Both she and the man looked around sharply.
Tiān Lán was already gone.
He moved silently through the manor's inner paths, leaping across roof beams like a shadow. No one saw him. The bell's call pulled at his soul, steady and rhythmic. Ancient. Familiar.
Past the jade bridges and garden halls… up the narrow stairwell carved into the mountain's heart.
At the very peak, where lightning often kissed the stone, stood an ancient chamber built from black ironwood. In its center was the Mirror Bell.
Seven feet tall. Cracked from ages of silence. Etched with swirling clouds and nine sacred beast seals.
Tiān Lán stepped inside. Alone.
The bell glowed faintly blue as if recognizing him.
He placed a hand on the cold bronze surface. The carvings rippled beneath his touch. His mind trembled.
Memories returned.
A mountain of bodies. His closest friends standing over him. The woman he once loved, looking away as a sword pierced his heart. The rain had wept with him that day.
A voice echoed in his mind, deep and rumbling:
> "Rain Lotus… only you… can break the seal…"
A section of the floor slid open.
Beneath the Mirror Bell, hidden for lifetimes, lay a staircase leading down into a chamber of glowing sapphire light. Symbols pulsed along the walls. At the center hovered a crystal tablet, sealed in thunder.
And engraved upon it—
His true name.
夜天霜 — Yè Tíanshuāng.
Night Sky Frost.
His true name.
He staggered back, breath sharp. The frost along the tablet spread like veins of memory across the stone.
> "They betrayed me once…"
"I won't die a second time."
Outside, thunder split the sky in two.
As Tiān Lán reads the name Yè Tíanshuāng, his body trembles—not from fear, but from the returning cold.
Memories flood him: the moment of his death…
How the woman he trusted kissed his forehead… and whispered goodbye as her blade pierced his core.
How his sworn brothers laughed as he fell from the Divine Sky Platform.
How the heavens mourned with him—how thunder wept, and lightning refused to strike.
Then—his own voice, from the past, whispers from the crystal tablet:
> "Let the world forget my kindness.
Let them remember my frost."
A storm begins to swirl inside the chamber. The bell rings once—soft but deafening.
The name Yè Tíanshuāng glows brighter than ever.
Outside, Xiao Yu senses the change. She stumbles as a pressure settles over the entire mountain.
Far away, an old man in seclusion—the Sect's Grand Elder—opens his eyes after fifty years.
He whispers:
> "He has returned…"