The man had no name.
Not one that mattered.
He had gone by many — courier, monk, servant, brother. But none of them had survived the place he came from.
The only name he ever responded to was one whispered, never spoken:
"Warden."
He stood on the high cliffs two ridges north of the valley, watching Kaifeng and Shén Lüyun move in silence. His eyes didn't blink. His breath barely fogged.
He'd been following Kaifeng for weeks.
Not to stop him.
To witness.
Because that was the Warden's role — the last observer of the Listening Path, tasked with watching its remains echo back into the world.
And now… it echoes loudly.
Far behind him, in a tent of red lacquered silk and bone-thread stitching, a woman sat before a basin of black water.
Her face was veiled. Her hands bore the rings of six sects — three extinct, two exiled, one forbidden.
"He's found her," said the Warden, stepping into the tent.
She didn't move.
"And she offered him the blade?"
"No. She offered him the choice."
The woman dipped her fingers into the basin.
Ripples formed. Then cleared.
Kaifeng's face appeared, mid-motion, his form mirroring Lüyun's beneath the broken pillar.
The woman's voice was almost a whisper:
"Good."
"Then he still doesn't remember what he did."
In the valley, Kaifeng stood alone.
Shén Lüyun had vanished into the trees after their mirrored form, leaving him with the wooden blade and the unanswered question:
What survived — him, or the lie that buried him?
He looked down at the sword in his hands.
His fingers did not tremble.
But the weight of the blade was not wood.
It was memory.
And it was returning.
End of Chapter 1