Chapter 2: She Never Left

Mornings in Qiyun were always touched by a certain indistinct chill, as though the misty air was reluctant to loosen its grip even after the sun had risen. The streets glistened with the residue of last night's rain, reflecting the faded storefronts and trembling leaves like half-remembered dreams. Lately, the town had grown quieter still. No one could pinpoint when the change began—but something had shifted.

Vendors spoke in hushed tones. Schoolchildren no longer took the shortcut past the old theater on their way home. It was as if the entire town was holding its breath, listening for something no one dared name.

Detective Li Fang arrived at the station before sunrise. The desk before him was littered with crumbling files he’d salvaged from the archives the night before. His eyes were rimmed with exhaustion, the kind only sleepless curiosity could breed.

At the center of it all was a single photograph—Lin Yun, caught in monochrome stillness, her youthful features frozen in time. His gaze kept drifting to the crimson umbrella barely visible in the background of the image. Had she really once owned it? Or was someone reconstructing fragments of her memory for reasons still unknown?

A knock broke his concentration.

“Detective Li?” came a quiet voice.

It was Meng Xin, the station’s soft-spoken intern. She was bookish and pale, always with a stack of papers cradled in her arms. This morning was no different.

“The archives team just sent over a supplemental report,” she said, handing him a bundle of yellowed documents. “More details on the 1975 theater fire.”

Li Fang began scanning the pages quickly, but then his eyes froze on one particular line.

“Lin Yun’s body… was found backstage?” he asked.

Meng Xin nodded. “Yes. Part of the stage had collapsed. Her remains were buried under debris near a shattered mirror. The report also notes there were traces of blood on the glass.”

“A mirror?” Li Fang echoed.

“There’s more,” Meng Xin said, hesitating. “There was a fragment of black silk fabric wedged between her fingers. It didn’t match the red gown she was wearing that night.”

Li Fang sat still, his mind racing. “So you're suggesting she may have had a struggle with someone—another actor, perhaps—before she died?”

“That's what it looks like,” Meng Xin confirmed.

A single, dark thought crystallized in Li Fang’s mind: What if Lin Yun’s death wasn’t an accident? What if the fire was set to cover up a murder?

He needed answers. And he knew only one man who might still remember the truth.

Han Dongren was one of Qiyun’s few remaining “living archives.” Once the theater’s lighting technician, he now lived alone in a crumbling apartment on the town’s southern edge. At seventy-three, his hearing was spotty and his fingers trembled when he lit his cigarettes—but his memory, it turned out, was sharp as ever.

“I knew someone would come asking eventually,” Han said, exhaling a curl of smoke. “That theater was never just a building.”

“You remember Lin Yun?”

“Of course I do.” He smiled, his teeth yellowed but intact. “When she spoke, the entire room hushed. She was born for the stage. That kind of talent… comes once in a century.”

Li Fang leaned forward. “Do you know how she died?”

“She was killed,” Han said flatly. “Not by a person, exactly. But by the play itself.”

Li Fang frowned. “The play?”

“Requiem,” Han said, his voice hollow. “She chose it. Said it was a rare script, brought back from overseas. Almost no one had seen the full version. She became obsessed with the role—claimed she’d leave the troupe after this performance, head for the city, make a real career of it.”

“Someone resented that?”

“Resented? They feared her. She stole every spotlight.” Han’s eyes darkened. “The night before the fire, someone saw her arguing backstage with Zhou, the assistant director. They used to be lovers.”

“What happened to him after the fire?”

“Disappeared. People said he left to grieve. But I never believed that.”

Li Fang’s fingers tapped absently on his knee. “Why not?”

Han leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper. “Have you ever heard of mirror-dwellers?”

“What?”

“The night of the fire,” Han said, eyes glassy, “the stage collapsed—but the mirror didn’t. I remember the flames licking up the walls, but the mirror stood untouched. And in it—I saw two figures.”

“Two?”

“One was Lin Yun. The other… his face was warped by the firelight. Twisted. But I swear to you, Detective, that reflection wasn’t mine.”

Li Fang tried to reason it away. “Could’ve been—”

“No,” Han interrupted. “It wasn’t a reflection. From that day on, I knew: she never left. Her soul was trapped in that glass.”

By noon, Li Fang stood once again in front of the old theater.

The rust-covered gate was sealed tight with chains, untouched for decades. Yet wedged between the iron bars was a fresh bouquet of white lilies—so pristine, they looked unnatural against the soot-stained walls. No raindrops clung to their petals.

He reached out and gently moved the flowers aside.

Beneath them lay a letter.

“She is still singing. Her voice has never stopped.

The play is not yet over.

Who interrupted her final line?”

Li Fang’s hands clenched around the paper. This wasn’t the writing of a stranger. The tone was too intimate, too theatrical—like something penned by a scriptwriter. Or someone who’d once lived inside that world.

A sudden gust of wind howled through the alley, slamming an upper window with a hollow bang. Li Fang looked up—and froze.

A length of red fabric fluttered from the broken pane above. Not a curtain. Not a flag.

A gown.

Lin Yun’s performance gown.

His phone rang.

It was Meng Xin.

“Detective! I found something. That assistant director, Zhou—he’s alive. He’s been at a psychiatric hospital outside town all these years.”

Li Fang’s pulse quickened. “Alive?”

“Barely. His file says he’s been diagnosed with trauma-induced schizophrenia. He repeats the same line to himself over and over:

‘I didn’t start the fire. She lit it herself. She said the flames would bloom.’”

Li Fang felt the blood drain from his face.

Outside, the wind wailed louder—as if some hidden curtain had been torn aside by an invisible hand.

That evening, Li Fang documented everything: the flowers, the letter, the fluttering red dress. He filed each as evidence and prepared to leave.

Then he saw her.

Across the street, beneath the roof of a shuttered bookstore, stood a woman in a navy blue raincoat, holding a black umbrella.

She met his gaze and smiled, the kind of smile that didn’t reach the eyes—then turned and slipped away into the rain.

Li Fang gave chase, sprinting to the corner—but by the time he rounded it, she was gone.

All that remained was a wall splashed with red graffiti.

“Don’t let her finish the final scene—

or you’ll take your bow beside her.”