Ashes. A promise beyond death

Chapter 7 – When memory burns

Three days had passed since the lake gave up its dead.

Now, Yu Bin and Xian Chen stood beneath the breath of a fog-drenched forest on the eastern hill. Mist curled around their ankles like ghost hands, cold and persistent. Their boots sank slightly into the damp earth, muffled by leaves long fallen and never mourned.

The trail they followed wasn't really a path—more a wound carved into the landscape, choked by brush and veiled in grey silence. Even the birds had forgotten this place. The deeper they went, the more the world fell away, until only breath and bone and shadow remained.

Bao Fang had sent them. Her voice, steady through the phone, had whispered only one thing:

"If you want the truth, follow the fog."

Her leads had never failed them before. And this one… felt different. As if the forest itself had been waiting.

Xian Chen's coat rustled faintly as he stepped beside Yu Bin, his eyes scanning the trees.

"You okay?" he asked, gently.

Yu Bin nodded, though her face was pale beneath her scarf.

"Just cold," she whispered.

But it wasn't the kind of cold you cured with coats. It came from somewhere inside—deep, aching, old. Since the night at the bar, she had grown quieter. Her eyes had grown darker.

He wondered how much she remembered… and how much she was still trying to forget.

The forest grew thicker as they pressed on, swallowing the sun and sound alike. Wind ceased. Time thinned. Even their breathing felt like a trespass.

And then, they found it.

The clearing appeared suddenly, like a wound torn open.

At its heart stood the crumbled skeleton of what had once been a stone shelter. Moss devoured its walls. Roots crawled up its spine. It had been forgotten, but something had remembered it recently—something dark.

Charred symbols marked the ground in a twisted ring, blackened feathers scattered like curses around broken bones. It was not a place of rest.

Yu Bin crouched, her fingers hovering above a blood-stained sigil carved into stone.

"This wasn't just a prison," she murmured. "It was a ritual site."

Her voice barely carried through the fog.

"Someone was trying to summon… or trap."

Xian Chen crouched beside her, his brow furrowed.

"They were playing with forces they couldn't control."

And then—

A groan.

Low. Rotten. Inhuman.

Then another.

And another.

Shapes broke from the trees—twisted things with hollow sockets and dragging limbs. Their bodies were stitched from memory and death, their smell thick with decay and the sick sweetness of spoiled time.

"Yu Bin—behind me!" Xian Chen barked, his arm flinging wide to shield her.

She drew her weapon with shaking fingers, firing once—then again.

The bullet passed through the first creature like mist.

They didn't fall. They didn't bleed.

They moved.

Encircling them.

Yu Bin's hands trembled. The cold returned in full force.

Xian Chen pulled something from beneath his coat—a worn book bound in cracked red leather. Its pages were old and brittle, stitched with symbols not meant for mortal tongues.

His voice dropped, dark and low:

"By flame unchained, by sky unbound,

Ancient breath, to me resound.

Awaken, old soul—

Longwei, arise."

The air shattered.

Clouds twisted above them like torn silk.

The forest lit with an otherworldly fire—and from the sky, he came.

A dragon.

Scales red as blood, wings stretched across the sky like flame-torn banners. Heat rippled from his roar, melting the mist.

He landed in the clearing, and with a single breath, the creatures were ash. Their bones burned. Their screams dissolved.

Then the dragon twisted—burned brighter, then dimmed—and what stood in his place was a man.

Tall. Pale-haired. Eyes like frozen lightning.

Longwei.

He stepped through the smoke like someone returned from death itself. His presence pressed on the world, made the air thinner.

And his gaze locked on Yu Bin.

"You…"

His voice was not a greeting.

It was an accusation.

Yu Bin's eyes widened. She did not know him. But something inside her… remembered.

"I remember that day," Longwei said. "The blood. The silence. You were there. Beside his body."

Yu Bin took a step back, her lips parting.

"What…?" she whispered.

"Your sword was drawn. My master was dead."

"Stop," Xian Chen stepped forward. "This isn't the time—"

"No," Longwei growled. "She needs to know what she did."

And then—

Yu Bin staggered.

Something inside her cracked.

A vision surged through her mind:

Golden halls drenched in blood. Her feet slipping on marble as she ran. Her master, Bao Fang, lying lifeless. Her parents by her side . Three bodies, there cadavers lieing down the stairs . Her sword in her hand—dripping red.

And there—in that house that once brought laughter in her life—Xian Chen.

Still. Pale.

Dying.

"I'm sorry," his voice whispered in her memory. "It's my fault."

She gasped. Her body buckled. More flashes—laughter in the sword field, Bao Fang's teachings, Longwei's shadow soaring overhead.

And then… pain.

So much pain.

Yu Bin's knees collapsed.

"Yu Bin!" Xian Chen caught her, but she was already fading, eyes rolled back.

Longwei's expression shifted.

And for a fleeting moment, he looked afraid.

"What did you do?" Xian Chen roared.

"Nothing," Longwei answered, quietly. "She remembered."

Yu Bin did not wake.

They brought her home in silence. Bao Fang met them at the door, her face unreadable. She helped carry Yu Bin inside without a word.

Laid her gently on the bed. Touched her forehead.

She opened her mouth as if to say something—but stopped.

"She'll need time," Bao Fang whispered.

"She doesn't have time," Xian Chen said through clenched teeth.

"Then give her space."

The days passed.

The case moved on without her.

Bao Fang followed the final leads alone. And in the end, it was she who uncovered the truth.

The old shelter belonged to a reclusive scientist—a man shattered by the death of his own child. He had turned to ancient rituals, convinced that binding two children—one broken, one whole—could preserve a soul.

It had never worked.

But he had tried. Again. And again.

Journals were found. Instructions. Names.

He was arrested within the week.

The city mourned.

But justice, at last, was done.

And still, Yu Bin slept.

Each night, Xian Chen stayed by her bedside.

Each morning, Bao Fang left a silent prayer.

And beyond the window, the rain finally ceased. The sky cleared.

But in Yu Bin's mind…

The storm had only just begun.