Zhu Xian.
She didn’t repeat it out loud. She only thought it.
At first, cautiously. Then, like a quiet note threading through heavier thoughts.
Zhu Xian. As if his name set the hidden rhythm of the silence in that world without sun or sky.
Time passed in the Gate of Life and Death.
Days there slipped by like ash through her fingers. She no longer knew if it was the second week or the tenth. The mist never changed. The beasts never rested. The stone offered no comfort.
But every day, Yun Yun sat in the same spot when they finished walking. An angled edge of black stone, coated in soft lichens. There, with a thin shard of rock in hand, she traced lines on the flattest stone of their refuge.
A name. Just a name.
Zhu Xian.
Sometimes she wrote only the initial. Other times, she would scratch it out before finishing.
Not because she wanted to erase it… but because she feared writing it might break the fragile spell that kept him near her.
He didn’t call her by her name often. Only when necessary.
And yet, each time he did… she felt that word, Yun Yun, wasn’t a title or a duty, but something soft. Something hers.
One soundless night, as they ate dried strips of beast meat, Zhu Xian asked:
—What did you dream of before you came here?
She looked at him, surprised. He rarely spoke of what came before. She did even less.
But something in his tone wasn’t a question. It was an open door, with no pressure to walk through it.
—I didn’t use to dream, —she answered softly. —I only… prepared myself for what I was supposed to be.
—And now?
Silence.
The fire flickered. The flames were small, made from ground bone dust and rancid oils.
She lowered her gaze.
—Now… I’ve started to dream.
—What do you dream of?
—A field, —she whispered. —And a wooden table. I have no weapons. There’s no sect. No duty. Only… the wind.
—And are you alone?
She lifted her eyes.
Their gazes met in the pale firelit mist.
—No, —she said. —There’s a shadow sitting across from me. It doesn’t speak. But it looks at me… as if I don’t have to prove anything.
Zhu Xian said nothing.
But for the first time in weeks… he smiled. Faintly, barely a curve. But to her, it was as full as a poem.
That same night, when he was already asleep, she returned to the stone.
This time, she wrote his full name.
Zhu Xian "诛仙", along with the character "保护" — to protect. She didn’t cross it out.
She only covered it with a layer of moss, as if that word were a relic.
The next morning, he woke before her.
He watched her from where he sat.
He didn’t approach.
But when he noticed the stone covered in fresh moss, he didn’t say a word.
He only brushed his finger over the moss, gently, and murmured to himself:
—You don’t need to say it, Yun Yun. I have the same dream, too.
And so, the echo of his name kept growing, voiceless, inside her.