A faint breeze stirred the high halls of the Scarlet Immortal Sect. The scent of red lotus incense drifted through the stone corridors, lingering like a ghost of old oaths.
Shen Yi stood in the disciples' courtyard—once again among the living, breathing heart of the sect.
Eyes followed him.
Some curious.
Some fearful.
Many hostile.
He expected it.
He welcomed it.
Better cold stares than false warmth.
---
From the tower balcony, Yan Xue observed in silence.
She didn't stand out in the crowd. Her silver-embroidered cloak concealed her status, her expression blank and unreadable.
Beneath her calm, she watched how he moved.
He didn't speak unless spoken to.
Didn't provoke.
Didn't flinch.
Yet the way others unconsciously stepped away as he passed…
The demon inside him hasn't died. It's only sleeping.
She didn't hate that.
She depended on it.
A beast in chains was still a beast.
And when she chose to break him, it would be his own darkness that chewed through his bones.
Let him learn kindness again. Let him hope. Let him love.
And then I'll carve it all away.
But not yet.
She had waited five years.
What was a few more months?
---
Later that day, Shen Yi was summoned to the outer disciples' cultivation ring.
"Demonstrate your current level," Elder Han instructed. "We must classify you properly."
Dozens gathered.
Whispers ran like fire.
"Isn't he supposed to be dead?"
"I heard he awakened some forbidden body…"
"Do you think he still has it?"
"What if he loses control?"
Shen Yi stepped onto the arena stone.
A wooden puppet—standard testing construct—rose from the floor.
It wore a neutral expression. But its qi signature marked it as a Low Core Formation-level opponent.
He braced himself.
No stance. No flourish.
Just instinct.
Then he moved.
---
A single palm strike shattered the puppet's defense, sending it skidding across the platform.
Gasps rang out.
The second strike came before the puppet fully recovered—Shen Yi's foot swept low, dislodging its balance, followed by an elbow strike that collapsed the torso completely.
The match ended in under ten seconds.
The courtyard went still.
Elder Han raised an eyebrow. "Your base strength exceeds our lower core disciples."
Shen Yi said nothing.
But behind his quiet, the breath in his chest came uneven.
The strikes hadn't been graceful. They hadn't followed a known form.
They were efficient. Brutal.
He didn't learn that style.
He remembered it.
From where?
He didn't know.
---
From the upper pavilion, Yan Xue narrowed her eyes.
That technique… wasn't sect-born. It was something darker.
Her grip on the railing tightened.
And still, her expression remained smooth.
The other disciples looked at Shen Yi with a mix of awe and dread.
But she watched with precision.
He's not improving. He's returning.
---
Elsewhere in the sect, Su Yao studied a scroll beneath a hanging lantern.
It bore faded records from five years ago—missions, assignments, and lost cultivation logs.
She ran a finger down the edge of one report:
"Subject's body entered third phase of deviation—Demon Heart Physique fully active. Signs of spiritual instability increasing. Emotional suppression unreliable."
Her lips thinned.
None of this had ever been shown to the inner court.
They buried him long before he was dead.
---
That evening, as the sky turned deep violet, Shen Yi found himself standing by a crimson lotus pond at the edge of the sect's gardens.
He hadn't meant to come here.
But something… called him.
The pond shimmered in moonlight, still and silent. Dozens of petals floated on the surface, forming shifting patterns that pulsed faintly with qi.
He stared at his reflection.
It stared back—older than he felt, sharper than he knew.
"Do I even deserve to be here?"
A voice behind him answered.
"No. You don't."
He turned.
Yan Xue stepped from the shadows, arms folded.
She wore ceremonial white and violet, her sword strapped tight.
He didn't speak.
She walked slowly toward him, eyes unreadable.
Then, softly:
"Did you enjoy the applause?"
"I don't think they were applauding."
"They weren't. They were terrified."
He looked down at the water again.
"I didn't mean to frighten them."
She tilted her head.
"That's the problem, isn't it? You don't mean to… and people still die."
Her words were quiet. Not cruel. Just… cold.
Like reciting facts from a record.
He nodded.
"I know."
"Do you?"
"I think about it every time I sleep."
She stepped closer.
"But not when you fight."
He met her gaze. "No."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then she said, "Good. That means there's still something real in you."
He frowned. "I thought you wanted me broken."
She didn't smile.
But her voice lowered.
"I want you whole first."
She turned and walked away.
----
Shen Yi watched Yan Xue disappear into the violet shadows beyond the garden.
Her steps were silent. Measured. Unhurried.
No lingering glance.
No parting words.
Only her presence, like a chill that remained long after the snow melted.
And yet…
She came to see me.
That alone stirred something beneath his ribs—an ache he didn't know how to name.
Not hope.
Something colder.
Something like guilt trying to be love.
---
Back in his assigned quarters, Shen Yi sat on the edge of the stone bed, robes undone at the collar.
He studied his hands.
There was no blood on them now. But his fingers trembled faintly—as if his body remembered every life they had taken.
He flexed them slowly.
"I want to be better."
But wanting wasn't enough.
Not for someone like him.
---
Far above, in the elder pavilion, Elder Han stood beside a projection mirror.
Within its swirling light, Shen Yi's duel from earlier that day replayed in silence.
Behind him, a tall woman in copper-red armor frowned.
"This is no ordinary reawakening."
Elder Han nodded. "No. His spiritual muscle memory… it's too refined. He's not learning again. He's remembering something even before our sect."
"From before the cliff?"
Elder Han's expression darkened.
"Perhaps… from before even this life."
---
Meanwhile, Yan Xue returned to her secluded chamber high in the western watchtower.
She removed her outer robe, hung her sword on its rack, and sat before the candlelit altar to her ancestors.
Her face remained perfectly calm.
But her fingers tapped once against the jade mat beneath her.
A single sound. Deliberate. Barely audible.
Her first and only sign of unease.
He's not the same. But he's not new either.
What am I hunting now?
She closed her eyes, breathed once, and began her internal cultivation cycle.
Ice qi flowed along her meridians, wrapping around her core like a serpent of snow.
Her breath deepened.
Her emotions retreated.
And her mind sharpened.
---
In the morning, Su Yao brought news to both of them.
"There's a sect gathering in two days. A ceremony to acknowledge the newly risen disciples."
Yan Xue barely looked up. "And?"
"They want Shen Yi to speak publicly."
Silence.
Then Shen Yi said, "Why?"
"To prove you're stable," Su Yao said softly. "Or at least, obedient."
Shen Yi ran a hand through his hair. "What if I say no?"
Yan Xue looked at him then.
Not with concern.
With calculation.
"You should accept," she said flatly.
"Why?"
"Because the only thing more dangerous than being a monster… is pretending you aren't one."
---
Two nights later, the central courtyard was lit with floating lanterns and surrounded by hundreds of disciples.
Elders stood at the eastern dais, while chosen cultivators took the stage one by one.
Shen Yi stood at the edge of the crowd, expression blank, hands behind his back.
Yan Xue watched him from above, her gaze cold as ever.
Let them all see.
Let them cheer.
Let him think they've begun to accept him.
It'll make the fall sweeter.
When his name was called, he walked calmly onto the stone dais.
Silence rippled through the crowd.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
Shen Yi looked out over them—disciples, elders, visitors from allied sects.
Then he spoke.
"I remember nothing of my past life."
Murmurs began.
"I don't know who I was. Or what I did."
He looked up at the stars.
"But I know what I am now."
A pause.
"I am… trying."
The crowd waited.
"For redemption?" someone called.
"No," he said, steady. "For something smaller. Simpler."
He turned slightly.
"I'm trying to remember how to be human again."
Silence.
Then, from the side, someone began to clap.
Su Yao.
Others joined. Slowly. Uneasily.
Some didn't.
But they watched him with new eyes.
Not acceptance. Not forgiveness.
Something stranger.
Possibility.
---
Later that night, after the ceremony, Shen Yi returned to the crimson lotus pond.
This time, Yan Xue was already waiting there.
"You chose well," she said, arms crossed.
"I didn't do it for applause."
"No. You did it for her."
He blinked. "Su Yao?"
"No," Yan Xue said coolly. "The version of me that still lives in your broken mind."
He lowered his gaze. "I don't know what you mean."
"You don't have to."
She turned, hair catching in the moonlight like falling snow.
"I'll be the one to kill that version of me."
Her voice was even.
Her posture perfect.
And yet…
For the briefest moment, her hand brushed the tree as she walked past him.
The same one they had carved their names into long ago.
The carving was still there.
Faded.
But not gone.
---
End of Chapter 9