Bai Yue walked until her legs were sore.

The jungle stretched endlessly in every direction, jade and emerald and the deep green of things that had never known the touch of a modern world. Bai Yue’s bare feet sank into the damp earth with each step. Her fur wrap caught on low branches. Her hair, loose and tangled, kept snagging on thorns.

She didn’t care.

"TIĀN-MÌNG!"

Her voice cracked through the canopy. The jungle swallowed the sound and gave nothing back.

"Take me back! What is this?! WHAT IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE?!"

Nothing. Only the rustle of leaves.

She kept walking.

~

Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time moved strangely here, stretched and compressed like old leather. The sun hadn’t shifted. The shadows hadn’t grown. She was trapped in an eternal afternoon, and every path looked exactly like the last.

Thousand Fang, she thought. Find Thousand Fang. Someone will be there. Someone has to be there.

The trees began to look familiar. Not because she recognized them, but because she had passed them before. Twice. Three times. The same crooked branch. The same moss-covered stone. She was circling.

"Great," she muttered. "Just great. I survived vultures and hydras and a jealous dragon princess, and now I’m going to die of starvation in a forest that won’t let me leave."

She kept walking anyway.

The figure appeared without warning.

One moment the path ahead was empty. The next, a massive silhouette stood between the trees, human-shaped but broader than any human had the right to be. Amber eyes caught what little light filtered through the canopy.

Bai Yue stopped breathing.

Mo Xiao.

She knew that face. The father of the triplets. The first person to believe in her!

She ran.

"MO XIAO!"

She slammed into his chest before he could react, her arms wrapping around his torso, her face pressing into his chest.

"Thank goodness," she sobbed into his chest. "Thank goodness, you’re here, you’re real, I thought I was going crazy—"

He caught her shoulders.

Pushed her back.

His amber eyes were wide, not with recognition, but with confusion. Mo Xiao was very confused, who was this woman that had randomly burst out of nowhere to hug him?

"Who..." His voice was rough. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Bai Yue froze, praying she misheard what he said.

"What do you mean, Mo Xiao? I’m Bai Yue. You know me, we’re friends."

His brow furrowed. "I don’t know any Bai Yue."

"No, you—" She laughed, a hollow, desperate sound. "You do. You know me. We’ve known each other for years. Your triplets, Miao Miao, A-Li, Xiao Hei. I helped raise them. I fought vultures with them. I—"

Mo Xiao’s ears flattened against his head. That was the most absurd thing he had heard in a very long time.

"I don’t have triplets," he said slowly, cocking a brow. "I’ve never had cubs."

Bai Yue felt like fainting. This couldn’t be happening.

"What?"

"You heard me. I am not mated," he continued, still watching her with that equal parts wary and assessing gaze. "I have no children. And I have never seen you before in my life."

Bai Yue stared at him.

Her brain refused to process what he was saying. Of course he had children. Miao Miao was the loudest cub in the territory. A-Li was always building things. Xiao Hei followed his brother everywhere like a shadow. They were Rui Xue’s friends!

"Are you hungry?"

The question came out of nowhere. Mo Xiao’s expression had shifted from wary to......something else. Not pity, exactly. It was almost like he was used to seeing random strangers that hugged him without warning.

"I..." She blinked. "What?"

"You have been walking in circles for hours," he said. "I’ve been watching you. You’re lost. You’re confused. And you haven’t eaten. Are you hungry?"

Her stomach chose that moment to growl. Loudly. The sound echoed off the trees like a dying animal.

Mo Xiao’s lips twitched.

"Come," he said. "Thousand Fang isn’t far."

~

There was something wrong with Thousand Fang was wrong.

Bai Yue stood at the edge of the clearing, her hands trembling at her sides, and tried to understand what she was seeing. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The huts were the same. The central fire pit was in the same place. The Elder’s meeting platform hadn’t moved an inch.

But the people......

Elder Zhao was there, older than she remembered, leaning on a staff that hadn’t been carved yet in her timeline. A few beastmen she recognized, a crane, a boar, the stoic wolf who never spoke, sat around the fire, eating, talking, living.

But there were no cubs.

No Miao Miao. No A-Li. No Xiao Hei.

No snake twins.

No Tao Zi.

No one looked at her with recognition. No one waved. No one called her "cursed female" or "Mama" or anything at all.

Mo Xiao led her to an empty spot near the fire and handed her a bowl of stew. It smelled good. Her stomach clenched with hunger.

"Sit," he said. "Eat. Then you can tell me where you’re from."

She sat without question.

She ate.

The stew was different from what she remembered. Less spice. Less of the wild herbs Yàn Shū used to forage. It tasted like survival, not like home.

~

The night came slowly. The fire burned down to embers. The beastmen drifted away to their huts one by one until only Bai Yue remained, curled on a log, staring into the dying light.

Mo Xiao had left her alone after she finished eating. He hadn’t asked more questions. He’d just......watched her. From a distance. Like he was giving her space to decide what to say.

She appreciated that, and also hated it. Because she didn’t have answers.

Where am I? she thought. When am I?

The timeline was different. That was the only explanation that made sense. She had fallen into the river and emerged somewhere else, somewhen else, where her history hadn’t happened yet. Where the children weren’t born. Where the husbands didn’t know her.

Where she was nobody.

A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another. She wiped them away angrily.

"I’m not crying," she whispered to the fire. "I’m not. I’m just... frustrated. There’s a difference."

The fire didn’t answer.

Her heart clenched in pain as the gravity of her situation dawned on her.

Gone.

All of it, gone. Her family. Everything.

She pressed her palms to her eyes and let the tears come.

She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. Until her throat was raw and her eyes were swollen and her chest ached with the effort of breathing. The fire had died completely. The only light came from the twin moons overhead, silver and cold.

She curled up on the log, pulled her knees to her chest, and closed her eyes.

Sleep came slowly. When it finally pulled her under, she dreamed of nothing. Just darkness. Just silence.

Just the crushing weight of being utterly, completely alone.