She fled from Wu Xin and his palace, her memory of his coldness and punishment from when she had once been a tiny whirlwind chasing him driving her away.
Exhausted by that bitter recollection, she collapsed to her knees before the Elder.
"Old man—please, let us leave now," she panted. "I don't want to stay here any longer."
The Furnace Elder did not ask why; he felt the sorrow in her voice and the tremor of her unrest. Without a word, he took her hand and together they rose—soaring to the summit of the sacred peak in the Dust Kingdom, their land, where none lived but the two of them.
The mountain's crown brushed the clouds; by night it drowned in mist, by day sunlight braided with faint magical halos. Every rock pulsed with living energy, for the peak had witnessed the universe's hidden secrets. There an ancient, stubborn tree stood—older than trials, guardian of human suffering. Its leaves flirted with the breeze and lashed the wind when it grew bold.
When the Elder and Huo Feng settled beneath its shade, he asked her to cast a concealment spell around them so no one could find them.
She blinked. "Can I do that? I never learned it."
"If I can cast it," he answered with quiet certainty, "then you surely can. You have become my mirror since the first day you lay in the furnace."
Days passed long to Wu Xin but short to the girl. He busied himself searching for her, wanting to know why she had fled—or perhaps because he missed her.
She, however, did nothing but play on the sacred summit, a buzzing little bee only content with mischief and sleep.
The Elder urged her to train, to sharpen whatever talent she might possess—though he did not know its nature. He did not even know her lineage or what had befallen her before she had been sealed in the furnace five centuries ago.
All he had was a vision that haunted him from a thousand-year past, from when he was an Emperor of the Heavenly Kingdom.
Once, between wakefulness and sleep on this very mountain, a stray, exhausted spirit had appeared before him, weeping for her lost memory. She had begged him to protect her.
"What should I protect you from, poor thing?" the Emperor had asked.
"I don't know," she had whispered, trembling. "Perhaps from the betrayal of loved ones… or the slaughter of enemies… or both."
"Stay with me, and no harm will touch you," he had promised.
The spirit had hesitated, then said with a doubtful tone, remembering something:
"Wait… can you protect me from myself? I fear I am the dark copy in my previous life. Can you change my fate in my next life?"
The Emperor was silent, afraid of her and for her. He began to answer, but she cut him off:
"Do not decide now. Wait until I burn in the furnace. Then you will choose: protect me from my evil and leave me to perish, or guide me and turn me into the very doom I flee."
She vanished like a light snuffed out—but she flared as a star that forever marked the sky of his memory. Now she followed him like a secret pup, imitating his every movement and never disobeying.
Years—long and indistinguishable—passed. Huo Feng's skills barely improved, as if she stubbornly kept time and place from turning a new page. Perhaps she was afraid and did not even know of what. Perhaps she fled a destiny that would befall her if she stepped forward. So she chose comfort and idleness—choosing dusk before life.
One day she sensed an ominous presence approaching—the masked man who had once poisoned the Elder and nearly ruined her peace. The thought of him stirred a deep loathing in her chest.
She told the Elder the visitor's approach. He wondered silently what could have led the man to them after so many years. He must be searching for something important. But what?
At last the masked man arrived. He stood before them, staring, and Huo Feng asked coldly, eyes like winter glass:
"What do you want here? How did you penetrate our concealment spell?"
The masked man replied calmly: "Why so much ire in your voice? Am I not allowed to visit an old friend?"
The Elder answered bluntly: "I see no friend here. What is your purpose?"
The masked man provoked further: "Why all this anger? Do I not have a right to reclaim what is mine?"
The Elder tried to shield the girl behind him. "I searched the furnace before and found nothing. Why this persecution?"
The masked man's smile was thin with malice. "I do not chase you—I seek my spell. Give it to me, or I will finish my task with death this time."
"Huo Feng's eyes narrowed, and a quiet power stirred within her—ready to strike, yet unsure if even she could survive what was coming."