From Zhuge Yui Lan's Perspective
The garden beside the Ancestral Hall rested under the haze of dawn. Among the smooth stones grew pale-leaved flowers, blooming only in the fragile instant between night and day. Their fragrance was gentle, enough to soothe the spirit. At the center, a lake mirrored the sky like an untouched sheet of glass: no leaves, no fish, only silence.
Zhuge Yui Lan sat at the edge of that lake.
Her hands rested on her lap. Her gaze was lost in the water. Her heart, hidden in another era.
Her hair slid down her shoulders like wet silk, the breeze teasing the looser strands, lifting them as if trying to read the thoughts she kept buried beneath her skin.
No movement crossed her face. No visible expression.
But within…
Her mind was chaos.
"I really came back."
The phrase emerged not as certainty, but as the echo of something she dared not fully accept.
For long minutes, she considered it all a dream—a final mirage woven by her soul as it bid farewell to her past life.
But then she saw him.
She felt her elder brother's presence.
Heard his serene, steady voice, so absurdly constant it seemed to defy even time.
And when she spoke to him, when she saw Su Yeon's eyes narrow ever so slightly at noticing her change, when she caught the faintest inflection in his breath as he touched her—something imperceptible to anyone else—she knew.
Knew as only an old soul could know.
This was no dream.
She had truly returned.
Returned to the past.
To the past she had sworn to forget.
To the past she had buried like a spiritual corpse, sealed beneath layers of mental techniques and a thousand silent prayers.
A past where everyone was still alive…
Everyone she had lost.
She drew in a long breath.
Closed her eyes.
And the silence around her seemed to absorb the tremor of her soul, as if the garden itself understood. As if the world, for one fleeting moment, was gentle.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a simple scene.
But to her, it was like watching the opening of a storm only she knew.
In the distance, across the garden, Yu Jin walked toward the Ancestral Hall.
Her twin brother.
He always walked as if carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His long black hair fell like a shadow framing his austere face, and those red eyes—steady and intense—that rarely betrayed what lay within. He wore a black hanfu trimmed in red, his presence sharpened all the more by the garment's tears, proof of some trial he had recently endured.
This was the same brother who, in another life, had tried to wrest his fate by force—even at the cost of their clan—only to be crushed by the very destiny he sought to defy. His steps now were heavy, guided by their cousin Zhuge Mei Lin.
Yui Lan watched without moving.
She knew what it meant.
She knew this was only the first episode.
The first fold in a chain of events that would lead—as before—to the Zhuge clan's total destruction.
And the death of everyone she loved.
But now…
she was here.
Again.
She remained among the flowers that bloomed only before dawn, watching.
She saw Yu Jin disappear through the sacred wooden doors of the Ancestral Hall.
And at that moment, Yui Lan knew what awaited him on the other side:
A broken engagement.
A public humiliation, sealed by the Empress herself.
She knew her twin better than anyone.
Knew he had never loved the Wu family's daughter.
But she also knew Yu Jin's pride was etched in his bones like iron.
That situation, no matter how diplomatic it sounded, would never end quietly.
Yui Lan closed her eyes, her heart beating with a rhythm not of that young body, but of an old soul—a soul that had already lived through this drama, not as a spectator, but as one of its victims.
Back then… she hadn't known.
Hadn't known that her brothers were geniuses.
Absolute geniuses.
The kind of talent not born merely to live—but to shake the very world.
The truth had revealed itself over time.
First, Yu Jin.
The boy many thought weak, nearly crippled, his body sealed since childhood.
But after his engagement was broken, something awoke—Yui Lan never knew what exactly, but it changed everything.
And then he rose.
Rose with a speed the world tried to deny.
From an ordinary cultivator… to a rising star.
From an irrelevant name… to one that made the White Flame Empire tremble.
But it did not come without a price.
The brighter he shone, the darker the sky around him grew.
Enemies multiplied.
And the world, with its insatiable hunger for balance and tragedy, responded.
At first, he defeated them all.
And she believed.
Believed that maybe, in the end, her brother could truly overcome every enemy.
But then… the aberrations emerged.
Ancient cultivators, figures who should never have returned.
And Yu Jin… was forced to hide.
But one man can hide.
A whole clan cannot.
And when they could not strike Yu Jin directly, his enemies turned their gaze on the Zhuge clan.
On her.
On those who remained.
It was then Yui Lan saw—with her own eyes—the truth of her elder brother.
Zhuge Su Yeon.
The one everyone saw as calm, rigid, perhaps even indifferent.
The one whose eyes always seemed to assess the world but never touch it.
He was a genius too.
But not the explosive kind like Yu Jin…
He was a genius of depth.
A silent abyss, where the Dao hid unnoticed.
And his power, when revealed, was terrifying.
But he simply hadn't had enough time to grow in silence.
Even with all he did…
Even with the techniques no one knew…
Even with every measured breath, every hidden plan, every drop of Qi cultivated in decades of silence…
The Zhuge clan fell.
All perished.
All but two.
Her.
And little Lian Yin.
They were saved by Su Yeon's final breath—
A soul's exhalation that defied even the laws of death, sealing them within a hidden artifact, their father's last legacy before his disappearance, ripping them from destruction in a final act.
From that day, Yui Lan's life changed forever.
She wandered.
Lived.
Found her master.
Discovered her gift for spiritual medicine, as if finding a new way to breathe.
Her face, the torment of years, was healed.
And still… none of it erased the past.
Four thousand years passed.
Four thousand.
And she never forgot.
Not for a moment.
Her cultivation grew.
She reached the Immortal Realm.
Crossed mountains, kingdoms, celestial seas.
And then, she discovered something that made her tremble.
Yu Jin was still alive.
But he was no longer the same.
The pride that had once forged his strength now consumed his soul.
Treading the demonic path, he had become something… twisted.
A cultivator who no longer knew the difference between vengeance and purpose.
Yui Lan went to him.
Not for forgiveness.
Not for longing.
But… for Lian Yin.
Their younger sister.
Still alive.
Still in a coma.
Even after four thousand years.
Yui Lan needed answers.
Needed strength.
But she could not find them.
She was swallowed by an ancient ruin, lost between time and oblivion.
And then… she perished.
But fate, once again, had other plans.
For when she believed it was all over…
…she awoke.
In her young body.
With her face unmarked.
With the world still whole.
She had returned.
And now, she would not let it all repeat again.