The mist stirred.
There was a tension in the air, as if the whispers of the beasts had gone silent… far too silent.
Yun Yun froze halfway along the path that wound between jagged black stone. Zhu Xian was a few steps ahead, but he felt it too. Both turned at the same time. A brief glance. No words needed.
—Another one’s coming, —he murmured.
She nodded.
The storm. The rain that wasn’t water. The curse of the Gate: sharp fragments of bone falling from the unseen void like blades. Sometimes for minutes. Sometimes for days.
Zhu Xian motioned toward a narrow fissure in the rock —a cramped cavity with a low ceiling. Too small. Too tight.
But their only option.
They slipped inside one after the other, bending their bodies to fit. Inside, darkness swallowed everything. The ceiling barely allowed them to sit upright. The walls pulsed with dampness, thick and heavy.
And then, it began.
The sound.
Not like rain. Like obsidian hammers striking the world. Bones falling, splintering, shattering against stone and flesh alike.
The ground shook.
Yun Yun pressed herself back as far as she could, until her shoulders met the cold rock.
Zhu Xian sat across from her, close —closer than they’d ever been. The space allowed nothing else.
She could smell him. The hardened scent of skin, the sharp edge of sweat, the faint trace of wood and steel… and beneath it, something deeper:
Calm.
In the midst of chaos, he was as steady as the silence before a storm.
—How long will it last? —Yun Yun whispered.
—I don’t know, —he said quietly. —Sometimes a few hours. Sometimes… an entire cycle.
She drew in a breath.
The sound of bone striking stone grew louder. Some shards slammed against the walls nearby, their vibrations crawling through the floor, up through their legs, into their nerves.
Yun Yun closed her eyes.
And then… something made her open them.
Zhu Xian was looking at her.
Not directly. Not intensely. Just… watching. As if trying to memorize her.
—What do you see? —she asked.
—A woman who hasn’t given up.
She lowered her gaze.
—I’ve given up many times… just no one noticed.
Zhu Xian was silent for a few breaths.
—I noticed.
His words were soft but firm. Like a sheathed blade. Present. Without threat.
Yun Yun looked up.
He was so close… Outside, bones battered the world, but in that narrow fissure, time had stopped.
—You have something on your face, —he said suddenly.
She arched an eyebrow.
—Oh?
His hand moved, slow and deliberate.
His finger brushed the corner of her lips.
—Ash. From the last fire.
The touch was brief. Barely a whisper.
But in that moment…
That slight, fleeting touch…
It was as if her whole body remembered what human warmth felt like.
No Dou Qi. No cultivation. No duty.
Just skin against skin. In a crack of the world between life and death.
Hours later, the rain stopped.
The sound faded, as if it had never been there. But something had shifted.
When they stepped out of the fissure, the world looked different. The stones glimmered faintly with white fragments of bone. The air was heavy, but the ground felt steadier beneath their feet.
And as they walked, Yun Yun —for the first time— didn’t follow behind him.
She walked beside him.
No words. No questions. No gratitude.
Just… silence.
And when she looked at him, and he looked back, there were no disciples. No soldiers. No leaders.
Only two souls, surviving under a sky that didn’t exist.
And among the shards of bone…
His face, under that ghostly rain, etched itself deep into her soul.