On a lonely hill rarely touched by human footsteps. There stood a solitary maple tree, tall and unmoving, like a sentinel watching over the passage of time. Its leaves were always red, forever crimson, defying the laws of the seasons.
Winter's frost, spring's bloom, summer's warmth. It mattered not. The maple remained red as if caught in an eternal autumn.
The people spoke of it in a hush.
They said a spirit lived within the tree—bound to its roots.
But for Wei Jun's family, who carried within them the knowledge of forgotten pacts and the weight of unseen realms, spoke of something far older—deeper than mere ghostly hauntings.
They spoke of a curse.
But for Wei Jun, that crimson maple was neither myth nor superstition. It was something far more intimate—far more terrifying.
It began with the dreams.
Every night, without fail, he would find himself walking the hazy corridors of a dream he could never fully awaken from. The air thick with the scent of iron and ash. And always—there stood a figure at the edge of his vision.
A man clad in battle-worn armor as if pulled from the annals of some forgotten dynasty. His hair was long, jet black, a curtain partially hiding the sharp lines of his pale, gaunt face. But his eyes burned with something beyond time; that were desperate—bore a storm of frustration and longing as if he had waited lifetimes for ... someone—that never came.
And without fail, the man's voice would cut through the silence, low and urgent, echoing deep down in Wei Jun's chest like a distant tolling bell:
"Return this body to me."
"I have a promise left unfulfilled."
"Someone is still waiting for me."
Always the same words—same hollow ache gnawing at his soul when he jolted awake, chest heaving, cold sweat running down his skin. His fingers would tremble slightly as he ran them through his hair, his reflection in the mirror unfamiliar, foreign—as if the face staring back at him belonged to someone else entirely.
A stranger sharing his flesh.
That day, as if drawn by invisible strings, his feet carried him up the winding path to the hill. He hadn't planned to go there. Not even thought about it. Yet there he was, standing before the ancient maple tree. Its scarlet leaves cascading gently like whispers in the wind. They fell, and fell all over again—but never seemed to dwindle, as though the tree bled an endless river of red.
Up close, the tree felt … alive.
It breathed.
It pulsed.
He could feel it beneath his breath; a rhythm that didn't quite match the beat of his own heart; a deeper pulse—rooted into the earth like veins beneath skin. He half expected to hear the thrum if he pressed his ear to its bark.
And then he saw him.
At first, he thought it was a trick of the light, a mirage conjured by his restless nights. But no—there, standing beneath the canopy of crimson leaves, was a man draped in white. So still, so serene, he seemed untouched by the world. His features were carved with an delicate beauty and sharp all at once—like porcelain shaped by divine hands. Skin pale as snow, dark, fathomless.
Eyes that looked at him as if they knew him.
As if they had been waiting long enough.
The moment their gazes met, something inside Wei Jun shifted. The wind stilled. The world narrowed until there was nothing left but the space between them.
And then, the man smiled.
Soft. Familiar. Tragic.
"Finally, you're back," he whispered, voice soft, threaded with something Wei Jun couldn't name.
But instantly, Wei Jun understood.
That smile wasn't for him. Not for who he was now.
Surely, it was for someone else.
Someone who lived inside him.
Someone whose shadow reached out from a forgotten past, clawing to reclaim what was his.
Wei Jun stood frozen. His heart pounding as the realization settled heavy in his bones.
He wasn't just himself.
He was the vessel for another's unfinished fate.
And beneath the watchful gaze of the crimson leaves, he felt the pull of that long-held fate tightening around him, like roots entwining his soul.