Chapter 20: The Song Before the Fall

The headmaster's study smelled of old paper and dried chrysanthemums, a scent so thick it clung to Bai Su's robes like a second skin. She stood before the massive rosewood desk, her hands clasped behind her back, the phantom blood long since scrubbed away but still burning beneath her nails.

Headmaster Xu Wei sat across from her, his fingers steepled, his face an unreadable mask. Behind him, the window looked out onto the main courtyard where Chen Feng had fallen. The glass had been replaced. The stones had been washed. But Bai Su could still see the shape of his body imprinted on the air, a ghost of impact that refused to fade.

"You've been busy, Miss Bai." The headmaster's voice was calm, measured, the voice of a man who had spent decades negotiating with the dead. "I hear you've been visiting the bell tower. The library. The west wing." He paused. "The dormitory where Lu Ming spent his final night."

Bai Su's heart skipped. "How do you know about that?"

"I know everything that happens in this academy." Xu Wei reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a scroll, yellowed with age, tied with a faded red ribbon. "Including the fact that you've been asking questions about the examination records. About the students who died before taking the imperial exams."

"I'm trying to find the killer."

"No." He unrolled the scroll, smoothing it flat. "You're trying to find yourself."

Bai Su stepped forward, her eyes scanning the document. It was a student roster, dated fifteen years ago. Names, ages, hometowns, examination scores. Her finger traced down the list, past the living, past the dead, until it stopped at a name that made her blood freeze.

Bai Su. Age: 16. Hometown: Qingzhou. Examination score: Top of the class. Status: Deceased.

"That's not possible." She heard her own voice as if from a great distance. "I'm alive. I'm standing here. I'm—"

"You died, Miss Bai." Xu Wei's voice was gentle, almost kind, which made it worse. "Fifteen years ago. The night before the imperial examinations. You fell from the bell tower. Just like Chen Feng."

The room tilted. Bai Su gripped the edge of the desk, her knuckles white. "That's a lie. I have memories. I have a family. I have—"

"Memories that began exactly one month ago, when you arrived at Wutong Academy?" He raised an eyebrow. "Think carefully, Miss Bai. What do you remember before that? Your childhood? Your parents? Your hometown?"

Bai Su's mind went blank. She tried to picture her mother's face, her father's voice, the house where she had grown up. Nothing. Just static, white and formless, like snow falling on an empty grave.

"I remember..." She faltered. "I remember the academy. The classrooms. The library. The—"

"You remember only what this place has shown you." Xu Wei stood, walking around the desk to stand beside her. "Because you have been here for fifteen years, Miss Bai. You just didn't know it."

"That's impossible." But even as she said it, the pieces began to fall into place. The blood on her hands. The footprint that matched her shoe. The ghost scholar's words: *You need to find the killer. Before they take enough qi to break through the veil entirely.*

"The killer isn't a ghost who wants to become human," she whispered. "The killer is a ghost who already did."

Xu Wei's eyes flickered with something—surprise, perhaps, or recognition. "You're faster than I expected. Yes. The student who has been draining qi from the living, who pushed Chen Feng from the tower, who has been killing for fifteen years—they are a ghost who succeeded. They broke through the veil, became human again, and now they walk among us, indistinguishable from the living."

"But that doesn't make sense." Bai Su's mind raced. "If they already became human, why keep killing? Why drain more qi?"

"Because becoming human is not the same as staying human." Xu Wei returned to his desk, his movements slow and deliberate. "The qi they stole is borrowed. It fades. They need to keep taking more, keep replenishing the life force that slips through their fingers like water. Every year, during the full moon, they must take another life. Or they revert to what they were."

"A ghost."

"A hungry ghost." He corrected. "A spirit so consumed by the desire to live that they will do anything to maintain their existence. They have been doing this for fifteen years, Miss Bai. Fifteen students, one every year. But this year is different."

"Why?"

"Because this year, there is someone who can see them." He looked at her, his gaze piercing. "You."

The bell above them rang. Once. Twice. Three times. The same mournful toll Bai Su had heard in the bell chamber, the same frantic rhythm that had preceded Chen Feng's death.

"The full moon is tonight," Xu Wei said. "The killer will strike again. And this time, they will not stop until they have taken enough qi to sustain themselves for another decade."

Bai Su turned toward the door, but his voice stopped her.

"Before you go, Miss Bai, there is one more thing you should know." He picked up the scroll, holding it out to her. "The student who killed you fifteen years ago. The one who pushed you from the bell tower. They are still here."

She took the scroll with trembling hands. The paper felt wrong against her fingers—too cold, too smooth, like the skin of a corpse.

"They are the one who has been helping you."

The words hit her like a physical blow. She looked down at the scroll, at the list of names, at her own name written in faded ink. And then she saw it. A name scratched out, crossed through with such force that the paper had torn. But beneath the damage, she could still read the characters:

Lu Ming.

"Lu Ming was the killer?" Her voice cracked. "Lu Ming was the one who pushed me?"

"No." Xu Wei shook his head slowly. "Lu Ming was the one who caught you. He was your friend. He tried to save you. And when he failed, he stayed. He has been watching over you ever since, waiting for you to wake up."

"But he said—he told me to find the killer. He said—"

"He lied." The headmaster's voice was flat. "Because the killer is someone he loves. Someone he cannot bring himself to accuse. And until you figure out who that is, the deaths will continue."

Outside, the bell rang four times. Five. Six.

Bai Su looked at her hands. They were still clean, still dry. But she could feel the ghost of blood beneath her skin, the echo of a fall that had ended her life fifteen years ago.

She thought of Lu Ming's gentle voice, his careful guidance, the way he had appeared at exactly the right moments to point her toward the truth. She thought of the way he had touched her hand, the warmth that had spread through her skin, the feeling of being alive that she had almost forgotten.

And she thought of the shadow she had seen in the bell tower, the voice that had sung the old folk song, sweet and familiar.

The song her mother used to sing.

*Sleep, little one, sleep,*
*The moon is watching from the deep.*
*Dream, little one, dream,*
*The river's wider than it seems.*

She had remembered. Not the academy, not the examinations, not the fall. But the song. The song that had followed her into death, that had wrapped around her like a shroud, that had kept her tethered to a world she no longer belonged to.

"The killer," she said slowly, "is someone who knew me. Someone who was close to me. Someone who—"

She stopped. The realization hit her like a blade between the ribs.

"Someone who knows the song."

Xu Wei's face went pale. "Miss Bai, no—"

But she was already running, her feet pounding against the wooden floors, her heart beating with a rhythm that had been silent for fifteen years.

The bell rang seven times. Eight. Nine.

She burst through the doors of the main hall, into the courtyard where Chen Feng had died, where she had died, where the stones still held the memory of impact.

And there, standing beneath the moon that was not yet full, was a figure wrapped in shadows.

"Hello, Bai Su." The voice was soft, familiar, achingly kind. "I was wondering when you would remember."

The figure stepped forward, and the moonlight caught their face.

It was her mother.

Bai Su's world shattered.

"You?" The word came out as a whisper, barely audible over the roaring in her ears. "You killed me?"

"No, my dear." Her mother smiled, and it was the same smile Bai Su had seen in her dreams, the same smile that had sung her to sleep, the same smile that had promised safety and warmth and love. "I didn't kill you. I saved you."

"Saved me? I died! I fell from the bell tower! I—"

"You didn't fall, Bai Su." Her mother stepped closer, and Bai Su saw that she was not entirely solid—her edges flickered, her form wavered, like a candle flame caught in a draft. "You jumped."

The words hung in the air, heavier than any stone, colder than any grave.

"You were going to die anyway," her mother continued. "The examination fever. The stress. The pressure to succeed. You were going to die in that examination hall, your body giving out from exhaustion, your mind broken by failure. So I gave you a choice. A quick death. A painless fall. Or a slow, agonizing end that would have taken days."

"You killed me." Bai Su's hands were shaking. "You pushed me."

"I gave you a gift." Her mother's voice hardened. "And then I used your death to fuel my own life. Your qi, your vitality, your potential—I took it all. And I have been living on it for fifteen years."

"Why?" The question tore out of Bai Su's throat. "Why would you do this to me?"

"Because I loved you." Her mother's smile did not waver. "And because love is the most selfish thing in the world."

The bell rang ten times. Silence fell.

And in that silence, Bai Su understood.

The killer was not a ghost who wanted to become human.

The killer was a mother who wanted to keep her daughter alive.

Even if it meant killing her first.

Bai Su looked at her mother's face, at the familiar curve of her cheek, the gentle slope of her nose, the eyes that had once held nothing but warmth.

Now they held only hunger.

"Tonight," her mother said, "I will take my fill. And I will live for another year. And you, my dear, will watch. Like you have watched for fifteen years. Like you will watch for eternity."

"No." Bai Su's voice was steady, calm, the voice of a girl who had already died once. "Tonight, I will stop you."

Her mother laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "You cannot kill what is already dead, Bai Su. And you cannot save what is already gone."

"I'm not going to kill you." Bai Su reached into her robes, pulling out the scroll Xu Wei had given her. "I'm going to free you."

She unrolled the parchment, revealing the names of the dead. Her name. Lu Ming's name. The names of fifteen students who had fallen, one every year, each death feeding the hunger of a mother who could not let go