The wind atop the Tianxu Mountains was sharp that morning, though the skies remained their usual quiet gray. The Zhenlei Sect stirred with a strange undercurrent—disciples whispering of unseen pulses in the air, elders tightening patrols near the outer cliffs, and some even swearing they had heard the sound of stone humming in the night.
But Feng Yinlei paid it no mind.
He sat beneath the withered tree, as always.
Eyes closed. Breath steady.
The third seal within him had not cracked—but it had stirred. And with that stirring came visions. Not of his past, but of something older. Something deeper.
The Dao he now walked was beginning to awaken echoes far beyond what he could see.
"Have you slept at all?" Su Yan's voice came from beside him.
Yinlei opened his eyes slowly. "A little."
"You're pale," she said, crouching to inspect his face. "And your Qi flow… it's slow, but deep. Like it's coiling inward instead of releasing."
"It's remembering," he said, and then paused. "Preparing."
Su Yan didn't fully understand—but she stopped questioning it. In the past week, she had seen too many things she couldn't explain. And though she didn't say it aloud, she had begun returning to the tree even when Yinlei wasn't there.
Because something about this place refused to leave her heart.
"I overheard Elder Zhuanxu yesterday," she said suddenly. "They're beginning to suspect that something strange is happening in the outer cliffs."
Yinlei nodded.
"They won't connect it to you yet," she continued. "But if you keep stepping in during these incidents, like with Meng Yu and the sparring halls, someone's going to start asking questions."
"I'm not hiding anymore," he said simply.
Her eyes widened slightly. She studied him in silence.
"You've changed," she murmured.
He didn't reply. Instead, he turned his attention to the tree. The bark had become more defined lately—its silver veins no longer faded, but vibrant. It pulsed faintly when he placed his hand upon it.
This morning, however, something felt… different.
The roots beneath him were warmer.
Not metaphorically—physically.
Feng Yinlei frowned, pressing his palm deeper into the earth. His Qi followed the motion instinctively, curling down into the soil like smoke searching for breath.
And there it was.
A presence.
Not vast like a spirit beast. Not malicious. But old. Coiled deep beneath the mountain like a forgotten ember buried beneath centuries of ash.
It stirred when he reached for it.
Su Yan inhaled sharply beside him. "Did you feel that?"
"Yes."
They said no fire burned in the Tianxu Mountains.
But they were wrong.
Something had once burned here.
And it remembered.
That evening, Yinlei returned to the tree alone.
He sat in silence, not to meditate—but to listen.
The third seal within him remained still, but around him, the world had begun to hum. Stones trembled faintly when his feet brushed them. The tree shimmered even without his touch. And the wind whispered phrases not in voice, but rhythm.
A memory approached.
Not one of his.
One the tree remembered.
In the space between breaths, the vision overtook him.
He stood in a scorched plain, the sky above blackened with ash. The wind screamed—not with sound, but with the silence of destruction.
Before him stood a girl—her robes torn, her hands glowing with silent flames that left no heat, only light.
Behind her, dozens of disciples lay unconscious. Around them, shattered talismans and broken swords littered the ground.
She turned to him—not Yinlei, but the one whose memory he now carried—and whispered:
"The flames you seek aren't kind. They remember everything."
Then she vanished.
And the plain dissolved into mist.
Yinlei woke gasping.
The pulse beneath the tree was stronger now.
Not dangerous—but expectant.
He touched the bark and whispered, "What do you want me to remember?"
No answer came.
But something in the earth below shifted.
Cracked.
Not in destruction—but in release.
The next day, an incident rocked the sect.
An outer disciple accidentally unleashed a flame technique in the eastern courtyard. But the flames didn't behave as they should—they curled backward, flowing toward the earth instead of rising. One ignited a talisman scroll, which in turn disrupted the array formation nearby.
Chaos followed. Three injured. One unconscious.
Elders rushed to the scene.
But Yinlei had been nearby.
Again.
And again, he stepped forward when no one else could.
He examined the scorch marks, the twisted talisman, the still-sputtering flames that licked the ground as if searching for something.
And he understood.
"This isn't flame Qi," he murmured. "It's remembrance."
Su Yan appeared at his side. "What do you mean?"
He pointed to the talisman. "Someone trained here before. Long ago. Their techniques bled into the ground. The Qi remembers them. When the disciple channeled fire, the memory woke."
"You're saying… the mountain is alive?"
"No," he said. "I'm saying it never forgot."
That night, beneath the withered tree, the pulse beneath the roots turned into a tremor.
Yinlei didn't sit. He knelt.
And for the first time… he spoke a name aloud.
Not his.
"Who are you?"
The tree responded with silence.
And then, from below—deep within the mountain—
A thrum.
Like the striking of a buried bell.
Qi surged upward.
Feng Yinlei's eyes widened.
The third seal snapped open—not shattered, not torn—but opened like a gate returning to use after centuries.
The Qi that emerged was not thunder.
Not wind.
Not flame.
But something older.
Something sealed.
It wrapped around him slowly, not with heat, but with resonance. And with it came… understanding.
He fell into trance.
Not meditation. Not sleep.
A remembrance.
He stood at the edge of a battlefield.
Not ancient—but forgotten.
Men and women stood at his side, none wearing the sigils of sects or empires.
They were cultivators—silent ones. Their robes marked with symbols not found in any scroll.
One raised a hand.
"They will erase us," the figure said.
Another shook his head.
"Only if we let them."
Then the one who was Yinlei in the vision—taller, older, bearing the same silver-threaded Qi as the tree—stepped forward.
"They cannot erase what remembers itself."
He struck the ground.
And the mountain pulsed.
A great seal, shaped like a tree whose roots reached the stars, bloomed beneath their feet.
When Feng Yinlei awoke, he was no longer kneeling.
He was standing.
Qi flowed through him like a second breath—stronger, deeper, but still silent.
The third seal was gone.
And in its place… stood a gate.
The memory was now part of him.
And the path had deepened.
By morning, he felt the difference.
Not in strength, but in awareness.
He could now sense Qi fluctuations within others just by walking past them.
He could smell the imbalance in a sparring disciple's breath before their stance broke.
And he could feel something else—
A presence.
Approaching.
It didn't come from the sect. Not from any disciple.
But from beyond.
Someone—or something—was drawing near the outer cliffs.
Someone who remembered.
Feng Yinlei stood beneath the tree one last time that day and whispered, "How many more of us were there?"
The tree didn't answer.
But the wind did.
Carrying the faintest whisper, not in words, but in rhythm.
Like a memory returning home.