Gansu Province began with stone.
Not villages. Not temples. Just jagged earth and wind-bitten ridges. The road west was less a road and more a suggestion—winding dirt that faded with each mile. Even bandits avoided this stretch.
Ji Haneul moved like a ghost through it all.
He didn't stop to rest until he reached a town at the edge of a ravine. A place called Sanzhou Hill—built into the stone, with houses rising like shelves along the cliff face. Rope bridges spanned the gaps. Most were frayed.
But the inn still stood.
And where there was an inn, there were rumors.
He entered just before dusk.
The innkeeper didn't greet him—only glanced up, marked the sword, then returned to stirring his soup. A handful of travelers sat near the hearth. Mercenaries, mostly. One or two bounty hunters pretending to be merchants. Everyone here watched everyone else.
Haneul took the corner table.
He didn't speak.
But someone spoke to him.
"You don't belong here," came a woman's voice, low and calm.
He didn't look up.
"I rarely do," he replied.
"You've been followed."
"I know."
She sat across from him without asking.
Her face was hidden beneath a traveler's hood, but the way she held herself—it was trained. Balanced. Her fingers hovered near a blade tucked beneath the table.
He looked at her finally.
And stopped.
It wasn't recognition.
It was realization.
Not someone he knew—but someone trained in the same style as someone he once fought. Years ago. Deep in the forests near Sichuan. An agent of the Shattered Soul.
"You're not here for coin," he said.
"No."
"Then why not strike?"
She tilted her head slightly.
"I was told to speak. Not kill."
"By who?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she slid something across the table.
A folded piece of paper. Wax seal unbroken. But the scent—faint, like old jasmine—marked it unmistakably.
It was the Order's.
Haneul didn't touch it.
He looked her in the eye.
"You've killed for them?"
She didn't flinch.
"Yes."
"And now?"
"I'm speaking."
"Wrong answer."
His hand blurred.
Steel flashed.
But when his blade reached the paper—
—it passed through an illusion.
The woman was gone.
So were half the patrons.
The paper fluttered once, then stilled.
He reached for it now, slowly.
Broke the seal.
Inside, only one sentence:
"The forge remembers. Seek the lantern that bleeds."
No signature. No date. But the ink was still wet.
Outside, the wind picked up.
And for the first time in days, Haneul felt something stir in his chest.
Not rage.
Not grief.
Curiosity.
He stood.
Left coin on the table.
And stepped into the night.
Sanzhou's lights flickered in the distance, half-eaten by shadow.
The hills ahead waited.
And the forge—whatever it meant—was no longer just memory.