The wind had grown sharper overnight, as if winter itself had grown impatient. It carved through the trees like an invisible blade, lifting dying leaves into the air and letting them fall—one after another, like the slow descent of forgotten promises scattered to uncaring earth.
The group descended the mountain path in heavy silence, the Spirit Echo Cave now behind them like a chapter closed but not forgotten. The cold had arrived in earnest—it wasn't winter yet, but the sky bore its pallor, and the sun no longer offered warmth. They moved slowly, the wind pushing at their backs like impatient hands.
By the time they reached the town, their breath curled white from their mouths like small departing ghosts. The innkeeper welcomed them with hot water and rooms already prepared, asking no questions. No one had much to say.
---
Chen Xinyu sat in his room with Lingque. A single oil lamp cast their shadows across the wall, its flame wavering in the breeze that slipped through the cracked window like unwelcome truths.
Lingque, for once, didn't chatter with her usual energy. She watched him in sidelong glances, her brows gradually pulling together with divine concern. Xinyu hadn't touched his meal. His rice had gone cold, the steam long since dissipated. He hadn't even noticed.
Finally, she slapped the table lightly and broke the oppressive silence.
"Hey. Xinyu. Xinyu." Her voice was sharp, but not unkind—the sharpness of someone who cares trying to pierce through walls. "Are you going to keep sulking like this? Or are you going to tell me how you got that sword? At least tell me that before I beat it out of you!"
Xinyu didn't move, still as carved stone. Lingque sighed, reached over, and tapped his shoulder with gentle insistence.
"I'm serious," she said, voice softening like snow beginning to melt. "You can tell me anything. You know that, right?"
Xinyu finally looked up. His eyes were rimmed with exhaustion that went bone-deep, and the corners of his mouth were tight with something unsaid—something poisonous. He hesitated, then spoke with visible difficulty.
"I met someone... in the illusion realm."
"And?" Lingque leaned closer, divine curiosity mixing with concern.
"She... told me things. About my past. About the mark. She gave me the sword. Said it would protect me."
Lingque narrowed her eyes with penetrating focus. "That's all?"
"That's everything," he said too quickly. He stood suddenly, chair scraping against floor. "I'm going out for a bit."
He left the room before she could say anything else, before she could see the cracks spreading across his carefully maintained facade.
---
Outside, the town was quiet as a held breath. The trees had shed most of their leaves, and the pond near the inn rippled under moonlight like liquid silver. Xinyu stood by the water's edge, shoulders hunched against more than just cold, the sword strapped to his back feeling heavier than steel should. He stared into the reflection of the sky, and his eyes shimmered with unshed tears. A single drop slid down his cheek like a falling star.
Hua Ling saw it from a distance.
His heart twisted—an unfamiliar sensation, sharp and unwelcome. He wasn't accustomed to seeing Xinyu like this—wasn't used to seeing him look so small, like something fragile about to shatter into irreparable pieces. Before conscious thought could intervene, he stepped forward and grasped Xinyu's arm with gentle urgency.
Xinyu turned, startled. Their eyes met. Hua Ling saw the sorrow there—quiet, unspoken, and unbearable as winter's deepest cold. Xinyu turned his head away and wiped at his face with trembling fingers.
But Hua Ling didn't release his hold. He pulled him close and embraced him.
Xinyu froze like a deer before arrows. "Dianxia—"
"Don't say anything," Hua Ling said quietly, voice carrying uncharacteristic vulnerability. "Just don't."
They stood like that beneath the cold moon and whispering trees, saying nothing. The night closed in around them like a secret kept between souls, warm despite the frost.
---
Morning came pale and brisk, winter's herald arriving before its time. The inn steamed with the scent of hot porridge and frost-damp cloaks drying by the fire's warmth.
Everyone gathered outside, preparing to return to the mountain. The road ahead was long, but no one complained—they'd survived worse.
Shen Yao tried to engage Xinyu in conversation, but the boy seemed to have drawn inward, wrapped in silence like funeral shrouds. Yan Zheng caught Shen Yao's sleeve and shook his head with knowing sadness. "Let him be."
Lan Xueyao and Rourou looked over with concern but said nothing. Lingque stood with arms crossed, scowling faintly, but she too remained silent—understanding that some wounds needed time.
Mochen had already returned to the sect ahead of them. Chi Ruyan clung close to Hua Ling's side again, eyes unreadable as winter water. Qingze trailed behind, his gaze lingering on the clouds as if reading omens there.
---
Far away, in the central hall of the sect, Zhou Yuanzhen sat with a scroll in hand. A message from Yan Zheng had arrived earlier.
"They'll return soon," he said, smiling faintly with relief he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Tang Meilin, reclining in her chair with a fan in hand, snorted lightly. "Hmph. I knew my girls would acquire their artifacts. They never disappoint."
Just then, Sect Leader Jiang entered the hall, robes trailing and calm as ever—the eye of every storm.
He took a seat beside Zhou and accepted a cup of tea with graceful hands.
"Master Zhou," he said, raising an elegant eyebrow, "you're smiling. Something good happened?"
Zhou chuckled softly. "My disciples are returning safely. Isn't that good enough?"
Jiang took a sip and gave a rare smile in return. "Indeed. You worried for nothing."
Outside, the leaves continued to fall like time itself made visible.
---
They returned to the sect under a sky the color of ash, the wind dragging winter in through the gates before the season had quite arrived. The journey back had been smooth. No injuries. No loss. By all accounts, it was a successful expedition.
And yet.
Zhou Yuanzhen stood at the front steps of the main hall, flanked by several elders and disciples. When the group entered the courtyard, the first person his gaze found was Chen Xinyu.
The boy smiled at him—just a little. It was polite, shallow, the kind of smile one gives in greeting but not in joy. A smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Zhou Yuanzhen smiled back, but something in his chest tightened. "Welcome back."
Then he noticed her—the strange girl with eyes too curious for a stranger and energy coiled like a spring in her divine limbs.
Before he could inquire, Xinyu stepped forward and introduced her with a respectful nod.
"This is Lingque, Shizun. She's my friend... and my spiritual beast."
Zhou raised both brows in genuine surprise. "Spiritual beast?" He laughed softly, folding his hands behind his back. "Xinyu has grown up, I see. You've done well."
Xinyu smiled again, but Zhou's experienced eyes narrowed faintly. There was something behind that smile. Something tired. Something fractured like broken porcelain poorly glued together.
He glanced at Shen Yao and Yan Zheng. Neither spoke. They just gave him identical, minute shakes of the head—a silent warning.
So Zhou said nothing more. He let them all go. "Rest well," he said gently. "We'll speak another day."
One by one, the disciples scattered—back to familiar rooms and courtyards, to the quiet rhythms of life at the mountain sect.
---
Hua Ling returned to his pavilion. The moon was high by then, a pale coin hung on velvet darkness, and the chill clung to the corners of the room like unwelcome guests. He lay on the bed, but rest wouldn't come no matter how he courted it.
He turned once. Then again. Then a third time, dragging the quilt over his head and throwing it off again within minutes like a man tormented.
The image of Xinyu by the pond lingered in his mind like a shadow pressed into snow—too quiet, too still, too broken. The look in his eyes... it hadn't left Hua Ling since that night.
Eventually, he gave up pretending to sleep.
He dressed, stepped into the courtyard, and walked through the empty night like a man chasing something he couldn't name and didn't dare examine.
He arrived at Xinyu's door.
A few moments later, it creaked open. Xinyu stood in his night robe, hair loose and falling like dark water, eyes still half-drowsy.
"Dianxia?" he asked, confused. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"
Hua Ling didn't answer immediately. Then he raised a brow and said matter-of-factly, "Nothing significant. I need you. Aren't you my personal attendant?"
Xinyu stared at him. "...Huh?"
He looked down, muttering to himself with barely contained frustration. "Even at a time like this, he never fails to irritate me."
Before he could protest further, Hua Ling reached out and took his wrist. "Come with me."
He didn't argue. A few moments later, they were seated at a low table in Hua Ling's pavilion, where the incense had long gone cold.
Neither of them spoke for a while, the silence stretching like silk between them.
Finally, Hua Ling broke it. "Tell me what's troubling you."
Xinyu stared down at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. "Why are you worrying yourself with my matters?" he asked softly, voice carrying pain he couldn't quite hide.
Hua Ling opened his mouth, but no answer came.
Truthfully, he didn't understand it either.
"...I couldn't sleep," he said at last. "It's your fault."
Xinyu blinked. "Mine?"
Hua Ling looked away. "I don't know."
Xinyu watched him, and for a moment, guilt washed over him like cold water. He hadn't meant to drag anyone else into the heavy tangle of his thoughts. His mind churned with turmoil—he couldn't stop thinking about his parents, about the terrible revelation. And beneath it all, the poisonous knowledge that it was Hua Ling's father who had killed his own. The irony burned like acid.
He didn't know how to act, how to reconcile the person before him with the legacy of blood. Just for the sake of this moment, he tried to forget. One last meeting before everything changed. Before revenge became his only companion.
He offered a quiet smile, trying to shift the suffocating air between them.
"Have you eaten, Dianxia?"
"No."
"...Me neither."
Xinyu stood with careful grace. "Then should we go out to town? I know a place that stays open late."
Hua Ling hesitated, surprised by the suggestion.
Then he rose too. "Lead the way."
And so, beneath the quiet moon and the drifting leaves, the two of them stepped out into the sleeping world—shoulder to shoulder, the silence between them no longer sharp, but almost gentle. A borrowed peace before the storm that neither knew was coming.
Two souls walking side by side, each carrying secrets that could destroy the other, seeking comfort in the only thing left to them—this moment, this night, this fragile thing that might be friendship or something more dangerous, something neither dared to name.