The mortal city radiated below like scattered fireflies against black silk.
Xiang Tian stood at the edge of the peak, his dark robes waving in the wind. A thousand years of searching had led him to this insignificant human settlement called Jing'an, where the whispers said she lived.
His fingers tightened around the jade token in his palm. It pulsed with a faint, familiar warmth. After centuries of cold silence, it had finally begun to sing.
"Your Majesty."
The voice behind him was respectful but he didn't turn around.
"Speak."
"Your Majesty," His chief advisor began carefully, "the Council has reconsidered. Perhaps…it would be wiser to send a guard first. To confirm the soul's identity before you…"
"Before I what?" Xiang Tian's voice was dangerously soft. "Before I enter the mortal realm personally? Before I risk the dignity of the Netherworld throne on what might be a false lead?"
He held up the jade token. Its soft glow intensified in the darkness.
"For hundred of years, it has been nothing but a cold stone. But three months ago it pulsed. She's there," Xiang Tian said simply.
"Your Majesty, please." Another advisor stepped forward. "Even if it is truly her, the risks are huge. The Heaven's Court is already suspicious of your activities. If they discover you've personally descended to the mortal realm, if they realize what you've been searching for…"
"Let them discover it." His voice carried the absolute authority of someone who had ruled in darkness. "Let them try to stop me."
"Your Majesty, you cannot mean to…"
"I have waited one thousand years." Xiang Tian finally turned to face them, and the force of his presence made them take an involuntary step back.
"Do you think," he continued. "that I will be stopped now by politics? By protocols? By fear?"
The demons dropped to their knees.
"Of course not, Your Majesty," His chief advisor spoke. "But perhaps…a more... subtle approach?"
Xiang Tian looked back toward the city lights. Somewhere down there, she was living a mortal life, having no idea that her very existence was about to turn the three realms upside down.
"Subtle," he repeated, and there was a dark amusement in his voice. "You want the King of the Netherworld to sneak into a mortal city like a common spy."
"For her safety, Your Majesty. And yours."
For a long moment, Xiang Tian said nothing. Then his lips curved inp a smile.
"Very well. I'll be subtle."
The relief from his advisors was palpable.
"Thank you, Your Maj…"
"I'll only level half the city if they try to take her from me."
The relief evaporated instantly.
"Your Majesty, please…"
But Xiang Tian was already stepping forward, off the cliff, into empty air. His form began to shift and blur as he fell toward the city below, toward the woman who didn't remember loving him, toward a reunion that would either heal his thousand year-l old wound or destroy everything he had ever built trying.
Behind him, his advisors stared down into the darkness.
"Should we follow him?" Second advisor whispered.
"Start preparing for war," the chief advisor said quietly. "Because something tells me our king is about to remember why the heavens feared him in the first place."
The jade token's pulse faded as Xiang Tian disappeared into the lights of Jing'an City. After a thousand years, the hunt was finally over.
Jing'an City was a maze of narrow streets, merchant stalls, and organized chaos that only mortals could create. Lanterns swayed in the evening breeze. The air smelled of steamed buns and incense.
Guided by the jade pendant, he reached a busy street. In a corner, adjacent to a teahouse was a narrow store with a sign that read "The Whispering Past Pavilion" in elegant, slightly weathered calligraphy.
Through the window, one could see the warm glow of lamplight illuminating shelves upon shelves of scrolls, books, and curious objects. And standing behind a worn wooden counter, examining something in her hands with scholarly intensity, was Su Yuxi.
His breath caught.
She was smaller than he remembered. She looked even more delicate. Her hair was pulled back in a simple knot, and she wore the casual mortal clothes rather than the flowing silks of a goddess. But the curve of her neck, the precise way she held her shoulders, the unconscious grace in every movement was hers.
After a thousand years of searching, she was right there. Close enough to touch and to call out to. Close enough to lose all over again if he moved too quickly.
Xiang Tian forced himself to breathe, to think, to remember his advisor's panicked plea for subtlety. He couldn't simply burst in and declare himself. She didn't remember him, might not even remember herself. He had to be careful and patient. They were all the things he had never been good at.
He turned away at last, choosing instead to go into the city's depths. If he was to claim what was his, he would first need to settle himself in the mortal world before standing before her again.
After a month-
"This is a beautiful piece," the merchant was saying, as he placed the ornate vase on Su Yuxi's counter. "It belongs to Song Dynasty, which is quite rare. I'm willing to sell it for the reasonable price of…"
"Fifty silver taels, no more."
Yuxi's quiet interruption made the merchant fumbles. She hadn't even looked up from her examination of the vase, her slender fingers tracing its surface with the practiced eye of someone who had seen a thousand such pieces.
"Fifty? This is worth ten times that amount! The craftsmanship alone…"
"The craftsmanship is excellent," Yuxi agreed,0 finally raising her eyes to meet his. "For a imitation made sometime in the last thirty years." She turned the vase slightly, pointing to three nearly invisible flaws. "The glaze pooling here is consistent with modern kilns. The base seal is perfectly centered but authentic Song pieces always have slight variations due to the hand pressing technique. And this hairline crack?" She indicated a mark so fine it was barely visible. "It follows the stress pattern of clay that was aged artificially, not naturally over centuries."
The merchant's face turned red.
"That's... that's impossible. I purchased this from a reputable…"
"Dealer who likely paid five taels for it at most." Yuxi's voice remained gentle. "It's still a lovely piece. Song style ceramics are quite popular, and this is well made. But it's not ancient, and certainly not worth more than fifty silver."
The merchant snatched up his vase and marched out, muttering under his breath about "women who think they know everything."
Yuxi watched him go with a small smile, then returned to the ledger she'd been working on before the interruption. The Pavilion settled back into comfortable quiet, filled only with the soft scratch of her brush against paper and the sounds of the street outside.
She paused in her writing, raising her tea cup to her lips. The jasmine tea was cooling now, but still fragrant. It was her only companion in the long hours between customers who actually wanted to buy something rather than seek validation for their questionable acquisitions.
She sipped her tea and returned to her ledger, unaware that outside her window, a figure in dark robes stood perfectly still, watching her with the intensity of someone who had found something precious they'd thought lost forever.
And then the bell above her door chimed.
It was a simple sound but something about this chime felt different as if the very air had changed with its ringing.
When a king finds his queen, even the silence holds its breath.
The door swung open slowly, as if the person entering wanted to savor the moment. Yuxi's breath caught.
The man who stepped inside was different. Not in a dangerous way, but in the way that made her suddenly aware of how small and ordinary her shop and she was.
He was tall, with a unconscious grace that spoke of a lifetime of expecting others to step out of his way. His robes were dark silk, so fine they seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. No merchant's son or noble dressed like that. The fabric alone probably cost more than her shop made in a year.
But it wasn't his clothes that made the air feel suddenly thick. It was his face.
Unnaturally handsome wasn't right. Though the sharp cheekbones and elegant jaw certainly qualified but it was more that he looked like he'd stepped out of one of the old paintings she sometimes acquired, the kind that depicted immortals and legendary figures. Too perfect to be real.
And his eyes...His eyes were dark as a moonless night, and the moment they found hers, Yuxi felt everything around her stop. He looked at her like he was seeing salvation. Like he had been searching for her across vast distances and had finally found what he was looking for.
The ledger suddenly slipped from her fingers.
"I..." she started, then stopped, because what did you say to a stranger who looked at you like you were the answer to every question he'd ever asked?
The stranger said nothing. He simply stood there, drinking in the sight of her face like a man dying of thirst who had found water.
Around them, the Pavilion had gone completely quiet. Yuxi found her voice, though it came out as a whisper.
"Can I... can I help you with something?"
The stranger's lips curved in a smile.
"Yes," he said, his voice was like honey, "I believe you can."
But instead of approaching her counter and stating his business like any normal customer, he turned away from her.
Ignoring the display cases filled with jade ornaments and precious scrolls, ignoring the shelf of rare books that usually drew collectors, ignoring everything that other customers would have immediately attracted toward, he walked toward the dustiest, most forgotten corner of her shop.
There she kept the things no one ever bought. The broken pieces. The fragments too damaged to be valuable but too interesting to be thrown away. Yuxi found herself rising from her stool, following him with her eyes, a strange flutter of something building in her chest.
"Sir?" she called after him in a polite voice. "Those items aren't...I mean, most of what's over there is damaged or incomplete..."
He paused, glancing back at her over his shoulder with a smile.
"Sometimes," he said quietly, "the most precious things are found in the places where others stop looking."
And with that cryptic statement, he disappeared into the shadows of her forgotten corner, leaving Yuxi standing behind her counter with an unsettling feeling.
Yuxi watched him disappear into the shadows. She should return to her ledger, she knew. Should give him space to browse, as she would to any customer. Instead, she found herself walking where he disappeared, drawn by a curiosity she couldn't name.
She saw him kneeling on the floor. He was reaching for something so worthless, that Yuxi felt embarrassed.
"Oh, that's..." she began, then trailed off as he lifted the object with care.
It was her doorstop.
A small ceramic bird, no longer than her palm, with a chipped wing and faded glaze. She'd found it years ago in a lot of miscellaneous items from an estate sale. She'd kept it because something about its simple form appealed to her, and it served perfectly well to prop open the back door when she needed air circulation.
The stranger cradled it in his hands like it was made of precious jade.
"Sir, that's really not..." Yuxi stepped closer. "It's just an old doorstop. Probably not worth more than a few copper coins."
He looked up at her.
"This," he said, rising to his feet while still holding the little bird, "is from the lost kilns of the Western Provinces, fired during the reign of the First Emperor."
Yuxi blinked.
"The First Emperor? But that would make it over…"
"One thousand years old. It was crafted by master artisans whose techniques died with them. The clay came from sacred mountains. The glaze was mixed with powdered pearls and gold dust."
She stared at him, then at the little bird in his hands.
"That's... that's impossible. It's just a…"
"It is worth more than everything else in this room combined."
The statement hung between them like a challenge to everything she thought she knew. Yuxi felt her scholarly mind racing, cataloging the bird's simple features, searching for any detail that might support such an extraordinary claim. The glaze was unusual, now that she looked more closely, there was something about the proportions, the way its neck curved.
Before she could voice her skepticism, the stranger reached into his robes and withdrew a heavy silk pouch. The soft clink of metal was unmistakably gold.
"Name your price," he said, extending the pouch toward her.
"I... what?" Yuxi's eyes darted between his face and the valuable pouch he was offering. "You can't be serious. It's a doorstop. I use it to prop open…"
"Some things," he interrupted gently, his gaze never leaving hers, "are only worthless until the one who understands their value appears."
The words settled over her like silk, carrying a weight of meaning that had nothing to do with ceramic birds. He was looking at her like she was something precious that had been lost and finally found. This wasn't about the bird at all.
"I don't understand," she whispered, though she understood perfectly well.
His smile returned.
"You will."
Yuxi's hands shook as she reached for the ceramic bird, her fingers brushing against his as he carefully transferred it to her palms. The contact was brief but it sent an electric jolt up her arm because of the way he was watching her face.
"May I?" she asked, though she was already turning the bird over, examining it with the practiced eye of someone who had spent years studying ancient crafts.
He nodded, stepping closer.
The bird felt warm in her hands. As her fingers traced the delicate curves of its neck, the faded swirls of its glaze, she felt something strange,
She'd examined thousands of artifacts over the years. This was different. It was like discovering a toy from her childhood that she'd forgotten she'd ever owned. But that was impossible. She'd never seen this piece before finding it in that estate lot.
"The glaze pattern," she murmured, It's... it's almost like I've seen it before, but that's..."
"Impossible?" He spoke softly.
She looked up to find him watching her with an intensity that made her breath stop.
"The techniques were lost when the kilns were destroyed," she said, forcing herself to focus on the artifact rather than the way his dark eyes seemed to see straight through her. "Even if this is authentic and I'm not saying it is…there would be no way for me to have encountered another piece like it."
"Wouldn't there?"
The question was gentle, but it carried weight. Like he knew something she didn't. Like he was waiting for her to remember something she'd forgotten.
"I..." she started, then stopped, pressing her free hand to her temple. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I... I have headaches sometimes. It is usually when I encounter particularly interesting pieces."
His expression softened.
"Perhaps your mind remembers what your seem to have forgotten."
The cryptic statement made her look at him sharply.
"What do you mean by that?"
Instead of answering, he smiled.
"Forgive me. I should introduce myself properly. I am Lian." He said in a regal and respectful way.
No family name, no indication of his obvious wealth or status as if that single name should be enough.
"Yuxi," she replied automatically. "Su Yuxi. I own this shop."
"I know."
The simple statement sent another chill down her spine. The ceramic bird seemed to grow heavier in her hands.
"This is all very strange," she said. "You walk into my shop, ignore everything valuable, pick up a worthless doorstop, and then tell me it's a priceless artifact. You know my name without my telling you. You speak in riddles about memories…"
She stopped, meeting his eyes directly for the first time since he'd entered her shop. The question that had been building since that first moment finally found its voice.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
Lian stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact.
"I am the one who has come to claim what is mine."
The ceramic bird slipped from Yuxi's suddenly nerveless fingers but he caught it before it could shatter on the floor.
Some claims are written in contracts. Others are carved into the very fabric of fate itself.