Jiàn Lian never feared the dead. He feared the forgotten.

The city of Shuoyun was built on fate—woven, stitched, and spun into the very fabric of existence. Every soul carried a thread, an invisible strand that bound them to their destiny. Some threads shimmered golden with fortune. Others were frayed, warning of untimely death.

But red threads… red threads were sacred.

A red thread had once connected Jiàn Lian to Mei Rin, the woman he was meant to marry. They had traced its path together beneath lantern-lit skies, whispering promises of forever.

And then, on the night of their wedding, her thread unraveled.

No one had seen her leave. No doors had opened. No screams had been heard.

She simply ceased to exist.

Jiàn Lian had searched for five years, chasing whispers, unraveling silk, begging the gods for an answer. But fate had remained silent.

Until tonight.

The air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked wood and burning incense. As Jiàn Lian stepped onto the empty streets of Shuoyun, he saw it.

A red thread.

His breath stilled.

It hovered before him, swaying gently, as if caught in an invisible breeze. A trembling thread of fate—alive, pulsing, calling.

Jiàn Lian reached out. The thread curled away, weaving through the streets like a living thing, guiding him through familiar alleys that had never felt so silent.

Shuoyun had always been a city of voices—merchants calling, silk rustling, temple bells ringing.

Tonight, there was only silence.

Jiàn Lian’s pulse quickened. Something was wrong.

The buildings leaned closer, their wooden beams groaning as if whispering to one another. The paper lanterns above flickered, though there was no wind. Shadows stretched unnaturally, longer than they should be.

And then, the red thread led him to a street that did not exist.

Jiàn Lian halted. His throat tightened.

At the end of this impossible path, past bridges that led nowhere and roads that twisted in on themselves, stood a door.

It was made of woven silk, strands of white fabric shifting, unraveling, twisting back together. One moment it was aged wood, the next it was nothing at all.

A chill wrapped around Jiàn Lian’s ribs.

This door should not exist.

And yet, he knew what lay beyond it.

His fingers trembled as he reached forward. His heartbeat roared in his ears. The silk pulsed beneath his touch, a whispering hum vibrating beneath his skin—

Then a voice spoke behind him.

"You should not have come."

Cold breath brushed the back of his neck.

Jiàn Lian spun.

The street was empty.

His breath came sharp, his pulse a steady drum against his ribs. He forced himself to turn back—but the red thread was gone.

Jiàn Lian’s stomach twisted. No. It had led him here. It had brought him to this place, to this moment—

A sharp, snapping sound rang through the air.

The thread had broken.

Before Jiàn Lian could move, the silk door rippled violently.

The ground beneath his feet lurched. The world shattered.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

Jiàn Lian awoke to silence.

Not the silence of an empty street, nor the hush of the midnight wind. This was absolute silence—a void where even his own breath made no sound.

The ground beneath him was not stone, not wood, not earth. It was fabric—silk, shifting and writhing like something alive. He pressed his palms against it, and the moment his fingers made contact, the silk hardened into cold stone.

Jiàn Lian staggered to his feet.

The door—the woven door—was gone.

And he was no longer in Shuoyun.

Around him, the world stretched into a vast, half-formed city. Streets spiraled into nothingness, buildings stood only in fragments—roofs floating above doorways that led to nowhere. The sky above was neither night nor day, flickering between a gray dawn and an endless, starless void.

The air was heavy, thick with something unspoken.

Jiàn Lian’s throat tightened. This was not a place where the living belonged.

A whisper brushed against his ear.

"You should not have come."

Jiàn Lian turned sharply.

A woman stood before him.

She wore flowing robes of silver and black, embroidered with shifting patterns—cranes taking flight, mountains rising and crumbling in an eternal cycle. But it was her face that made his breath still.

She had no eyes.

Where her eyes should have been, there was only silk, woven into the shape of eyelids. And yet, Jiàn Lian felt her gaze settle upon him.

The air around her shimmered, as if the world itself did not know if she was real.

Jiàn Lian’s voice was hoarse. “Who are you?”

She tilted her head, her silk eyelids remaining unnervingly still. “The better question is—who are you to step into the city of the Unwoven?”

Jiàn Lian’s stomach turned.

He had heard that name before.

The Unwoven—a cursed existence, neither dead nor alive. Spirits whose threads had been cut too soon, erased from fate’s design. No memories. No graves. No past.

Jiàn Lian clenched his fists. “I came here looking for someone. A woman. Mei Rin.”

The woman stilled.

He took a step forward. “She disappeared five years ago. Her red thread unraveled. But I found it again—it led me here. Where is she?”

The woman sighed.

The sound was not human.

“She is here,” she said softly. “But she does not remember you.”

Jiàn Lian’s pulse pounded. “What do you mean?”

The woman lifted a hand.

The air rippled—the buildings twisted, the streets unraveled like silk. And then, they were standing before a tea house, its entrance veiled by strands of floating fabric.

Inside, people sat in silence.

Or rather, shadows of people.

Their forms flickered between solid and translucent, as if the world had forgotten whether they should exist. None of them spoke. None of them moved.

And there, by the window, sat Mei Rin.

Jiàn Lian’s breath caught.

She looked exactly as she had on the night she vanished—dark hair falling over her shoulders, white robes embroidered with golden peonies.

His fingers trembled.

“Mei Rin,” he whispered.

She turned. Their eyes met.

And there was nothing.

No recognition. No warmth.

She looked at him the way one looks at a stranger.

And then, in a soft, distant voice, she asked—

“Do I know you?”

Jiàn Lian’s breath stalled.

The woman before him—the woman he had spent five years searching for—looked into his eyes with no recognition.

She did not know him.

Mei Rin’s lips parted slightly, her dark eyes filled only with curious detachment. “Are you lost?” she asked, her voice soft, but empty—as if her soul had been hollowed out.

Jiàn Lian’s throat tightened. “Mei Rin,” he whispered, stepping forward. “It’s me. Jiàn Lian.”

She blinked once, then tilted her head slightly. Nothing.

Not even the faintest flicker of familiarity.

His stomach twisted.

This wasn’t possible.

He had held her hands beneath the red lanterns of Shuoyun, traced the red thread that bound their fates together. She had loved him. She had been his.

She could not have simply forgotten.

Jiàn Lian turned sharply to the silk-veiled woman beside him. “What’s wrong with her?” His voice was rough, barely contained. “Why doesn’t she remember?”

The woman’s silk-covered eyes remained unreadable. “Because she is one of the Unwoven now.”

The words stabbed deep.

Jiàn Lian’s heart pounded. No.

No, that was impossible. The Unwoven were those whose threads had been erased—people who had died before their time, lost to fate itself.

But Mei Rin hadn’t died. She had disappeared.

Jiàn Lian clenched his fists. “You’re wrong. Mei Rin’s thread led me here. If she were truly Unwoven, there wouldn’t be a thread to follow.”

The woman was silent for a long moment. Then, finally, she whispered—

“Are you sure?”

Jiàn Lian stiffened.

Slowly, the woman raised her hand—and the air around them shifted.

Threads appeared—thousands of them, shimmering in the dim light. Some glowed silver with forgotten memories, others frayed black, whispering of lives lost too soon. They crisscrossed the tea house, winding through the silent figures sitting motionless at their tables.

Jiàn Lian’s pulse pounded as his gaze darted among them, searching desperately for one thing.

A red thread.

Mei Rin’s thread.

He found nothing.

His breath hitched. His hands turned cold.

No red. No sign of their bond.

It was as if their fate had never been tied at all.

As if she had never belonged to him.

A heavy weight settled in Jiàn Lian’s chest. He turned back to Mei Rin, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Do you really not remember me?”

She studied him with quiet curiosity, then…

She smiled.

But it was a stranger’s smile. Polite. Empty.

“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I think you must have mistaken me for someone else.”

Jiàn Lian felt like he was suffocating.

This wasn’t right. It wasn’t possible.

Mei Rin was his fate.

He had followed her thread across five years, across dreams and prayers and unanswered whispers. It had led him to her.

So why—why wasn’t she his anymore?

A shiver ran through his spine as a dark, terrible thought took root in his mind.

What if Mei Rin had never been meant to exist at all?

The silk-veiled woman’s voice was quiet but unyielding.

“The Unwoven are those who were erased before their time,” she murmured. “Not only from life—but from fate itself.”

Jiàn Lian’s heart stopped.

He turned to her sharply. “What are you saying?”

The woman held his gaze.

“I’m saying… Mei Rin’s thread may have never existed at all.”

Jiàn Lian’s world shattered.