The night had begun like all the others: without moon, without stars, without direction.
Zhu Xian slept with his body resting against the warmest rock, one hand over the hilt of his sword, wrapped in black cloth. Yun Yun stayed silent, seated at a careful distance, eyes open. Sometimes she pretended to sleep, but tonight… she couldn’t.
The stone with his name was still there, covered in moss.
Everything seemed at peace.
And then, without warning, the Gate changed.
A roar tore through the mist—not like the usual howls of wild beasts. This one was deep, guttural, reverberating. A vibration that ran through the soul itself.
Yun Yun stood at once.
Zhu Xian too.
Both turned in the same direction. The ground trembled faintly. Not from weight, but from presence.
A figure emerged from the fog: tall, its scales like fractured glass, eyes that reflected no light. It wasn’t a common beast. It wasn’t human.
It was something that didn’t belong to this world… or the last.
—Step back, —Zhu Xian ordered, stepping in front of her.
Yun Yun didn’t argue. Her instincts screamed too.
But before she could move, the creature extended a hand… and the air collapsed.
It wasn’t an attack. It was an absorption. The mist compressed around them, and with it, the ground itself.
Yun Yun felt her body lift, as if pulled by a whirlpool of spiritual force. Not Dou Qi. Not technique.
Just soul against soul.
Zhu Xian moved.
A sword technique: nameless, without light. A sharp, clean thrust straight at the creature’s heart.
The creature staggered… but Yun Yun was already gone.
Dragged away by tunnels of fog.
Every second, her consciousness fractured. She didn’t know if she was in the air, on the ground, or inside some in-between dimension of the Gate.
The walls wept. She heard voices that weren’t human. Names she had never known.
And within all of it…
Her own.
—Yun Yun… Yun Yun… do you hear me…?
His voice.
Zhu Xian.
But so far away. So… far.
She didn’t know how long it lasted. Hours, maybe days.
When she woke, she was inside a dark fissure, dried blood on her lip and one leg numb. She felt no Dou Qi. No trace of her internal energy. Only her soul… intact.
And one more thing.
The sword. The blue-and-green sword Zhu Xian had used against the creature that had dragged her away.
She held it as if she had slept clutching it. As if her body had protected it on instinct.
Yun Yun wasn’t one to cry easily. But that night, in darkness so deep it erased her own hands from sight…
…a tear fell, unbidden.
She didn’t know how, but she survived.
She crawled for days through tunnels and caverns.
Killed creatures with her needle. Cooked roots. Prayed to gods she had never believed in.
And then…
She saw him.
Zhu Xian. Alone. Sitting before a makeshift fire. Eyes closed, hands resting on his knees.
She stood there, watching him from a distance.
She didn’t want to shout. She didn’t want to run.
She just… approached.
He didn’t open his eyes. But he spoke.
—You took longer than I thought.
She sat beside him, her robe in tatters, her voice trembling.
—I didn’t know if I’d make it back.
—I did, —he said, nodding toward the sword.
Silence.
She placed the sword between them, slowly.
—I brought it back.
He shook his head, gently.
—It was never a loan.
She looked at him. Her eyes shone. And that night… there was no need to write his name on the stone.
Because in that separation…
They realized they could no longer be apart.