"She never thought she was truly alive. Not until she met that boy with the same lifeless eyes."
---
Wind and snow fell into the night. Grey walls. Cold lamps.
Phantom Water Hall · East Execution Yard · Trial Prison.
The girl knelt on a spiked stone platform, ten fingers plunged into the jagged blue rock. Her palms were a mess of torn flesh, blood streaming into thin lines and seeping down the stone crevices.
"Still holding on?" A sneer echoed from the shadows. "You, with your trashy spirit root, really know how to endure?"
Qilin looked up. Her messy bangs blocked her view, but her eyes remained calm, as if the pain had nothing to do with her.
She didn't answer—just slowly pulled out her fingers and pressed her ruined palms back down.
"I'm talking to you. Are you deaf?"
Snap—!
A whip cracked down, spraying beads of blood into the air.
Qilin still didn't move, only softly repeated the training mantra:
> "Shadow kills in silence. A dead heart is the blade."
"Good." The voice chuckled. "Remember this day. You crawled out of a pile of corpses. You're not even worthy of crying."
---
She was six when her village was slaughtered.
Someone had whispered she might carry a "mutated spirit root."
The search squad found no rare root—only a baby curled among corpses. She wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming.
She was just staring, silently, at the blood-soaked ground.
"That look's not bad," a Hall elder said. "Take her. Seed her as a shadow killer."
---
She was twelve when she killed her first person.
The targets were an ordinary couple who ran a pharmacy. Accused of aiding rebels.
She poisoned them. Then slit their throats to confirm death.
That night, she knelt in an ice basin, reflecting in silence.
A passing steward whispered behind her, "Such a pretty girl… what a pity she's just a heartless killer."
She heard it.
But her expression didn't change.
In Phantom Water Hall, the word "feelings" was worth a whipping.
---
Until that boy appeared.
She received orders to eliminate a "mortal thief who infiltrated the Hall."
Per protocol, she should've pierced his throat in one strike.
But as she crept close, blade against his neck, and saw his eyes—
She froze.
It was a kind of…
> Deadness she knew too well.
The same look she had when she first opened her eyes in a mound of corpses.
No survival instinct. No resistance.
Just a body barely hanging on—long after the soul had already died.
She hesitated.
And the boy moved.
In an instant, his elbow knocked her dagger aside.
He reversed, blade locking between her shoulder and neck.
They stood frozen—face to face.
She heard him whisper:
> "You're one of us… aren't you?"
In that moment, for the first time, her heart wavered.
Not because of affection.
But because she realized—
> There was someone else in this world who had "died once," just like her.
---
"Qilin."
One night, her instructor asked her,
"Do you know what it means to be alive?"
She was silent for a long time.
Then answered:
> "If the mission isn't complete, it doesn't count as living."
---
But now, she wasn't so sure.
That boy's will—his blood—seemed to prove a kind of living she had never known.
Not living to obey.
Not living to kill.
But for a goal.
For someone.
That night, she didn't return to the Hall.
She just stood under the moonlight, gazing toward the ridge, quietly pressing her chest.
It beat slow. But it had never been so clear.
She had never believed she'd have a future.
But that boy made her wonder—
> If she followed him…
> Would the ending be different?