The story begins with an eight-foot-tall lady surrounded by ghost story ladies.

The woman's body trembled slightly.

The face buried in the nape of the neck slowly lifted, and the delicate features looked even more like a porcelain doll in the morning light.

"you..."

Her voice was like the echo of the wind coming from a very, very far place, carrying a sense of emptiness that did not belong to this world.

"Can you solve this?"

Natsume Fanyu looked down.

The woman moved her hand away from Mayuko Ogata's waist and placed it on her own heart.

And beneath the skin on my chest, something is glowing.

A pale golden thread passed through the very center of the heart, its other end disappearing into the void and extending beneath the collapsed torii gate.

It bound her firmly to some distant existence.

The woman pressed the thread, her pale golden pupils fixed on Natsume Fanyu.

There was no pleading, no expectation, only a pure affirmation.

It's like asking, "Can you see this?" or saying, "I've tried so many times, but I can't solve it."

Natsume Fanyu looked at the hand pressed against his heart and nodded.

"able."

The words fell.

The woman's eyes twitched slightly.

Something was awakening deep within those pale golden pupils.

"But before that..."

Natsume Fanyu tilted his head, his gaze shifting from her heart to her eyes.

You need to answer one question for me first.

The woman remained silent, neither nodding nor refusing; she simply maintained the position of pressing her hand to her heart.

It was as if it were soothing an old wound that had been bothering people for too long and that they no longer knew how to let go.

Do you remember what your name used to be?

The woman's lips moved slightly.

It's not about speaking, it's about feeling the shape of the word between your lips and teeth.

Then she released her lips, her voice even softer than before.

"name?"

She repeated the word, as if rummaging through a drawer that hadn't been opened in a very long time.

My finger paused on the brass ring of the drawer for a moment, then I pulled it open; it was empty.

"I have no idea."

Natsume Fanyu looked at the thread on her heart, and at the shadow of the crack deep in her pale golden pupils.

"Then let's ask another question."

"Do you want a name?"

The woman's body trembled slightly.

Starting from the point where the thread pierced through the very center of the heart, an unprecedented tremor spread along every inch of the spirit body.

She looked down at her fingers pressed against her heart.

Beneath her fingertips, pale golden threads were faintly glowing, like a plucked string on a musical instrument.

"I want."

"I want a name."

Her voice suddenly became clear, no longer like an echo in the wind, but a sound that truly came from her throat.

It was awkward and clumsy, yet it carried an undeniable certainty.

Natsume Fanyu looked at her.

Within those pale golden pupils, the shadow of the crack was slowly widening.

It wasn't that the crack itself was widening; it was that the woman could see the gap more clearly.

He was guiding her to see where she truly belonged.

There was no entrance to the divine realm, no passage to the afterlife, only a long-abandoned shrine and a place that was once worshipped but is now nothing but ruins.

And that thread extended from beneath those ruins.

She was never some wild evil spirit, never some kind of ghost story that grew out of ordinary cracks.

She was once a priestess at a shrine.

Later, the shrine fell into disrepair, the incense offerings ceased, and her name was forgotten.

Her existence has transformed from a "sacrifice to the gods" into a "ghost story".

But she didn't disappear, because she still had an obsession.

That obsession transformed into a thread, one end tied to the ruins and the other to her heart.

It wasn't a curse, nor a constraint; it was something she herself was unwilling to break free from.

Natsume Fanyu withdrew his gaze.

"Your name will be..."

He paused for a moment, not thinking about what name to choose.

It's giving her time to prepare herself, to hear a word that will accompany her throughout her entire existence.

"Interweaving".

The woman blinked, her pale golden pupils reflecting his image.

"Interweaving?"

"The 'jian' in 'gap' and the 'zhi' in 'weaving'."

Natsume Fanyu's voice was calm, without any condescension or pity in his tone, only a very pure statement.

"You were born in the cracks, and you wove yourself in the cracks."

"This name is proof of where you came from, and also a clue to where you were found."

The woman stood still, her pale golden eyes fixed on him.

Then those exquisitely beautiful lips moved slightly, and the sound was very soft.

Like a fledgling bird that has just learned to touch the air with its voice, confirming its existence with its first cry.

"Interweaving..."

The two words were spoken clumsily and awkwardly.

But the moment it's uttered.

The pale golden thread on the woman's chest had become slightly brighter than before.

"Interweaving," she repeated.

This time it was a bit smoother than before.

The pause between the two words was shortened, and the tone changed from tentative to affirmative.

The question shifted from "Can I call myself that?" to "This is my name."

"Yes, it's Iori," Natsume Fanyu said.

"From now on, use the name 'Jianzhi' instead of 'I,' and use this name to think about who you are."

"Use this name..."

He raised his left hand, his fingertips once again aligning with the thread connecting her heart and neck.

"Go and unlock the lock that binds you and prevents you from going anywhere."

The woman lowered her head, looking at her chest, her gaze falling on her heart, on the silk thread she was pressing with her fingertips, looking at the restraint that had bound her for who knows how many years.

From the day the shrine fell into disrepair, from the day the last person who remembered her name closed their eyes, from the day "worshiping the gods" to "ghost stories."

It has never been broken, because no one has broken it, because she herself did not want to break it.

That was her only connection to the world, and even though that connection had become a shackle, she dared not let go.

Because after letting go, she didn't know what she was anymore.

But now...

She raised her eyes, and for the first time, a clear light shone in her pale golden pupils.

"My name is Maori."

"I was born in a crack, and you gave me my name."

"I want real touch that belongs to me, I want to live in the light that can illuminate myself."

After saying these three sentences.

The woman released her hand from her chest during the brief moment.

The fingers moved away from where the silk thread pierced, hanging down at the sides, waiting to be accepted.

Waiting for the person who gave her the name to tell her...

From now on, you are no longer that strange tale tied to the ruins.

It's interwoven!

Seeing this, Natsume Fanyu raised his right hand.

He then unleashed one of the Eight Extraordinary Techniques, "Binding Spirits and Commanding Generals".

His fingertips touched her forehead with just the right amount of pressure.