The inn was tucked into the farthest edge of the village, its eaves curling like the corners of an unread scroll.A sign swung overhead, painted with a single character Lau Rhen didn't recognize.The wood was dark, older than the building itself — as if the sign had been here before the inn existed.
Inside, the air was warm, but not from a hearth.The warmth felt… deliberate, as though someone had chosen its exact weight.
No windows.Only lanterns, their light steady and without the tremor of flame.
The floorboards didn't creak under their steps.They didn't make any sound at all.
A woman in grey robes appeared from behind a curtain, her face pale but not sickly, eyes calm as a pond.
"You've arrived," she said to Xao Xao, as though she'd been expecting her.Her gaze shifted to Lau Rhen, and her expression didn't change, but he felt the faintest push against his chest — qi, testing his balance.
He let it pass.
"This is Lau Rhen," Xao Xao said. "He'll be staying for the night."
The woman inclined her head. "One night is fine. Two nights is not."
Lau Rhen's brow furrowed. "Why not?"
The woman didn't answer. She turned, motioning for them to follow.The corridor seemed longer than the building from outside.The lanterns along the wall glowed a muted gold, their light bending in places as though touching invisible shapes.
When they reached the room, the door slid open without sound.
Inside a low table, two cushions, and a bed rolled neatly in the corner.But the walls were strange — faint patterns shifting across the wood like ripples on water.
Lau Rhen stood still for a long moment."This room is breathing," he said.
"It's just the qi here," Xao Xao replied, though her tone lacked conviction.
After the woman left, Lau Rhen set his bag down."You've stayed here before?"
"Yes. Once."
"And?"
"I left before the second night."
Silence settled.Then, faintly, from somewhere deep in the walls, a sound — like fingernails brushing wood.Slow. Deliberate.
Lau Rhen didn't move toward it.He simply sat, letting his senses stretch.
The sound stopped.But the qi didn't.
It flowed toward him, thin as a thread, weaving around his wrist.
He looked at Xao Xao."You hear it too."
Her eyes didn't meet his."I told you — the Off World listens."
***
Lau Rhen did not move immediately.Instead, he inhaled — a slow, steady draw through his nose — until the faint tang of the inn's air settled in his lungs.
It wasn't clean air.Nor was it stale.It was… used, somehow. As if every breath taken in this place was recycled, passed from one guest to the next.
Xao Xao sat on her cushion, posture tense.She didn't tell him to stop.She knew better than to interfere when Lau Rhen tested something.
He pressed his palm flat against the floorboards.The qi here was not passive. It was awake.And like a living thing, it waited for a reason to act.
He gave it one.
His own qi surged outward — cold, controlled, honed sharp as a blade edge.No wide flare, no waste. Just a perfect, deliberate ripple meant to touch the walls.
The moment it spread, the room reacted.
The shifting patterns on the walls froze.The air thickened until it felt like the weight of a hand pressing against his throat.Lantern-light dimmed, not in color but in depth, as if light itself was being swallowed.
From somewhere under the floor, the fingernail-scrape returned.Closer this time.Louder.
Lau Rhen's eyes didn't narrow — he refused to give whatever it was the satisfaction.Instead, he pushed his qi again, softer, inviting.
That was when he heard it.
A whisper. Not in his ears, but in his mind.
Leave before the second night.
The voice was neither man nor woman, neither young nor old.It was simply there.And it carried a weight… not of threat, but of certainty.
He pulled his hand away from the floor, letting his qi draw back into him.The air loosened.The patterns began to move again.
"You heard it," Xao Xao said quietly.
"I did."
"And?"
"It wasn't warning us."He looked at her fully now."It was telling the truth."
That night, Lau Rhen lay on the bedroll, not sleeping.He counted each breath, listening for the scrape beneath the floor.It never came again.
But just before dawn, a shadow passed under the door.Not a person.Not even a shape.Only the feeling of being watched, without a body to watch from.