Nightfall came heavy, the sky black and pressing. Clouds shrouded the stars, and no moon dared appear. Yet Xu Tianyin moved without a torch, his body attuned to the rhythms of silence, his footsteps soft over wet leaves.
Beside him, Bai Yeming walked in the same rhythm, her presence like a second heartbeat in the void. Neither spoke.
They were close now. Close to something the world didn't want them to reach.
Ahead, nestled in the roots of a broken cliffside, was a town no longer listed on maps. It had been erased—first from scrolls, then from memory, and lastly from belief. Once called Yucheng, it had been a haven for rogue cultivators. But that was centuries ago. Now, it was just ruins and whispers.
Tianyin stepped across the cracked stone path and into what remained of the main street. Faded banners flapped from beams long surrendered to rot. Shops had collapsed into themselves. The air was still.
But the town remembered.
He felt it the moment his foot crossed the threshold. A pull, subtle but impossible to ignore. His scars responded—soft pulses beneath his skin, like fingers tapping on glass.
"Something was sealed here," Yeming murmured.
Tianyin walked to the center of the square. The well was still intact, rim covered in moss. He crouched, touching the stone.
It was warm.
Too warm.
He looked at Yeming. "What do you think's buried here?"
She didn't answer immediately. Then she said, "A person. Or an idea. Maybe both."
He turned back toward the well. "Then it's calling to us."
He didn't wait. He swung his legs over the side and descended slowly, gripping the vines that had grown along the inside. The drop was long, but not endless. After what felt like a hundred breaths, his feet touched water—ankle-deep and cold.
The bottom was a chamber—round, domed, and lined with slate. No light entered here, and yet he could see. Not with his eyes. With his scars.
At the center stood a statue.
But it was not made of stone. It was made of absence.
It had no face. No hands. No name. It stood tall, shrouded in cloaks carved from forgotten truths. And around it, carved in a perfect ring, were words no one had ever spoken aloud:
> Those who walk without permission do not walk alone.
Bai Yeming dropped in behind him, quiet as snowfall. Her breath caught as she saw it.
"The Void remembers," she said. "Even what never was."
Tianyin stepped forward. The closer he drew to the statue, the harder his heart beat—not from fear, but recognition.
This wasn't a shrine. It was an echo.
Something, someone, had stood where he now stood. Had walked this path before him. Had made the same choice.
To walk without the heavens. Without the sects. Without permission.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the surface of the statue, a surge of memory not his own hit him.
A scream.
A blade.
A kiss.
A silence.
A farewell.
A promise.
He staggered back, gasping.
"Are you alright?" Yeming asked, steadying him.
"I saw…" His voice was hoarse. "I don't know who. But they were like us."
He looked up at her. "They loved someone. And they died for it."
Yeming's eyes darkened. "That is the price. When your cultivation is carved from what the world denies, love is not a luxury. It becomes a wound."
Tianyin nodded slowly. "Then we'll scar together."
He looked back to the faceless statue. And for the first time, he bowed. Not in worship.
In solidarity.
---
Far to the north, in a gleaming temple of gold and emerald, Elder Jing Lianzhen stood before a scroll burning itself.
It was a wanted list.
The name on it: Xu Tianyin.
The bounty: retracted.
The seal: broken.
Because his name was no longer found in the records.
Something had begun erasing him from fate.
She turned to her disciples. "The boy is no longer bound by prophecy."
A chill spread through the room.
"That means," she said grimly, "he is now bound by choice."