Things didn't go back to normal.
But they didn't fall apart either.
They just… shifted.
Shi Mu walked through campus like nothing had changed.
Except everything had.
She could hear things others didn't. Feel threads in the air—echoes of places too saturated with memory to be still. Old energy drifted past her sometimes like dust. She didn't reach for it.
It reached for her.
And it stopped just short.
Like it recognized her.
In the library, books seemed to open to the right pages before she touched them.
In class, chalk paused mid-stroke in a professor's hand—only to move again when she blinked.
And in the halls…
No one whispered her name.
But no one looked through her anymore either.
"I don't think they know what you are now," Zhou Zhi said, chewing on a rice cracker. "But they know you're something."
Shi Mu didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Fu Yunshen was more watchful now.
Not distant.Not worried.Just… present.
He stayed closer.
Not to shield her.
But to show her—
He still chose her, even now.
At night, she'd sit at her desk, fingers over the mark that no longer glowed.
There was no pain.
No resistance.
Only resonance.
Like the final note of a song still humming against her bones.
But even with the seal gone…
There was still one question the system wouldn't answer.
What now?
What was she meant to do,now that she was whole?
[System Notification]
Status: Stabilized Vessel – Complete Oathbearer
Pending Path Activation – Awaiting Directive
Brotherhood Value +160 (Integration Maintained + Internal Harmony Observed)
Current Total: 6,160 / 1,000,000
That evening, as the moon cast long shadows across her desk, Shi Mu wrote a single sentence in her notebook.
Some ghosts don't want to haunt.They want to be remembered.And some people… are born to remember them.
She paused.
Then closed the book gently.
And let the night be silent.
For once.