The last piece of beef disappeared from the pan with a quiet hiss.
Yè Yī tilted the iron skillet, letting the remaining oil gather at one edge before pouring it into a small metal container he'd found among the abandoned kitchen utensils earlier that night. Nothing was wasted. He wiped the pan clean with a folded paper towel, then set it beside the fire to cool.
The courtyard fell silent again.
It was a different kind of silence from the one that had greeted them when they first arrived. Then, the manor had felt deserted. Now, it felt occupied—not by people, but by years that refused to leave.
The fire had burned lower, its flames shrinking into a bed of glowing embers. Every now and then, a piece of charcoal shifted with a soft crack, sending tiny sparks drifting upward before they vanished into the darkness.
Across from him, Violet sat cross-legged on an old stone step.
She had finished eating some time ago.
Instead of speaking, she watched the embers with the same attention someone else might give a busy street or a crowded train station.
As though she expected them to say something.
Yè Yī packed the remaining food into his backpack.
When he looked up again, she hadn't moved.
"...You're still here."
Violet blinked.
"I am."
"You've been sitting there for almost twenty minutes."
"I know."
"Aren't you leaving?"
She tilted her head.
"Were you hoping I would?"
"I was expecting it."
"Sorry to disappoint."
She rested both hands behind her on the stone step and looked toward the broken rooftops beyond the courtyard.
"I don't have anywhere else I'm particularly interested in being tonight."
Yè Yī stared at her for a moment before looking away.
"You say strange things."
"I get that a lot."
"I can believe it."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Violet's mouth.
The conversation faded naturally.
Neither of them seemed interested in filling the silence simply because it existed.
The breeze carried the scent of wet earth through the open gate. Somewhere beyond the walls, frogs had begun calling from flooded rice fields. The sounds were distant enough to soften into the night without disturbing it.
Yè Yī reached into his backpack and took out a bottle of water.
After a brief hesitation, he placed another unopened bottle beside her.
Violet looked at it.
"You brought two?"
"I brought six."
"Oh."
She picked it up.
"I was beginning to think this was your way of apologizing."
" Apologizing? What for?"
"I know right?"
She twisted the cap open anyway.
"It would've been nice, though."
Yè Yī ignored her.
That, she had already noticed, seemed to be his preferred way of ending conversations.
He wasn't rude.
He simply chose silence whenever words stopped being useful.
She found that oddly refreshing.
Most people talked because they were uncomfortable with quiet.
Yè Yī seemed uncomfortable with unnecessary talking.
There was a difference.
She took a sip of water.
"You've been here before."
It wasn't really a question.
He nodded once.
"A few times."
"When?"
"When I was younger."
He kept his eyes on the dying fire.
"The orphanage director found some old records connected to my surname."
"So he brought you here."
"Mm."
"You met the villagers."
"I did."
She smiled.
"Lǎo Āyí."
He finally looked at her.
"...You know her name too?"
"You sounded fond of her on the phone."
Yè Yī was wary now.
"I didn't."
"You did."
"I told her to lock her doors."
He pressed on.
"Exactly."
She laughed softly.
"People don't usually worry about strangers that much."
Yè Yī didn't answer immediately.
The old woman had never treated him like an outsider.
Every visit followed the same pattern.
She would insist he was too thin.
He would insist he wasn't.
She would ignore him, disappear into her kitchen, and return with enough food to embarrass an entire family gathering.
Before he left, she'd press fruit into his hands and complain that university students never remembered to eat properly.
He rarely won those arguments.
"...She worries too much."
"So do you."
"I don't."
"You cycled here after dark."
"That's different."
"You skipped lunch."
"I cooked."
"You skipped lunch at school."
Yè Yī looked at her expressionlessly.
"...Were you keeping score?"
"A little."
He let out the smallest sigh. His suspicion only grew.
"You really notice everything."
"No."
She shook her head.
"I notice what people accidentally reveal."
"That's worse."
"I think it's more interesting."
The breeze strengthened briefly.
One of the loose wooden shutters deeper inside the manor creaked against its hinges before settling again.
Neither of them looked toward the sound.
Old buildings always spoke to themselves at night.
Violet rolled the bottle slowly between her palms.
"You know..."
she said after a while,
"...most people would've asked me to leave by now."
"I considered it."
"What changed?"
"I wasn't sure you'd listen."
"I probably wouldn't."
"I thought so."
She smiled.
"I like honest people."
"I wasn't trying to be."
"I know."
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
"Can I ask you something?"
"You've been asking questions since we met."
"And you've answered almost none of them."
"I answered enough."
"For today?"
"For anyone."
She laughed again, not loudly.
Just enough for the sound to disappear into the courtyard before reaching the broken walls.
"Fair."
Another stretch of quiet settled between them.
This one lasted longer.
Yè Yī watched the embers collapse inward.
A piece of wood gave way, sending a brief tongue of flame back to life before it disappeared beneath the ash.
The fire was almost finished.
"So..."
Violet said.
"When did you realize you noticed things differently?"
He frowned.
"I don't."
"You do."
"I observe."
"Most people observe."
She picked up a dry twig from beside the steps and traced absent-minded circles through the dust.
"They just don't remember what they observed."
He watched the lines she drew.
"They disappear eventually."
"The circles?"
"The marks."
She looked down.
The breeze had already begun scattering loose dust back across the ground.
"They always do."
She brushed the twig aside.
"But that doesn't mean they were never there."
Yè Yī folded his arms.
"You ask strange questions."
"And yet..."
She looked at him with quiet amusement.
"...you keep answering them."
For the first time that night, he couldn't think of a reply.
Violet noticed.
She didn't press further.
Instead, she leaned back once more, lifting her eyes toward the patch of sky framed by the broken rooftops.
Clouds drifted slowly across the moon.
When they passed, silver light spilled into the courtyard, washing over weathered stone, broken beams, and the forgotten carvings along the old walls.
Her gaze lingered on those carvings.
Some had been worn almost smooth by time.
Others still held enough depth for shadows to settle inside them.
"They were carved by hand."
Yè Yī followed her eyes.
"My family?"
"So it seems."
"They're just decorations."
"I don't think they are."
He looked again.
"They don't mean anything."
"Maybe."
She smiled faintly.
"Or maybe..."
Her voice became quieter.
"...the people who understood what they meant disappeared?"
The words hung gently in the night.
Yè Yī found himself looking at the old carvings a little longer than before.
For reasons he couldn't explain...
they no longer looked like decorations.
And for the first time since entering the ancestral manor...
Violet's expression lost its playful ease.
She wasn't looking at old stone anymore.
She was looking at a question.
One she had been carrying long before she ever arrived at the Yè family's forgotten home.
The question lingered long after the conversation had ended.
Not because Yè Yī was waiting for an answer.
Because Violet seemed perfectly content letting questions exist.
She rose from the stone steps and walked into the middle of the courtyard.
Rain had washed the old flagstones clean, leaving them dark beneath the moonlight. Water rested inside the shallow grooves worn by generations of footsteps, turning each crack into a silver thread.
She stopped there, looking down.
Not searching for anything hidden beneath the stones but simply thinking.
Yè Yī watched her from beside the fire.
"What are you looking at?"
"The same thing everyone else sees."
He frowned.
"And?"
"I think they're looking too quickly."
The answer sounded ordinary.
It also explained nothing.
She crouched and ran her fingertips lightly across one of the stones. Moss had settled into the carved lines over the years, softening patterns that had once been sharp.
"People have a habit of naming things before they understand them."
Her fingers came to a stop.
"I used to think that was enough."
She stood again.
"Now I think it's the other way around."
Yè Yī looked at her.
"What is?"
"Names."
She smiled faintly.
"Some things don't tell you what they are."
"They wait."
"...Wait for what?"
"For someone to understand them."
The breeze wandered through the broken corridors of the manor.
Loose bamboo beyond the courtyard brushed together with a dry whisper.
Violet slowly closed her right hand.
Nothing happened.
For a heartbeat, the courtyard remained exactly as it had been.
Then the air beside her shifted.
It wasn't violent or dramatical.
It was the sort of movement people usually missed because they had already decided nothing was there.
Fine blue lines appeared one after another, curving through empty space before settling into place.
The first wheel ring began to turn.
A second emerged within it.
Then another.
Layer after layer assembled themselves with quiet precision, each revolving along its own invisible axis. Their movements never matched, yet they never interfered with one another, as though every rotation had already accounted for the rest.
Moonlight slipped cleanly through them.
The dying fire painted warm reflections across their edges.
A low hum spread through the courtyard.
It wasn't loud.
It simply existed, filling the silence without disturbing it.
Yè Yī found himself staring.
"...What are those?"
Violet watched the blue wheel rings as they continued their patient rotation.
"I've been asking myself that for months."
"You don't know?"
"I know what led to them."
She reached toward the nearest wheel ring.
Her fingers stopped just before touching it.
The outermost ring shifted ever so slightly, responding to the movement before returning to its rhythm.
"When people talk about Arms, they always begin at the same place."
"Birth?"
"They're born with an Arm."
"They awaken. They train. They become stronger."
She lowered her hand.
"I couldn't stop thinking about what comes before all of that."
Yè Yī folded his arms.
"Before?"
"What if an Arm isn't the beginning?"
The question settled gently into the night.
"What if understanding is?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"...That's impossible."
"So I thought."
She smiled, though there was no triumph in it.
"I stopped asking how my Arm worked."
"I started asking why it existed."
The wheel rings continued revolving.
Not faster or slower.
Simply steady.
"I wasn't looking for a stronger ability."
"I wanted to understand what I had been given."
She watched the blue rings.
"I kept asking. Kept observing. Kept getting things wrong."
A quiet laugh escaped her.
"Most of the time."
Yè Yī found himself listening more carefully than before.
"And then?"
"One night..."
She looked at the wheel rings with the same expression someone might wear while looking through an old photograph.
"...these appeared."
The courtyard grew quiet again.
Yè Yī stepped closer.
The humming became clearer.
It reminded him of standing near a river late at night.
Constant and unhurried.
Impossible to separate from everything around it.
"So..."
he said slowly,
"...are they an ability?"
"I wouldn't call it that."
She let the words settle before continuing.
"I wouldn't call it a technique either."
"Why?"
"Because techniques can be repeated."
She looked at him.
"This can't."
"You seem pretty certain."
"I'm not."
She laughed softly.
"I've filled notebooks trying to explain this."
"And?"
"When I read them again the next day..."
She rubbed the back of her neck.
"...they sounded like the ramblings of someone who'd forgotten to sleep."
Yè Yī almost smiled.
Almost.
"So you gave up."
"No."
"I stopped trying to explain it."
She looked back at the wheel rings.
"I decided understanding mattered more than explaining."
The answer lingered between them.
It wasn't the sort of sentence people usually said.
It was the sort they arrived at after spending a long time alone with their thoughts.
Violet took a step back.
"Come here."
He looked at her.
"...Why?"
"I'm curious."
"That's not a reason."
She says with a shrug.
"It is for me."
He sighed.
"You really expect people to cooperate because you're curious?"
"Not people."
She corrected him with an amused smile.
"You."
He looked away.
"...I don't know whether that's flattering or concerning."
"It can be both."
Against his better judgment, he walked into the centre of the courtyard.
Violet moved aside, leaving him where she had been standing moments earlier.
"There."
She folded her arms.
"Now don't copy me."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
She nodded.
"If you try to recreate my wheel rings..."
She tapped lightly against her own temple.
"...you'll only end up chasing my understanding."
He frowned.
"My understanding?"
"My answer."
She shook her head.
"I don't want you to find my answer."
Her voice softened.
"I want you to find yours."
Yè Yī looked at his empty hand.
"I don't even know what I'm looking for."
"You don't have to."
She smiled.
"Just ask honestly."
"...Ask what?"
Violet lifted her eyes toward the quiet sky above the ruined manor.
For a moment, she seemed to be searching for the simplest way to say something she herself hadn't completely understood.
Then she looked back at him.
"Ask the world a question."
The courtyard fell silent once more.
Even the breeze seemed content to wait.
The courtyard remained still.
Yè Yī stood where Violet had been standing only moments before.
His hand hung loosely at his side.
Nothing happened.
He wasn't disappointed.
He hadn't expected anything to happen in the first place.
Violet didn't seem disappointed either.
She simply waited.
The silence between them was unhurried, as though both believed rushing it would only frighten something away.
Yè Yī looked down at his empty palm.
"...And now?"
"Nothing."
He looked up.
"Nothing?"
She nodded.
"Trying too hard usually gets in the way."
"...That's your advice?"
"It's today's advice."
He let out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh.
"Convenient."
"I thought so too."
The wheel rings beside Violet continued turning at their own pace.
Neither brighter nor dimmer than before.
She watched them for a while before speaking again.
"When people first learn to write..."
"They copy."
"When they learn music..."
"They imitate."
"When they learn martial arts..."
"They repeat."
Her gaze drifted toward him.
"But understanding doesn't seem to work like that."
Yè Yī lowered his eyes to the stone beneath his feet.
"So what does?"
"I don't know."
She answered without hesitation.
"I'm still figuring that out."
The honesty surprised him more than any display of strange abilities could have.
Most people tried to sound certain.
Violet seemed perfectly comfortable admitting she wasn't.
He looked at his hand again.
"Suppose..."
He spoke slowly.
"...someone asks the wrong question."
She smiled.
"Then the answer tells them it's the wrong one."
"That's it?"
"Usually."
"You make it sound simple."
"I don't think it is. Remember, don't try to copy it... Remember what you see and try to emit it."
The breeze wandered through the ruined courtyard again.
One of the old wind chimes hanging beneath the western corridor stirred with a soft metallic note.
It hadn't rung all night.
Neither of them noticed.
Yè Yī closed his fingers.
Not because he expected anything.
Simply because it felt natural.
His breathing slowed.
The night's sounds became strangely clear.
Water dripping from broken roof tiles.
Leaves brushing together beyond the walls.
The fire settling into glowing embers.
Somewhere farther away...
his own heartbeat.
It was steady and quiet.
He remembered the wheel rings.
Not their shape.
Not their colour.
But the feeling they had left behind.
The feeling of something answering a question without using words.
His fingers tightened slightly.
The air before his hand trembled.
So faintly that it might have been mistaken for heat rising from the dying fire.
Violet straightened.
She hadn't moved until now.
The tremor came again.
This time the moonlight bent—
only for an instant.
Yè Yī frowned.
"...Did you...?"
"No."
Violet's voice was unusually quiet.
"I didn't."
The space above his hand darkened.
But not with shadow, rather with depth.
It resembled a drop of black ink spreading across clear water, except it never fell.
It remained suspended in the air.
A thin circle slowly emerged from its centre.
Unlike Violet's, it wasn't blue.
It was black.
Not empty or lifeless.
Like the colour of a night sky with no horizon.
The single wheel ring rotated once.
Its movement was heavier than Violet's.
It was deliberate, it was measured.
A second ring appeared inside the first.
They turned in opposite directions.
The air answered with a deep, resonant hum.
Yè Yī's eyes widened.
He hadn't moved.
He hadn't decided to do anything.
It had simply... happened?
The wheel rings revolved once more.
Then the black light folded quietly into itself.
The courtyard became ordinary again.
Silence returned.
Neither of them spoke immediately.
Yè Yī stared at his hand as though seeing it for the first time.
"...What was that?"
Violet didn't answer.
Not because she wanted to be mysterious.
Because she genuinely didn't know?
One would think that way.
Her heartbeat had quickened.
Not from fear, but excitement.
Months.
She had spent months believing they were simply another strange consequence of the questions she kept asking.
Now... someone else had answered.
His wheel rings looked nothing like hers.
The shape was similar.
The feeling wasn't.
It was as though the same truth had chosen different words.
A slow smile spread across her face.
It was a triumphant one.
"So..."
she murmured almost to herself.
"It goes deeper..."
Yè Yī glanced at her.
"What?"
She looked at the place where the black wheel rings had disappeared.
"I think..."
She shook her head with a quiet laugh.
"No."
"I'm certain now."
He waited.
She met his eyes.
"You asked a question. How do you like my answer?"
She looked once more at the empty air between them.
Neither of them noticed the faint vibration beneath the old manor.
Deep below the foundations, hidden beneath generations of stone and earth...
one ancient seal recognized something it had not felt for centuries.
Not power but understanding.
And somewhere beyond the reach of either of them...
something that had slept for a very long time...
opened its eyes.