A lone willow bends by the silent river, its branches tracing secrets on the water’s surface. An old fisherman rows slowly, his net cast into the shimmering twilight. He remembers a promise made decades ago beneath these very branches—a vow to return when the moon hung full and low. Tonight, the moon is a perfect silver coin, and the wind carries fragments of a forgotten song. He waits, not for fish, but for a shadow from the past to emerge from the reeds. The water ripples softly, as if answ...