The footsteps paused at the top of the stairs, merging with the breath of mist that had already stolen into the Archive Tower.
Shen Jin shifted the short blade in his palm, feeling its silent promise of violence.
But he waited.
A slender figure emerged at last from the stairwell's gloom.
She wore a pale robe, its hem stained with mist and dust, her hair loosely gathered at the nape of her neck.
A few stray strands clung to her cheeks, and her features remained hidden in the shifting half-light.
Her movements were careful, almost reverent, as though afraid to disturb something ancient and sleeping.
"Outsiders are forbidden."
Shen Jin said coolly, voice low, steady.
The woman halted. Her reply was softer than the mist:
"I was sent to assist with the restoration."
She raised her empty hands, revealing only a rough hemp-bound scroll and a small oil lamp, the flame trembling faintly.
Shen Jin did not lower his guard.
Instead, he inclined his head slightly — a cold acknowledgment — and gestured for her to seat herself without further words.
She obeyed, settling herself at a distant corner, her movements silent, the faint glow of her lamp barely brushing the edges of the scattered scrolls.
The tower sank once more into the fragile stillness of whispering parchment and guttering flame.
Shen Jin returned to his work, yet his peripheral senses never strayed far from her presence.
There was something about her.
No trace of mortal warmth clung to her breath; no aura of cultivation weighed the air; not even the restless agitation common to scribes and scholars marred her composure.
She was like a stone long sunk at the bottom of a river — silent, clean, bearing a quiet gravity all her own.
He stitched carefully.
And then —
a faint click echoed from across the room.
Shen Jin lifted his gaze.
She was copying from a broken scroll, her pen strokes mirroring the jagged, fragmented characters precisely — even replicating the points where the ink had once faltered and bled.
This was no mere transcription.
This was sensing the spirit of the scroll.
A flicker of shock crossed Shen Jin's heart, though none touched his face.
Just then, the scroll beneath his fingers trembled violently, a fine red thread of light leaking from its core.
At the same moment, the woman froze mid-stroke and lifted her gaze.
Their eyes met across the room —
and for a heartbeat, everything fell into absolute stillness: the mist, the flame, the weeping of broken scrolls.
Only the recognition between them remained — two beings, adrift in the same forgotten current.
The scroll flared — red sigils surging like veins in firelight —
and a faint, distant cry rang through the air, like the last lament of a dying bird on an ancient battlefield.
Shen Jin instinctively pressed down to suppress the tremor, but the woman was faster.
Her fingertips brushed the scroll — light, fleeting, certain.
The red glow winked out.
Silence returned.
Yet in the marrow of Shen Jin's bones, something ancient stirred and stretched, half-awake.
He withdrew his hand, voice level as he asked,
"Your name?"
The woman paused — just a heartbeat, a barely-there hesitation — before answering quietly,
"Luo Qinghan."