The estate had been laid out in the traditional northern style — a main hall flanked by east and west wings, their roofs rising like the spread of a crane's wings. But under the moon's silver gaze, the east courtyard felt less like a place for living than a stage prepared for an unending funeral.
By the second night of their arrival, the household had fallen into a hush that even the wind seemed reluctant to disturb. The servants walked on felted slippers, carrying covered lamps that bled only a faint glow onto the flagstones. A brazier burned quietly beneath the cloister, its charcoal scent mingling with the sharper tang of dried chrysanthemum petals — an offering meant to ward away restless spirits.
On their third night, Xu Liang stood alone beneath the lanterns, sleeves falling like a painter's brush over pale hands. The faintest breeze touched the back of his neck, slipping between the layers of his robe and sending a ripple of cold down his spine. He had dressed in deep blue tonight, the hem embroidered with silver threads that caught the moonlight and held it, the way dew clings to grass before dawn. His robes fluttered in a wind that did not exist and his skin felt too thin, too porous. The frost had reached his collarbone. From the outside, he looked as composed as any scholar awaiting a debate, but inside, the shuāng huā dú was blooming. Its petals were cold knives tonight, each breath threading ice through their veins.
Wei Zhen was near enough that a single step would bring him to their side. He leaned against one of the courtyard pillars, the shadow from his shoulder falling like a shield over Xu Liang's back. He had the stillness of a man used to night watches, eyes half-lidded but missing nothing. When the cold brushed across Xu Liang's features, it was Wei Zhen who shifted first, the leather of his armor whispering against itself.
"Liang-ge," he said quietly, using the term with its double edge, respect for their birth, but without assuming man or woman. "You're chilled."
"I am," Xu Liang admitted. It was pointless to pretend otherwise with Wei Zhen.
From the far side of the courtyard, Rong Yue emerged from the shadowed eaves, a rolled blanket of fox-fur in his hands. He moved with the unstudied grace of a court-born son, each step placed as if he were on polished marble before the Son of Heaven. His public self was still on display, the masculine poise of a prince but the set of his eyes when they met Xu Liang's was entirely private.
Without a word, he stepped close, shaking out the blanket until it settled around Xu Liang's shoulders. The fur caught the lantern-light in warm golds and silvers. His fingers lingered, brushing lightly against Xu Liang's forearm through the cloth. The contact was fleeting, almost accidental to anyone else's eyes, but Xu Liang felt it like the striking of a temple bell. His breath caught, and though he inclined their head in silent thanks, the warmth that bloomed in their chest had nothing to do with fur.
"I will find a cure," Rong Yue said finally, voice low.
Xu Liang's breath hitched. Not from pain, but from something else. Something warmer.
Rong Yue's hand brushed lightly against their forearm, the warmth of his skin a small, grounding comfort in the eerie silence. Xu Liang's breath caught just slightly at the contact, a quiet acknowledgment of the fragile strength binding them together.
The night deepened. The moon slid higher, painting the tiled roofs in cold light. Somewhere beyond the walls, a night watchman struck the gengfu drum to mark the second watch. The sound was distant, softened by layers of stone and silence.
And then it began again.
The first notes of the pipa spilled into the air like oil into water, smooth and glistening, spreading outward until the whole courtyard seemed to vibrate. The melody was neither mournful nor joyous, but something more dangerous — the music of yearning without resolution, a thread of desire pulled endlessly without ever snapping.
Xu Liang's eyes lifted toward the lanterns. At first, they trembled only slightly on their hooks, as though stirred by a breeze too faint to feel. Then one broke free, its tassel swaying as it lifted into the air, drifting upward in a slow arc. Another followed. Then another. Soon, the air above the courtyard shimmered with red light, each lantern glowing brighter as it rose.
Wei Zhen's hand fell to the hilt of his jian. "They're moving to the east corner again."
"Yes," Xu Liang murmured, "as if they follow a path worn deep before we came."
Rong Yue's gaze flicked to the paving stones where the lanterns hovered. His spiritual perception stirred, the aura of the place revealing itself in layers. To his inner sight, the air above those stones was heavy with shadows that did not belong to the night — shapes like ribbons of ink curling through water. He stepped closer, stopping only when the cold against his skin thickened into something almost physical.
"Do you feel it?" he asked.
"I feel the absence of breath," Xu Liang replied softly. "Something waits there, bound to the earth but reaching upward."
The music thickened, the pipa strings thrumming like veins pulsing under skin. Xu Liang swayed, a fraction too slowly to hide it. Wei Zhen caught the movement from the corner of his eye and, without thought, slipped an arm around Xu Liang's waist. His touch was firm, not possessive, the steadiness of a man accustomed to catching someone before they fell.
Xu Liang did not protest. He leaned into it just enough to take the weight off of his legs, the fur blanket brushing Wei Zhen's arm as the three of them stood together in the lantern-light. The contact was a quiet anchor, a tether holding them steady as the cold inside them surged.
Rong Yue's hand rose slightly, as if to reach for Xu Liang's other side, but he stopped short, fingers curling into his sleeve. In the court, such a gesture would be too familiar. Here, under the eye of the unseen, it still carried the weight of something intimate. Instead, he stepped closer until their shoulders brushed lightly, the silk of his sleeve sliding against Xu Liang's.
For a long moment, none of them spoke. The lanterns drifted higher, the music weaving around them until the edges of the courtyard seemed to blur. Xu Liang's gaze stayed fixed on the place where the lanterns gathered, a place that now seemed less like stone and more like a sealed door.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the music broke — the final note hanging in the air like the echo of a bell in a frozen valley. The lanterns flickered once, twice, and then dropped, as though the strings holding them aloft had been cut. They hung once more from their hooks, still and silent.
The air in the courtyard lightened, though the cold in Xu Liang's body did not. Wei Zhen's arm lingered a moment longer before he eased it away, his hand brushing the back of their robe as if reluctant to lose contact.
"We'll need to search beneath the stones," Xu Liang said quietly, though their voice lacked its usual precision. The shuāng huā dú's bite was sharper tonight.
Rong Yue glanced at them, and for an instant, the public mask of the prince fell away. "We'll find it. And…" His voice dropped even lower, almost lost to the night. "We'll find a cure."
The three stood there a moment longer, shoulder to shoulder beneath the empty gaze of the lanterns. Somewhere deep in the estate, a servant's sandal scuffed against stone, and the spell of the night broke. But the weight of the music and the warmth of hands and shoulders shared in its shadow lingered long after.
Beneath the Red Light
The lanterns had been extinguished for hours, yet their ghostly light seemed to linger in the stones of the east courtyard. By the time the third watch drum sounded from beyond the walls, the estate had fallen into a hush so deep that even the brazier smoke curled slower in the cold air.
Xu Liang stood in the center of the courtyard, the fur blanket from the night before traded for a plain over-robe of undyed silk, its sleeves tied back to free his hands. At his feet lay a wooden box of inkstones, brushes, and folded paper talismans, tools of a scholar, but also of an exorcist.
Rong Yue had insisted on proper preparation: the paving stones scrubbed clean, braziers moved to the four corners, and a table laid with ritual offerings, joss sticks, a shallow bowl of millet, two cups of rice wine. The arrangement followed old court ceremonial form, adapted here to honor a spirit whose identity they did not yet know.
Wei Zhen paced the perimeter, every step soundless despite the weight of his armor. His eyes, sharper than any drawn blade, scanned the shadows. The courtyard was large enough to swallow intruders in its dark corners, and though the spirit they sought was bound, it was not the only danger that might creep in uninvited.
Xu Liang knelt and set an inkstone on the table. His fingers moved with deliberate precision, pouring water from a clay ewer onto the stone. The grinding of the ink stick was a slow, steady sound, like the murmur of distant waves against a riverbank.
When the ink was ready, he took up a brush of wolf hair and began to write. Each stroke was balanced, his wrist turning with the grace of years spent in disciplined practice. The characters he shaped were not the ones that filled court records or love poems; these were the old forms, angular and fierce, meant to bind and banish. As the brush moved, the faint scent of pine soot ink mingled with the cold air, sharp and grounding.
Rong Yue watched from just behind Xu Liang, his hands clasped loosely in his sleeves. His face was still and composed, but his gaze followed every motion of the brush, as if memorizing each turn of Xu Liang's wrist. It was not mere curiosity; he knew that every talisman drawn tonight might be the difference between life and death.
When the last seal was inked, Xu Liang placed the talismans at the cardinal points of the courtyard, each one anchored with a smooth river stone. The paper trembled faintly as he set them down, as if reacting to a current invisible to the mortal eye.
"Here," Xu Liang said at last, pointing to the cluster of stones where the lanterns had hovered. "The qi gathers below this point."
Wei Zhen was there in two strides, kneeling to press a hand flat to the cold paving. His fingers found a faint seam between stones. "It's been sealed for decades, maybe longer."
They worked together, Wei Zhen lifting the stones with quiet strength, Xu Liang brushing away earth that smelled damp and of age. Beneath the paving was a square of dark wood, lacquer cracked with time. Carved into its surface was the faded outline of a lotus, its petals curling inward.
Rong Yue knelt opposite Wei Zhen and touched the lotus with two fingers. The air around them thickened instantly, the temperature dropping as though winter itself had drawn closer. "It's a burial seal," he murmured. "It's older than this estate."
Xu Liang unrolled one of the prepared talismans and pressed it to the wood. The paper darkened at once, the inked characters flaring faintly as the seal drank in the trapped qi.
The wood shuddered. A sound rose from beneath it, not the rattle of bone, but the sigh of someone waking from a long sleep. The lacquer split, and a pale mist coiled upward, taking on the vague shape of a woman kneeling. Her hair fell like black water over a robe that seemed woven of moonlight and shadow.
When she lifted her face, her eyes were empty, yet not unseeing.
Rong Yue lowered his head in the formal greeting due to a spirit of higher station. "Furen, we are here to hear your grievance and set it to rest."
The mist shifted, her voice thin but edged with clarity. "I was… forgotten. Cast aside beneath the stones where no mourner might find me. The music you hear is my longing. The lanterns, my call."
Xu Liang's tone was steady, though he felt the frost flower's cold pulsing in his chest. "Tell us who bound you here."
Her gaze drifted past them, toward the northern wall. "A man who called himself husband, but whose heart was already bound to another. I was his concubine… and his threat. In the end, I was the first to be silenced, the first chain in a black river."
Wei Zhen's brow furrowed. "Chain?"
Her empty eyes turned toward him, and for the first time, her voice took on a strange resonance, as though another spoke through her. "I am a spirit bound in chains beneath the black river."
The words fell heavy into the cold air, sinking deep into the silence that followed. Xu Liang felt them settle into their bones, like a premonition they could not yet see the shape of.
The spirit's form began to unravel, strands of mist curling away. Xu Liang pressed his palm to the talisman on the wooden seal, chanting softly. The paper flared once, and the last of the woman's form dissolved, leaving only the faint scent of plum blossoms where she had knelt.
The qi in the courtyard lightened, the air losing its oppressive weight. Wei Zhen replaced the paving stones in silence, while Rong Yue gathered the offerings from the table.
Xu Liang rose slowly, the motion revealing a tremor in his hands. He caught the edge of the offering table to steady themselves, the cold in their body pressing harder now that the spirit's presence had gone.
Wei Zhen was at his side before the tremor could deepen, brushing a stray lock of hair from his temple. His fingers lingered a moment longer than necessary, as though reluctant to let the contact end.
Rong Yue stepped closer as well, one hand resting lightly on Xu Liang's shoulder. His touch was warm, steady, carrying no weight of command , only the unspoken promise that he would not face this path alone.
And as the moon began to sink toward the horizon, the three of them left the courtyard together, their shadows touching and crossing like threads in a single weave, bound tighter now by the name of a river none of them had yet seen