The moment they stepped through the shimmering portal of the Whispering Pass, the air changed. The crisp, chaotic energy of the mortal realm was replaced by the cool, familiar, and orderly gloom of the Netherworld. They were home.
An alarm had already been sent, and a royal transport met them, carrying them at a breathtaking speed to the Silent Palace. They arrived to a scene of controlled panic. Healers were assembled, guards stood in a grim, silent formation, and a terrified Xue Hua was waiting for them at the top of the grand staircase, held back by a stoic Gan Yu.
"Mother!" she cried out, her eyes fixed on the wounded, unconscious form of Xue Lian in Lan Yue's arms.
Lan Yue's heart clenched. She knelt, carefully balancing her precious burden. "She will be alright, Xue Hua," she said, her voice a low, steady anchor in the storm of the child's fear. "I am here now. We are all here."
Xue Lian was rushed to the Imperial Medical Wing. The dynasty's finest healers, led by the ancient spirit Lin, quickly discovered the truth.
"We cannot stop it," Lin's voice was a rustle of profound despair. "Our arts are based in the manipulation of demonic qi. This wound… it is the antithesis. It feeds on spiritual energy and corrupts it. Anything we try will only make it stronger."
It was then that Lan Yue took command. "Leave us," she said, her voice quiet but absolute. The healers, after a moment's hesitation, bowed and retreated.
Lan Yue stood over the woman she loved, the dark, venomous corruption spreading slowly from the wound on her shoulder. She knew what she had to do. She sat on the edge of the bed, taking both of Xue Lian's hands in hers. She closed her eyes, opening the floodgates of their new, permanent Soul Bond, preparing to pour her own pure, celestial energy into her lover's ravaged body.
She pushed her consciousness across the bridge between them, intending to navigate the spiritual meridians and hunt the poison. But the bond was new, raw from the ritual, and deeper than she could have ever imagined. She plunged past the surface layers of pain and fever, past the fierce, protective love for her and their daughter, and fell into something else entirely. Something ancient and utterly alien.
Suddenly, she was no longer in the Silent Palace.
She was in a small, sterile, box like room, bathed in a harsh, flat white light from glowing rectangles in the high ceiling. The air was stale and smelled of hot metal, bitter black liquid in a ceramic cup, and a strange, grating stress. Rhythmic clicking sounds filled the air. She was looking down at a pair of hands slender, but tired, with short, unadorned nails that were flying across a black tablet covered in glowing, unfamiliar glyphs.
*Whose memory is this?* Lan Yue thought, a wave of profound disorientation washing over her. *This is not the Netherworld. It is not the mortal realm I know. What is this place?*
A loud, angry, disembodied voice erupted from a small black rectangle on the desk. Lan Yue could not understand the words, but she felt their impact deep in the soul she was connected to: humiliation, frustration, and a weary, bone deep anger. She felt the other woman's Xue Lian's? jaw clench, her desire to scream back a torrent of insults suppressed by a thick layer of professional exhaustion.
The vision shifted. The harsh white light of "day" was gone, replaced by the same artificial glow against a backdrop of deep darkness outside a square window. The feeling was of being trapped, of a life being drained away not by a glorious battle or a noble sacrifice, but by the slow, mundane, and utterly meaningless grind of endless work. She felt the crushing weight of a loneliness so profound it was a physical ache the loneliness of a single, invisible cog in a vast, indifferent machine.
This was the source of the sorrow she had always sensed in Xue Lian. It was not the sorrow of a Demon Empress, but the despair of a different person, from a different, forgotten world.
Lan Yue pulled her consciousness back with a gasp, her heart hammering in her chest. She was back in the medical wing, Xue Lian's cold hand still in hers. The vision had lasted only a second, but it had changed everything. The woman she loved was an enigma far deeper than she had ever imagined.
Shaken, but with her resolve now hardened into something unbreakable, she refocused on the task at hand. She would save her. She would save this impossible, brilliant, and inexplicably sad soul.
She poured her energy into the bond once more, this time with a new, fierce tenderness. The war for Xue Lian's life began in earnest.
Hours passed. The fate of the empire hung in the balance, so the empire could not wait. Commander Kael and Vex'aal were summoned to the sickroom. They stood in stunned silence, watching the Saint, her face pale with exertion, her entire being focused on the healing. It was she who addressed them, her eyes still closed.
"We have proof," she said, her voice strained. She nodded towards the table, where the obsidian Memory Weaver lay.
Vex'aal activated it. The silent, three dimensional image of Elder Feng's confession filled the air. The commanders' fury was absolute.
"Give the word, Your Grace," Kael growled. "I will take the legions and turn the Golden Sun Pavilion into a crater of ash."
A weak, rasping voice came from the bed. "No…" Xue Lian's eyes were open, focused on Lan Yue. "Not… war. Vex'aal…"
The spymaster was at her side instantly.
"Duplicate the recording," Xue Lian commanded, her voice a strained whisper. "Send copies… to every major and minor sect… except the Golden Sun Pavilion and Azure Cloud. Let them see the serpent… in their own garden."
It was a masterful counter stroke. The commanders bowed and departed to carry out her orders. The room was quiet again, save for the soft hum of healing energy. Xue Lian looked at Lan Yue, her eyes full of a love and gratitude that was now mixed with a new, dawning fear. She had felt Lan Yue's presence in the deepest, most hidden part of her soul. She knew that her greatest secret was no longer entirely her own.