The snow began to melt.
Only slightly—thin layers retreating beneath the mid-morning sun—but in the quiet village tucked between the pines, even small changes felt like omens.
Shen Yi noticed it first.
Not in the air. Not on the ground.
But in his bones.
The cold that had clung to his skin like a second layer now sat deeper, like something inside him resisted warmth.
He stood by the edge of the storehouse, gazing toward the forest where Yan Xue had disappeared last night.
She hadn't returned.
He didn't expect her to.
"You don't get to show me kindness now."
Her words echoed like frostbite—slow to fade, sharper in silence.
But he didn't regret going after her.
He didn't regret standing on that hill with his heart open and his throat dry.
He only regretted that it wasn't enough.
---
Meanwhile, on the southern ridge overlooking the village, Su Yao sat cross-legged beneath a cedar tree, her fingers resting lightly against a jade token that pulsed faintly with spiritual light.
She'd kept quiet for too long.
The sect would be looking for her soon.
And if they knew what she'd seen—that Shen Yi lived—they would act.
Hard. Fast. Without mercy.
But Su Yao didn't activate the token.
Not yet.
Instead, her gaze drifted toward the village square, where Shen Yi was helping a boy fix a broken water wheel. He moved carefully, as if afraid to break something. His strength was obvious, but his restraint more so.
"He doesn't remember," she murmured to herself.
But that didn't make him innocent.
The Immortal Demon Skill didn't corrupt memories—it corrupted essence. It took everything that was once human and fed it to ambition. Su Yao had read about it in forbidden records buried beneath the Scarlet Immortal Sect's archives.
Only one person in history had ever awakened it.
Only one had ever survived it.
And he stood down there now—smiling faintly at a child's thanks.
Su Yao frowned.
Why does it feel like he's trying so hard not to be that person anymore?
A twig snapped behind her.
She didn't move.
"You should be gone by now," said Yan Xue's voice.
Su Yao didn't turn. "I wanted to watch him again."
"I told you not to speak to him."
"I didn't tell him anything real."
Yan Xue stepped forward, cloak brushing against dead leaves. Her face was as unreadable as ever, but Su Yao had known her long enough to recognize the strain behind the calm.
"You care too much," Su Yao said.
"You care too little."
"I just don't want to lie to myself."
Yan Xue's gaze flickered.
"I'm not lying," she said coldly.
Su Yao raised a brow. "Then why do you keep running from him?"
Yan Xue didn't answer.
"Why not finish it?" Su Yao pressed. "Kill him. Drag him back to the sect. Expose him for what he is."
Yan Xue's hands tightened at her sides.
"…Because that's not justice," she said finally.
Su Yao tilted her head. "No?"
"No. That would be relief."
---
Down in the village, Shen Yi sat alone by the well, watching steam rise from a kettle placed over burning coals. The villagers had grown used to his presence—quiet, helpful, a little strange. They liked him.
That made him uneasy.
He didn't want to be liked.
He wanted to be… understood.
But he didn't understand himself. Not yet.
"What kind of man laughs while killing?"
"What kind of man taps a child's cheek and walks away?"
He touched his own face—just beneath the eye.
He could almost feel it.
The shape of his hand as it had once fallen on her skin.
Not gently. Not cruelly. Just… casually. Like she didn't matter.
He hated that most of all.
He poured tea for himself. Didn't drink it.
His fingers trembled.
---
Far from the village, in the capital city of the Qin Dynasty, a storm was brewing.
In the heart of the imperial palace, the Ancestor of the Qin Clan sat upon a black jade platform, eyes closed in deep cultivation. His breath was slow, his qi terrifying in its stillness. Around him, the air shimmered with the weight of five centuries of spiritual refinement.
A messenger knelt below, sweating despite the winter chill.
"…My lord," the messenger whispered, "the Blood Echo has stirred."
The Ancestor's eyes opened.
Dark. Deep. Deadly.
He spoke, and his voice rolled like distant thunder.
"Where?"
"North of the Scarlet Peaks… near the Cold Spring Forest."
The Ancestor rose.
"The demon lives," he said.
The messenger swallowed hard. "Shall we mobilize the Crimson Guard?"
"No," said the Ancestor. "Send word to the Azure Phoenix Sect. Tell them to move quietly. The demon must not be allowed to rise again."
---
Back in the village, Yan Xue moved like a shadow between houses, her presence barely stirring snow.
She stopped near the storehouse.
Watched Shen Yi from behind the corner.
He looked tired today. His hands moved slowly, not from injury—but from thought. Like he was trying to weigh every action before making it.
It was almost tragic.
Almost.
Until she remembered the smoke rising from her family home. The bones in the ashes. Her sister's hair ribbon half-burned beneath a cracked lantern.
And his smile.
She gripped her wrist tightly.
You can't fall for him again.
You can't forget what he is, no matter how different he seems now.
---
Inside the storehouse, Shen Yi stared at the ceiling.
He couldn't sleep.
He didn't need to remember every detail to know something dark lived inside him. He could feel it. Like a shadow in his chest that pulsed when his guard was down.
Sometimes, when he looked at his reflection, his eyes flashed red for the briefest second.
Sometimes, when he was alone, he heard whispers in a voice that sounded like his—but wasn't.
"Take it all."
"Burn what you can't become."
"There is no mercy in strength."
He curled his fists under the thin blanket.
I won't become that again. Whoever I was… I won't be him.
But a small voice in the back of his mind asked:
What if you already are?
----
The next morning, the clouds hung low like ash-colored sheets drawn over the sun.
A quiet unease had settled over the village.
Shen Yi stood in front of the well, hauling up the day's first bucket. The crank creaked, the rope dripping, but it was his thoughts—not the cold—that made his hands stiff.
He hadn't seen Yan Xue since the hilltop.
And though she hadn't said it, he knew:
She wasn't done with him.
Not even close.
But what would she do next?
Would she come again with fire in her voice, accusing him with eyes that held storms? Or would she keep her silence, turning the knife slower, deeper, without ever letting him bleed out?
"She wants me to suffer."
He accepted that. Almost welcomed it.
But what he didn't know—what left him restless—was whether she still saw him as the man who destroyed her life…
or something worse.
---
Yan Xue wasn't far.
She sat beneath the plum blossom tree near the edge of the frozen stream, legs folded beneath her, cloak dusted in pale frost. Her sword lay beside her knees, untouched.
She was not meditating.
She was remembering.
Her father's voice reciting ancestral oaths.
Her mother's perfume made of mountain orchid and windflower.
Her sister's crooked smile the day she first learned to draw a talisman.
And Shen Yi's voice—low, smooth, confident—promising to protect them all.
Liar.
Monster.
No—worse.
Because he didn't just break his promise.
He broke her.
Now she had to rebuild herself with edges sharper than his blade.
She closed her eyes.
Soon, the world will remember what he did.
I will make sure of it.
But not yet.
Not until he loved her again.
Not until his heart opened wide enough for her to tear it out with her own hands.
---
That evening, a stranger arrived in the village.
He came cloaked in black and blue, his face half-covered by a veil embroidered with phoenix feathers. His presence stirred the air unnaturally—too quiet, too sharp.
Su Yao saw him first.
She moved fast, intercepting him at the boundary stone.
"You don't belong here," she said, hand drifting toward her sleeve where her blade was hidden.
The man bowed slightly. "I come with warning, not war."
"What sect?"
"Azure Phoenix."
Su Yao's gaze narrowed. "Then you should be more careful. You're close to the Scarlet Peaks."
He nodded. "Which is why I bring this to you—discreetly."
From his sleeve, he withdrew a folded scroll, sealed with gold wax.
Su Yao didn't take it.
"Speak."
"The Qin Dynasty has confirmed the Blood Echo is real. It emanates from a male presence—unidentified, unaligned, and immune to detection."
"Who knows?"
"Only four elders. The Ancestor moves quietly. He fears public panic. And… resurrection."
Su Yao's stomach tightened. "They think he's come back."
The man hesitated. "They don't think. They're certain."
Su Yao took the scroll now.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
The man bowed again, then disappeared into the trees—silent as shadow.
---
Later, she opened the scroll alone.
Inside were five lines of elegant script:
"The Demon Heart still beats."
"Immortal soul. Undying flesh."
"If he walks again, the dynasty falls."
"Do not confront alone."
"Delay is death."
She closed it slowly.
Shen Yi wasn't just a mistake from the past.
He was a living fracture in the foundation of the world.
---
That night, Yan Xue entered the storehouse.
Without knocking.
Without asking.
Shen Yi looked up in surprise, but she was already moving, steps precise, eyes unreadable. She sat opposite him at the fire, uninvited, as though this were her home.
Maybe, in a way, it was.
He didn't speak. Not right away.
She broke the silence.
"Do you know what you are?"
He blinked. "A man with no past."
"You're more than that," she said. "And less."
He said nothing.
She leaned forward, eyes locked to his.
"You are the silence between screams."
"You are the shadow after the flame."
"You are what's left when mercy ends."
Each word was a blade.
He took them all.
"I don't want to be that," he said softly.
"I don't care what you want."
He flinched. Then: "Then why are you here?"
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then, in a voice so low he almost missed it:
"Because I need to know if you can love something you destroyed."
He didn't breathe.
She stood, eyes distant.
"You think suffering makes you noble," she said. "But pain doesn't cleanse sin. It only rots slower."
"Then what do I do?" he asked.
She looked over her shoulder.
"Bleed," she said. "Until I say you're clean."
Then she was gone.
---
He sat in the silence long after she left.
Her words weren't cruel.
They were truth.
And truth was heavier than any sword.
---
Far beyond the mountains, in a hidden sect where moonlight never touched the ground, a hooded figure knelt before a massive stone tablet carved with forbidden runes.
A voice echoed from the darkness.
"He lives."
The hooded figure nodded. "He does."
"Will she kill him?"
"No," the figure said. "Not yet."
"Then she must suffer too."
The voice fell silent.
And the world trembled softly, like something ancient had begun to wake.
End of Chapter 4