The sparring matches that afternoon were brutal and one-sided.
Kai fought his second brother Jian first, ending the match in three moves. Then his eldest brother Wei, whose Golden Core cultivation should have made him untouchable—Kai dismantled his defenses in under a minute using nothing but superior technique and timing.
By the end, even his father was watching with open amazement.
"Enough," Shen Zhu finally declared. "Kai, you're dismissed. Rest before the examination."
But as Kai walked toward the meditation garden to calm his racing thoughts, he felt it again—that resonance in his core, stronger now. Close.
*He's here.*
Kai's steps faltered. It was too early. They weren't supposed to meet for another ten years. But the Void had changed everything, had sent them both back, had linked them in ways that transcended normal fate.
The meditation garden was lit by moonlight when he arrived, the spirit bamboo glowing with gentle luminescence. And there, sitting beneath the largest tree with his back to the path, was a figure in white.
Even from behind, Kai would have recognized that posture anywhere. The way he held himself, elegant and distant. The fall of dark hair past his shoulders. The sword laid carefully across his lap.
Feng Yuhan.
For a moment, Kai couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Because he knew what this meant. Yuhan was here, in the Shen compound, sixteen years early. Which meant he'd sought Kai out deliberately.
Which meant he remembered everything.
"You're late," Yuhan said without turning around. His voice was younger than Kai remembered, but still had that quality of silk over steel. "I've been waiting two hours."
"You..." Kai's voice came out rough. "You remember."
"Everything." Yuhan finally turned, and Kai's breath caught.
Those silver eyes—no longer holding a millennium of battles and grief, but still unmistakably his. Still beautiful and dangerous and achingly familiar.
"The Void sent us both back," Yuhan continued. "I woke up yesterday in my master's compound, sixteen years old again, with every memory of our previous life intact." His gaze intensified. "Including the end."
*Including me dying. Including you stepping between me and death. Including both of us being unmade by the Void.*
"Why are you here?" Kai asked, forcing his feet to carry him closer. "We weren't supposed to meet for ten more years."
"Because I spent ten years in our previous life not understanding what was in front of me." Yuhan stood in one fluid motion, moonlight catching on his white robes. "I won't make that mistake again."
Kai stopped walking. His heart was pounding—actually pounding, something he hadn't felt in centuries. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I died with regrets, Kai Shen. Regrets that I never spoke the words I should have." Yuhan took a step closer, then another, until barely three feet separated them. "I'm saying that I loved you for two hundred years and never told you. That every battle we fought side by side, every moment stolen between duties, every time I watched your back—I wanted to be more than your sword."
The garden fell completely silent. Even the spirit bamboo seemed to hold its breath.
"I'm saying," Yuhan continued, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper, "that when the Void offered me a second chance, the only thing I could think was that I needed to find you. Before duty and destiny and the weight of empire separated us again."
Kai's hands were trembling. Actually trembling. "You're a fool."
"Yes."
"We have the Chaos Wars to prevent. The Nine Supreme Sects to deal with. A thousand catastrophes to avert."
"I know."
"There will be no time for... for this."
Yuhan smiled—sad and beautiful and utterly devastating. "Then we'll make time. We have sixteen years before history repeats, Kai. Sixteen years to do everything differently." He paused. "Unless you don't—"
Kai kissed him.
It wasn't elegant or planned. He simply closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to Yuhan's, cutting off whatever doubt was about to spill from that perfect mouth.
For one frozen moment, neither of them moved. Then Yuhan's hands came up to cradle Kai's face, gentle despite the calluses from a lifetime of sword work, and he kissed back with a desperate intensity that spoke of two hundred years of unspoken longing.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Kai rested his forehead against Yuhan's.
"I loved you too," he whispered. "I was just too much of a coward to say it."
"Then let's not be cowards this time." Yuhan's thumb traced the line of Kai's jaw. "Let's speak the words. Let's steal the moments. Let's build something worth protecting before the whole world tries to tear us apart again."
"Deal." Kai pulled back enough to meet those silver eyes. "But I have one condition."
"Anything."
"When the Nine Supreme Sects come for us this time..." Kai's voice hardened. "We face them together. No sacrifices. No heroic last stands. We win together or we fall together."
Yuhan's smile widened into something fierce and determined. "Together, then. In this life and whatever comes after."
They sealed the promise with another kiss, softer this time, as the spirit bamboo glowed around them and the Void itself seemed to hum with approval.
Somewhere in the distance, reality trembled. The future was no longer written. The timeline had fractured beyond repair.
But for the first time in a thousand years, Kai Shen felt something he'd thought lost forever: hope.