For the first time, Shi Mu didn't feel alone in her own body.
And not in the metaphorical sense.
Someone else was there.
Walking beside her thoughts.
Not speaking.
Not fighting.
Just… present.
She looked in the mirror after returning from the courtyard.
Her reflection blinked a beat too late.
A second slower.
A fraction off.
She stared.
The reflection smiled.
She didn't.
"I can feel her now," Shi Mu said quietly, later that day.
They were back in Room 415. Zhou Zhi had taken his snacks and fear to the library. Just her and Fu Yunshen remained.
Fu Yunshen didn't look startled.
"Do you know her name yet?"
"No. But she knows mine."
"And she knows the difference between you and her?"
"I don't think she cares."
Fu Yunshen leaned forward.
"Are you afraid?"
Shi Mu was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Not of her."
"But?"
"Of what I promised."
She sat down at Zhou Zhi's desk, absently flipping through a blank notebook. Her fingers stopped when they brushed something faint beneath the paper—a glyph, drawn lightly in pencil.
It wasn't hers.
It wasn't from this year.
And it wasn't modern.
Fu Yunshen joined her.
His eyes narrowed. "This is pre-system glyphwork."
"I've never seen it before," she said.
"I have," he replied. "Twice. Once in the Hunter Archive. Once in a dream."
She turned sharply. "A dream?"
He nodded. "Same symbol. Same color as your mark."
"What did it mean?"
"It meant surrender. Or… shared will."
The glyph pulsed once under their touch.
And suddenly, a phrase bloomed in Shi Mu's mind like a memory she didn't write:
"When the two become one, neither may forget."
Her hand trembled.
Because she remembered something else, too.
Her own voice.
From a life before this one.
Saying:
"I'll carry you."
And another voice, softer, warmer, answering:
"Then I will wait inside you."
[System Notification]
Oath Progress: Identity Merge Initiation Phase Triggered
Current Vessel Integrity: Stable (58%)
Brotherhood Value +175 (Memory Echo + Shared Identity Detected)
Current Total: 5,100 / 1,000,000
"I think I wasn't supposed to survive alone," Shi Mu whispered.
Fu Yunshen met her gaze.
"You don't have to."
But Shi Mu wasn't looking at him anymore.
She was staring at the reflection in the dark screen across the room.
And the girl inside it…
was finally smiling back.