The trail south was dry and crooked, carved into the land like an old scar — not dangerous, but remembered.
Kaifeng followed the map.
Not by step.
By feeling.
He didn't check landmarks. He didn't count distances.
He moved like the one who drew it had moved — quiet, off the road, guided by memory.
On the third day, he saw it.
A twisted tree.
No leaves. No shade. Its branches reached upward like hands that had given up asking.
Kaifeng stopped at the base and sat cross-legged in the dust.
The map crumbled in his pocket.
He didn't need it anymore.
Because he remembered.
Seven Years Ago.
He had knelt in the exact same place — smaller, thinner, bruised from sparring, his cheek red with a teacher's reprimand.
Shén Lüyun had brought him here, back then.
"This tree doesn't bloom," she said.
"But it survives. That's enough."
"Why show me?" he asked.
"Because someday you'll forget what survival looks like. And this is the shape of it."
She'd left a ribbon tied to one branch. Pale gray. Plain. It had vanished long ago.
But Kaifeng looked now — and found it still there.
Dust-covered. Half-fused to bark. But present.
Like a voice he hadn't heard, whispering without sound.
He rose, slowly, and touched the ribbon.
It crumbled in his hand.
Not into dust.
Into threads — gray, soft, shaped like silk.
Inside the threads, something cold: a small iron ring.
Worn. Dull. Familiar.
He hadn't seen it in seven years.
But he had worn its twin.
Once.
For a month.
Before the fire.
He closed his fingers around it.
"You left a piece," he said aloud.
A pause.
Then a voice behind him, low and steady:
"She left more than one."
Kaifeng turned.
A man stood in the shadow of the rocks, dressed in crimson-gray robes — not Qingwu's. Not a sect at all. No blade at his hip. But his hands were bandaged from palm to forearm.
His presence felt... hollow. Like he was standing where someone else should have been.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled. Not cruel. Not kind.
"I once trained beside her. Long ago. Before either of us knew how to kill."
"Then you're dead," Kaifeng said.
"That's possible," the man replied.
"But if I am, then what are you?"
Kaifeng didn't answer.
The man stepped forward.
"She told me, if you came here, I was to give you a choice."
He held out his palm.
Two items rested in it:
A folded scroll marked with the character: "止" — To stop.
A torn fragment of cloth with Kaifeng's childhood name stitched in faint ink.
"One teaches you how to end her.
The other shows you why she shouldn't be ended."
"Which does she want me to take?" Kaifeng asked.
The man laughed — a tired, worn sound.
"She doesn't want anything from you.
That's what makes her dangerous."
Kaifeng took neither.
He simply said:
"I'll find her."
And turned.
The man stayed behind, alone beneath the tree, speaking to no one:
"He still doesn't know."
"Good."
"It will hurt more that way."
End of Chapter 11