---
They buried me where the peach trees used to bloom.
Not in a casket.
Not with prayers.
Just dirt.
Just stone.
Just silence.
The sect was burning above me. I could feel it.
I could taste the smoke in the soil.
And somewhere near my broken ribs…
something small and sharp pulsed once.
A seed.
They forced it down my throat before the end.
Called it mercy.
Called it punishment.
Called it a "gift."
But it bloomed only after the boy I loved dropped the first shovel of dirt on my face.
---
> "I'm sorry,"
he whispered, voice breaking.
> "If I don't do this… they'll kill us both."
I should have died hating him.
Instead, I remembered the warmth of his hands.
The way his fingers used to brush mine after lights-out.
The way he always took the blame, even when I was the one who messed up in sword class.
The way his eyes looked before he said goodbye — wide, wet, full of something that wasn't quite fear, and wasn't quite love.
Maybe it was cowardice.
Maybe it was regret.
Maybe it was both.
---
I died that night.
And then I woke up, still breathing.
But something in me was… different.
---
The seed in my chest opened on the seventh night.
It didn't bloom.
It grew.
Thin white roots slid through my bones like veins.
They wrapped around my lungs.
Pierced my heart.
Threaded my memories like beads on a prayer string.
And then the voice came.
> [ LOTUS SYSTEM ACTIVATED. ]
[ Heart-State Incomplete: User currently at Emotional Deficiency Level 0 (Flatline). ]
[ Suggested Quest: Recall the Last Touch of the One Who Betrayed You. ]
[+10 Lotus Qi]
---
I didn't understand at first.
The voice was calm. Cold. Genderless.
But with each pulse of pain, a petal opened somewhere inside me.
And with each memory I allowed — not pushed down, not erased — the power grew.
I remembered Wen Shixian's mouth on my neck.
The way he shook the first time he kissed me.
The way he said my name like it meant something.
> [+30 Lotus Qi: Longing Recollection.]
I laughed. It sounded like blood.
---
They say hatred is a stronger root than love.
They're wrong.
The deepest roots are made of what we almost had.
---
Ten years later, the stone above me cracked.
The lotus had bloomed one hundred times.
A field of red and white petals now surrounds my grave.
People think it's a cursed place.
They call it a grave of traitors, a tomb of blood.
Good.
Let them fear it.
Let them fear me.
Because now I remember everything.
And I will not die again.
---
[LOTUS SYSTEM QUEST UNLOCKED:]
"Forgive Nothing."
Reward: Ascension.
—