Ever since Yu Jin awakened from that strange vision, she had not closed her eyes again.
The images she had seen remained lodged in her mind, refusing to fade.
The endless sea of fire.
The overlapping voices.
The mysterious figure dressed in black and gold.
And those words—
The Emberwing has awakened.
The dream will open once more.
Whenever Yu Jin tried to calm herself, those fragments resurfaced one after another.
They were so vivid that everything she had experienced felt less like a dream and more like something that had truly happened.
Outside the window, dawn had yet to arrive.
The sky remained dark, with only the faintest trace of gray beyond the distant mountains.
The forest was unusually quiet.
Even the wind seemed to have stopped.
No bamboo leaves rustled.
No birds called from the branches.
Within that deep stillness, the only sounds Yu Jin could hear clearly were her own breathing and the steady beating of her heart.
She sat cross-legged on a small meditation cushion beside the bed, her back straight and both hands resting on her knees.
At first glance, she appeared calm.
But her fingers had unconsciously tightened around the fabric of her robes, turning her knuckles faintly white.
Yu Jin slowly closed her eyes.
This time, she was not trying to sleep.
She wanted answers.
More precisely, she wanted to understand the mark between her brows.
Ever since the talisman burned away, that strange mark had remained there.
She could not see it with her own eyes, but she could feel it.
Quiet.
Warm.
Present.
No matter how calm it seemed, Yu Jin knew it was not truly dormant.
It felt more like a flame being forcibly suppressed—silent on the surface, yet still burning underneath.
Yu Jin steadied her breathing.
Following the cultivation formula she had learned, she slowly gathered her spiritual energy and guided it through her body.
Once.
Then again.
She carefully directed its flow upward, toward the center of her forehead, while her spiritual sense followed closely behind.
At first, nothing happened.
The mark remained completely silent.
Yu Jin frowned slightly and tried again.
She slowed her breathing, gathered her spiritual energy, and carefully guided it toward the mark once more.
Still nothing.
The mark did not resist her, but neither did it respond.
It simply remained there in silence, almost as though it were deliberately ignoring her.
Yu Jin’s brows drew together.
Fine.
She tried again.
And again.
She had no idea how many times she repeated the same process.
All she knew was that the heat between her brows gradually intensified.
Her breathing grew heavier, and a thin layer of sweat formed across her forehead.
Still, she continued.
Again, her spiritual energy approached the mark.
Nothing.
She tried once more.
Still nothing.
Yu Jin’s patience was finally beginning to wear thin.
Just as she was about to withdraw her spiritual sense, something changed.
Deep within the mark, a faint disturbance appeared.
Yu Jin immediately stopped.
It was like the surface of perfectly still water being touched by the tip of a finger.
A single ripple appeared.
Then another.
The disturbance slowly spread outward from the deepest part of the mark.
Yu Jin’s heart jumped.
It responded?
Before she could think any further, her spiritual sense was drawn deeper.
Then she saw it.
A rune.
Yu Jin’s attention immediately fixed on it.
The rune floated silently within the depths of her consciousness.
Its shape was unfamiliar, unlike anything she had ever seen before.
Every line of the symbol was formed from golden flames, each stroke burning quietly without consuming anything around it.
The fire was not violent.
It did not surge or roar.
It simply existed.
Ancient.
Silent.
Impossibly vivid.
The rune gave off a faint golden glow as it hovered within her consciousness.
It looked almost like a letter—a message that had been sealed away for far too long, waiting for the day someone would finally open it.
Yu Jin’s breathing unconsciously softened.
She focused her spiritual sense on the rune.
The instant she did, an ancient, scorching aura reached her.
Yu Jin’s heart trembled.
The sensation was difficult to describe.
It carried the intensity of fire, yet something far older was hidden beneath it—something that seemed to have crossed an immeasurable stretch of time.
A trace left behind by an ancient existence.
But what unsettled Yu Jin most was something else.
Within that ancient aura, she felt a response.
A faint resonance.
It did not come from her spiritual energy or her consciousness.
It came from somewhere deeper.
Her blood.
Yu Jin’s breathing paused.
Bloodline…?
She did not understand why the thought appeared, yet the resonance was unmistakable.
Before she could examine it more closely, something behind the golden rune gradually emerged.
Yu Jin shifted her attention toward it.
At first, there was only darkness.
Then a vague silhouette began to take shape.
Yu Jin stared at it.
Slowly, she realized what it resembled.
A hall.
An enormous hall stood somewhere beyond the golden rune.
Its exact shape was impossible to make out.
The structure remained blurred, as though hidden behind countless layers of mist.
Yet even through the haze, Yu Jin could sense its immense scale.
Tall.
Silent.
Ancient.
It stood deep within her consciousness with an inexplicable sense of pressure, as though it had existed there for countless years.
Waiting.
Its doors remained tightly closed.
Yu Jin instinctively tried to move closer.
Before her spiritual sense could reach the entrance, however, she stopped.
Something was there.
An invisible force stood between her and the hall.
There was no visible barrier and no formation she could recognize, yet she could clearly feel something preventing her from going any farther.
Yu Jin hesitated.
The longer she looked at the sealed hall, the stronger her curiosity became.
She had no idea what lay beyond those doors, but somewhere deep inside, she had the inexplicable feeling that the answers she wanted were hidden there.
The mark.
The flames.
Perhaps even the reason all of this was happening to her.
Yu Jin steadied herself and tried to move closer again.
Just a little.
Her spiritual sense carefully approached the edge of the invisible barrier.
The instant she touched it, a gentle force pushed her backward.
There was no pain and no violent rejection.
It simply refused to let her pass.
Yu Jin froze.
Then a voice suddenly sounded within her consciousness.
Soft, yet perfectly clear.
“The time has not yet come.”
Yu Jin’s heart jolted.
Before she could react, another name surfaced alongside the fading voice, as though it had been buried behind those words all along.
Zhao Shizi.
Yu Jin went still.
Zhao Shizi?
She had never heard that name before.
She was certain of it.
And yet, the moment it appeared within her consciousness, an indescribable familiarity swept through her.
It was so strong that it made her uneasy.
Yu Jin searched through her memories.
There was nothing.
She could not remember meeting anyone by that name, nor could she recall ever hearing someone mention him.
Still, the feeling of familiarity remained.
It was not the vague sensation of having heard the name somewhere before.
It went much deeper than that.
It was almost as though, somewhere within a stretch of time she could no longer remember, she truly had known this person.
Perhaps she had even met him.
Perhaps there had once been a connection between them that could not easily be severed.
Yu Jin’s heart tightened.
Then her eyes flew open.
She inhaled sharply as the dark room returned to her vision.
Her breathing was uneven.
A fine layer of sweat covered her forehead, and even the back of her robes had grown slightly damp.
Yu Jin remained seated on the meditation cushion.
For several seconds, she did not move.
Her thoughts were still fixed on that name.
Finally, she whispered into the silent room, “Who is Zhao Shizi?”
No one answered.
Outside, the mountains remained shrouded in the darkness before dawn.
Yu Jin lowered her gaze, her thoughts more tangled than before.
Instead of becoming clearer, everything seemed to be growing more mysterious.
Knock.
Knock.
Two soft knocks suddenly came from outside the door.
In the stillness before dawn, the sound was unusually clear.
“Ah—!”
Yu Jin jumped slightly, her thoughts abruptly pulled away from the mysterious name circling in her mind.
Zhao Shizi.
She had barely begun to wonder who this person was when someone came knocking at such an early hour.
“Junior Sister Yu Jin.”
A clear female voice sounded from outside.
Although the speaker seemed to be deliberately keeping her tone steady, a trace of tension remained beneath it.
Yu Jin immediately recognized the voice.
She gathered her scattered thoughts and slowly rose from the meditation cushion.
The room was still dim.
She picked up her outer robe, slipped it over her shoulders, and walked toward the door.