"I thought I'd stopped being someone who cared."
Ye Han didn't speak much anymore.
He had no one to speak to and no reason to try.
The people of Qingye Town passed him by without much thought. A few still nodded when he brought in mended tools or kept the fence line clear. The guard at the north gate sometimes asked how the wind was. He never answered.
Most assumed he was just another unawakened drifter who had quietly settled along the outer fields.
They weren't wrong. Not anymore.
He lived in a small structure half-covered in moss and prayer tags, tucked just past the old irrigation trench. The boards creaked. The tools leaned against each other like tired men. Everything smelled faintly of oil, ash, and rain.
This morning, the whetstone rasped against the edge of a hoe that didn't need sharpening.
He knew.
He just… kept going.
It was the rhythm that mattered.
The noise. The weight of repetition.
The way it gave the day shape.
He rewrapped the handle, set the hoe by the door, sharpened enough, even if it wasn't dull. The sunlight was pale—filtered through fog and dungeon haze. There hadn't been a major surge in months, but no one relaxed anymore. Even low-level beasts had begun roaming closer, sniffing at the farm boundaries, pawing at the fence posts like they remembered something.
Ye Han pulled his coat over his shoulders and stepped outside.
He was halfway through stacking reclaimed lumber when he heard it.
Not a scream.
Not a shout.
A cry.
Small. Thin.
Too tired to beg, too soft to carry far.
He froze.
Not because he recognized it.
But because he didn't.
For a long, stretched second, he stood perfectly still.
The wind moved. The fog breathed.
And then he turned toward the sound.
The cry came again—closer now. Not in the forest. Not in the town.
Just over the rise, near the boundary stone.
He moved. Not fast. Not slow. Just… forward.
She was curled beneath a broken cart frame, knees drawn to her chest, one sandal missing. Her face was streaked with dirt and dried blood. Her hair clung to her forehead in damp, uneven strands.
The cart looked like it had taken a direct hit—wood blackened, one wheel shattered. A cloth charm lay trampled near the edge, its red thread frayed and scorched. A satchel was overturned in the grass, spilling faded markers and a cracked wooden toy.
She didn't see him at first.
She just kept crying.
Quietly. Like someone afraid of remembering how.
Ye Han crouched beside the cart and looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said, not loudly, "You're not dead."
She blinked at him. Slowly. Like someone waking up inside a nightmare.
He held out his hand.
She stared at it. Then, after several seconds, she reached forward—not with her fingers, but with her forehead, pressing it against his palm as if that alone made her real.
And then something shifted.
Not in the world. Not in the air.
In him.
[Warden's Ledger – System Initialization Detected.]
Page 1 Created.
Entry: "Unspoken Child"
Status: Stabilized
Duration: 00:00:03
Aura Link: Forming...
Ye Han didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
The words hovered in the space just above his thoughts—silent, floating, real.
He pulled the girl into his arms.
She trembled once, then went still. Not because she trusted him.
But because something in her had already gone quiet.
A few seconds later, her eyelids fluttered.
Then—
"She's scared," the girl whispered, not to him but to the air.
"She doesn't want to be left again."
"But she thinks if she asks, you'll go away."
Ye Han stiffened.
But the girl's eyes stayed closed.
And the voice that came out of her didn't sound like a child's.
He looked down.
"…What's your name?"
No answer.
So he said, softer than before, "Alright. Yaya, then. Until you say otherwise."
She didn't respond. But her hand clutched his coat.
And the page, still glowing somewhere behind his eyes, slowly settled into silence.
[Warden's Ledger – Page 1 Active]
Entry: "Yaya"
Status: Held
First Echo Logged.
And Ye Han, for the first time in years, had something to write down again.