The road south forked at the edge of the Whispering Plains, and Jun Mo Xie chose the path less traveled.
The party had grown quieter in the days following the incident in Jingrui. Each member bore the lingering effects of the Choir's awakening in their own way. Lan Xue often looked at shadows longer than necessary, as if they whispered something only she could hear. Mei Yun had become more erratic with her lightning—bolts jumping from her fingers during sleep. Yue Ling spent hours meditating, silent and tense.
And Fei Yan… she just watched Jun Mo Xie.
"Do you know what you've done?" she asked one night as they made camp near a broken windmill.
Jun Mo Xie didn't look up from the fire. "I listened."
Fei Yan scoffed. "You answered. That's worse."
He didn't deny it.
They reached the edge of the Singing Mire three days later. The swamp was once a passage for trade caravans, but now the land breathed with the same eerie rhythm they had felt atop the mountains.
Lan Xue touched the water with a gloved hand. "It's warm. Too warm."
Yue Ling drew a sigil in the air and frowned. "Spirit activity. And not residual—it's active. Watching."
They proceeded slowly, the path half-submerged in oily, reflective waters. Strange plants bloomed with petals shaped like mouths. Occasionally, they would open—not to feed, but to exhale music.
A single tone.
Over and over.
"C," Mei Yun muttered. "Everything here sings in C."
Fei Yan wrinkled her nose. "Who teaches a swamp music theory?"
At the heart of the mire, they found a structure—half-drowned and ancient, built from blackened stone and bone-colored quartz. A temple, or perhaps a tomb. Symbols lined its surface: circular patterns spiraling inward like the grooves of a record.
"It's humming," Yue Ling said.
"No," Jun Mo Xie corrected. "It's echoing. This place is an amplifier."
They approached, and the door opened without touch. Inside was darkness.
But not silence.
Within the chamber, they found a dais and on it—a throne made of shattered instruments: harp strings for arms, drum heads for the seat, and a crown of tuning forks resting above it.
No one sat upon it.
Yet it breathed.
A shape began to form—slowly, like smoke thickening into flesh. A figure tall and hollow-eyed. Its body shifted with each note the swamp exhaled.
It spoke in voices—hundreds layered atop each other:
"You are not the first to awaken us."
Jun Mo Xie stepped forward. "But I will be the last to walk away."
The being tilted its head. "Arrogant. Brave. Familiar. You carry the Ember."
"Yes."
"And still you listen. Most burn when we whisper."
"I burn slower."
Laughter echoed—discordant and strange. "Then burn with purpose."
The figure raised a hand. A vision blossomed in the chamber's air: lands they had never seen, floating cities, skybound towers—and in all of them, people who sang without mouths. People who wept from ears instead of eyes.
Fei Yan shivered. "Is this the future?"
"No," the entity said. "This is memory. You see the first Choir."
"The original?" Lan Xue asked.
The being turned to her. "No. The memory of their silence. They sang until nothing remained but echoes. Then the echoes sang."
"What happened to them?" Mei Yun asked.
"They became the silence that surrounds your world."
The vision changed.
Now they saw flames devouring books, mountains crying molten tears, and a throne built from screaming souls.
At its center sat a child.
A boy with Jun Mo Xie's face.
The being's voice deepened. "And this is what you may become."
Jun didn't flinch. "Only if I stop listening."
The entity nodded. "Then remember our warning: every Choir needs a Conductor. And conductors do not merely lead. They harmonize… or are consumed."
The chamber began to collapse.
Cracks appeared along the walls as harmonics spun out of control. Mei Yun summoned a gust to blow them back toward the entrance. Yue Ling drew a runic bridge across the breaking floor. Lan Xue held the threshold open with a dome of light.
Jun Mo Xie remained a moment longer, staring at the throne.
"I won't sit there," he said.
The voice answered, "You already have."
They emerged into daylight just as the temple sank into the mire. The waters swallowed it whole without a ripple.
Fei Yan spit into the mud. "That place was cursed."
"No," Jun said. "It was history."
Lan Xue stepped close. "And what part do we play in it now?"
He looked at the Ember, now glowing with a strange vibrato. "We're the verse before the chorus."
That night, a storm brewed over the plains. The wind howled in tones, not gales. The lightning struck in rhythm, as if drums pounded behind the clouds.
Jun Mo Xie dreamed again.
This time, he stood atop a stage of black stone. Before him stood thousands—faceless, waiting.
He raised a hand.
And the world began to sing.
But the dream did not end there. The song built upon itself, layer by layer, as if the very dreamscape was constructing a symphony around him. Each voice added was a memory, a loss, a decision he'd made. Yue Ling's oath. Mei Yun's sacrifice. Lan Xue's resolve. Fei Yan's doubt.
They became harmonies. Countermelodies.
A chorus formed behind him—unseen but felt. Familiar presences. Perhaps even past selves, perhaps fates not chosen.
Then came the dissonance.
A single off-note.
A vibration that twisted the entire composition into something sinister. The crowd screamed in silence. Their faces melted into song itself, and the stage cracked beneath Jun's feet.
He fell—
—and awoke.
Lan Xue was already sitting by the fire, her eyes red as if she, too, had witnessed something she couldn't explain.
"You felt it too?" he asked.
She nodded. "It's not just your burden anymore."
Yue Ling joined them, arms crossed. "We're not just travelers. We're part of it now."
Fei Yan stepped forward, for once without sarcasm. "Then we decide how this symphony ends."
Mei Yun grinned. "Let's make it legendary."
Jun Mo Xie looked at them all, the Ember in his hand pulsing gently.
"Then let's keep walking," he said.
And the road ahead began to hum.
To be continued...