The wind in the celestial forest did not blow like ordinary wind. It carried no leaves, only distant echoes. Whispers. Names half-remembered.
Fan Zhi stood at the edge of the tranquil realm known as the Soundless Garden, a floating sanctuary sealed from the rest of the dimensions by ancient cultivators who feared what silence could reveal. The garden was lush with trees that bore no fruit, flowers that never bloomed, and paths that curved infinitely but led nowhere.
Here, memories had no shape—but they breathed.
He stepped onto the moss-covered stones, each footfall impossibly quiet. The silence didn't soothe him—it scraped against him. Here, his mind was louder than the world. And Fan Zhi, whose emotions had long been sealed beneath cold logic, began to feel the faintest pulse in his sealed core.
He looked up.
A girl stood among the trees, watching him. Not Ming Yue. Not any real person. A fragment, a dream, a ghost?
She had white hair like freshly fallen snow and wore the robes of a forgotten clan. A silver hairpin shaped like a crescent moon pierced her bun. Her eyes were soft and lost.
"You were once kind," she said without emotion, almost like reciting an ancient poem.
"I was once many things," Fan Zhi replied.
"You are still many things." Her voice grew quieter, closer. "But none of them are yours."
Fan Zhi's expression didn't change. But within his chest, something strained. The seal etched into his spirit glowed faintly beneath his robes. Not in rebellion—but in warning.
He turned away from her.
That's when he noticed the red sky shimmering through the gaps between the trees. A thin layer of mist crept toward his feet—like the beginning of a dream, or the edge of a nightmare.
He had entered this realm for a reason.
A trial left behind by the ancient ones, meant to test not power, but self.
A voice rang behind him—not the girl's.
"If you had never lost control… would they have still feared you?"
He didn't answer. He knew the truth.
They feared him before he lost control.
They feared what he could become.
A flicker of flame appeared ahead—Huoyue, his fire clone, arms crossed, eyes sharp. "You know this place is waking your heart, don't you?"
From the shadows, Liuyue, the calm moon clone, stepped forward. "It is not a garden. It is a mirror."
And behind her, Xueyue, the snow clone, whispered with a chill in her tone. "You cannot run from your memories forever, Zhi."
"I'm not running," Fan Zhi muttered.
"But you're not walking toward them either," Liuyue said.
He clenched his fists. "Then show me what I forgot."
The ground pulsed. The trees shifted.
Suddenly, a single name fell from the sky in golden letters.
> Ming Yue.
Fan Zhi looked up.
The mist thickened. The clones stared at the name—then at him.
He had not spoken her name aloud in years. Perhaps not even thought of it. But this place had no interest in his consent. It pulled what was buried.
Not memories of the mall collapse—but of the after.
Of waking up in a realm unfamiliar, with broken seals carved into his soul by hands unseen.
Of the moment he realized he hadn't just lost control of his power…
He had lost something more fragile.
A connection.
A girl's voice. A name. A light in the darkness.
The wind changed.
And for a second, just one second, the Soundless Garden… whispered.
"She still remembers."
Fan Zhi's head lowered. Not in defeat. Not in emotion.
In preparation.
Because if the garden remembered, and if she remembered…
Then the seal wouldn't hold forever.
And he would need to decide what kind of being he'd become when it finally broke