Chapter 2 The Wanderer Who Spoke Her Name
The herbal clinic sat at the edge of Willow Moon Town, tucked behind a row of bamboo trees whose slender shadows stretched across its wooden walls. Lian Hua pushed open the door with her shoulder, guiding the unconscious man inside.
“Easy… just a little more,” she whispered as she lowered him onto the narrow cot. His body felt unnaturally warm, heat pulsing from him like waves from a forge.
She pressed her fingers to his wrist.
Fever, exhaustion, dehydration.
And something else a strange, faint tremor beneath his pulse. Something she couldn’t explain.
Lian Hua pulled a blanket over him, unable to stop her eyes from drifting back to the face that seemed both familiar and impossible.
Who are you? Why do I feel as if I’ve met you before?
She turned away abruptly and went to mix herbs. The motion steadied her, she crushed the dried willow bark, added lotus seeds, and poured hot water into a clay bowl. A calming brew.
Behind her, a soft groan cut through the silence.
She spun around.
The stranger his brow damp with sweat was trying to sit up.
“Don’t,” she said firmly, rushing to his side. “You’re weak, Lie down.”
He blinked at her, dazed, as if trying to reconcile reality with something remembered only faintly. His voice was hoarse. “Where… am I?”
“Willow Moon Town. My clinic,” she answered gently, supporting him as he sank back against the pillow. “You collapsed at the moon gate.”
His breath caught. “The moon gate…” His eyes drifted toward the window, where the archway’s silhouette could be seen in the distance. A strange, unreadable emotion flickered across his features longing, maybe, or recognition.
Lian Hua dipped a cloth in cool water and pressed it to his forehead. His eyes closed for a moment, the tension easing from his face.
“What’s your name?” she asked softly.
A pause.
“Shen…” He hesitated, swallowing. “Shen Wei.”
She repeated it silently. It fit him a name with weight, steadiness, a hint of nobility even though his clothes were worn and patched.
“What brought you to Willow Moon Town?” she continued, voice steady though her pulse was not.
His gaze lowered. His fingers tightened around the blanket.
“I… was traveling. Looking for something.”
A soft breath, “or someone.”
Lian Hua’s heart gave a startled jump. But Shen Wei turned his face away before she could read the meaning in his words.
He wasn’t ready to say more. She didn’t press.
Instead, she lifted the bowl of herbs. “Drink this. It will help your fever.”
Shen Wei accepted it with both hands but his fingers brushed hers, warm and trembling. The contact lasted only a second, but something electric passed through her. Something that made her draw back as if burned.
Her cheeks warmed. “Slowly, It’s bitter.”
He drank obediently, but his eyes never left her face. Not in a hungry or eager way more like someone trying to match a memory with a living person standing before them.
“Lian Hua,” he said suddenly.
She stiffened. “How do you know my name?”
He looked startled, as if he didn’t fully understand himself. “You… told me.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You whispered it before you lost consciousness.”
A silence settled between them. Tense, fragile.
Shen Wei lowered his gaze. “It was a guess.”
“You were unconscious,” she murmured. “It didn’t sound like a guess.”
His lips parted, but no words came. He looked troubled as if he’d spoken from some place deeper than logic.
He shouldn’t know me. So why does it feel like we’ve met before?
Her chest tightened.
Outside, the wind shifted, rattling the bamboo leaves. A faint, low hum drifted through the air the same energy she’d felt at the moon gate. It prickled along her skin.
Shen Wei flinched, his hand pressing to his temple.
“Does your head hurt?” Lian Hua asked quickly.
“Just a little.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Sometimes I see… flashes. Images that don’t belong to this moment.”
Ice slid down her spine.
“What kind of images?”
He opened his eyes, unfocused.
“A woman in white,” he whispered. “Calling my name. A burning courtyard. And” his voice trembled.
“Someone reaching for my hand, but I couldn’t reach back.”
Lian Hua’s breath hitched.
Those were her dreams.
The same visions that haunted her nights.
Her fingers tightened around the bowl, heart pounding.
No, No, she couldn’t jump to conclusions. These could be coincidences. Exhaustion, fever, hallucinations.
Or fate whispering through the cracks of their souls.
She took a steadying breath. “Rest. We can talk when your fever breaks.”
He looked like he wanted to protest, but exhaustion dragged his eyelids halfway down. Lian Hua helped him lie back again.
As she adjusted the blanket, his voice reached her soft, fragile, almost afraid.
“Don’t… leave.”
The two words pierced her in a way she didn’t expect.
Gentle, needy, sincere.
A stranger shouldn’t speak to her like that.
But his tone wasn’t pleading for a healer.
It was pleading for someone he felt he already knew.
Lian Hua swallowed. “I’m here. I won’t go far.”
Shen Wei exhaled shakily and drifted into sleep.
The day passed in a quiet blur. She checked his pulse, changed his cloths. Brewed new herbs, but every time she looked at him his peaceful face, the faint crease between his brows her chest tightened.
Even asleep, he seemed burdened.
As if the weight of two lives pressed on his shoulders.
By the time the sun dipped low, painting the sky in shades of rose and gold, his fever had broken. Lian Hua sat beside him, the room dim except for the warm glow of a lantern.
Shen Wei stirred. His lashes fluttered and his gaze settled on her.
“You stayed.”
“Of course,” she said softly.
His expression gentled warmth, relief, something unspoken blooming in his eyes.
“Thank you, Lian Hua.”
She froze.
The way he said her name as if he’d said it a thousand times before,
as if it belonged on his tongue, as if it had once meant everything to him.
It sent a tremor through her.
Lian Hua looked away, hiding her face behind the curtain of her hair.
Outside, the moon rose high round, luminous, unblinking.
And beneath its glow, a new thread of fate tied itself between them.
Silent, Invisible,unbreakable.