The box waited. Three iron clasps. Dust along the edges. It had sat untouched by the fire for two days now, ever since Master Yan handed it to him. Wuye hadn't opened it. Not because he feared the blade but because he feared what it meant.
A weapon was never just a weapon. Not in a world like this. A blade was a name. A will. A weight strapped to your spine and your story. Once you drew it, you couldn't go back.
And he hadn't decided, yet, who he wanted to be. That morning, the snow fell sideways — a sharp, slanted blizzard howling through the mountain hollow like a scream someone had bottled for too long. Wuye stood outside the cave, barefoot again. Shirtless. Letting the cold bite him.
He didn't flinch.
Behind him, Yan stood silent.
"You're remembering more," the old man said.
It wasn't a question.
Wuye nodded.
"Last night, it came back. All of it."
Yan didn't prompt him. Just waited.
So Wuye spoke.
The courtyard had smelled of camellias.
He'd been twelve. Still wearing his formal silks, embroidered with the phoenix insignia — House Qinyan's crest. Gold threading and red lacquered shoes. He remembered looking down at his cup of tea and seeing his face reflected in it.
A servant had poured it but his brother handed it to him.
Smiling.
"Drink quickly, Wuye," he'd said. "The stars are almost out."
Behind them, their father sat silent. Watching. That same distant expression he always wore — the kind he wore when listening to court petitions he didn't care about. Wuye had taken the cup with both hands, bowed as expected, and drank.
The taste had been sweet.
Sweet and strange. Like sugarwater with rust.
Ten minutes later, he collapsed in the snow.
His fingers had gone numb first. Then his tongue. Then his sight.
He'd heard someone screaming. Maybe it was him. Maybe not.
In the blur, his brother knelt beside him. Whispered something in his ear.
A kindness?
No. A knife.
"You won't feel a thing, little brother. Just sleep. Father said it's better this way."
Back in the present, Wuye's breath fogged.
"I remembered his voice," he said. "The way he said my name. Like he was doing me a favor."
Yan stirred behind him.
"And now?" the old man asked.
Wuye closed his eyes.
"I won't take that name again. Not even to bury it."
"You won't reclaim the throne?"
Wuye shook his head.
"I'll burn it."
That evening, he opened the box. The clasps clicked one by one, slow as a funeral drum. Inside, wrapped in faded cloth, lay a blade.
Black-steeled. Slightly curved. No ornament. No inscription.
It was beautiful in the way scars are beautiful: not because they impress, but because they remind you something once survived.
He reached out.
Touched the hilt.
The void inside him shifted. The second gate stirred again — not violently, but as if acknowledging an answer. For a moment, Wuye wasn't in the cave.
He was in the grave again.
The wind howled, snow burned his lungs and this time, he stood up with the sword in his hand. When he came back to himself, Yan was watching from the shadows.
"You've chosen," the old man said.
"Yes."
Yan poured tea without comment. Wuye strapped the sword to his waist, slow and reverent. It didn't feel like wearing a weapon. It felt like carrying a name he hadn't spoken yet.
"You'll need a new name," Yan said. "Something that fits."
Wuye stared into the fire.
Let the silence stretch.
Then spoke: "I think… no name is better."
The old man looked at him sideways. "Nameless?"
Wuye nodded.
"I was born with a name I didn't choose. Died with a name they tried to erase. This time, I'll walk forward with nothing."
"No name. No claim."
"No crown."
Yan exhaled. It wasn't quite a laugh. More like a cough made of old approval.
"Fitting," he said.
That night, Wuye carved something into the cave wall.
Not a symbol. Not a poem. Just a word.
One word: Nameless.
Not with pride. Not with drama.
Just truth.
Because sometimes the only way to carry a life was to drop its name and walk forward without it. He stared at the word for a long time then went to sleep. For the first time in weeks, he dreamed of neither Earth nor Empire.
Only the road ahead.
He woke before dawn.
The fire had long died, leaving only warm stones and the faint smell of pine ash. The sword lay beside him — not cradled like a relic, not polished like a prize. Just present, like a bone he'd grown by accident.
He didn't need to meditate that morning. Didn't need to breathe through the gates or count the quiet between heartbeats. The clarity was already there.
He stepped outside. The storm had passe and the sky was glass-colored. A few stars still clung to the edges of the world like regrets that hadn't let go yet and down in the ravine… silence.
Not absence. Anticipation.
Master Yan joined him shortly after, wrapped in a battered cloak. He said nothing for a while. Just stood beside Wuye — no, Nameless — as if the cold meant nothing now.
"You look steadier," the old man said eventually.
Nameless nodded. "I feel it."
Yan grunted. "Then it's time."
"For what?"
Yan turned to him, gaze sharper than frost.
"To leave."
A pause.
Nameless didn't flinch.
"Thought you'd keep me here longer."
"You were never mine to keep."
Nameless glanced toward the horizon. He could almost hear it — the pull of the empire, the rot beneath the gold, the cities where nobles drank blood-wine while peasants vanished in silence.
"I'll need a mask," he said.
Yan raised an eyebrow.
Nameless offered the faintest smile.
"Something simple. Can't have corpses recognizing me."
"You were a prince."
"Now I'm not."
Yan exhaled again — not sadness. Not pride.
Something in between.
"I'll help you forge it," he said. "But the name… that's yours alone now."
Nameless nodded and for the first time since rising from the grave, he bowed.
Not out of obligation but out of thanks. To the last man who'd believed a blade without a name could still be forged into something sharp enough to change the world.