Legacy of the Peach Blossom Academy...
A chilling silence hung in the master's chamber, yet within that silence… festered venom.
Master Kinji Yo stood by the tall lattice window, the dying daylight casting slashes of gold on his robes. Yet his presence dimmed even the sun. His silence .... sharp, cold, venomous ..... filled the room like smoke. The air felt as though it could be cut, so dense it had become with malice.
He turned, slowly, deliberately, and walked to the table at the center of the chamber. His eyes, red with rage, refused to soften. This was not a passing anger ..... it was a fire lit in the depths of his soul, one that would not be extinguished until it consumed everything.
Before him sat fifteen cloaked assassins ..... motionless, disciplined, terrifying.
Their bodies cloaked in black, faces hidden, not a breath misplaced.
They were raised to be killers.
They were not students.
They were weapons.
And Kinji Yo?
He was their poison.
He spoke with a voice that crawled like a serpent across the floor,
"You know what must be done."
His rage was not just about those students who had vanished before the ritual.
It was personal.
It was inherited.
He was no mere master ...
He was the descendant of Han Ziyue ..... the serpent-king who once betrayed both the Fuzi Xion and Linyan clans.
His bloodline bore betrayal like a crown.
His family's name had once reeked of glory, until the day his own brothers were slaughtered by his schemes.
He had been exiled, cursed, erased.
But like a true scorpion, he wore petals on his skin, while hiding a stinger beneath.
As in the old tale .... where the frog carries the scorpion across the river and is stung anyway ... Kinji Yo too could not help himself.
It was in his nature.
Now, poisoned by vengeance and consumed by pride, he leaned forward and hissed,
"My spiritual beast knows where they are.
Follow it.
Kill them all.
I want no bodies. I want no memories.
Let their names be forgotten."
He drew his sword .....a dark, howling sound splitting the chamber .....and from it emerged a black serpent, gleaming like obsidian, hissing as it slithered upward into the air, out the window.
The assassins rose in unison and followed silently, disappearing into the wind like ghosts.
Kinji Yo was alone now.
Alone in his chamber,
Alone in his life.
Just as poison eventually consumes its own bottle.
---
But not all places were steeped in such venom.
Somewhere far…
Mo Yan, who had remained a pillar of strength for his friends, now stood alone under the falling light. His face remained still, but his heart bled.
He hadn't allowed himself to cry.
He couldn't afford to break.
But love .... true love ..... does not ask permission.
And tonight, the dam broke.
Tears ran silently down his face,
But his expression stayed stone.
He would only smile… for Yu Sui.
He would only crumble… in Yu Sui's arms.
His spirit was tethered to someone far away.
Someone who was once close as breath,
Now as distant as a dream.
And he wasn't the only one.
Everyone could feel it ....
Yu Sui's absence… burned in them like a shared scar.
---
Hei Lin San Sect.
A land of purity, white stones, peach blossoms, and sacred rivers.
The land was dressed in white ..... as though the earth itself had donned a ceremonial robe.
Lotus fields bloomed by the hundreds.
Rivers shimmered with the petals of fallen peach blossoms.
Children ran through cobbled marketplaces built over bridges.
Boats floated gently along glowing canals, carrying voices and laughter across water.
Yet among the beauty… was pain.
By the edge of the sacred Xuemo River, where pink petals floated endlessly downstream,
a boy stood waist-deep in water ..... his sleeves wet, hair tied high, and heart shattered.
Yu Sui.
Dressed in soaked robes of midnight and blue, he reached into the river, pretending to fish for carp .... but what he truly sought… was clarity.
Above him, his twin phoenixes soared and danced, screeching joyfully .... unaware of their master's torment.
Each petal that brushed his skin felt like a dagger.
Each memory of Mo Yan pierced deeper than steel.
His smile, forced, his eyes .... hollow.
He was trying.
Trying to appear fine for others, for the sect, for the world.
But beneath the surface… he was drowning.
And someone saw that pain.
A voice echoed through the forested edge.
A man was breaking slowly.
Not with swords,
but with memories.
"Master! Master!!"
Wei Xiong burst through the trees, panting, calling.
He had searched every inch of the sect,
every path paved with white stone,
every market flooded with chatter.
And finally…
he saw Yu Sui standing in the water, petals flowing around him like blood in a battlefield.