The Inner Hall was not a room.
It was a realm.
Moonlight pooled like water, forming patterns that rippled when she stepped. Floating platforms drifted through the air like silent judges. The ceiling dissolved into an infinite night sky.
Lin Yue suddenly became very aware of how small and mortal she was.
Xuan Mo stepped onto a glowing platform, motioning her forward. "Stand in the center."
"Is this going to hurt?"
"Yes."
"…Can I vote no?"
"No."
She muttered under her breath: "Democracy truly never had a chance here."
He heard her. Of course he heard her.
She stepped into the center.
A circle of silver ignited beneath her feet.
Then a second.
Then a third.
Each one hummed with increasing intensity until the air vibrated like a plucked celestial harp string.
"Do not resist," Xuan Mo said.
She immediately resisted.
Light slammed through her like a tidal wave. Memories—hers and not hers—flashed like shattered glass.
Her past life.Her arrival here.Her knowledge of the novel.Her fear.Her calculations.Her quiet, relentless will to live.
All of it spilled out, and something vast brushed against the edges of her psyche like a curious beast.
Lin Yue gasped. "Stop— that's— too much—"
But her soul did something unexpected.
It glowed.
Not faintly.Not weakly.Not pathetically, like a side character.
It burst into a brilliant, silver-lined flare.
A Lunar Thread materialized above her head.
Another.
Another.
The hall gasped as if it had lungs.
Xuan Mo stiffened.
That was the first time she'd ever seen him look anything other than perfectly composed.
"You…" he murmured, stepping toward her. "This is impossible."
"Believe me," she wheezed, "I feel very discouraged by how often people say that to me."
He circled her like a shadow studying a newly discovered celestial anomaly.
"You are aligned to the Abyssal Moon Path."
"I'm sorry, the what—"
"My cultivation." His eyes locked onto hers. "My forbidden path. My power. Mortals cannot align to it."
She spread her hands helplessly. "Well someone forgot to tell me the rules! I didn't sign anything!"
He stared at her as if she were a cosmic puzzle wrapped in annoying charm.
"No," he said slowly. "You didn't. And yet… you match its resonance. Perfectly."
The room dimmed as his power drew inward, focusing entirely on her.
"Lin Yue," he said, voice dropping to something dark and dangerous, "what are you?"
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"Uh. Tired?"
His expression did not change.
She sighed. "A transmigrator."
Silence fell like a dropped guillotine.
Not shock.
Not disbelief.
But recognition.
Almost relief.
"I knew," he said softly. "I sensed it the moment my Thread touched you."
"You WHAT?"
"You do not belong to this timeline," he continued. "Or this fate."
She threw up her hands. "Yes, well, that makes two of us! I wanted a normal life! A bakery! Maybe a cat!"
"You were never meant for normality."
"Sir, I would love to be meant for normality, actually—"
He stepped closer, and the moon behind him brightened like a second heartbeat.
"You are the first being whose soul resonates with mine," he said quietly. "Do you understand what that means?"
She stared.
He stared.
The moon stared.
"…Soulmates?" she whispered, horrified.
Xuan Mo blinked. "No."
She exhaled in relief.
Then he added:
"Something far more dangerous."