Without a commander, the Qiuli troops froze like someone had pulled the soul out of them mid-step. Confused. Leaderless. Spooked enough not to risk another attack. It gave us something we hadn't had in days—space to breathe.
Shen Kexian wasn't interested in breathing.
"We need to go," he said flatly the next morning, unfurling the map like it owed him answers. "That place near the village. The one with the ashes and bones. It's time."
Of course it was.
It was the site we'd meant to investigate before everything unraveled—before the ambush, before the commander's death, before I accidentally channeled a goddess into obliterating a small army. That place had waited in the margins while the war took center stage.
Now, it was our turn to go back.
At dawn, we set out—Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Ming Yu, Shen Kexian, and me. No fanfare. No dramatic declarations. Just the five of us riding out with quiet tension stitched into every unspoken breath.
I tried not to glance at Shen Kexian. I failed, obviously.
The air between us wasn't cold—it was worse. It was quiet. Awkward. Like the kind of silence that knows exactly what happened and is choosing to ignore it out of sheer, mutual exhaustion.
He hadn't spoken to me since the kiss.
He gave orders. Responded if addressed. But he hadn't looked me in the eye once. And he definitely hadn't mentioned the part where he kissed me, and I bit him, and he bled, and I almost cried. Romantic.
After riding for a while, we paused by a shallow stream to refill our waterskins. The sun had climbed higher, filtering through the canopy in golden shafts, but the shade kept the forest cool and watchful.
Lan Wangji was the first to speak. "We should cover our tracks. In case we're being followed."
Ming Yu nodded. "I'll help."
The two of them moved off in near silence, slipping into the trees with the kind of quiet that only made them more intimidating. I watched them go and tried not to feel abandoned.
Wei Wuxian stretched his arms high above his head, cracked his back with a satisfied sigh, and said, "Well, I'm going to rest my beautiful, overworked eyes under that tree. Wake me if someone tries to kill us."
He flopped onto a patch of moss with a dramatic exhale and was snoring lightly before I even sat down.
Which left me…Alone. With Shen Kexian. Great.
I sat on a smooth rock near the stream, pretending to be very interested in tying and untying my waterskin strap. He lingered nearby, his posture tense, like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure where to begin—or whether I'd throw a pebble at his face if he did.
Finally, he stepped closer.
"Mei Lin," he said, voice low.
I didn't look up. "Hmm?"
He hesitated. Then: "I'm sorry. Again. For what happened that night."
I went very still.
"I shouldn't have kissed you," he continued. "I was… confused. About what I felt. And I'd had a bit too much wine. That's not an excuse, I know. But it's the truth."
I didn't speak right away. The words I wanted didn't come easily—not when my chest still carried the echo of that moment, and not when part of me still didn't know how to feel about it.
Shen Kexian stood still for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet—no edge, no charm, just the weight of something he hadn't let himself ask until now.
"I know now… that what I felt during the battle belonged to Lianshui."
I nodded once, carefully. There was nothing else I could say to that. He was right.
His gaze dropped to his hands, his fingers flexing slightly like they remembered something his mind was still trying to unpack.
"But it changed," he said. "At the very end. Right before we struck… something shifted."
My breath caught.
"What do you mean?"
He looked up again, eyes locking with mine—steady, clear, and entirely too close to the truth.
"I could feel her," he said softly. "Her love. That overwhelming, unwavering devotion. Like she would've laid down everything for me. I felt it. It was so full I couldn't breathe."
My throat tightened.
"But then," he continued, "right before the end… there was something else. It didn't feel like hers. It was…" He paused, searching. "Warm. Gentle. Soothing."
He took a small step closer, voice lowering to almost a whisper.
"Mei Lin… was that feeling yours?"
I froze. He was looking at me not with suspicion—but with hope. Like he wanted the answer to be yes. Like it would mean something if it was.
And the truth was—It was. That second feeling, the softer one, the one that settled into him like calm water—That was me. But I couldn't say it. Not here. Not now. Not while I was still unsure what it meant for him… or for me.
I opened my mouth. Then shut it.
"We're not talking about this now," I said quickly. Too quickly.
His expression flickered—just for a second—but it was enough. Hurt. Confusion. Then that quiet, practiced neutrality he always wore when someone got too close.
He stepped back.
And right then, as if summoned by fate's impeccable sense of timing, Lan Wangji stepped through the trees—silent, composed. Ming Yu followed just behind him.
Shen Kexian turned away before they could get too close, his face already settling into something smooth and unreadable.
I stood there, rooted in place, heart still pounding like I hadn't just dodged a confession—but ran straight into the part of me that wasn't ready to admit what it meant.
We didn't speak as we moved forward.
When Shen Kexian finally pulled his horse to a stop, the forest felt like it was holding its breath.
"We're close," he said.
We dismounted and moved the rest of the way on foot, the terrain turning jagged and overgrown. The trees thinned just enough to reveal a slope ahead, shadowed and half-swallowed by moss.
And there it was. A cave.
The mouth of the cave wasn't wide or dramatic—just a narrow cleft in the hillside, veiled in moss and tangled roots. The kind of opening you'd miss unless you were looking for it… or already regretting that you'd found it. My internal alarm went off instantly. A cave? Again? The last time I walked into one, nothing good came out—Wei Wuxian nearly died, and there was a giant, soul-eating scorpion I still occasionally see in my nightmares.
At the entrance, two piles of ash and bone sat undisturbed. Small. Precise. Too clean. I stared at them, unease prickling under my skin.
"They look like what your men found," I said, my voice low.
Shen Kexian stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "They are," he replied. "Same residue. Same burn pattern."
Perfect. A haunted cave and a matching death set. We were really collecting the whole set now.
The moment we stepped inside, the air changed. The scent hit me first. Thick, cloying, wrong. It clung to the back of my throat like rot soaked in iron. I gagged, hand flying to my mouth, the bile already rising.
Death.
Old, settled, and undisturbed for too long.
Lan Wangji lit a fireball with a flick of spiritual energy. The flame pushed back the dark just enough to reveal the nightmare waiting for us.
Corpses.
Everywhere.
Some lay on the ground, twisted and rotted beyond recognition. Others were displayed—pierced through with wooden stakes, hung like grotesque ornaments. And in the center, arranged in five perfect circles, were bodies laid deliberately—arms folded, faces tilted upward, as if waiting.
Ritualistic. Controlled. Intentional.
But it was the figure in the middle that stopped me cold.
A single corpse.
Dressed in women's attire.
The robes were once fine—red silk now dulled with ash and time. Her hair was long, dark, still tangled with the remnants of ornamentation. She sat upright, propped like a puppet, hands resting delicately on her lap.
"What is this?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.
Shen Kexian stood beside me, eyes scanning the grotesque arrangement. "A ritual," he said, tone clipped. "Or something meant to look like one."
Wei Wuxian stepped closer to the central figure, crouching low. He reached out, brushing ash from the faded red silk. "Look," he murmured, brows furrowing. "This one… she's dressed in Xiyan robes."
"I've never seen anything like this," Ming Yu murmured beside me.
His voice was soft, almost reverent, but there was something beneath it—unease, maybe. Or the restraint of someone who didn't want to admit just how deeply disturbed he was. He wasn't the only one.
I nodded once, slowly, eyes fixed on the nightmare around us—bodies draped across stone like forgotten offerings, the air thick with decay and something else, something that didn't quite belong to the living.
And then—
Music.
The first notes were so unexpected I flinched.
Soft. Clear. Too calm.
It echoed against the damp cave walls, curling through the air like mist. I turned, confused, and my eyes landed on Lan Wangji—sitting beside one of the rock ledges, guqin across his lap, fingers already gliding over the strings with that same quiet intensity he always wore like armor.
I blinked.
What the hell?
"What is he doing?" I hissed, turning to Ming Yu, trying not to sound like I was seconds away from crawling into his robes to hide.
"Playing," Ming Yu said, far too calmly.
"No kidding. Why is he playing music in a corpse cave? Is this the time for a concert?"
Ming Yu didn't even blink. "He's communicating with the dead."
…
Excuse me? I stared at him. My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
And then—oh.
OH.
It hit me like a cold slap to the back of the neck. Lan Wangji can do that.
I had seen him do that. In the drama. On my couch. Eating snacks like this was a fantasy. Like it wasn't something that happened in the real world.
But now?
Now he was doing it here. In front of me. In a real, ghost-soaked cave. Surrounded by real dead people arranged in ritual circles.
My skin broke out in goosebumps so fast it felt like my soul was trying to vacate my body.
My brain short-circuited. I inched closer to Ming Yu and grabbed his arm with both hands—gently, at first. Then not so gently. I might've buried my face in his sleeve if I wasn't trying to preserve the last shreds of my dignity.
He turned toward me, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Are you… afraid of ghosts?"
I stared at him like he'd just asked if fire was hot. Are you kidding me?!
YES. Yes, I am.
Watching Lan Wangji play his guqin to commune with the dead from the comfort of my ghost-free, air-conditioned living room was elegant. It was aesthetic. It was television.
Being in the room—or in this case, the cave—while he gently serenaded the literal dead?
That was something else entirely.
"No," I said, trying to sound unbothered while absolutely refusing to let go of his sleeve. "Not afraid. Just... respectfully cautious."
He chuckled. "Respectfully?"
"Spiritually aware."
"You're hiding behind me."
"Preemptively."
He raised an eyebrow, amused. "You know they can't touch you, right?"
But he didn't try to pull away. He let me stay close, his presence solid and steady as the music from Lan Wangji's guqin deepened—slow, solemn, haunting.
The music shifted.
Lan Wangji's fingers stilled, hovering just above the strings—completely still.
But the guqin kept playing softly on its own. The sound echoed through the cave, quiet and deliberate, and every hair on my arms stood on end. Then, calmly, precisely, Lan Wangji pressed a few new notes—slower this time, almost cautious. And the guqin… responded.
Three notes. Sharp. Close together.
My thoughts caught up half a second later. He was asking them questions.
I clung to Ming Yu's sleeve just a little harder.
This was fine. I was fine. Everything was fine. Just Lan Wangji, asking the dead what happened in their tragic murder cave like it was a group tea session and I wasn't standing in the middle of it trying not to faint.
The last note faded into the stone, soft as breath, and the silence that followed was somehow louder than the music itself.
Lan Wangji's hands slowly lowered, resting gently on the edge of the guqin. His expression had shifted—not in any dramatic way, but enough that I felt it before I saw it.
His eyes were darker now.
He stared at the strings for a long moment, as if still hearing the echoes. As if something was still watching him back.
Wei Wuxian pushed off the cave wall, his earlier lightness gone. "What did they say?"
Lan Wangji looked up.
"They were sacrificed," he said quietly. "All of them. Offered as part of a ritual meant to summon back an ancient soul."
Lan Wangji's gaze drifted to the woman's body in the center of the ritual circle.
"But the ritual failed," he continued. "Or turned on them. The soul rejected the vessel. They died screaming."
A chill slid down my spine like ice water.
Shen Kexian broke the silence, his voice low but firm.
"Can you ask them… what soul they were trying to summon?"
Lan Wangji didn't answer right away. He simply looked down, fingers hovering over the strings once more. Then he played.
Three notes—calm, slow, deliberate.
The guqin replied. A low vibration hummed through the cave floor, followed by a pair of notes that resonated longer, sharper. The air shifted again, colder this time.
Lan Wangji paused. His gaze lifted. And then—he looked directly at me.
His voice was quiet, but the words felt like thunder.
"The Goddess of Water."