The temple bells rang in the far distance, too hollow to carry warmth, too late to hold meaning. Mo Lianyin stood beneath the graveyard tree — a lonely willow that curved its back against the cold mountain wind, its branches like withered arms clawing at the heavens.
He hadn't spoken all day. He didn't need to. The silence between the graves and the breeze did the talking for him.
Before him were seven stone markers, unmarked but unforgettable.
His brothers.
The ones who once laughed at moonlight. The ones who believed in him.
"Do you remember?" he whispered, voice cracking like the frost on the surface of their untouched tea cups. "You called me the gentle blade. Said I would never raise my sword against kin. Said I would never survive the dark."
He knelt.
The earth was hard beneath him, like the world refusing to let him grieve. The only thing that softened it was the memory of laughter long extinguished.
He set down seven paper lanterns, each carrying a name he never dared to speak aloud since the massacre.
"Chen. Xiu. Muren. Hao. Daolin. Sifei. Jian."
He lit them one by one with a trembling hand.
Each flame flickered like the last breath he saw from each brother. Gone before the sun could rise.
And still, Mo Lianyin remained. A ghost who had forgotten to die.
---
His robes fluttered in the wind, now darker, heavier than when he wore them as a disciple. Once sky blue. Now dyed in ash and blood. He had stitched them himself. Not to heal, but to remember.
He ran a thumb across the scar above his right eye — a cruel reminder of the day the sect turned its back on him.
The day he was too late to save them.
The day Chief Elder Liang delivered the order to erase the names of the dead and silence the witness.
"You brought shame."
"You disobeyed orders."
"You are no longer Mo Lianyin of Jade Spring Sect."
---
The lanterns floated into the sky like fragile prayers, each trembling before the wind pulled them toward the heavens.
Mo Lianyin watched them rise.
And then… footsteps.
He didn't turn. He recognized the sound — boots that didn't belong on sacred ground.
"You were warned not to come back here," a voice said from the shadows.
"I don't obey cowards."
"You have no sect. No allies. No honor. You think mourning makes you righteous?"
Mo Lianyin stood, slow and deliberate, not out of weakness — but restraint.
"I'm not here to be righteous," he replied. "I'm here to remind the dead that someone still remembers them."
A blade hissed from its sheath.
"So be it," said the intruder. "Then die with them."
The sword swung toward his neck — clean, fast, fatal.
But Mo Lianyin didn't move.
The blade stopped an inch from his skin.
Frozen.
Literally.
The attacker's arms trembled, veins coated in frost. His eyes widened as his sword crumbled in his hand.
Mo Lianyin turned — eyes glowing the color of snowfall under moonlight.
"You think I've been sleeping while you danced over their graves?"
With a flick of his wrist, the frost spread, consuming the attacker whole. A statue of regret frozen in time.
No scream.
Only silence.
---
He walked past the ice sculpture, barely sparing it a glance.
There were bigger ghosts to chase.
But before he left, he carved seven names into the willow tree with the blade he no longer showed others. Each stroke deep and careful, like engraving them into his own bones.
When he finished, the wind stopped.
The moon rose above the valley, quiet and full, like it was mourning too.
Mo Lianyin bowed to the graves.
He didn't cry. He didn't smile.
But his voice, when it came, was soft and real.
"Your deaths weren't in vain. I promise you, they'll remember your names again."
And then, he vanished into the darkness.
---
That night, in the heart of Jade Spring Sect, Chief Elder Liang awoke in a cold sweat.
On the wall of the inner chamber, scrawled in frost, were seven names.
Below them, one message:
"You forgot us. But we remember everything."