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??《Trapped in the Windless Realm》—— MOCKER44

??《風の住む街（The Street Where the Wind Lives）》——Kaze no Sumu Machi

??Chapter 1 · Venetian Barcarolle

Venice, Italy. November.

Coordinates: 45.43413°N, 12.3389°E

Golden Hour: ~4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.

The caramelized crackle of chestnuts roasting over distant charcoal still wove itself, soundlessly, with the cool damp breath of centuries seeping from stone. The River Arno had dissolved the sunset into a slow, dark gold, sliding indolently beneath the arches of the Ponte Vecchio. Warm light from jewellers’ windows floated in the deepening indigo like the last few gold coins surfacing from a sunken galleon.

And within this Venetian twilight—a palette of drowned gold and floating blue, as if brushed by Guardi’s own hand—a reunion, defying every expectation, quietly began.

Northwest corner of Piazza San Marco, the outdoor tables of Caffè Giberti.

X arrived fifty-three minutes early.

Her chosen spot commanded a view of seven approaches: the bell tower’s shadow, the fountain’s edge, the gallery’s third arch, the slatted shutters of the café’s upper floor, three main arteries feeding the square. Black turtleneck, faded jeans, dark hair loosely tied. An unremarkable face behind black-rimmed glasses, a charcoal pencil sketching outlines in a pad—the very picture of an art student.

Inside the canvas bag, the dagger’s grip lay cold and certain.

Heart rate: 125 bpm.

Only she knew.

Each beat pressed out something sour and thick—a remorse condensed over one hundred and twenty-five days and nights.

Only she knew.

Last night, after the rain, the water brimming in the old clay jar beneath the west wall had occasionally shivered…

.. / .-(I A)

Morse rhythm. Their private cipher. A cadence for two.

I am alive.

I am waiting.

She had not replied. There was no need. Crossing the square at dusk, each step fell into the fissure between memory and now, becoming a sharp, familiar pain that kept her painfully awake.

She sat, ordered an espresso. The charcoal pencil moved, but the lines grew restless. Time stretched thin in the gaps between bell strokes.

4:17 p.m.

On the fourth chime, the air shifted.

The air changed.

X did not look up. Her pencil stopped, charcoal gritting softly under her finger. A familiar coolness pierced the sweet chestnut haze and stone-damp—old paper, cold cream. And under it, sandalwood, with a hint of violet dry-down, subtle, but to her as unmistakable as her own breath.

Her breath caught. A heat prickled behind her eyes; she blinked it back. A killer’s discipline lay over her emotions like thin ice, but beneath, a glacier of seventeen years was stirring.

She lifted her gaze.

X’s breath vanished. Her fingers gripped the sketchpad, knuckles bleaching white.

Time froze behind her lenses. Her dark eyes iced over with confusion, fractured with shock, then plunged into an absolute-zero darkness as disbelief reassembled into impossible fact. Absurdity did not rise—it hollowed her from within.——Not laughter, not tears, but a vacuum beneath the ice, where blood boiled in silence.

Dark hair fell softly against the neck. A disguise—not the original face—an Eastern bone structure, skin pale from long absence from light—now sat quietly at a café table ten meters away, the image of a heart-stopping classical Eastern beauty. A simple moon-white Silk-Sheath, a flaxen knit coat over it, an open copy of The Divine Comedyin hand, eyes downcast as if wholly absorbed in the verses.

So ordinary. So natural.

As if he’d only stepped out for coffee, not clawed back from the edge of death.

X’s fingertips trembled beneath the table. She watched his page-turning fingers—slender, knuckles distinct, the old scar on the left wrist still there. She watched the shadow of his lashes, the faint lift of his throat with each breath. Every detail etched into her memory clutched at her heart; every detail transformed by absence now made her throat ache——he had grown too thin, pale as if bleached by polar winds.

He did not look up immediately, just sat, quiet in his space like a piece long missing from a puzzle, finally returned.

X removed her glasses, pocketed them. It was the first thing she’d done in a year that was pure feeling, not tactic — she needed to see clearly.

Almost as one, he lifted his eyes.

Their gazes met across the twilight, across tables, across death and misunderstanding.

His eyes—deep brown, calm, swirling with a weariness and tenderness she felt in her bones. No drama, no tears—only a profound, homecoming silence.

He looked at her, then gave a slight, certain nod.

That nod said:

*I am here.

I am back.*

X’s throat tightened. She drew a breath of Florentine autumn—sweet chestnut, cool stone, his serene sandalwood scent. She stood, placed a note under her cup, her steadiness belying the tremor in her knees—known only to her.

She walked toward him.

Three steps,

five,

seven.

Each step a fault line in time. Pigeons scattered, the bell tower’s shadow lengthened. As if time itself paused for their reunion.

She stopped at his table. Wordless.

S closed his book and stood. A faint hesitation — barely there, but X caught it. The trace of a body that had borne severe trauma. The knowledge needled her hollow heart.

He picked up the scarf draped over the chair.

“Andiamo,” (Let’s go)

came the unfamiliar, feminine voice, yet carrying a comforting familiarity. “So un posto dove il caffèè migliore, e c’è anche un buon riscaldamento.” (I know a place where the coffee is better, and the heating is decent.)

Just “Let’s go,” and a remark about better coffee and warmth. As if they’d parted yesterday.

X nodded. Speech failed her, eroded by a sourceless ache.

Two figures moved away, one after the other, swallowed by the old city’s labyrinth.

Cobblestones gleamed with the polish of ages; withered vines cast twisted shadows in the fading light.

S’s pace was even.

Hers seemed casual, yet each step fell where his had been. Her eyes devoured every detail — the sway of his hair, the line of his shoulders under the Silk-Sheath, the lift of his coat hem in the alley’s breath.

The alley deepened, quieted. Distant bells tolled, their solemn weight echoing on stone. At the third alley’s end, S turned right, pushed open a gray-weathered door. Its hinge sighed softly.

Inside: a secondhand bookshop-café. Air rich with old paper, coffee beans, cedar shelves. Books climbed to the ceiling; a □□’s track was rusted. An old woman behind the counter glanced up, her gaze lingering on S’s face a half-second, then a slight nod before returning to her tome.

S gestured chin-up toward the stairs.

Wood groaned underfoot. The attic was small — a narrow bed, a desk, two chairs under sloping eaves. A skylight stood open, framing the cathedral’ dome against a swiftly darkening gray-blue sky.

On the desk: worn books — Dante, Leopardi, a pamphlet on Arctic flora. A pot of basil clung stubbornly to green by the window, though leaves were wilted. A half-bottle of red, two clean glasses.

The soft click of the lock behind them was stark in the quiet.

Then, a long, gentle stillness.

X stood by the door, watching S remove his coat, hang it up. His frame was lean, almost sharp, movements slow with a survivor’s care. When he turned, the last twilight through the skylight haloed him.

She looked at him. Ravenously. Bitterly. Guilt lapped at her throat.

S stood still, letting her look. Then, the corner of his mouth lifted — that familiar, vulpine curve, now wearier, softer. Their eyes held in the dim. No words. No explanations. Only a deep, bone-known understanding. The guilt in her eyes, the weariness in his, mirrored, then slowly dissolved into the silence of return.

The quiet in the small attic thickened, tangible. Distant bells struck five. Each note seemed to ring against X’s ribs.

S — or this breathtaking being — gazed calmly. Then, he raised a hand, elegant, slow, and began undoing the first knotted button at his Silk-Sheath’s collar.

“Wait.” X’s voice was a wire stretched taut.

He didn’t stop. Second. Third. The moon-white fabric slipped from his shoulders, revealing the male form beneath — slender, defined shoulders and collarbones. The brown contacts came out, revealing the familiar violet eyes beneath. The fillers shaping his face were carefully peeled away…

Pale. Gaunt. A jawline honed sharper than memory. But those eyes — God, the eyes — were the same. Deep. Calm. Now held upon her, churning with something unreadable.

He offered no words. Just stood as the disguise fell away, awaiting judgment.

X moved.

Her trembling fingers worked the remaining buttons. The Silk-Sheath slid down, pooled at his feet. Santali’s bare torso was exposed to the cool air—lean, defined, skin cool-toned and white, marked with scars old and new.

Then she saw it.

On his left abdomen, a vicious, dark red scar, ragged, tearing from rib to hip.

It was still fresh, like a strange, deep crimson-purple flower of flesh — a Crown Anemone* blooming from his skin, rooted in pale tissue. Its texture like ploughed earth, edges glazed with time and pain. A beautiful, fragile thing — now a breathtaking scar, a testament to life breaking back through.

A faint smile touched S’s lips as his gaze drifted down. His tone was casual, almost light:

“Guarda, è il sangue d’Adone.（See? Adonis' blood.）”*

He paused, in his eyes, a flicker of something near teasing.

“Dice il mito, a uccidere una bellezza così… può riuscirci solo un cinghiale nato dal Dio della Guerra. （According to myth, only a boar, born of the War God, could slay such beauty.）”*

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(… Pity. This boar only learned to carry Adonis back, piece by piece, from the hunter’s trap.)

— heaven’s idea of a punchline —

Note: The Crown Anemone (Anemone coronaria), or "Windflower", derives from Greek ánemos (wind) and Latin corona (crown), symbolizing both beauty and fragility. Myth tells it sprouted from the blood of Adonis, lover of Aphrodite, slain by a boar.

Francesco Guardi (1712-1793) captured Venice’s twilight melancholy in tones of gold and blue, often seen as an elegy for the fading Republic.

Q:昨夜雨后，老宅旧陶缸的水面上，风留下的真正讯息是？

What was the true message left by the wind on the water of the old vat, after last night’s rain?