It began with a man.
Not a warrior.
Not a cultivator.
Just a farmer — old, bent, hands cracked from years of soil.
He stood at the edge of the village, watching the children who had been freed.
They were quiet now.
Not broken.
Not afraid.
Just… different.
He approached Mei not with anger, not with fear —
but with a single question:
"Can you do it to me?"
She didn't answer.
"I don't want to forget," he said.
His voice was soft, broken.
"I forgot my daughter's name.
After the fever.
After the priests said the Hymn of Obedience over me."
He held out his hand.
"I don't care if it hurts.
I don't care if I change.
Just… let me remember her."
Silence.
Murong Tao stepped forward.
"She's not a healer.
She's not a god.
That black in her veins — it's not a cure.
It's a takeover."
The man didn't flinch.
"Then let it take me.
I'd rather be changed than empty."
Mei looked at her hands.
The black had stopped spreading.
But it pulsed — not with hunger,
with awareness.
And then —
the whisper.
"He doesn't fear us," the Eighth said.
Not in mockery.
Not in triumph.
In wonder.
"He's asking to be infected."
A pause.
"Maybe we're not the plague.
Maybe we're the vaccine*."*
Mei didn't argue.
She stepped forward.
And took the man's hand.
The black veins in her fingers crawled — not violently,
but like roots seeking water.
They entered his skin.
He gasped.
Not in pain.
In memory.
His knees buckled.
Tears streamed down his face.
And then —
he whispered:
"Ling…
My daughter's name was Ling."
He laughed — broken, beautiful.
"I remember her laugh.
She used to climb the peach tree…
and throw the fruit at the chickens."
He looked at Mei.
"Thank you."
The black in his arm didn't vanish.
It settled — like ink in paper,
like truth in silence.
And when he stood, his eyes were clear.
Not glowing.
Not cursed.
Just awake.
Word spread.
Not through messengers.
Not through fear.
Through touch.
A mother reached for her son who had been Dreaming.
Mei took his hand — and the gold in his eyes faded.
He remembered her voice.
Her lullaby.
A blacksmith, hollowed by the Hymn,
knelt and said:
"I don't want to be empty anymore."
Mei touched his arm.
He wept — not for pain,
but for the memory of his wife's last words.
They began to call it The Mark.
Not a curse.
Not a disease.
A sign.
And those who bore it —
their eyes didn't glow.
Their hands didn't rot.
But they could see the threads.
They could cut the lies.
They could remember what the world tried to erase.
But not everyone welcomed it.
At dusk, a man arrived —
not from the village.
Not from the sect.
From the ruins of the old Azure Sect.
He wore tattered white robes.
No weapon.
No threat.
Just a scroll.
He knelt before Lian'er.
"We are not your enemy," he said.
"We were the ones who built the Spire.
But we were also the ones who questioned it."
He unrolled the scroll.
Names.
Hundreds of them.
The Forgotten — those erased for seeing the truth.
"We hid this.
We waited.
And now…
we ask:
Can we be infected too?"
Lian'er didn't answer.
She looked at Mei.
Who stood at the edge of the training yard,
a line of villagers waiting — not to attack,
but to be changed.
Murong Tao stepped beside her.
"You're not just giving them memory," he said.
"You're giving them you."
He touched her arm — where the black veins pulsed.
"And I don't know if that's freedom…
or a new kind of slavery."
Mei didn't flinch.
She looked at the line of hands reaching for hers.
And whispered:
"If it's slavery…
then let it be the kind that remembers how to scream."
She stepped forward.
"Because the world didn't fall to monsters.
It fell to silence.
And I'd rather be a monster who remembers names…
than a saint who forgets them."
She took the first hand.
And the black spread.
Not as a plague.
Not as a curse.
As a promise.
That night, the golden eye in the sky blinked.
And for the first time —
it looked afraid.
Author Note:
They say power corrupts.
But what if the real corruption was forgetting?
What if the only way to be free
is to let something greater live inside you —
as long as it remembers your name?
— Elder Lian'er