The western chambers smelled of crushed bone and old incense as the scholar lit a lantern whose flame bent inward instead of outward. He gestured for me to sit, his voice calm but heavy with warning. Shen Yue knelt beside me with her blade drawn, though steel meant nothing here. The scholar took a brittle scroll of black parchment from a stone niche and held up a thin blade made of smoky glass.
"This is the method," he said. "What your father imitated, but did not truly master."
Shen Yue's voice sharpened. "Where will you cut him?"
The scholar touched my sternum. "Only here. One line."
A single breath left me. "Do it."
The blade didn't slice—it sank, like sinking into a second skin beneath the first. Pain flared through my ribs, not sharp, not physical, but like someone twisting the deepest part of my mind. The bridge shrieked inside me, bucking like a chained animal. The floor cracked. My vision folded inward.
"Do not let it close," the scholar commanded.
I forced my breath into the wound. The crack opened. The world split. A river with no water. A tower of bone rising toward a sky that pulsed like a heart. A faceless man climbing it. And beneath all of it—the bridge—black, pulsating, worming through every memory I have ever owned.
"No," I gasped. "Not those."
The bridge lashed back. Images scorched through me:
—my father's grip on my wrist
—Shen Yue's first smile
—blood dripping into a basin
—Wu Jin's quiet, brittle hope
—Wu Shuang's unreadable gaze
—my mother's face dissolving into blank light
The bridge hissed: I remember for you.
I refused to scream.
I forced the crack open wider. The bridge bucked violently. The ink ripped upward, twisting into the air like a god being torn from its cradle. Shen Yue shouted something distant. The scholar whispered, "Good. Good—he sees."
I opened the wound one more breath.
And the bridge cracked.
A single fracture.
But enough.
The ink fell back into me like shadow collapsing. The pain ebbed. My body returned. I leaned into the wall, trembling, as Shen Yue caught me.
"You did what your father could not," the scholar said quietly.
"What now?" I managed.
"You learn to keep it broken."
I tasted blood. "What's the cost?"
"Memory," he said. "Piece by piece."
We left the chamber. Outside, the forgotten city hummed under the moon—stone towers bending inward as if listening.
Far away, Ling An's palace gates opened for the Zhou Emperor. Wu Jin walked into the white-silk pavilion with the stiffness of a man dragged by fate. The Emperor didn't stand. He only watched him, eyes bright like tempered steel.
"You look tired," the Emperor murmured. "Power rarely suits the newly crowned."
Wu Jin bowed. "Liang appreciates Zhou's support—"
"Peace is not discussed," the Emperor interrupted. "It is imposed."
Silence pressed the space between them. Wu Jin waited for the threat he already felt coming.
"The He Lian dynasty is illegitimate," the Emperor said. "Your brother holds the bridge. Your father holds the tower. And you—hold nothing."
Wu Jin swallowed. "Why summon me?"
"To offer a choice," the Emperor said. "Submit, or be replaced."
The words hit like a blade sliding between bone. Wu Jin forced himself to breathe. "Replaced… by who?"
The Emperor smiled. "By someone more obedient."
Wu Jin realized then—Zhou had not come to stabilize Liang. They had come to choose its next ruler.
At Hei Fort, the Southern King knelt before the Emperor of Liang as the winter wind curled around the camp. Southern banners fluttered in the dark. The Emperor stepped onto the battlements with the calmness of a man walking into his own garden.
"It is time," he said.
"Your Majesty," the Southern King murmured, "shall we strike the North?"
"No." The Emperor's voice was cold and serene. "You escort me home."
The Southern King looked shaken. "You return to reclaim your throne?"
"To claim something greater," the Emperor said. "The Lord Protector believes he builds the tower for himself. He does not. He prepares it for me."
He gave the order: forty thousand Southern troops would march north. The roads would be cleared. The marsh emptied. Every gate opened.
"Send word to Zhou," the Emperor added softly. "Tell them Liang will soon have a true Emperor again."
Whether they wished it or not.
Back in Ling An, Wu Shuang stood alone in the Lotus Hall as the fourth pulse of the tower bent the lantern flames sideways. She rolled a lotus petal between her fingers until it turned black. Shadows whispered in her ear. When she heard the news, her smile was small but unmistakable.
"So the Emperor returns," she murmured. "Good."
She rose, her silk trailing behind her like smoke.
"Let the men fight. Let the gods bargain. I will choose when the dust settles."
Meanwhile, the scholar returned to me and Shen Yue with a basin carved from moonstone. "Three cuts remain," he said.
Shen Yue stepped in front of me, fury in every line of her shoulders. "He barely survived one!"
The scholar's gaze was unyielding. "He is still alive. That is enough."
"He is not your weapon."
"He is not yours."
His words stung us both.
I cut between them. "We continue."
Shen Yue looked at me as if I had chosen death. "An—no."
"We continue."
Because the world was breaking.
Because my father was climbing toward something unspeakable.
Because the Emperor was marching north with an army behind him.
Because if I didn't learn to break the bridge—something else would break me.
The scholar bowed. "Dawn. The second cut."
When he left, Shen Yue knelt and pressed her forehead to mine.
"If you die," she whispered, "I will kill everyone responsible. Including Heaven."
I gave a weak laugh. "Then I'll try not to die."
"Try harder."
I looked up. The sky above the forgotten city rippled like ink poured into water. A new constellation formed—a lotus of black stars.
The bridge inside me whispered:
He climbs. You rise. The world tilts.
"What is coming?" I asked.
The bridge answered:
Everything.