The wind was still.
Too still.
Mo Lianyin stepped into the valley of Huaxi, where time felt like it had forgotten to move. The trees stood motionless, their leaves hanging like silent bells. No bird sang. No insect dared stir. Even the river at the edge of the path ran quiet, like it feared to be heard.
He walked slowly.
As if something ancient might wake if his footsteps were too loud.
Behind him, Lingye followed, her fingers grazing the hilt of her sword. "This place," she murmured, "it feels... watched."
"It is," Mo Lianyin replied. "This valley was cursed five hundred years ago. No life grows here — only memory."
"Then why are we here?"
"To find the boy who sees through shadows."
---
His name was Shen Lin.
He wasn't a cultivator. Not trained. Not blessed.
But he was touched.
At the age of seven, he'd vanished into the Forest of Broken Thorns — a place no one returned from — and came back three days later with silver eyes and whispers on his breath. He never spoke again.
But he saw things.
Things no child should.
Like spirits that wept in rainwater.
Like footsteps of the dead.
Like fate's thread wrapped around people's necks like nooses.
The villagers called him cursed.
The elders called him dangerous.
But Mo Lianyin… called him useful.
---
They found him sitting beneath a dead tree.
He was no longer a child — fifteen at most, barefoot, wearing robes too thin for the mountain cold. His silver eyes were blank. But the moment Mo Lianyin stepped forward, the boy looked straight at him — as if he'd been waiting all along.
"You burned Luoshan," Shen Lin said.
His voice was soft.
But not afraid.
"You saw?"
"I felt," the boy said. "Fire is loud when it carries sorrow."
Mo Lianyin nodded. "And what do you feel now?"
Shen Lin tilted his head. "You're breaking. Like glass. The cracks are getting deeper."
Lingye narrowed her eyes. "Be careful how you speak—"
But Mo Lianyin raised a hand. "No. Let him."
Shen Lin stood slowly.
"I see your soul, Mo Lianyin," he whispered. "It's wrapped in chains made of ice and guilt. But something is melting them. Not love. Not hope."
He stepped closer.
"It's hunger."
---
The words struck like a blade.
Because they were true.
Since awakening the First Forbidden Art, Mo Lianyin had felt it — a pull. Not painful. Not sudden. But slow, insistent, like water shaping stone. A hunger. Not for power — but for completion. As if each Art was a missing rib.
And the scroll had seven.
Only one had awakened.
And still… the ache gnawed.
---
"I need you," Mo Lianyin said.
"I know," Shen Lin replied.
"Will you come with me?"
"I already have."
---
They left Huaxi that night.
Three now walked where one had.
The exile.
The swordswoman.
The boy with shadow-sight.
---
Crimson Fang moved fast.
By dawn, they'd discovered the scorched temple Mo Lianyin had hidden in. By midday, they'd uncovered a single hair — his — buried beneath ice that wouldn't melt.
By sunset, they'd drawn blood from a messenger bird with his scent.
And by nightfall… they sent her.
The one who had once held Mo Lianyin's hand in spring.
The one who now wore red.
---
She was called Yue Xiang — Moon Fragrance. A name too soft for a woman with blood on her tongue.
She had once been a healer.
Now she was the Crimson Fang's assassin.
And she knew him better than anyone.
"He's heading for the Temple of Dust," she said. "He'll want to learn where the Second Forbidden Art is buried."
Xu Lan smiled thinly. "You sound so certain."
Yue Xiang didn't blink.
"He's following the path of the moon," she said. "And I was the one who first showed him its shadow."
---
That night, as Mo Lianyin rested beneath the stars, Shen Lin sat beside him, eyes reflecting the cosmos.
"You loved someone once," the boy said.
Mo Lianyin didn't look up.
"Yes."
"She still walks," Shen Lin whispered. "But not for you."
"No."
"She's coming," he added. "To end what she never started."
"I know."
Lingye stirred beside the fire, half-awake. "Who is she?"
Mo Lianyin's voice was barely a breath.
"She was my sun. Before the shadow fell."
---
In dreams, he saw her again.
Yue Xiang.
Her laughter in spring.
Her fingers brushing his cheek.
Her voice whispering, "If the world breaks you, I will hold the pieces."
But she hadn't.
She let them fall.
---
And still, he remembered her smile.
---
At dawn, Shen Lin whispered, "The second circle is near."
They stood before an old lake, perfectly still — like a mirror turned to the sky.
In its center: a stone altar covered in moss and symbols.
Mo Lianyin stepped forward.
The scroll on his back trembled.
A soft glow lit the second circle.
And with it… came pain.
His knees buckled. Ice raced through his veins. Shadows curled around his lungs. Voices — not his — screamed in his skull.
Lingye caught him.
Shen Lin held his hand.
But the scroll burned brighter.
Until the second Art flared open.
And the lake turned black.
---
When he rose, he wasn't the same.
His eyes held storms.
His shadow moved before he did.
And from his lips came three words no one expected:
"I see death."