Chapter 8: Whispers Beneath the Moon
The moon hung low, casting pale silver over the courtyard's stone tiles. Crickets sang in the stillness, but Mei Lin couldn't sleep. She wandered the silent halls, drawn by a restlessness she couldn't explain.
Her hand still tingled where she had touched Fu Gui's earlier.
I don't know who I was… but I know who I am when I'm with you.
Those words wouldn't leave her mind.
She paused by the lotus pond, its surface glassy in the moonlight. As she leaned over, she saw a reflection that wasn't hers—a woman draped in fiery robes, a crown of phoenix feathers on her brow, eyes burning like embers.
She gasped and stumbled back.
But when she looked again, only her own reflection stared back.
A whisper drifted on the wind.
"He's watching you."
---
Fu Gui stood on the rooftop, eyes fixed on the distant forest. He had sensed it again—the pull of something ancient, lurking just beyond the veil of night.
The demon might have been sealed long ago, but the seal… it was not eternal.
Not anymore.
His sword hummed faintly on his back. The same resonance as when the seal had first cracked.
He clenched his jaw. Not now. Not yet.
From below, he heard Mei Lin's startled breath. In a blink, he dropped down to her side.
"You felt it too," she whispered.
He nodded.
"There's something watching," she said. "Something that knows me. Or… who I used to be."
Fu Gui's expression darkened. "Then we don't have much time."
---
Back in the shadows of the trees, a figure wrapped in black silk smiled beneath a porcelain mask.
"So the Phoenix stirs," the masked one murmured, holding a crystal orb that pulsed with crimson light. "And the heir of Bai Jiu dares wield his father's flame. How delightful."
The figure vanished into mist.
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