The mountain groaned beneath his feet.
Yanlong stood atop the crag known as Withercliff Ridge, wind roaring past him like a voice too ancient to translate. Below, the remnants of the Frost Petal Sect lay bathed in moonlight—broken, blackened, still smoking in parts.
He had no reason to linger.
And yet, he hadn't moved.
---
The jade shard pressed against his palm, still warm.
He'd wrapped it in cloth hours ago, but even now it pulsed faintly through the fabric, like it remembered her more than he did.
Lianxin.
She hadn't said her name. But he could feel it carved into his ribs now.
Lianxin.
The one I forgot.
The one who didn't forget me.
---
He sat down slowly, elbows on his knees, the moonlight tracing the scars down his arms. Some of them were centuries old. Others... he didn't remember earning.
The curse of immortality wasn't eternal life.
It was the slow death of memory.
Every year that passed chipped a little more off the soul. Until all that remained was flame, fury, and fragments.
But Lianxin's gaze had done something nothing else could.
It had made him remember his own name.
Not the one Heaven gave him.
Not the one mortals cursed in fear.
But the one she once whispered—
Yanlong.
Not beast. Not weapon. Just... Yanlong.
---
Something rustled behind him.
He didn't turn. "If you've come to strike me down, you're already late."
The voice that answered was low, dry, and oddly amused.
"Strike you down? Please. If I wanted to kill you, I'd wait for you to remember me first."
Yanlong turned.
A figure stepped out from the fog—a man clad in twilight-colored robes, his long hair silver like threads of starlight. A flute hung at his waist, and his smile was both tired and far too knowing.
Yanlong frowned. "You're not from the sect."
The man inclined his head. "Correct. I watched it burn from the western sky."
"Then why are you here?"
"To watch what comes next."
---
Yanlong rose to his full height, the flames around his shoulders flickering with lazy menace.
"Speak clearly, or leave."
The stranger chuckled. "You've lost none of your charm, I see."
That stopped him.
"You've met me before?"
"Once," the man said. "Long ago. You were different then. Arrogant. Furious. But with a fire that could have reshaped Heaven—had you not burned it down instead."
Yanlong's jaw clenched.
"I don't remember you."
"Of course not," the man said. "You never do. That's part of the punishment, isn't it?"
---
The air turned colder.
Yanlong stepped forward, his voice hard. "Who are you?"
The man's eyes gleamed. "A witness. A ghost. A friend—once. Perhaps again. But for now, consider me a messenger."
"A messenger for who?"
The man looked to the horizon. "For her."
---
His heart twisted.
Not from pain.
From something far worse.
Recognition without clarity.
---
"She'll come again," the man said. "And next time, she won't stop at your throat."
"I know."
"And you still won't run?"
Yanlong didn't answer.
The stranger smiled again. Not cruelly. Almost... sadly.
"Good," he said. "Because if you did, she'd never forgive you."
---
Yanlong looked away.
The mountain wind howled louder, blowing sparks from the edge of his cloak into the night sky. One drifted into the jade shard in his hand, and it glowed again—just faintly. Just enough to remind him.
That something was waiting for him in the ashes.
---
The stranger turned to leave.
But before he stepped into the mist again, he paused. "When you remember her," he said without looking back, "don't beg for forgiveness."
Yanlong narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"Because it's too late for that."
The fog swallowed him.
---
Yanlong stood still for a long time.
The night no longer felt like a veil—it felt like a chain. Wrapped tight around his thoughts, squeezing until every distant flicker of memory ached like a wound that had never healed.
Who was I, before all this fire?
What did I lose, beyond the heavens?
The jade shard pulsed once more in his grip.
He didn't know if it was reacting to him… or to her.
---
He descended the ridge slowly, feet moving by instinct rather than thought. The mountain path curved toward a grove half-burned in his earlier rampage—cherry blossoms still falling in slow spirals, their branches blackened by heat.
This place...
It tugged at him.
Not just familiarity. Something deeper.
Something older.
---
He stopped at the edge of a pond.
The surface shimmered with moonlight. Half of it was clear—untouched by flame. The other half reflected only ash and soot.
A perfect mirror of himself.
His reflection didn't blink. It stared back, golden eyes burning, demonic armor dark and cracked from years of battle. But beneath it…
He saw her.
Not physically. Not a vision. Just—
A flicker.
White robes.
Unbound hair.
A smile caught between pride and sorrow.
And a voice—soft, broken, terrifyingly tender.
"I believed in you, once."
His knees hit the earth before he realized he was falling.
Not from pain.
From something else.
From the weight of what he almost remembered.
---
The ground beneath him vibrated.
A hum.
Low, steady.
Like a voice trying to rise from the grave of memory.
He closed his eyes and let it speak.
---
The pond shifted. And in the stillness of his mind—
He saw her.
Not the girl with the dagger.
Not the woman who stared him down in the shrine.
But a girl in celestial armor.
Smiling through bloodied lips. Reaching for him with shaking fingers.
"Yanlong… run. Please."
He didn't move in the vision.
And she collapsed before she could finish the plea.
He gasped.
Pulled back into himself.
The flame surged in his chest, wild and unstable. For a moment, it felt like it would devour him from the inside out.
What was that?
When was that?
And most of all—
Why does it feel like I left her behind?
He gritted his teeth and stood.
Not just from rage—but from a sudden, rising clarity.
He had destroyed many things.
But this…
This felt personal.
This wasn't just another sect he burned.
It was something he once vowed to protect.
Lianxin…
What were we, before I became this?
He looked to the sky.
No stars.
Just clouds and flickering light.
The heavens were watching. Of that, he was sure.
They always watched him.
They just never answered.
---
For now, there was only one truth.
He would find her again.
Not to ask for forgiveness.
Not even to explain.
But to remember.
To stand in front of her and say the name she refused to give him—
And prove that he still deserved to hold it.
End of Chapter 4