Night slowly descended over Qingqiu.
At the foot of the mountain, lights appeared one after another, scattered across the distant landscape.
From high above, they looked small and faint, swaying gently beneath the darkness like countless breaths of the mortal world rising and falling in silence.
The last traces of daylight faded beyond the mountains.
Then—
Dong—
A deep evening drum sounded from somewhere within Qingqiu.
The sound was low and slow, seeming to rise from the depths of the mountain itself before spreading outward through the still night.
Dong—
Another beat followed.
Its echoes rolled across the mountain forests layer by layer, lingering between the peaks before gradually fading into the distance.
The bamboo forest swayed gently in the night breeze.
Leaves brushed against one another with a soft, endless rustle, almost like countless whispers passing between the trees.
It sounded as though something were speaking quietly within the darkness, though no one could understand what was being said.
Deep within the peaceful mountain, Yu Jin sat alone in her small room.
The room was not large.
A single lamp burned quietly beside her, casting a faint yellow glow across the paper-covered windows.
Its flame remained mostly still.
Every now and then, however, the night breeze slipped through an unseen gap and caused it to flicker.
Whenever it did, Yu Jin’s shadow stretched across the wall behind her and swayed gently with the shifting light.
The room was silent.
Yu Jin lowered her gaze.
After a moment, she reached into her robes and slowly took out the talisman.
It was the same talisman the mysterious man had given her earlier that day.
Yu Jin placed it carefully beneath the lamplight.
Only now did she finally have the chance to examine it properly.
The talisman paper was darker than ordinary paper, and its edges curled slightly inward.
Faint marks covered the surface, almost as though it had once endured both fire and wind.
Despite its aged appearance, however, it was not damaged.
Under the warm glow of the lamp, the cinnabar patterns drawn across its surface looked subtly different from what she had noticed earlier.
Yu Jin’s eyes narrowed.
A faint golden light shimmered within the red markings.
It was so faint that she initially wondered whether it was merely the reflection of the lamp.
But after watching for several moments, she realized that the light was moving.
Tiny traces of golden radiance flowed through the cinnabar patterns.
Their movements followed no clear rhythm.
Sometimes they appeared, and sometimes they vanished, wandering through the lines like threads of light hidden beneath the surface of the paper.
They were quiet and irregular, yet strangely alive.
Yu Jin’s breathing gradually slowed.
She carefully supported the talisman with her fingertips, her movements unusually gentle and carrying a trace of hesitation.
This talisman was the most tangible thing she had encountered since waking from that dream.
Everything else had been impossible to grasp.
The endless corridor.
The black vortex.
The golden light.
The figures she had seen.
Even now, those images remained vivid in her memory.
But memories were still only memories, and dreams were still dreams.
There was nothing she could touch.
Nothing she could use to prove that any of it had been real.
Except this.
Yu Jin looked down at the talisman resting in her hands.
It felt almost like a fragment of flame brought back from a dream—silent and real, yet somehow not belonging to reality.
Her gaze gradually deepened.
She studied the patterns covering the talisman as though she might see through the thin layer of paper and discover what was hidden inside.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
The lamp continued to burn, while the bamboo leaves rustled quietly outside.
Then Yu Jin’s eyes suddenly sharpened.
A thin thread of golden light slowly emerged from the center of the talisman.
It was incredibly fine, almost as thin as a strand of hair.
At first, it hovered just above the surface of the paper.
Then it began to rise, twisting slowly and silently through the air.
Yu Jin held her breath.
She did not move, keeping her eyes fixed on the golden thread as it drifted closer.
Closer still— until it reached her fingertips.
Yu Jin’s fingers stiffened slightly.
Before she could react, the light curled around one of them.
Once.
Then it slipped downward and entered her palm.
The golden thread circled slowly over her skin, leaving no mark and causing no pain.
It merely continued to move as though it were searching for something.
Yu Jin remained completely still.
Then the golden light rose again.
Her pupils contracted.
It floated away from her palm and moved slowly upward, approaching her face.
Approaching the space between her brows.
Yu Jin barely had time to react before the golden thread touched her forehead and disappeared.
For half a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—
BOOM!
A wave of scorching heat exploded through her spiritual consciousness.
Yu Jin’s entire body jerked violently, and her eyes flew open.
It was not the sensation of ordinary fire burning against her skin.
There were no flames touching her body and no heat coming from outside.
From somewhere she could not reach.
Somewhere that had remained silent until this exact moment.
The heat surged outward, fierce and overwhelming.
Yu Jin’s breathing instantly became unsteady.
It felt as though something buried deep inside her had suddenly been struck awake—something that had been sleeping for an unimaginably long time.
Now it was being forcibly awakened.
Heat tore through her consciousness, followed by a violent tremor.
Then came the sensation of something being ripped apart.
Yu Jin’s fingers tightened instinctively around the talisman.
Before she could make a sound, the world before her shattered.
The lamp disappeared.
The warm light vanished.
The paper-covered windows and the swaying shadows upon the wall were gone.
Even the soft rustling of the bamboo forest outside disappeared in an instant.
Everything collapsed.
And in its place was fire.
Endless fire.
Flames surged across her entire field of vision, pouring in from every direction.
They spread like an enormous burning net before closing around her all at once.
Yu Jin’s eyes widened.
She did not even have time to cry out before the flames engulfed her.
Then something seized her consciousness.
An irresistible force dragged at her mind before she could react.
Yu Jin felt herself falling.
Not physically, but somewhere far deeper.
Her consciousness was being forcibly pulled away from the room, away from Qingqiu, and away from everything familiar.
She continued falling, deeper and deeper, until the final trace of reality disappeared.
In the next instant, Yu Jin’s consciousness plunged into a completely unfamiliar space.
Almost at the same moment, the talisman still resting in her palm trembled.
Once.
The cinnabar patterns across its surface suddenly lit up, and a faint glow traveled slowly along the markings.
Then a tiny flame appeared.
It burned quietly upon one of the talisman lines.
There was no violent burst of fire and no sudden explosion.
The flame simply spread, following the cinnabar markings across the dark paper.
Slowly.
Silently.
Within moments, the edges of the talisman curled inward.
The paper blackened, then began to crumble.
The flame continued until the final fragment disappeared.
Just like that, the talisman burned away completely in Yu Jin’s palm.
All that remained was a small scattering of ash, still carrying the faintest trace of warmth.