Awakening

Ying'er had long since begun to cry, tears silently sliding down her face. She clenched the corner of her garment, opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Wu Lingfeng stood rooted to the spot, saying nothing, just watching him. Something in her eyes was sinking.

Ye Xuan staggered down from the stone platform. The moment his foot touched the ground, he nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself against the stone wall, drew a breath, then raised his head. His gaze passed over Wu Lingfeng, over Ying'er, and fixed on the entrance of the cave.

That was where the morning light streamed in.

"Fake."

Ye Xuan's voice became very quiet all of a sudden—quiet as if he had seen through everything. "It’s all fake. There never was a mountain village, never was a Ye Xuan, never was a pair of parents who died from a plague."

"The origin of this life of mine was forcibly dug out, patched over with a mended piece, stitched so tightly and seamlessly that even I couldn't find the needle holes."

He raised his hand and pressed it against his chest.

There was no wound there, no scar at all.

But his fingers lingered there, trembling slightly, as if they could feel some kind of emptiness—an emptiness where something precious had once been nurtured, only to be violently torn away.

"When I saw the words 'Nine Heavens' earlier," Ye Xuan's voice had returned to calm, a calm even more unsettling than rage, "my bones hurt."

"It wasn't vital energy fluctuations, not a spiritual impact. My bones ached."

"As if... someone had once pulled my bones out of this body, one by one, while I was still alive."

He slowly lowered his hand, his gaze becoming hollow and deep, as if he had fallen into some pitch-black, fathomless abyss.

"I remember a little. Only a little, and it’s still fragmented."

"All I remember is cold. Cold in every direction, cold to the bone. The breath I exhaled turned to ice."

"The ground was covered in blood—so much that I couldn’t tell which was mine and which wasn’t."

"There was a woman stepping on my face." His voice was calm, terrifyingly calm. "She was laughing, a pleasant laugh, but I wanted to tear her throat out."

"She said..." Ye Xuan closed his eyes. The broken, riddled fragments of memory scattered through his mind. He picked them up one by one, his voice barely a whisper, "'Ye Xuan, you’re nothing but a lowly vessel. The Holy Son needs your immortal bone—this is your honor. You should be grateful.'"

"Then... a knife cut open my back."

"Tch. It hurt..."

When he said those two words, his tone carried a kind of casual, retrospective pain—light and airy, yet somehow more gut-wrenching than a harsh sob.

"Hrk!"

Suddenly, his stomach lurched. He bent over, retching violently. His whole body curled up, his hands gripping the ground so tightly that his knuckles scraped against the stone without him even noticing. His back rose and fell, convulsing hard.

It was the body’s primal stress response to reliving that pain through memory.

"Husband!"

Ying'er could hold back no longer. Sobbing, she rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Ye Xuan, pulling his head tightly into her embrace. Her tears soaked the top of his hair. "Don’t think about it—please, don’t think about it anymore! We don’t need that memory. Even if we don’t have it, it’s fine. Husband, you’re okay now—you’re alive and well. That’s enough. Nothing else matters..."

Ye Xuan didn’t push her away.

He just curled up in her arms, his back arched, shaking for a long, long time.

Wu Lingfeng stood off to the side, silent.

Her fingers hung quietly by her side, her palm half-clenched, the knuckles white. A surging, cold, unchecked murderous intent spread through her chest with nowhere to go. She had no choice but to suppress it, bit by bit, pressing it into the bone-deep pain brought on by the Draconic Transformation Art, letting it entwine and burn away.

Nine Heavens Holy Land.

She bit down on those four words without speaking.

No one knew how long passed.

Slowly, Ye Xuan calmed down.

His retching gradually ceased. His curled body unfolded inch by inch—slowly, deliberately—like a sword that had snapped from being bent too far, now forced back into shape. The cracks remained, but he stood up again.

He gently pushed Ying'er away. When she sobbed and tried to grab hold of him again, he didn’t resist—just squeezed her hand, letting her fingers loosen, then staggered to his feet.

The pain and madness had receded from his face like an ebbing tide.

In their place was a dark, solemn expression.

He walked toward the cave entrance, stopping at the edge of the morning light. With his back to Wu Lingfeng and Ying'er, he watched the rising sun spill over the ridge, painting the entire barren mountain in a pale gold.

The light fell on him. On his hair, tousled by the raging wind, a few strands still sticking messily to his forehead. On his straight, unyielding back.

He raised his hand, looked at the faint lines on his palm, and slowly clenched it into a fist.

Spiritual energy exploded within his grasp, shaking the stone walls near the entrance and sending a few grains of dust skittering down.

"I haven't fully remembered everything yet," his voice carried on the morning mountain breeze, calm and final, as if he were stating an undeniable truth. "I don’t remember who I really was in that memory, why I became the Outcast of the Nine Heavens, why they said I was supposed to die."

He paused.

"But one thing I do know."

He turned around.

The morning sun spread out behind him, coating him in the faintest gold. And on his face was a coldness like drawn steel, the opposite of that warm light.

"This account isn’t settled."

His gaze fell on Wu Lingfeng’s face, and in his eyes was light—not gentle, but a savage radiance.

"The Burial Abyss of the Heavens—the Nine Heavens Holy Land will be there too, won’t they?"

Wu Lingfeng looked at him, silent for a moment, then nodded slowly. "That ship that arrived yesterday—they must be the elite disciples of the Nine Heavens Holy Land’s younger generation. The young man carrying a sword at the lead had an extraordinary bearing."

"Good."

Ye Xuan averted his gaze, staring out of the cave toward the distant direction that carried his hatred.

He licked the corner of his mouth, his smile deepening. "I have a score to settle with them. And I’m going to make sure it’s thorough."