Chapter 5
Time stops
First, hours past. Then Days pass they are week past. And everything thing to come as a bluar. ¿As Sun-jin came closer to giving birth Time seems to stop as she wonders where Li was People in the village helped search to no avail Wondering where Li was what happened to him Missing his warm embrace his scent his touch
The sun, a hesitant visitor in the Kiso Mountains, cast long, cool shadows that stretched and warped the familiar contours of the land. For Li, the hours had begun to blur, then the days, and now, weeks seemed to have dissolved into a single, continuous breath. Time had become a restless river, its currents pulling him along with an unnerving, fluid grace. He ate when food, strangely seasoned and unfamiliar, was placed before him, slept when a profound weariness finally wrestled him into unconsciousness. The vivid tapestry of this new existence had softened, its sharp edges rounded, its colors muted to a perpetual twilight. He’d find himself sitting at a table carved from wood he didn’t recognize, his hand reaching instinctively for a phantom limb, for the reassuring weight of Sun-jin’s hand in his. Later, by the flickering, uncertain glow of a fire that smelled of foreign herbs, he’d cradle a cup of tea, its taste a bitter, astringent shock, his mind a relentless echo chamber of unanswered questions. Where was he? How long had this strange interlude lasted? Would he ever again feel the gentle swell of Sun-jin’s belly beneath his palm, hear the song she hummed to their unborn child?
Back in Kiso Village, the delicate perfume of cherry blossoms had long since surrendered to the anxious murmurings of the villagers. Sun-jin, her pregnancy a pronounced curve beneath the fine silks of her robes, moved through their home like a restless spirit. Li, her anchor, her steadfast Li, was gone. His absences had always been fleeting, punctuated by his return, his tales of mountain explorations always laced with the comforting promise of his safe arrival. But this time, the silence that descended was a suffocating shroud. She had scoured the shimmering rice paddies, her heart a frantic, trapped bird against her ribs, and the rolling foothills that cradled their village, her voice growing raw from calling his name into the indifferent air. The villagers, their faces etched with a shared, deepening concern, had joined the search, their efforts as futile as her own. The rhythm of the days continued, a relentless drumbeat of absence, each sunrise bringing with it a fresh tide of dread. They searched, they called, they waited, but Li remained lost, a phantom adrift in a temporal current that had swept him far from their world.