanted to leave. He should leave.
And yet, he lingered. His shadow stretched long across the stone as the sun tilted higher, sharp bamboo lines falling over him like a cage. His lips parted, but no more words came.
At last, he stood, brushing dust from his sleeve with careful, deliberate motions. His back straightened, his face hardened into calm again, but his chest carried the echo of his own cry.
No music had come. No answer.
And yet, as he stepped away, the silence seemed too pointed.
Not emptiness. Not absence.
Refusal.
Like being ignored.
Qiyao sat there with his eyes closed, waiting.
He had thought the flute might come again, that thin sound weaving itself into him like it had before. But there was nothing. Only the sigh of bamboo leaves above, their whispers moving in waves, as though the wind itself was playing music for them. The old shrine smelled faintly of dust, sweet and dry, the kind of scent that clung to places forgotten by the world.
And yet—peace.
Not the peace of answers, not the peace of knowing. But something gentler. The kind of quiet that makes your chest loosen without asking permission.
He sat so long he lost track of time. His thoughts wandered, then settled, then wandered again. The stillness did not demand anything of him.
By the time he opened his eyes, dusk was already sliding over the stones. The air had cooled, brushing his face with that tender freshness that comes just before night.
Qiyao blinked, muttering softly to himself, "From when was I sitting like this…? Already the sun is setting down. I don't know. But… it feels quiet here. Peaceful."
He let his gaze travel across the shrine. Moss crept up the worn steps. The offering bowls lay empty, their rims chipped. Spiderwebs stretched between the beams, glinting faintly in the fading light. Somehow, all of this made it seem more alive, not less.
"It looks pretty," he murmured again, almost like he was talking to someone unseen. "Why did they abandon it? Why let it rot away like this?"
Silence answered him. But it was not cruel. It was just there.
His voice dropped, quieter, as if speaking only to himself. "I don't know about tomorrow. Or the day after. Maybe I'll leave Zhuyin soon. The village itself… it shakes me. Like it knows what I left behind. Like the forest is reaching for the part of me I've tried to bury, the part I've denied. And still—it touches it. Still, it drags it out…"
The words cut off. He didn't want to finish the thought.
Qiyao slid down from the veranda and sat at the edge of the steps, where the shrine's small pond reflected the first sliver of moonlight. The surface shimmered like silver glass. For a moment, it looked almost too clear, like the moon was sitting at his feet.
He stayed there, the night wind moving softly across his skin, carrying the faint smell of moss and water. Slowly, he reached for his shoes, slipping them back on, ready to leave.
And yet his thoughts clung stubbornly to the shrine.
If I stayed here longer… maybe I'd buy this place. Fix it. Make it the beginning of something new. Better than letting it stay forgotten like this.
The idea came sudden, uninvited, but it stayed.
He stood slowly, brushing dust from his sleeves, and turned for one last look. The moss. The cracked bowls. The old beams. It was broken, yes, but it had given him something he hadn't felt in years: the chance to forget time.
Softly, almost as if speaking to the shrine itself, he whispered, "Thank you… it's been so long since I lost track of time. Every second, every hour, has only reminded me of things that sting my heart. But today—you made me forget. Xie xie."( Thank you )
To be continued...