Chapter 4 The First Omen
The wind carried a strange bite as Lian Hua and Shen Wei stepped back into the clinic. She shut the door quickly, heart still beating too fast. Shen Wei lingered near the entrance, gaze sharp, as if expecting the unseen watcher to follow.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Lian Hua exhaled slowly. “Do you think… it was a person?”
Shen Wei didn’t answer immediately. His brows were drawn, his posture tense not fearful, but alert in a way that did not belong to a simple traveler.
“It didn’t move like an animal,” he said finally. “And it didn’t feel like a villager.”
Lian Hua’s fingers curled at her sides. “Then what?”
He hesitated before giving a quiet answer.
“Someone who knew me.”
Her breath stilled.
She wanted to ask from this life or the one before? but the words lodged in her throat.
Shen Wei noticed the worry on her face and gently softened his voice. “You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The simplicity of his promise struck her deeper than it should have.
Why did it feel familiar?
Why did it feel like he’d said it once before under a burning red sky?
Lian Hua busied herself brewing a pot of calming chrysanthemum tea, if only to steady her hands. The scent filled the room, warm and soothing.
Shen Wei accepted the cup she offered him, their fingers brushing lightly. That small touch brief, accidental sent a ripple through both of them.
“You’re still trembling,” he said quietly.
“It’s just the wind,” she lied.
He looked unconvinced, but he didn’t press. Instead, he turned his attention to the window. His gaze sharpened again.
“The moon gate,” he murmured. “It looks… different today.”
Lian Hua followed his stare. The archway stood in the distance, framed by plum blossoms and drifting sunlight. Peaceful, ordinary. Except a faint shimmer clung to its edges. Barely visible, like heat rising from stone.
Her blood cooled. “I thought it was my imagination…”
“No,” Shen Wei whispered. “I saw it last night too. Just before I collapsed.”
Their eyes met.
The moon gate was alive with something unseen…
Something ancient…
Something calling.
A sharp knock interrupted the heavy silence.
Lian Hua opened the door and blinked in surprise.
Grandma Su stood there again, this time clutching a bundle of dried wormwood. Her expression was strangely serious.
“I forgot to tell you something earlier,” the old woman said, glancing past Lian Hua toward the clinic interior. “About your visitor.”
Shen Wei straightened subtly on the mat.
“What about him?” Lian Hua asked.
Grandma Su stepped inside, lowering her voice. “Be cautious, girl. The last time someone collapsed at the moon gate… the village elder said it was the sign of a returning soul.”
Lian Hua’s heart thudded painfully. “Returning?”
“Someone who belonged here once,” the old woman continued. “Someone whose fate wasn’t finished.”
Shen Wei’s fingers tightened around his cup.
“Is that just a legend?” he asked quietly.
Grandma Su’s eyes narrowed at him with unsettling awareness. “All legends begin as truths. Some just take longer to be understood.”
With that cryptic line, she turned and shuffled out just as abruptly as she appeared.
Lian Hua stared after her, unsettled.
Returning soul.
Unfinished fate.
The words wrapped around her like invisible vines.
As the sun dipped lower, Shen Wei moved to help Lian Hua extinguish the lanterns. He reached for one but paused when their hands nearly touched.
A long, quiet moment passed.
Lian Hua swallowed softly. “Do you… feel strange too? When you look at the moon gate?”
He didn’t hide from her question. Didn’t turn away.
“Yes,” he said, honest and low. “It calls to me. Like a place I once left behind.”
Her breath trembled. “Do you think you lived here before?”
A silence,heavy,loaded.
“I don’t know,” Shen Wei admitted. “But when I look at you, I feel…”
He halted, brows furrowing as if the words hurt to form.
“Not like we’re meeting for the first time.”
Lian Hua’s throat tightened.
She felt it too.
In her dreams.
In his voice.
In the way her heart whispered his name before she ever heard it.
The air between them thickened warm, familiar, achingly fragile ,Then tap, tap, tap.
A faint knock on the window.
Lian Hua jumped. Shen Wei moved first, protective instinct flaring as he stepped in front of her.
They approached the window slowly.
Outside, under the shadow of the plum tree, something hung from a low branch:
A strip of red silk.
Fluttering gently.
Unnatural.
Wrong.
Lian Hua’s breath stopped. “What is that…?”
Shen Wei’s jaw tightened. His voice dropped to a near whisper, filled with recognition and dread.
“It’s a warning.”
He stepped forward, eyes darkening.
“And it’s meant for me.”