Yan stared at the sentence.
For a few breaths, she could not move.
The letters looked freshly written, the ink dark and wet, yet when she reached out to touch them, the page was dry beneath her fingertips.
A strange uneasiness crawled up her spine.
Then she smelled smoke.
At first, Yan thought it belonged to the vision. The blood-soaked earth. The funeral grounds. The thunder splitting above Bai and Xiuying.
But the smell grew stronger.
Sharper.
Real.
Yan lifted her head.
A thin line of smoke slipped beneath the archive door.
Her heart dropped.
The library lights flickered once, then went out.
For one terrible second, darkness swallowed the entire history section.
Then orange light bloomed beyond the shelves.
Fire.
Yan grabbed the ancient book and stumbled back from the desk. Somewhere outside the archive, glass shattered. Heavy footsteps moved across the marble floor, hurried and careless.
Someone was inside.
Yan pressed herself behind a shelf, clutching the book to her chest.
Through the gap between two rows of old records, she saw a figure in black robes move through the library. His face was hidden beneath a hood, but his hands were steady as he searched the locked cabinets near the restricted collection.
He was not panicking.
He had come here for something.
One by one, he broke the protective seals around the oldest artifacts. Scrolls vanished into his sleeve. A jade box disappeared beneath his cloak. Then he turned toward the eastern wall, where an old painting had hung for as long as Yan could remember.
Yan had passed that painting every day.
She had never looked at it closely.
Now, under the glow of the fire, the faded ink seemed alive.
It showed a woman standing beneath a sky full of falling stars. Her hair flowed like black water, and in her hands she held a broken chess piece. Beside her, written in ancient script, was a poem Yan had never been able to fully translate.
The intruder reached for it.
Yan moved before she could think.
"Stop!"
The figure froze.
Slowly, he turned his head.
Yan's voice trembled, but she forced herself to stand firm. "Those belong to the archive."
The man looked at her for a moment.
Then he laughed softly.
"A librarian," he said. "How troublesome."
Before Yan could run, a violent force struck the shelves beside her. Wood cracked. Books rained down. Flames leapt higher, swallowing the old paper with hungry speed.
Yan fell hard against the floor.
Pain shot through her side.
The ancient book slipped from her arms and landed open beside her.
Smoke filled her lungs. She coughed, reaching blindly for the book, but another explosion shook the library. A burning beam crashed down, blocking the path to the exit.
The intruder had already vanished.
Yan tried to stand.
Her legs failed.
Around her, the library burned.
The place she had loved most in the world was collapsing into fire and ash.
How unfair, she thought dimly.
She had spent her whole life protecting books from careless hands. Yet in the end, she could not even protect one room.
Her vision blurred.
Through the smoke, she saw the painting on the eastern wall.
The flames had reached its frame, but the woman in the painting remained untouched. The falling stars behind her glowed brighter and brighter, until they looked less like stars and more like eyes opening in the dark.
Yan's gaze fell to the ancient poem.
This time, she understood it.
When the final page burns,
the sleeping soul shall return.
When the lost goddess dies,
the wheel shall turn again.
Yan's breath caught.
Lost goddess?
The burning ceiling groaned above her.
A strange calm settled over her body. The pain began to fade. The roar of the fire grew distant, as if she were sinking beneath deep water.
The book beside her turned its pages by itself.
One page.
Then another.
Then another.
At last, it stopped on an empty page.
Black ink appeared slowly.
Lu Tao Yan.
Her name.
Yan reached toward it with trembling fingers.
The moment she touched the page, the fire vanished.
The smoke vanished.
The library vanished.
Only darkness remained.
And in that darkness, a voice older than memory whispered:
"Your slumber is over."
Yan closed her eyes.
The wheel of reincarnation turned.