A thousand years passed.
Su Mei, now known as the Eternal Ice Ancestor, felt a strange urge. It wasn't a command from
the Dao. It was a pull, a gravity she thought she had severed.
She returned to the Isle of Forgotten Time.
The island was exactly as she had left it, preserved in the void. The fake Golden Phoenix
Pavilion still stood, covered in the gray dust of the Spirit Realm.
Su Mei landed. She deactivated her god-aura, walking on the gravel like a mortal.
She entered the house.
The air inside was stale. It smelled of dried paper and ancient despair.
She saw the broken mirrors. She saw the rotting curtains. She saw the spot on the floor where
Li Wei had died in her arms. There was a faint, dark stain on the wood—his blood, which she
hadn't cleaned up before she ascended.
She walked to the counter.
There, sitting on the dusty surface, was a stack of papers. Li Wei's journals.
She hadn't looked at them when she came to kill him. She had been too focused on the act.
Now, with a millennium of distance, she reached out.
Her hand trembled.
"Just data," she whispered. "Just historical records."
She opened the first scroll.
"Year 1. Day 45. I tried to make dumplings today. I used the spirit grain flour. It tasted like sand. I
missed how Mei'er used to pinch the edges. My dumplings always fall apart. Just like me."
Su Mei felt a twinge in her chest. "Your dumplings were always terrible," she muttered.
She read on.
"Year 2. Day 200. I saw a void whale fly past the dome today. I waved at it. It didn't wave back. I
named it 'Little Zhu'. I think I'm losing my mind. I had a conversation with the mop bucket for
three hours."
Su Mei's grip on the paper tightened. She had locked him here to keep him safe. She had
locked him in a box of madness.
She reached the final scroll. The ink was fresher here, though still ancient.
"Year 3. The End."
"She's coming soon. The System warned me. 'Beneficiary Intent Shift: Euthanasia.' That's a cold
word, isn't it? Euthanasia. Like putting down a sick dog."
Su Mei stopped reading. She looked at the wall. "You knew?"
She looked back at the text.
"I'm not mad, Mei'er. Really. I get it. You're flying too high, and I'm the anchor dragging on the
seabed. The chain has to break. If you didn't do it, the physics of the universe would tear you
apart."
"I just wish... I just wish we had stayed in Cloud Sparrow. I wish I hadn't bought that first pill. I
wish I hadn't awakened your bloodline. We would be dead now, both of us. Buried in the dirt.
But we would be together. Bones mixed with bones."
"But that's selfish. You were born to burn, not to rot. I was the lighter fluid. Once the fire is going,
you throw away the empty can."
"When you come, I'll be wearing the red robes. I want you to remember me as a groom, not a
prisoner. Don't feel guilty, Su Mei. You are doing exactly what I designed you to do. I built a god. I can't complain when she acts like one."
"P.S. The System Merchant told me the price. He said, 'She will forget how to love.' I thought I
had enough love for both of us. I guess I ran out."
Su Mei dropped the scroll.
It hit the floor with a soft thud.
"You knew," she whispered. "You sat in this chair, wearing those robes, waiting for me to murder
you. And you forgave me before I even entered the room."
She fell to her knees.
The Heartless Sword Sutra tried to intervene. It tried to numb the pain. But the pain wasn't
emotional anymore; it was structural.
"I am not a god," Su Mei gasped, clutching her chest. "I am a product. I am a machine he built
and then sacrificed himself to fuel."
She looked around the dusty shop.
"He didn't hold me back," she realized, the truth finally shattering the lies of her cultivation. "He
was the only reason I was real. Without him, I am just a phenomenon of ice and violence."
She curled up on the floor, right on top of the bloodstain where he died.
"System!" she screamed. "Bring him back! Take my cultivation! Take the Empire! Take the
Immortality! I want a refund!"
The silence of the void answered her.
There are no refunds in the Dao. You pay the price, you keep the goods. Even if the goods are
ashes.