(Flashback: One day before Wang Lin's execution in his past life)
The prison beneath the Heavenly Sky Sect was colder than the mountain's peak.
Wang Lin sat with chains on his wrists — not ordinary steel, but ones made from Karma-Locked Silver, forged to suppress Qi, crush hope, and tighten with every breath.
Outside the barred gate, two sect elders whispered.
"He was too proud."
"Too powerful."
"And too dangerous. That woman… she was the final key."
Wang Lin didn't speak. He didn't beg.
He only stared at the stone wall, eyes dull, lips silent.
Until—
The guards left.
And she entered.
Soft footsteps. Scent of plum blossoms. A pale robe. Eyes he used to trust more than the stars.
"Yue Ruo," he said quietly.
She didn't flinch.
But she didn't smile, either.
"Wang Lin," she said. "I came to say goodbye."
He looked at her with the pain of someone who already knew.
"You betrayed me."
Her lips trembled. "No. I… I did what I had to. If I hadn't—"
"You didn't have to love me, then abandon me in the same breath."
Silence.
She placed something at the edge of his cell.
A pendant.
Their pendant.
Broken.
"I did love you," she whispered. "But love doesn't survive in a place like this."
He said nothing.
She turned.
And walked away.
He never saw her again.
Not in that life.
But now… in this one… the pendant still flickers in the very bottom of his inventory, untouched.
Waiting.
And Wang Lin never deletes it.
Not yet.
Not until the day she stands before him again.