In the quiet bamboo grove under the moon, Shen Qiyao stood still, caught like a guard in a spell he could not break. He watched, the way a man might look at an old book opening its pages—holding his breath, heart waiting for what might come next. The flute's sad tune floated through the trees like soft smoke, low and full of sorrow, then rising high like a call for help. The same bit of music came back, broke apart, and came together again, as if the flute was trying to find the right words after years of being quiet.
Qiyao swallowed hard, his throat tight like a fighter ready for a hidden attack. His ear, trained by the steady beat of war drums and short orders on the battlefield, picked up the hidden parts now: the careful rhythm, the planned stops, the repeats that hung like promises not yet said. Through the sound came a feeling as close as a friend's breath on bare skin—hidden but strong, warm even from far away. He did not know the words yet, but he felt the heart of it: this song was not for the breeze or the stars.
It was made for him. For the traveler who had walked into Zhuyin's hidden center, pulled by luck that was both hard and good.
This truth ran down his back like cool moon light, leaving him open and shaking—a man without his armor in a place where his own wants could hurt him. He let the tune cut into him, deeper and deeper, until it was the only thing he heard—the bamboo's soft sway gone, the pond's dark water forgotten, even the ground under his feet lost to him. Nothing left but the song, and the man making it.
But the figure— though Qiyao did not know his name—showed no sign he knew anyone was there. His eyes stayed on the water's deep black, his face calm and peaceful, like the pond held stories more important than any person watching. His body, wrapped in robes as white as moon clouds that stuck to his slim shape like fog, moved only a little: his chest rising slow with each breath into the flute, the instrument at lips that opened like flowers at night. He was lost in the music, eaten up by it, tied inside its pull—beautiful, out of reach, a sight that woke in Qiyao's heart a pain both holy and wrong.
And so their first talk started—not with spoken words, not with looks that meet, but with sounds. A bridge of notes, thin as a spider's web but strong as a king's order, crossing the space between stranger and ghost.
As time slipped into the soft dark, the song's cover grew thin, showing clearer ideas. Sounds turned back on themselves, like whispers in a quiet room; parts came back, the same group of tones, now held by quiet spots that grew full and heavy, waiting for an answer. Those quiet times got louder than the music, thick with what might come next, until the short hairs on Qiyao's neck stood up—a sign to the strange, the sure thing.
This was no game of the wind, no quick thought from a man alone.
His breath grew short, like a shadow's sigh. He closed his eyes, the better to play the bits in his mind, looking at them close like a planner mapping out a fight. A fighter's gut, made in the noise of swords and blood, saw the shape: not just the smooth flow of a song, but the strict beat of meaning. Like signals in war, flags going up in secret codes over foggy hills—shapes full of plan, stops full of danger.
He opened his eyes again. There, by the pond's edge, the figure stayed in his dream, face a puzzle cut in silver and dark, not giving in to the night's soft push. Moonlight fell over him in kind waves, shining his long black hair—touched with silver at the sides, like frost on wet ink—and following the smooth lines of his body. The white robes, light as a dancer's scarf, seemed to take the light, making him the center where the night turned—a chosen star, bright in his alone time.
Qiyao's heart squeezed tight, a grip of want and fear twisting in his chest. The words still hid from him—if they were words at all—but the beat under them was clear: a call, a please, soft as the touch of hands that should not meet. The flute did not just play; it talked, joining worlds with breaths taken from forever.
No sad song, this, but a letter closed with sound. No ghost, but a start to real talk.
He stood, loose but held down, the truth's weight pushing until his blood stormed loud in his ears, covering the grove's night sounds. In the quiet held between one note and the next—a empty space as big as the sky—he saw the pull that could not be stopped: whatever old deal tied this place, whatever soft trap the fates had made, it wanted him now. With hands out, hoping for his to hold.
And in that held breath, Shen Qiyao—book learner, fighter, searcher—felt the first warm signs of a bond made not with metal, but in the soft fire of wants not said. The song had found its listener. Now, what answer would he give?
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