Yueyao didn't stop until the alley bent three times and the market noise thinned into a distant blur.
No footsteps chased her.
That didn't mean she was safe.
It only meant the danger didn't need to run.
She leaned against a damp brick wall, the chill seeping through cloth and into bone. One palm pressed flat to her chest, as if she could hold the hollow place shut with sheer force.
Someone was looking for her.
Not only for the debt.
For the part that had been carved out.
Xing'er had said it plainly: a name was a scent.
And her name had already been caught.
Yueyao let out a slow breath and forced her mind to settle. Calm wasn't a gift—it was a tool. In the modern world she had lived a long time, long enough to learn how to swallow panic, how to treat sleeplessness like weather, how to wear anxiety the way others wore perfume.
She had lived in a blur.
Like walking inside fog with no ground beneath her feet, no hand to hold, no place to belong. She remembered screens. Numbers. The constant weight of the word "owe" pinning her down until even breathing felt expensive. Day after day she had simply carried herself forward—one second, then the next—telling herself that surviving was the same thing as living.
It wasn't.
Yueyao slid down the wall into a crouch and reached into her collar to pull out the old copper seal. Cold metal settled into her palm. The engraved character—Moon—stared back at her like proof.
In the modern world, she had been called Yueyao too.
The name wasn't new.
It was a line—drawn from that reality into this one.
So this wasn't an accident.
The thought pierced the fog she had dragged for years.
Maybe she hadn't been "unlucky" to be alone.
Maybe she hadn't been "weak" to feel unmoored.
Maybe she had been pushed—slowly, patiently—toward this exact point, like a piece moved onto a board she hadn't known existed. And in the modern world she had been too exhausted, too anxious, too numb to see the shape of the game.
"You're finally thinking," Xing'er said inside her, cool as steel.
Yueyao didn't argue. She stared at the carved Moon in her palm and asked quietly, "Why am I here?"
Xing'er didn't offer fate.
She offered a blade of truth.
"Because you need to be tempered."
Yueyao gave a short, humorless laugh. "Tempered with what? Debt? Rope? A contract that turns me into property? You drop me into a world I don't know and call it training?"
"Yes," Xing'er said, without hesitation.
Yueyao's fingers tightened until the copper edge bit her skin. "You speak like you aren't me."
Xing'er went silent for half a breath.
That silence weighed more than any rebuttal.
Yueyao felt the outline of something form in the empty space between them—sharp, unavoidable.
"Xing'er," she asked, voice low, "in the modern world… did you exist?"
Xing'er's reply was steady. "That's not what you mean."
"You're asking whether we are the same person."
Yueyao's breathing caught.
Because the answer had been circling her for years, even before she woke in this body.
In the modern world there had been moments—rare, frightening moments—when she became suddenly capable. Cold. Efficient. Unafraid to lose. As if another self stepped forward and held the world still long enough for her to survive.
She had called it adrenaline.
She had called it breaking.
Now she recognized it for what it was:
Someone inside her had always been there.
She simply hadn't named her.
Until now.
"So you're not my enemy," Yueyao said, throat tight. "And you're not here to steal my life."
Xing'er's quiet laugh held no warmth. "You're late."
The hollow place in Yueyao's chest pulsed again—sharp, aching. Her lover surfaced as a sensation, not a memory. Not a face. Not a name. Only warmth, like a lantern held close. The loss of it made her feel carved open.
"Then him," Yueyao asked. "The one I forgot… is he tied to the modern world too?"
Xing'er didn't answer immediately.
This time her pause was longer—measured, cautious—as if a single wrong word could trigger a trap.
Yueyao swallowed. "I don't remember him. But I want him back."
"Find him," Xing'er said at last.
Yueyao blinked. "You won't stop me?"
"I will stop you from losing control for him," Xing'er replied, calm and exact. "Not from finding him."
Something in Yueyao's chest loosened—just slightly.
Xing'er wasn't taking her life.
Xing'er was the hardest bone in her life.
She had traded the most painful memory to keep Yueyao standing long enough to reclaim everything else.
Identity.
Skill.
Wealth.
And love.
Yueyao raised her head and looked toward the thin slice of light at the alley mouth. The light wasn't bright—but it was a road.
She understood then: a turning point was never someone arriving to rescue you.
A turning point was the moment you stood up and decided you would rescue yourself.
"I need a plan," Yueyao said.
"Good," Xing'er replied immediately.
"First," Yueyao's eyes sharpened, "I find out what this thirty-tael debt really is. Silver is only the surface."
"Second, I reopen the shop. In thirty days, I need cash flow."
"Third," Yueyao's voice dropped into a vow, "I take back the one I forgot."
Xing'er didn't mock her.
She only said, "That order is correct."
Yueyao stood. She slid the copper seal back into her collar and brushed the dust from her skirt, as if brushing softness off her skin.
Then she stepped out of the alley.
The street was still loud. Still indifferent. Still cruel.
But Yueyao's pace was different now.
She was no longer a piece being pushed across a board.
She was learning how to place her own moves.
She passed a stall where two people argued over a few copper coins, faces flushed with heat. She used to be crushed by noise like this, swallowed by it. Now she only saw the math of it:
Money. Goods. Reputation. Connections. Information.
Resources.
She wanted them all.
She owed debt—but she could earn.
She had no one—but she could build alliances.
She had lived in fog—but fog was only the absence of control, and this world was brutal enough to force her to take control.
Control the money.
Control the board.
Control herself.
Yueyao turned into a narrower lane and stopped at an unremarkable wooden door. A half-rotten sign hung crooked above it; the characters were worn by weather, leaving only the hint of the word "shop."
She raised her hand and knocked.
Knock.
Knock.
Two strikes.
Not a plea.
An opening move.
Footsteps sounded inside.
A hoarse voice called through the door, suspicious. "Who is it?"
Yueyao lifted her chin. Her voice cut clean as a blade leaving its sheath.
"Yueyao."
"I'm here to buy a road."
Silence.
Then the latch slid back, slow and deliberate.