When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t remember anything.

She knew vaguely that she’d been dreaming about something sad – there were tears in the corners of her eyes and she could feel a strange, choked up sensation at the back of her throat. How fitting it was, she realized, because even the last, blurry image of a silhouette in her mind’s eye was slipping away. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

For him.

For who?

Her mind was empty and blank but not peaceful. It was like the momentary panic from forgetting the answer to a question on an exam, because she’d stayed up too late to study the night before. But even as the panic subsided, the answers didn’t come. Where was she? She didn’t know. How did she get there? She couldn’t remember. What had she been doing earlier, yesterday, last year –

Her memories really were gone.

She squinted up at the sunlight between the shadows cast by the branches of the tree she sat beneath. Her eyes followed the leaves swaying lazily in the wind, and she wondered why she could easily put a name to anything, everything, but she still couldn’t remember anything to do with herself.

She took comfort in the fact that there must’ve been memories that belonged to her, at some point, at some time, if she was able to think like this. But right now, if even her own name escaped her, then who really was she?

Faint footsteps startled her out of her reverie and she peered around the tree to see – first, the wide expanse of grass and forest, and then – the hooded, robed figure making its way through the foliage towards her. She sat back down quietly against the tree trunk and waited as footsteps grew louder still, until they stopped, just before the tree. She held her breath.

“Wenxing. Huayin. I hope you are doing well.”

She knew instinctively that this person was not addressing her, and something in her heart fluttered at the sound of the unfamiliar names. Perhaps not all hope for her memories were lost.

The sharp scent of burning paper and the sweet, smoky fragrance of incense filled the air.

“Autumn arrived early this year,” the voice continued, quiet and monotonous, “Perhaps we aren’t fated to see warm weather for long. Granny Qiu sends her regards.”

There was a deep sigh.

“And another year has passed since the two of you have left us.”

A cold chill went down her back. She’d deduced that the person had come to visit someone’s grave, but it felt like she was eavesdropping on something private now.

She didn’t understand why, but she had to leave immediately.

She scrambled to her feet, shooting a darting glance at the hooded, bowed figure on the other side before stepping back from the tree, and it all happened so suddenly, all she could register was a cracking tree branch under her bare feet, stumbling backwards –

Breath caught in her throat –

The world a blur –

And as her vision flickered, she heard the voice from before cry out something unintelligible, saw a blur of motion in the corner, and then –

Nothing.

--

There was a great buzz among the martial arts sects in the jianghu [1] that Granny Qiu had taken in another mouth to feed when resources were already scarce here. So the rumour went that one of her apprentices had been dutifully visiting the grave of the late Crown Prince on the outskirts of the countryside when he thought he’d encountered the ghost of Granny Qiu’s granddaughter sleeping underneath the sacred Hino tree.

It turned out that she was in the flesh (and most certainly not the late granddaughter), but the boy brought her back anyways. And to the shock and horror of everyone in the community, Granny Qiu took the girl in without a second thought.

As the chief of the Three Rivers Alliance, Qiu Yumin’s authority was not to be questioned, but the members protested quietly. They were not a religious charity group – they were a sect of trained fighters! The other factions were calling them a sect of misfits now, a group that could barely hold itself together and yet, their leader had adopted some random kid just because she reminded her of her dead granddaughter.

But that was the morning gossip. And as harsh as it was, it had dissipated almost completely by afternoon by the timely arrival of the second prince.