The flute did not stop.
It followed them through the gate like something reluctant to be left behind, thin and searching, threading between the narrow stone houses on either side of the path. Lin Yue noted the way it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, no single direction the ear could commit to, and set the detail aside among the others already accumulating: the Chief's fear of the sky, the ritual weight of names spoken aloud, the ancient carvings of women who wept without ceasing.
The village unfolded around them in the fading light. Narrow stone paths, uneven and worn smooth by centuries of feet, wound between wooden houses whose eaves sagged with age. Strips of white mourning paper hung beneath every roofline, fluttering faintly despite the windless air, a detail that struck Lin Yue as wrong in the same way the motionless moon had struck him as wrong, movement without a cause.
