A fish-belly white spread across the horizon. Jin Si slithered down the mountain with his claws stepping over branches, each footfall shaking loose dead leaves that rustled all along his path.
He slipped into the cave, settled into a comfortable position, and let his Primordial Spirit leave his body and glide down into the Medicine King Temple.
Drawing water, gathering dry firewood from the woodpile, fetching incense from the storeroom-the quiet morning was no different from any other, as though last night's flames had been nothing but an autumn-night dream. It was late autumn, and the water in the shallow well had dropped considerably, making drawing water more troublesome than usual.
Jin Si knelt at the edge of the well and lowered the bucket into it with his right hand.
The water reflected him and the patch of sky framed by the well's mouth overhead. He glanced at himself, rocked the bucket twice to fill it, then hauled it up, leaving behind the shattered sky in the well.
Once his morning chores were finished, he picked up his cloth bag and climbed over the wall.
The fields were bare, with nothing left but neat rows of short crop stubble. The wild mugwort and dry grass along both sides of the irrigation ditch had also been cut clean, exposing damp black soil and the water flowing along the bottom. The entire countryside lay open and desolate.
He yawned and vaulted over the long-neglected city wall.
His feet had barely touched a rooftop when a powerful scorched smell hit him in the face, heavy and complicated.
The area around Opera Garden was in chaos. Through Thermal Sensing, he saw crowds packing the streets and alleys.
After a moment's thought, he changed direction and ran toward that blackened stretch, wanting to see just