Chapter 8 The Woman in the Lantern Flame
They carried Elder Qiu back to the clinic under the trembling lantern glow. Each step felt heavier, as if the night itself pushed against them. Lian Hua kept her hand close to Elder Qiu’s chest, monitoring his breathing. Shen Wei walked beside her, alert, every shadow reflecting in his dark eyes.
Inside the clinic, Lian Hua settled the elder onto a cot. His breaths steadied, but the unnatural cold clung to him like frost. She layered another blanket over him.
Shen Wei hovered near the door, his hand resting on the hilt of nothing yet the movement felt instinctual, as if he were used to carrying a weapon.
Lian Hua noticed.
“Shen Wei… what frightened you back there?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he paced slowly, watching the lantern flame swaying in a thin, eerie rhythm.
“The veil thinning…” he murmured. “It isn’t supposed to happen yet.”
Lian Hua paused. “You’ve heard of this before.”
“Yes.” His voice lowered, weighted. “In stories, in warnings. But I never expected”
He cut himself off as if revealing more would unravel him.
Lian Hua opened her mouth to ask, but Elder Qiu suddenly gasped his back arching, lips trembling.
“She’s coming.”
Lian Hua rushed to his side. “Elder Qiu! Who? Who is coming?”
But he only shook, eyes wide shut, trapped in some vision only he could see.
Shen Wei moved closer, his shadow falling over the cot. “Is it the same woman you saw before?”
Elder Qiu’s breath hitched.
He whispered one name.
A name that froze Lian Hua’s blood.
“Li Yue.”
Shen Wei’s expression cracked just for a heartbeat.
Lian Hua swallowed. “Who is Li Yue?”
A long silence.
Shen Wei closed his eyes briefly, steadying himself.
“A woman I knew,” he said quietly. “Long ago.”
Lian Hua stiffened. Something inside her a feeling she didn’t dare name tightened painfully.
Before she could speak, the lantern flame in the corner flickered violently.
Then WHOOSH.
It stretched upward unnaturally, twisting like a serpent. Shadows danced across the walls, warping into shapes Lian Hua didn’t recognize.
Shen Wei stepped in front of her.
“Stay behind me.”
The flame shimmered and for a split second,
a woman’s silhouette formed inside it.
Long hair, flowing robes. A face half hidden but her eyes glowed like embers.
Lian Hua clutched Shen Wei’s sleeve.
“Sh ..Shen Wei… do you see that?”
“Yes.” His voice dropped, threaded with something sharp. “She’s testing the boundary.”
The silhouette tilted its head, as though studying them through the flame. A faint whisper drifted across the room a woman’s voice, soft as silk, chilling as snow.
“Wei…”
Shen Wei froze.
The whisper came again, clearer.
“Shen… Wei…”
Lian Hua’s heart twisted painfully at the sound.
Not from jealousy but from the cold knowledge that this woman knew him intimately enough to speak his name like that.
Shen Wei’s jaw clenched.
“Li Yue,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The flame pulsed.
Lian Hua could swear the silhouette smiled.
Then CRACK the lantern glass split. A gust of icy wind spiraled through the room, snuffing the flame out completely.
Darkness swallowed the clinic.
For several long seconds, no one moved.
Then Shen Wei whispered, just loud enough for Lian Hua to hear:
“She crossed the veil.”
Lian Hua’s voice trembled. “Why? What does she want?”
Shen Wei turned toward her, his face shadowed but eyes fierce with unspoken dread.
“Not what,” he said.
“Who.”
Lian Hua’s breath caught. “Shen Wei… who is she after?”
His silence answered her before his words did.
At last, he spoke soft, reluctant, heavy.
“You.”
The room felt colder than ever.
And outside the window, a woman’s faint humming floated through the bamboo sweet,haunting, and utterly wrong.