The scream hadn't stopped.
It echoed still in the bones of the mountain, rattling through stone and sky alike. The air shuddered beneath its weight, and every gust of wind carried an aftertaste of grief and fury.
Ling Xiuyuan stumbled, knees sinking into the wet earth. The blue light of his barrier flickered weakly around him, no brighter than a dying ember. The world tilted, colors bleeding together — black sky, silver mist, red flashes of lightning far above the peaks.
His chest constricted. It felt as though something inside him were being torn out, his core hollowed by the scream's echo. Years of solitude and damaged cultivation had left his spirit thin; this mountain's wrath tore through what little remained.
He fell to one side, breathing ragged.
"Shizun!"
Mingyue's voice cut through the noise — desperate, raw.
He crawled to him, the storm biting at his robes, hair plastered to his face. The wind screamed louder, but Mingyue barely heard it. His focus was only on the man before him — the pallor spreading across his face, the tremor in his hands, the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
Xiuyuan's eyes fluttered open. His vision was a smear of color and shadow. He could barely make out Mingyue's outline, only the warmth of his touch as the younger man slid an arm beneath his shoulders and lifted him gently, resting him against the trunk of a gnarled pine.
Xiuyuan tried to speak, but his throat was raw. The scream still echoed in his skull, a pain too deep for sound. His breath rattled, weak and uneven.
The mist thickened around them. It wasn't just fog now — it moved with purpose, alive with the hunger of wandering spirits. Faces began to form within it: hollow eyes, twisted mouths, the remnants of souls long corrupted.
Mingyue looked up — and understood.
They were coming.
The wind snapped, carrying whispers too fast to catch, voices laced with venom and despair. The sigils of the mountain's curse glowed faintly beneath their feet, pulsing like veins of blood through stone.
Mingyue clenched his fists. His heart pounded, not from fear — but from the heavy inevitability that pressed against his chest.
Mingyue exhaled. A small, rueful smile curved his lips. "So its the time."
The first spirit shrieked — a sound like shattering glass — and dove at him.
Mingyue moved before it touched ground.
One flash — the sound of steel tearing through air — and the thing split apart into pale dust, vanishing into the storm.
He landed lightly, robes whipping around him, hair half-undone. For a moment, the lightning illuminated him fully — the sharp jawline, the flicker of fire in his eyes, the faint, dangerous smile curving at his lips.
Not the calm, quiet Mingyue that followed orders without question.
This was someone else.
Someone alive with wildness.
Someone Ling Xiuyuan had once known.
The next spirit lunged. Mingyue twisted sideways, parrying with a fluid motion that turned into a strike. Blue light flashed from his hand, bursting through the creature's chest.
It screamed, dissolved into mist.
He didn't stop moving — each step clean, precise, effortless. The storm bent around him, as though the world itself recognized him again.
Another wave came — five, then seven, their eyes glowing red. They surrounded him, howling through the wind.
Mingyue laughed softly under his breath. It wasn't mockery; it was exhilaration — the familiar, reckless joy of battle.
"Come then," he said. "Let's end it properly."
He spun, his sleeve cutting through the air. The charm marks burned to life along his arm — intricate sigils glowing through the fabric, old and powerful. The air cracked. The spirits burst apart like shards of light scattering into the night.
Each strike was unhurried but merciless — a dance of grace and destruction. His body moved like it remembered everything it had ever been — a warrior's rhythm, the discipline of cultivation meeting the fire of instinct.
Lightning flashed again — and for a heartbeat, the illusion broke.
Mingyue's figure shimmered — robes darkening into deeper blue, his hair longer, his eyes bright as flame. His expression, fierce and laughing, belonged to someone else.
Shen Liuxian.
The disciple who once stood before Xiuyuan with the same half-smile, eyes burning with mischief and courage.
The young man who had once sworn he'd protect his master — even from death itself.
The same soul, now moving through the storm once more.
Xiuyuan's half-conscious gaze flickered toward him. His vision blurred, but for an instant, he saw.
That familiar silhouette, bathed in lightning — that same stance, that same laugh ringing through the chaos.
Liuxian…?
The thought barely formed before the darkness pulled at him again.
Another wave of spirits shrieked through the storm — dozens this time, crawling out from the rocks, the trees, the mist itself. Mingyue's eyes narrowed, a thrill sparking behind his exhaustion.
"So persistent," he muttered.
He raised both hands. The air rippled.
Then — with a breath — he shattered the silence.
A burst of white-blue light exploded outward from his core. The wind recoiled, the mist tore apart, and the spirits were ripped into nothing.
It was over in seconds.
He stood in the middle of the storm's wreckage, chest rising and falling, sweat glinting at his temple. His robe clung to him, torn at the shoulder, revealing the inked scar curling down his collarbone — an old seal once burned into flesh.
Mingyue — no, Shen Liuxian — exhaled slowly.
He glanced at his hand. The glow of his spiritual mark had dimmed again, leaving faint blue traces like fireflies fading in dusk.
"…Still weak," he muttered with a small, rueful smile. "Seven years, and I can barely hold form for half an hour."
The storm had quieted a little. The spirits were gone, their howls replaced by rain beginning to fall — slow, cold drops striking the ground like distant chimes.
He turned.
Xiuyuan was still slumped against the tree, barely conscious, his head tilted to one side.
Liuxian walked toward him, kneeling carefully in front of him. His hand hovered briefly over Xiuyuan's chest, feeling the uneven pulse of spiritual energy.
"Foolish as always," he murmured. "Still trying to save everyone but yourself."
A faint smile touched his lips, softer now, touched with ache. He brushed wet hair from Xiuyuan's forehead and let his hand linger for a heartbeat.
"Shizun…" he whispered — voice low, reverent. "You never change."
He sat beside him, the rain soaking through their robes, the world still trembling with the echoes of what had been unleashed.
Above them, the mountain's bells tolled again — slow, distant, mourning.
Liuxian looked up, his expression tightening. "You've gone too far this time, old man," he muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing toward the summit where the ritual still burned. "I won't let you finish it."
But his hand shook faintly when he clenched it. His form flickered — Mingyue's face surfacing again, softer, calmer. The glow beneath his skin dimmed entirely.
The transformation was breaking.
He exhaled through his teeth, bracing one hand against the ground to steady himself.
"Not yet…" he said. "Just a little longer."
He turned back to Xiuyuan — still unconscious, pale as snow, breathing shallowly. Liuxian touched his cheek lightly, his thumb tracing the curve of his jaw.
For a moment, he just looked at him — the man he'd once followed into every battle, the man he'd died protecting, the man he could never stop coming back to.
The wind softened around them, carrying a faint scent of pine and rain.
"I told you I'd always come back," he said quietly.
He smiled — that same boyish, infuriatingly confident smile that had once driven Xiuyuan half-mad with worry.
Then his gaze shifted to the horizon, where lightning burned against the clouds.
The only sound left was their breathing and the distant ringing of bells from the mountain's peak.
Liuxian's gaze rose toward that dark summit. His smile faded. "He's nearly finished it," he said under his breath. "But not yet."
He pressed his fingers lightly to Xiuyuan's pulse — still weak, but steady enough. Relief flickered in his eyes.
Then, he sighed — a sharp, resigned breath — and patted Xiuyuan's sleeve.
"Sorry, Shizun," he said softly, lips curling into a mischievous smirk. "But I'll need to borrow something."
From the hidden fold of Xiuyuan's sleeve, he pulled out the small red emergency flare — a signal talisman engraved with the Sect Leader's mark, meant to alert the others if the party was in mortal danger.
He turned it once in his hand, studying it. "You'd be angry if I didn't use it, wouldn't you?"
Then he raised it, murmured the activation seal, and flung it skyward.
The flare shot into the clouds, bursting in a silent bloom of crimson light — a streak that cut through the rain, painting the storm's heart blood-red.
The flare faded, leaving a faint glow over the forest.
Liuxian stood for a moment beneath it, watching the light dissolve — then looked down at himself. His robe was barely torn. His face was unmarked.
"That won't do," he muttered, amused. "I look far too alive."
He crouched, rubbed a handful of dirt over his sleeve, then winced deliberately as he pressed his knuckles against the bark of the pine. A shallow scrape bloomed red.
"There," he said, studying the mark like an artist assessing his work. "Pitiful, believable."
He frowned, then, as if considering something, and dramatically threw himself onto the ground — rolling twice until his robe looked suitably ruined and his hair was a mess.
A soft chuckle escaped him as he lay there, staring up at the dissolving flare.
"Shen Liuxian, the terror of ghosts," he said to the empty air, voice laced with laughter. "Reduced to rolling in the dirt so no one suspects he's back."
He tilted his head toward Xiuyuan, who still leaned faintly against the tree, unconscious but breathing.
"Forgive me, Shizun," he murmured. "Just this once — let them believe I'm a useless coward. It'll make things easier."
A last trace of warmth passed through his expression — fond, wistful, full of something unspoken.
For a long moment he simply watched him — that face he had once followed through snow and war and fire. The man who had saved him, broken him, and still, after all this time, made his chest ache with something that no words could quite hold.
The wind carried the faint scent of rain and pine.He reached out, brushing a thumb across Xiuyuan's hand — just once, gently.
"I missed you so much," he said, voice breaking softly into the air.
The clouds above them shifted; lightning flared far away, pale and cold.
He smiled faintly. The same boyish curve of lips that used to earn him scoldings from dawn till dusk. His eyes were warm, but there was something like grief hiding behind the smile.
"Should I steal a kiss like back then?" he murmured, half teasing, half trembling.He paused, then laughed quietly to himself."…Just kidding. I'm not a child anymore."
He sighed — that small, resigned sound of someone who knows he's already said too much — and lay down beside his Shizun, close enough that their shoulders brushed.
The night swallowed their words.The storm began to calm.
By the time the first answering flares rose from below the mountain — Shen Liuxian, or Mingyue once more, was already lying motionless beside the Sect Leader, eyes closed, a faint smile still on his lips, looking for all the world like a faithful servant who had been beaten too hard and fainted beside his master.