The night had grown heavy, the air thick with the scent of ash and dusk-blooming lotus. Mo Lianyin sat beneath the shattered statue of the Moon Goddess, the last flickers of the Whispering Flame still licking his fingertips. He no longer trembled. He no longer wept.
Pain, after all, had become his most faithful companion.
Across from him, Meiran hadn't moved. Her sword still pointed in his direction, though the tip now sagged with hesitation. She was young—but her eyes held an ancient weariness, the kind born not of age, but of obligation.
"You knew I was coming," she said at last, voice tight with something like regret.
"No," Lianyin murmured. "But I knew someone would. That's the price of power."
Meiran's fingers clenched tighter around her hilt. "They told me you were a beast in human skin. A monster who killed his master and betrayed his sect."
He gave a low, broken laugh. "They're not wrong. Not entirely."
"You don't deny it?"
"What would be the point?"
The silence was thicker now. Not threatening, but unbearably real.
Then Meiran lowered her sword.
Slightly.
"Why don't you fight me?" she asked.
Lianyin looked at her, really looked. Under her robes of silver and indigo, she wore the crest of the Jade Celestial Court—one of the oldest, most rigid sects in the Eastern Realm. They trained their disciples from birth, robbed them of childhood, and filled them with purity and purpose.
Just like he once was.
"Because if I kill you," he said, voice steady, "then I prove them right. That I'm nothing more than the fire they fear."
Meiran's jaw tightened. Her sword dipped further, then—finally—she sheathed it.
"You don't look like a villain."
He met her gaze. "And you don't look like a killer."
Another long pause.
Then her voice broke. "I didn't want to come. But they said you'd destroy the Four Realms. That the Seven Forbidden Arts are forbidden for a reason."
"They are," he whispered. "Because once you master them, you no longer belong to the world."
Something flickered in her eyes. Not pity. Not fear.
Recognition.
She sat beside him, careful, but unafraid.
"Tell me the truth," she said. "About what really happened to your master."
Lianyin's shoulders tensed. "Why?"
"Because if I'm going to spare you… I need to know who I'd be protecting."
The old hurt resurfaced, raw and red.
He closed his eyes.
"Master Huiwen taught me more than cultivation. He taught me how to read the silence in the wind. How to find strength in mercy."
He swallowed.
"When I discovered the first Forbidden Art… I brought it to him. I thought he'd be proud."
Her breath caught. "But he wasn't."
"No. He was terrified."
Lianyin's fingers curled into his robe. "He said I had awakened something that should never breathe. That if I continued… I'd become a threat to balance itself. He tried to seal my dantian."
Meiran looked horrified. "That's… That's spiritual death."
"I know." His voice was cold now. "But I didn't kill him. Not then. I begged him to stop. I begged him to let me prove I could control it."
He stared at the cracked statue above them.
"But the others… they came. The elders. Feiyun. My brother…"
He choked, once.
"They took my brother hostage. Said if I didn't surrender the arts, they'd tear out his core and leave him hollow."
Meiran covered her mouth.
"I tried to save him. But by the time I arrived, Feiyun had already begun the ritual. My master… he fought to stop them. He died protecting me."
Tears slipped down Lianyin's face, but he didn't wipe them away.
"I was too late."
A sharp wind sliced through the ruins. Meiran stared at him, pale as bone.
"You're not the monster they think you are," she said quietly.
"No," he said. "I'm worse. Because now, I don't care about saving my name. Only about burning them all to ash."
She stood suddenly. "Then let me come with you."
He blinked.
"What?"
"You heard me." Her voice shook, but her stance did not. "They lied to me. Lied about you. I was a tool. A weapon. Just like you once were."
Lianyin narrowed his eyes. "Why would you want to follow a man the world wants dead?"
She looked straight into his soul.
"Because no one deserves to fight alone."
He stared at her for a long moment, searching for a crack in her conviction.
He found none.
Then he stood, brushing ash from his robe, and extended his hand.
Meiran hesitated—then took it.
Just like that, a thread of fate was rewoven.
And somewhere in the dark, beyond the mountains, beyond the rivers of flame and the broken sects, the seventh Forbidden Art stirred in its slumber.
Waiting.