Three centuries after the River of Echoes swallowed the lovers, the Qian Dynasty glittered like lacquered gold over rot. Palaces climbed the hills, but the river still sang beneath its bridges, low and restless, as if mourning a name it could not forget.
In the capital of Luoyun, a girl named Lan Mei dreamed each night of drowning—not in water but in blossoms. Crimson petals drifted from a sky that had forgotten the sun; a man reached for her hand through the storm, his eyes full of memory she could not name. When she woke, her pillow was always damp with tears.
Lan Mei was a student at the Academy of Celestial Arts, famed for painting scrolls so alive they could breathe. Yet every time she tried to paint the man from her dream, the ink ran like blood, forming the faint outline of a guqin before fading.
Her master, Old Painter Han, watched her silently. "Child," he said one evening, "you paint with a heart that remembers too much. Beware—sometimes art opens doors the gods meant closed."
Across the city, Captain Rong Wei of the Imperial Guard led drills under a sky heavy with dust. He was known for discipline and mercy in equal measure, a soldier whose eyes seemed older than his years.
His comrades teased: "You stare at the river like it owes you something."
"Perhaps it does," he answered.
Rong Wei often dreamt of another life—a battlefield where cherry blossoms fell like snow, a woman in white singing him to sleep. When he woke, the melody lingered like incense smoke.
The Emperor's astrologer, Lady Zhi, once told him: "You carry two souls in one skin. Pray they never both awaken."
He laughed then, but some nights he felt another heartbeat inside him—slow, echoing, ancient.
When spring came, Luoyun burst into celebration. Lanterns floated over the canals; the river mirrored a sky of light.
Lan Mei walked among the crowd, her hair pinned with silver plum blossoms. Children sang, monks chanted blessings, and everywhere petals drifted like red snow.
A sudden gust scattered her lantern; it tumbled toward the river. A hand caught it before it touched the water.
Captain Rong Wei stood there, lantern glow painting fire across his armor. "Careful," he said softly, handing it back.
Their fingers brushed. Both froze.
The world blurred—sound fell away. She saw, for an instant, another time: him in ancient armor, blood on his cheek, her guqin broken beside him. His lips formed her name—Meilin.
She gasped, stepping back. "Do I… know you?"
"I was about to ask the same," he said, voice shaking.
The river beneath them rippled, gold threads flashing beneath the surface before vanishing. Somewhere, far away, thunder murmured though the night was clear.
Atop the temple roof, a red fox with six blazing tails yawned. "So they meet again. Humans are such stubborn dreamers."
It leapt down into an alley, shedding fur for silk, paws for bare feet. By the time it stepped into lanternlight, it had become a man with crimson eyes and a smile like a knife.
He entered a teahouse where fortune-tellers whispered and gamblers cursed their luck. Behind him, the scent of smoke and plum wine curled.
"Name?" asked the keeper.
"Call me Hu Yan, traveler of threads."
Within minutes he was telling stories—of rivers that sing, of lovers who defy heaven. People laughed, tossed him coins, but one old blind woman trembled. "Fox Immortal," she whispered, "you meddle again."
Hu Yan smiled. "Of course. What fun is eternity without repetition?"
When he left the teahouse, he looked toward the bridge where Lan Mei and Rong Wei still stood in awkward silence. "Time to tug the strings," he murmured.
With a flick of his sleeve, crimson petals spiraled through the city, drifting like snow made of memory.
That night, Luoyun did not sleep. People swore they heard music in the wind—soft, sorrowful, beautiful. Some said it came from the river; others said from their own hearts.
Lan Mei sat by her window, painting by candlelight. Each stroke brought visions: a lake reflecting a blood-red moon, a man kneeling beside a dying woman, a promise whispered through water.
Tears blurred her sight. "Who are you?" she whispered to the painted face.
A voice answered from the shadows: "Someone who asks the same question."
Rong Wei stood at her door, rain dripping from his cloak.
"How did you find me?" she asked, startled.
"I followed the song," he said simply. "I think it's yours."
Outside, thunder rolled again. The candle guttered. The painting on her table shimmered—and from its ink rose faint golden threads that coiled around them both before fading into their chests.
He stepped closer. "Every night I dream of you dying."
She shivered. "Every night I dream of you weeping."
Their breath mingled. For an instant, the world felt like it had waited three hundred years for this single heartbeat.
Then, somewhere beyond the city, a temple bell cracked.
Hu Yan, watching from afar, smiled faintly. "Ah, destiny's strings tighten."
He looked up at the sky, where thousands of petals began to fall—not from trees, but from empty air.
In the forests beyond Luoyun, moonlight pooled like liquid jade. Hu Yan, the red fox spirit, sat upon an ancient stone carved with forgotten prayers. The petals he had summoned still fell softly from the heavens, each one a fragment of memory.
A woman appeared from the mist, her robes black as ink, her hair silver as frost — Lady Zhi, the Imperial astrologer.
"You've crossed the balance again, Hu Yan," she said coldly. "The river stirs because of you."
He toyed with a blossom. "You speak as if the river's silence was ever peace. They were meant to meet again. Heaven's promise was broken once — I merely mend the thread."
"Reincarnation is not a toy."
"Nor is love." His eyes glowed. "You mortals forget that love outlives the stars themselves."
Lady Zhi's gaze softened. "And yet it always ends in ruin. You should know—you watched it happen before."
Hu Yan's smile faltered, just for a breath. "Perhaps this time, ruin can bloom into something else."
She sighed, vanishing into mist, leaving the fox alone with the petals that refused to stop falling.
At dawn, Luoyun awoke to chaos. The river had risen overnight, flooding the lower streets though no rain had fallen. Priests whispered of omens, scholars of curses.
In the Academy, Lan Mei's painting had changed again — the figures within it now moved. The woman in white knelt beside the riverbank, reaching toward the water where a man's reflection wept. The ink rippled though no wind stirred.
Old Painter Han saw it and dropped to his knees. "The Spirit of Ink," he gasped. "Child, you have painted a door."
Before Lan Mei could ask what he meant, the painting sang. A note pure and heartbreaking filled the air. The candles in the hall flared blue.
Rong Wei burst in, sword drawn, but froze when he saw the canvas. His face went pale. "That melody… I played it before."
Lan Mei turned to him, voice trembling. "In another life?"
He nodded, eyes wet. "You were dying. I promised I'd follow you beyond death itself."
The painting's river shimmered, expanding outward. Its water spilled onto the floor — real, cold, luminous. The scent of plum blossoms filled the hall.
Without thinking, she reached for his hand. "Then come."
Together they stepped into the painting.
They fell through silence.
When they opened their eyes, they stood upon the banks of the River of Echoes — centuries earlier, before the capital was ever built. The air shimmered with spirit light.
Lan Mei wore flowing white robes now, and her hair was crowned with petals of light. Rong Wei's armor had changed to that of an ancient general, marked with celestial sigils.
He looked around, stunned. "We're inside the memory."
"No," she whispered, touching her chest. "We're inside our truth."
The river whispered to them — voices layered like waves: past lives, lost promises, tears that never dried.
They followed the sound until they reached a shrine, where two stone figures knelt facing each other. One held a guqin; the other, a sword. Both were cracked but entwined by golden threads.
Lan Mei knelt. "This was us."
Suddenly, the fox spirit appeared beside them, tails flickering. "Now you remember. The curse was born here — the vow that bound you to sorrow."
Rong Wei drew his sword. "You did this?"
Hu Yan chuckled. "No, General. You did. You swore to defy Heaven for her. Heaven answered."
Lan Mei turned pale. "Then how do we end it?"
The fox's eyes softened. "One must break the vow. One must release the other."
She looked at Rong Wei. "To release means to forget."
He stepped back. "I can't."
"Then you will die again," said Hu Yan gently. "And so will she. Every age, every name, until one lets go."
Night fell, and stars reflected perfectly upon the river, forming a mirror of the sky.
Lan Mei and Rong Wei stood at its edge. The wind carried the sound of distant drums — echoes of wars long ended.
She smiled sadly. "Perhaps love is not meant to win against the heavens."
He took her face in his hands. "Then let us lose together."
But she shook her head. "Not this time."
Before he could speak, she placed her palm upon his chest. Light spilled from her hand, flowing into him — warm, searing, infinite.
He gasped. "What are you doing?"
"Breaking the vow," she whispered. "I will carry the forgetting, so you may live."
"No—!"
Her body began to fade, dissolving into petals. Each petal glowed with fragments of memory — their laughter, their tears, the melody of her guqin.
"I love you," she said, voice echoing like a temple bell. "In every lifetime, I love you. But this one, I must let go."
He fell to his knees, clutching at the vanishing light. "Then I'll find you again."
Hu Yan watched silently, a single tear gleaming like ruby. "And so the thread knots anew," he whispered.
When Rong Wei awoke, he was back in Luoyun. The painting was gone; the floodwaters had receded. The city was bright and clean, as if nothing had happened.
He rose and looked around. No one remembered the petals. No one remembered her.
Except him.
He walked the streets like a ghost. Every familiar place seemed hollow. The music of the guqin no longer haunted him, but its absence hurt worse.
At the edge of the river, he found a single blossom drifting on the current — crimson, glowing faintly.
He caught it. "Lan Mei…" he whispered.
The wind stirred. For an instant, he thought he heard her voice — soft, distant, calling his name.
Then a fox's shadow rippled over the water.
Hu Yan's laughter echoed faintly: "Heaven forgives nothing easily, General. The thread still waits to be pulled."
Rong Wei looked toward the horizon, where storm clouds gathered again, shaped like wings.
He closed his hand around the petal.
"I will find you," he swore.
And as the first drops of rain fell, the river beneath him shimmered with gold — a silent promise that their story was far from over.
This was the end of part-lll