By the time Shen Jin folded the last frayed edge of the ancient scroll beneath his fingertips, night had already claimed the sky.
The Archive Tower, crumbling at the edge of the Lingyuan Division's outer courtyard, rose in solitary defiance against a sea of tangled vines and broken tiles. Outside, a heavy mist coiled like a living thing, slipping through the rotting window frames and creeping silently into the darkened room, ghosting across the floorboards like a thousand seeking fingers.
Only a single oil lamp flickered against the gloom.
Its flame fluttered weakly, gasping for breath in the thickening damp, threatening to gutter out entirely.
All around, broken tomes lay scattered like abandoned graves, their yellowed pages bleeding blurred sigils and shattered ancient script — the silent weeping of the blind, etched in ink long since forgotten.
Seated at a half-collapsed desk, Shen Jin pressed one pale hand against the fragile scroll while the other guided a fine needle and silk thread through the torn fabric of history.
Each stitch was a quiet act of reverence, slow and meticulous, as if he were sewing shut the mouth of a dying world.
A sudden sting pricked his fingertips.
He paused, frowning, and brought the scroll closer.
From a tear along the parchment's edge, a thin thread of light bled out — not the dull gleam of aged paper, but a living glow, trembling against his touch like a creature caught between pain and pleading.
Narrowing his eyes, Shen Jin leaned closer.
A strange scent curled upward — not the mildew of forgotten books, but something hotter, heavier: molten iron, or perhaps blood freshly spilled.
And then, from deep within the scroll, he heard it.
A murmur — broken, low, and fragmentary — not the whisper of mist at the windows, nor the groan of tired wood.
It was the sound of something old and dying, sighing out the last of its flame within a dream.
Shen Jin's heart missed a beat.
He pressed his palm harder against the scroll, straining to catch a word, a fragment, any meaning — but the more he listened, the faster the whispers unraveled, dissolving into the mist like the memory of a dream slipping from a waking mind.
The oil lamp guttered violently.
Shen Jin jerked his head up.
Beyond the fractured lattice, the mist had thickened into an impenetrable wall, isolating the tower from the world beyond.
He started to reach for the window — but the scroll beneath his hand convulsed.
Not struggling.
Pleading.
A sharp burn lanced through his palm.
He recoiled instinctively, staring at the shallow red welt etched across his fingers — as if he had touched not parchment, but a brand still glowing with the heat of dying coals.
Breath hissed in the frozen air.
Slowly, Shen Jin backed away from the desk, wariness sharpening his gaze.
And then —
a faint creak, a footstep, sounding from the staircase below.
He did not move.
Only tilted his head slightly, listening.
There should have been no one else here.
Yet the footsteps came — slow, hesitant, one step at a time, like a child unsure whether it had been heard.
He said nothing.
His gaze dropped; deftly, he slid the burning scroll into a hidden compartment beneath the desk, while his other hand brushed the hilt of the short blade hidden there.
The wavering lamplight fractured into dark shards across his pupils.
Outside, the mist thickened, dense and heavy as stone, threatening to drag breath and thought alike into oblivion.
The footsteps halted at the top of the stairs.
Shen Jin waited, tapping an almost imperceptible rhythm against the desk's surface — a message, or a warning.
In that moment, he could not yet know how the newcomer would shatter the quiet ruin of his life —
nor could he know that hidden within the Archive Tower, behind human footsteps,
something far older and more restless had already begun to stir.