The immortal estate was too quiet.
Even the wind dared not touch the lacquered eaves as Ji Yuanheng walked the length of the corridor, his footsteps the only sound within the vast, jade-veined palace that bore his name. Lanterns flickered softly. Shadows curled under the beams like listening spirits.
He should have returned to cultivation. To duties. To the thousand scrolls that demanded his seal. Instead, he moved through silence like a man drifting between dreams, every step leading him not forward—but back.
Back to the voice that hadn't trembled.
Back to the eyes that hadn't flinched.
Back to the moment Shen Liuyin had looked at him as if she were measuring where the blade should go.
He entered his personal study, an immaculate space of scroll shelves, incense burners, and calligraphy tools arranged with obsessive symmetry. The air smelled of sandalwood and frost-sealed lotus. Familiar. Controlled.
He sat.
Tried to write.
But his brush wouldn't move.
Ji Yuanheng stared at the empty parchment for a long moment before placing the brush down beside it, fingers lingering on the wood like it might offer answers.
It didn't.
Nothing did.
Except her silence. Her presence. Her fury so tightly bound it became indistinguishable from grace.
He had seen many powerful women in his life. Saints. Schemers. Scorching cultivators who wielded charm and cruelty like matching blades.
But none unnerved him like Shen Liuyin did now.
Not because of her power.
Because of her restraint.
She hadn't screamed. She hadn't cried. She hadn't even demanded.
She had merely been. A presence. A flame in a storm. A mirror he hadn't asked to look into.
He turned to a small drawer in his desk. Opened it.
Inside lay a simple object: a lacquered, rectangular case. Smooth. Empty.
The twin to the one he'd sent her.
He hadn't planned to keep it. Had told himself it was irrelevant. But he couldn't bring himself to discard it.
Now, staring at it, he realized something that made his pulse stir—a thing that hadn't happened in a century.
He wasn't sure which of them the box had truly been for.
He rose again, pacing to the window.
Beyond the moon-blanched courtyard, the plum trees were starting to bloom. Pale petals drifted on the breeze, too delicate to survive the morning. He watched one fall, and for a heartbeat, it looked like a magnolia.
He shut the window.
Tightly.
There was no peace to be found in beauty tonight.
With sudden purpose, he moved to the far wall and unlatched a sealed scroll shelf. His fingers moved with the precision of muscle memory—he'd locked it himself decades ago. Inside were record scrolls. Service histories. Discipline logs.
Shen Liuyin's file should've been there.
He pulled it free.
Unrolled it.
And found… gaps.
Massive ones.
Pages gone. Sections blacked out. Names redacted.
He flipped through rapidly, irritation breaking through his normally glacial calm. This was impossible. The Ji Clan kept meticulous records. Nothing simply vanished—not unless someone had made it vanish.
Someone had tried to erase her.
Or protect her.
Or protect him.
He stared at the scroll as if it might confess under pressure. But it remained a cold, dead thing.
Like the part of him that had once believed cruelty left no scars if you simply forgot it happened.
Except she hadn't forgotten.
And now, neither could he.
A knock broke the silence.
"Enter," he said sharply, voice clipped.
An elder disciple bowed, eyes low. "Master Ji. The Crimson Cloud Mistress has returned word. She confirms the Phoenix Bloodline has reawakened. Her tone… was cautious."
Ji Yuanheng nodded, dismissing him.
Cautious.
Even the sect mistress was wary of Liuyin now.
Good.
They should be.
But it wasn't fear he felt tightening in his chest as he returned to his seat. It wasn't even regret. Not fully.
It was something stranger.
Something more dangerous.
Curiosity.
He had known her as a girl. A shadow in the corner of a long hall. She had looked at him once as though he were a god.
And he had answered her like a statue.
Unmoving. Unmoved.
"You are not important enough to be remembered."
Those words had tasted like steel once.
Now they tasted like rust.
Because she had returned.
Because he remembered.
Because she had looked at him not with love, or hatred, or hope—but something deeper.
Recognition.
She had seen the hollow in him long before he had.
And now she stood on the other side of it.
Changed.
Alive.
He turned again to the lacquered box.
Lifted it.
Held it in his palm as if weighing not the box—but what he had sent, and what it cost.
Not her.
Him.
He set it down carefully.
Then reached for something buried deeper in his desk. A much older scroll, one written in his father's hand—notes from the ancient mirror of the soul, hidden in the northern vaults of the estate.
A mirror that revealed what even memory refused to show.
Perhaps it was time… he looked.
Not at her.
At himself.
And saw what she saw.
The night yawned open outside, vast and waiting.
Inside, for the first time in decades, Ji Yuanheng felt something slip from his grasp.
Not power.
Not status.
But control.
He hadn't just underestimated Shen Liuyin.
He had forgotten she had ever existed.
And now, she had returned not just to be remembered.
But to become unforgettable.