Bai Suzhen was imprisoned beneath Leifeng Pagoda. Years passed.

A young scholar — her son, Xiao Fa — grew up not knowing his mother's story. He was brilliant, gentle, and carried a sadness he could not explain — a longing for something he had never had.

On the day he earned the highest marks in the imperial examinations, he knelt before Leifeng Pagoda. He did not know why. He had never been told whose prison this was. But something pulled him here.

"mother," he whispered to the ancient stones. "I don't know you. But I think you're here."

And the pagoda... trembled.

From within the stone, Bai Suzhen heard him. She had not heard anything from outside in twenty years. The walls were thick. The world was far.

But her son's voice made it through.

She pressed her palm against the inside wall. He pressed his against the outside. And the pagoda, caught between a mother's love and an ancient punishment, began to crack.

Fahai, watching from Golden Mountain, saw it happen. And for the first time in forty years, he felt something he had not expected to feel: doubt.

"What if," he thought, "I am the demon?"

The crack in the pagoda widened. The crack in his certainty widened further.