It waited until the three of them had slipped back into the hidden alcove, until Xiao Qing had closed the panel and the faint scent of old paper wrapped around them like a shroud. Only then did the Spirit Song—wounded but relentless—turn its gaze inward.
Not to comfort.
To **remember**.
Lin Feng gasped, spine arching as if struck by lightning. His hands flew to his temples. The silver vein under his eye ignited with searing white light, forcing the erased memories to pour into him like molten silver poured into an open wound.
The Devour thread had not simply silenced Scholar Wei.
It had **taken** the memories into Lin Feng's own blood as partial echo—corrupted, fragmented, but vivid enough to drown him.
He saw them.
He **lived** them.
---
Scholar Wei, sixty-three years old, sat alone in the restricted wing at the exact moment Yue Li and Lin Feng approached.
In his lap lay a half-finished letter written in careful, elegant script:
*My dearest Little Plum,*
*Grandfather will be home before the next full moon. I saved the honey-glazed pastries you like—the ones with the sesame seeds on top. The ones your mother says are too sweet but you always steal when she isn't looking.*
*Work has been heavy lately. The clan elders are restless. Something is stirring with the gates again. But do not worry. Grandfather is only copying old scrolls. Nothing dangerous.*
*Tell your little brother the wooden sword I promised is almost finished. I carved the handle with the cloud pattern you drew last summer. It's a bit crooked, but it's made with love.*
*Stay safe. Eat your vegetables. Remember to sing the lullaby Grandmother taught you when the night feels too big.*
*With all my heart,*
*Grandpa Wei*
He had smiled while writing the last line—small, private, the kind of smile that only grandparents wear when thinking of sticky fingers and bedtime stories.
Then the door had opened.
Yue Li had entered.
Lin Feng had followed.
And the thread had come.
---
Lin Feng convulsed on the floor of the alcove.
He tasted the honey-glazed pastry Wei had saved—sweet, crumbly, wrapped in oil paper inside his sleeve. He felt the ache in the old man's wrists from hours of copying. He heard the faint melody Wei had been humming under his breath: the same lullaby Xiao Qing was singing now, but slower, warmer, layered with decades of bedtime repetitions.
He saw the crooked wooden sword—half-carved, resting on the workbench in Wei's tiny outer residence. A child's laughter echoed in the memory—two small voices arguing over who would get to swing it first.
He felt the quiet pride when Wei sealed the letter with a drop of cheap wax.
He felt the man's gentle anticipation of walking home tonight, of seeing Little Plum's face light up, of telling his wife the clan gossip while they shared weak tea.
And then—
The thread.
The silence.
The erasure.
Lin Feng screamed.
Not the raw animal sound from before.
This was worse.
This was the scream of a man drowning in someone else's stolen tomorrow.
"I took his grandchildren's bedtime," he gasped, clawing at his own chest as if he could rip the memories out. "I took the crooked sword. I took the honey pastries. I took the letter he was writing with shaking hands because his fingers are old and the ink keeps smudging. He was going home tonight. He was going to smile at them. And I—**I**—made him forget the last six hours of his life. He'll wake up confused. He'll think he fell asleep at his desk. He'll never know why the letter is unfinished. Why the pastries are still in his sleeve. Why he feels… empty."
His body curled into a tight ball.
Tears poured freely, mixing with snot and saliva as he pressed his face into the floorboards.
"I can taste the sesame seeds. I can hear the children laughing. I can feel how much he loves them. And I stole that love's expression. I stole six hours of a good man's life because the system told me it was necessary. Because I was afraid."
Yue Li wrapped herself around him from behind again—chest to his back, arms crushing him close.
Xiao Qing crawled out of the compartment entirely this time. She pressed her small body against his front, face buried in his chest, humming desperately through her own tears.
The silver vein burned white-hot.
The Spirit Song forced the memories deeper—not to punish, but to **etch**.
Lin Feng sobbed harder.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa Wei. I'm so sorry. Your Little Plum will wait for a letter that never comes the same way. Your wife will ask why you look so tired and you won't have the words. Because I took them. I took your words."
His voice broke into wet, heaving gasps.
"I keep telling myself I had no choice. But I did. I could have risked it. I could have veiled us differently. I could have… I could have been braver. Instead I was expedient. And now an old man who carves wooden swords for his grandchildren will go home tonight carrying a hole he can't name."
The silver light flared brighter—illuminating the alcove in harsh, unforgiving radiance.
For one terrible moment, Lin Feng saw Scholar Wei's face clearly in his mind: kind eyes behind cracked spectacles, ink-stained fingers, the faint smell of cheap incense and old books.
The man had never harmed anyone.
And Lin Feng had harmed him anyway.
The regret was no longer an emotion.
It was a living thing—coiling in his gut, clawing up his throat, filling his mouth with the taste of stolen honey, unfinished letters, and a crooked wooden sword that might never be completed.
He screamed again—muffled against Xiao Qing's small shoulder.
And the song answered.
Not with healing.
With shared grief.
A single, perfect, heartbroken note rose from Lin Feng's throat—raw, bleeding, beautiful in its agony.
It joined Xiao Qing's trembling hum.
It wrapped around Yue Li's silent tears.
And in that moment, the three of them became something the system had never planned for:
A singer who refused to forget the cost.
A sword who refused to let him carry it alone.
A healer who sang through the breaking.
The memories of Scholar Wei's erased hours settled into Lin Feng's soul like shards of glass.
They would not dissolve.
They would not be devoured.
They would cut him.
Every single day.
Until he either learned how to live with the cuts…
…or the cuts finally carved the last of his humanity away.