They followed the thaw-swollen river south for three days, moving at dawn, sleeping on mud banks when dusk bled the sky red. The river carried more than fish and driftwood. It carried rumors — drifting faster than sect couriers, sharper than any blade.
At each crossing village, they heard the same whisper, twisted a dozen ways.
The boy who ate a demon's crown.
The chain-breaker who spat Heaven's leash back at the stars.
A devil's vessel who walks free with a witch at his side.
Li Shen listened while chewing stale rice buns bought with a copper Yue Lan fished from the hem of her ruined sleeve. He never corrected them. He didn't claim the names, didn't spit them out either. A name is a name — but a rumor? That's another chain altogether.
---
They camped one night in the ruins of an old ferry dock. Rotted beams stuck out of the shallows like broken ribs. Yue Lan strung her frayed spirit threads between two pillars, weaving them loose enough that they shivered when anything larger than a rat slipped near.
Li Shen watched her work in the dusklight. The same threads that once bound Ku Mo's roar inside his ribs now caught drifting reeds and drifting shadows.
"You'll burn out if you keep weaving," he said.
She didn't look up. Her fingers twisted silk and ghostlight with the ease of someone who had given up counting the cost.
"So will you," she said.
He almost smiled. "I don't have anything left to burn."
She tied off the last loop, let it settle like a spiderweb.
"You have you left," she said softly. "That's enough."
---
The river croaked frogsong all night. Li Shen lay awake on driftwood planks, blade balanced across his chest. He could feel it — the scent of new footsteps on old mud. Thieves, maybe. Sect hounds testing the edge before the elders sent real blades.
Yue Lan dozed near his shoulder, threads wrapped loose around her wrist like a last promise. When her breathing steadied, Li Shen let his eyes close.
No Codex roar behind his eyes. No demon grin at his heartbeat.
Just his own name, echoing soft in the water's hush.
---
Before dawn, they rose and stepped back onto the river trail. Yue Lan's trap threads caught nothing — but in the reeds by the dock, Li Shen found a single talisman pin, stamped with a sect mark scraped nearly clean.
A test. A warning. Or an invitation.
He tossed it back into the current. Let the river carry it to someone who still believed chains could hold a name that didn't kneel.
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⚡ End of Chapter Two — Whispers Along the River
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