The market was a graveyard without graves.
Bodies lay where life had left them .....
children, elders, young students, soldiers.
Scattered weapons glinted dull in the sun.
Homes, shops, and trees stood blackened, their skeletons charred.
The air was thick ..... with the scent of smoke, blood… and betrayal.
The peach trees were gone.
Burnt to ash.
The talismans that once danced on the wind now fluttered uselessly, their power gone,
their owners nothing more than memory.
There was no one left to save.
Only the stench of death remained to bear witness.
---
Steps moved slowly through the carnage,
each footfall careful, respectful .....
as if even the dead might be disturbed.
Tears fell like molten silver.
Master Bao Fang halted, his voice low and heavy.
He ordered a handful of chosen masters to remain,
to grant the fallen their last dignity:
a grave, not a street.
Some were sent back to Xuemo Sect to summon more hands.
But when they arrived…
they too broke under the weight of what they saw.
Women wept openly.
Masters tried, and failed, to comfort them.
Cruelty had crossed its final threshold:
first, the two beloved kings murdered,
and now, this massacre of innocents.
---
With heavy hearts and souls drenched in grief,
the burial began.
Bao Fang and Yun Zhi turned away with the remaining masters,
toward the academy.
---
It was… empty.
Silent.
Only the soft, slow sway of curtains in the deep wind gave any sound.
Even the spirits had abandoned this place.
Here, joy had once bloomed .....
laughter under peach blossoms,
training beneath the old trees,
Yu Sui's playful shouts,
Mo Yan's calm voice,
Bao Fang and Duie's mischievous quarrels,
Su Nian's sharp scolding of Duie.
Every moment played before their eyes in cruel clarity,
as if the past had not yet accepted it was gone.
---
And then… they woke from it.
It had been only a dream .....
a fleeting vision carved into memory.
Reality struck.
Bao Fang collapsed to his knees,
the weight of absence breaking him.
Yun Zhi caught his arm,
but he too was drowning in the same grief.
Their cries filled the academy halls,
echoing back from the walls
as if the building itself wept with them,
mourning what it could never shelter again.