Later that morning, Qingsai helped his father—Master Luren, a stoic fisherman—with the netted catch at the village docks. Villagers greeted him warmly, but warily. Children whispered. Elders bowed just a little too low.
He was used to it.
Strange things happened around Qingsai: broken tools fixed themselves; animals healed from wounds; and once, during a fever, a burning sigil appeared over his chest.
His only friend, Meizhen, a bold girl with sun-warmed skin and wind in her voice, watched him with concern.
"You saw something again, didn't you?" she asked that evening beneath the Spirit Tree.
Qingsai hesitated. "Not saw. Heard."
"A voice?"
He nodded. "A woman's voice. Like fire. Like memory."
Meizhen bit her lip. "My grandmother says… those who hear spirits are marked. Some are cursed. Others… chosen."
Qingsai looked at the scar on his left palm—shaped like a swirl, always warm.
"I don't feel cursed," he whispered. "But something inside me is waking up. And I don't think it wants to be quiet anymore."
Unseen by them, the sky darkened unnaturally. In the distance, a shimmer of spiritlight flickered from the mountains—an omen of the Veil weakening.