Night rain lashes an abandoned mountain shrine. Wen has summoned Ning privately. No other characters are present.

The cracked talisman, a sealed poisoned tea leaf, and a painted copy of Ning's broken bell hairpin lie on the altar.

Rain leaks through roof tiles. Wen refuses to let the question soften; Ning chooses the exact number.

The number lands like a blade. The shrine background fades into rain and altar smoke around Wen's face.

Ning's words summon visual fragments of previous loops without showing the full mechanism yet.

Wen kneels opposite Ning. She reveals faint scars and calluses accumulated in a body that should be young.

Ning confesses she tried running with him to a mortal city; the disaster followed anyway.

Ning lists strategies with brutal restraint; the visuals show only fragments, not culprits' full identities.

Ning lifts a rotten floor mat to show tally marks carved into the shrine boards, each darkened with old blood.

Wen almost comforts Ning. Her body reacts like someone used to losing him for touching too late.

Ning names the disaster point: tomorrow at noon. The sealed Calamity Eye appears only as a reflection in rainwater.