Arc of Forgotten Fragments (Floor 2)
Elia opened her eyes, but not like someone waking up. It was like someone returning, dragged to the surface from the bottom of a dark, icy lake she never wanted to touch. The memory of the abyss was a hollow peace, a silence now broken by the violent imposition of consciousness.
The light she found was not from the sky nor her night lamp. It was golden, dim, and profoundly sad. It came from a paper lantern hanging in the center of a room that seemed torn from another time. The walls were rice paper screens, some torn with the delicacy of an ancient wound, revealing the darkness of the wood behind them. The bed, beneath her, was made of dark, heavy wood, carved with motifs of clouds and dragons coiling around the canopy's columns.
The air was a museum of scents. It smelled of sandalwood—the incense already reduced to cold ashes—of bitter herbs and ointments, the trace of forgotten medicine in a ceramic bowl on a low table. And above all, it smelled of dust and sealed wood: the unmistakable aroma of family secrets that refuse to air out.
She wasn't in her own body.
She knew it before she even tried to move, before she even blinked. It was a visceral certainty, a knowledge that coursed through her nerves like an electric shock. Something in the architecture of her spine felt strange, the way her shoulder blades rested against the silk was foreign.
She took a breath and felt the weight of a breath that wasn't hers; her chest expanded with a slower, denser cadence, as if her lungs were accustomed to a calmness she didn't possess. Her heart, down there, in the cage of those unfamiliar ribs, beat with a deep, serene rhythm that brutally contrasted with the panic beginning to bloom in her mind.
Then she saw her, in the opaque reflection of the screen. A young woman with skin pale as marble, with gray eyes veiled in distant melancholy, long, reddish hair falling like a waterfall of extinguished fire over her shoulders. She wore an elegantly cut black dress, with dark lace details that rose to her neck. She had the aristocratic bearing she shared with Ho Yiran, but in her, everything seemed more contained, more fragile, as if her existence had been woven with threads of reserve and resignation.
It was someone else. But not just anyone.
She was in the body of Ho Siyu, Ho Yiran's younger sister.
She involuntarily felt that this was the sister who had always been her opposite: calm to Ho Yiran's tempest, order to her chaos.
A whimper of terror struggled to escape her throat. She wanted to scream her own name, to anchor herself to her identity. She moved her lips, forced the air, but the voice that emerged in the oppressive silence of the room was not her choked scream. It was a firm, melodic, and terribly serene whisper. Ho Siyu's voice. The sound, so foreign yet so familiar, hit her with the force of a slap.
And then, just when she thought reality couldn't fracture further, the screen appeared.
It didn't come from nowhere. It simply appeared before her eyes.
SCENARIO INITIATED – FLOOR 2Main Mission: Change the course of Ho Yiran's history. Original Outcome: Used as a genetic vessel – Death without legacy. Compassion Mission (optional): Discover the child's name before the Final Floor. Warning: Events have already begun. You cannot prevent the tragedy, but you can rewrite it. Reward: Unlocks "Narrative Mimicry." Restriction: You cannot leave Ho Siyu's body until the story is satisfactorily concluded.
The screen faded like ash in the air.
Elia—or Ho Siyu—didn't blink. She didn't even tremble. But inside, a torrent of thoughts collided violently.
"How necessary was it to change the story for them to choose me?" "Does the tower have the ability to change the future?"
Her thoughts swirled when a soft voice filtered through the door:
"Miss Siyu… Are you alright?"
It was a maid. A memory that wasn't hers surfaced with painful clarity, giving her a name and a face. Meyun. A twenty-year-old employee who had worked for the Ho family since childhood. The memory informed her that Ho Yiran had always considered her more than a servant, almost a sister. The three of them—Yiran, Siyu herself, and Meyun—had grown up together within those walls, bound by a tie strengthened by Meyun's rare affinity with the fire attribute.
Elia felt a pang of something that wasn't hers, a mixture of affection and concern emerging from Siyu's body. Meyun's affinity with fire… a spark of that foreign memory gave her an idea.
"Meyun…" Siyu's voice, so calm, felt strange even to her. "Please, come in."
The paper door slid open with a whisper, revealing Meyun's figure. Her eyes, despite her youth, carried the burden of unspoken worries. Seeing Siyu sitting up, her face visibly relaxed.
"Miss, I was worried when you didn't answer. Do you need anything? Another bowl of lotus infusion?"
Ho Siyu slowly shook her head, her movements slower than she was accustomed to. She had to think, and quickly. The screen's warning echoed: Events have already begun. You cannot prevent the tragedy, but you can rewrite it.
"What did that mean? And how could a simple maid help her understand the mysteries of Ho Yiran and the terrible fate that awaited her?"
The mission also intrigued her.
"A child? Whose? And why was it so important to discover their name?"
The tower didn't beat around the bush, but its revelations were cryptic.
"Meyun," Elia began, trying to imitate Siyu's serenity, focusing on the memory of the bond between them. "I require you to tell me about… about my sister. About Ho Yiran. How is she now?"
Meyun blinked, a shadow of confusion crossing her face. It was a strange request, given the Ho sisters' usual closeness.
"Miss Yiran? Is there something worrying you, Miss Siyu? She… she's fine. Busy with her studies and her meetings… as always."
Elia felt a wave of frustration. She required more than that. She had to be subtle.
"It's not worry, Meyun," she said, using the sweet, slightly melancholic tone that Siyu's body offered her. "It's just that… sometimes I feel like I don't fully understand her. Her… her brilliance is so intense that it sometimes creates distance. I'd like to understand her better. Her… her aspirations."
Meyun lowered her gaze, her fingers playing with the edge of her simple dress. The truth she was holding back was evident in the tension of her shoulders.
"Miss Yiran… she has an indomitable spirit, Miss Siyu. She dreams of breaking the chains that bind us. Of the Ho house being not just ancient shadows, but a beacon in the darkness. She speaks of changing the world, not just living in it."
That was more than Elia expected. "Breaking the chains." "Changing the world." There was an ambition beyond the personal in Yiran, something grand and, perhaps, dangerous.
"Chains?" Elia asked, forcing an expression of innocent curiosity onto Siyu's face. "What chains, Meyun?"
Meyun took a step closer, her voice barely a murmur.
"Those of destiny, Miss. Those that dictate we must follow a predetermined path, just because it has always been so. She believes that true power does not reside in blood or ancestral rites, but in will and knowledge. That's why… that's why she seeks those… fragments."
The word hit Elia like a lightning bolt. Fragments.
"Fragments?" Elia repeated, feeling a chill that wasn't from the cold of the room. "What fragments, Meyun?"
Meyun hesitated, her eyes searching for the door, as if she feared being overheard.
"They are stories, Miss Siyu. Ancient stories that were lost. Fragments of wisdom that, they say, grant immense power to whoever gathers them. Miss Yiran is convinced that they are the key to… to freedom. To free the Ho family from a… a silent curse."
A curse. A genetic vessel. Fragments. The picture was slowly and terribly coming together.
"And what does all this have to do with… with what might happen to Yiran?" Elia pushed, her heart beating with Siyu's calm rhythm, but her mind boiling.
Meyun shook her head, her face pale.
"I don't know, Miss Siyu. But Miss Yiran has become… more reserved. Her eyes have a feverish glint when she speaks of this. And her grandfather… Master Ho… he has been watching her closely. He seems worried."
Elia assimilated the information. The grandfather. The Patriarch. The figure of authority. And the fragments.
"Do you know where Yiran searches for these fragments, Meyun? Or what they look like?" Elia asked, trying to keep Siyu's voice as casual as possible.
Meyun frowned.
"Not exactly, Miss. She is very careful. But I know she sometimes locks herself in the ancestral library, or goes out to the secret garden where the moon lotus flowers grow. And… and once I heard her talking to Master Lin, the elderly scribe, about some forbidden scrolls. She said they were… hidden in plain sight."
Hidden in plain sight. That was a concrete clue. Elia felt a glimmer of hope. There might be a way.
"Thank you, Meyun," Elia said, Siyu's voice resonating with genuine gratitude. The maid bowed, relieved to have fulfilled her role.
As Meyun withdrew, Elia felt the weight of the mission. She was trapped in a foreign body, in a foreign time, with a destiny to rewrite. The first step was to understand Ho Yiran, her motivations, and those "forgotten fragments" that had set her on the path to tragedy.
The ancestral library and the secret garden. Two places to start.