Chapter 10: Whispers of Heaven and The Reincarnated Rebellion
The rain had finally stopped by morning, leaving the air clean and sharp, but the world still smelled intensely of ozone and thunder.
Mist hung low over the river, silver and soft, blurring the edges of the world into a beautiful haze.
Lin Xue sat quietly at the bank, watching ripples slowly scatter across the surface where her lightning had violently split the night before.
Her fingers traced the faint scar on her wrist—the bond mark was no longer just a flickering light, but was now clearly carved into her skin like permanent, elegant silver script.
She knew she should have felt utterly afraid. Instead, she felt a profound sense of quiet stillness.
As if the overwhelming, chaotic storm inside her had finally learned how to breathe a slow, regulated rhythm.
Behind her, Jinhai's precise footsteps were almost soundless on the damp earth.
"You're up early," he observed, his voice low.
"Couldn't sleep," she replied simply.
"Too many echoes rolling around in my head."
He sat beside her without hesitation, his robe brushing lightly against hers.
The closeness felt natural now.
"Echoes of what, Lady Lin?"
"Of what we did last night.
Of Mei, the demon.
" She paused, tracing the pattern on her wrist.
"Of something else, too.
It felt like… a memory that wasn't mine."
Jinhai's gaze sharpened immediately, fixing on the scar.
"Whose memory?"
"I don't know.
" Lin Xue stared blankly at the swirling mist. "But when the light hit the ground—just before everything went white—I saw a temple.
It was floating in the sky.
The air was gold, and the mountains were somehow upside down.
And there was a woman there… She looked exactly like me."
Jinhai didn't answer right away.
His own wrist glowed faintly, the same ancient pattern weaving across his skin. "Then we saw the same thing."
Her head turned sharply toward him.
"You saw it too? Why didn't you say anything?"
He nodded slowly.
"A woman in brilliant white robes.
And a man of frost standing perfectly still beside her.
When she turned to him, she called him…"
His voice faded, the final word caught between disbelief and a far deeper, unsettling recognition.
"She called him Jinhai."
Lin Xue froze completely.
"…Wait. What?"
He looked directly into her eyes, the silver of his gaze unwavering.
"It wasn't me.
But it was my exact name.
My face.
My voice."
She stared back at the river, the water now clear and reflecting the sky.
"So, we are definitely not the first to hold this bond."
"No," he said quietly, accepting the weight of the past.
"We're just the next set of players."
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The journey back to the capital took three days, but it felt like three centuries.
Wherever they went, people bowed deeply to them—not out of their initial, nervous fear this time, but out of genuine, heartfelt reverence.
Word of the miraculous purification had spread far faster than their horses could run.
Villagers now called them the Twin Stars of Heaven.
Lin Xue found the sudden, intense adoration deeply unsettling.
"Stars explode, Your Highness," she muttered.
"That's a bad omen in my world."
Jinhai glanced sideways at her, a rare hint of dry humor in his voice.
"And yet, they perfectly light the sky."
"Until they die dramatically in a giant fireball and take out half the solar system."
"Your relentless optimism is truly inspiring, Lady Lin."
"Comes naturally with a penchant for self-sabotage," she said, smirking.
But inside, her mind churned furiously.
If those visions were real—if she and Jinhai were merely echoes of an older, grander couple—then maybe the heavens hadn't bound them by chaotic accident at all.
Maybe they were simply trapped in a destined pattern centuries long.
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That night, as they camped beneath a pale, fractured moon, the dreams came again.
This time, the vision was startlingly clearer.
She stood in a desolate sky made entirely of glass, beneath a sun that never moved.
The woman—the other her—was kneeling tragically beside a visibly dying man, pure frost bleeding from a wound in his chest.
"You cannot rewrite fate," a cruel, echoing voice whispered loudly from above the shattered firmament.
"Every bond, no matter how strong, eventually ends in separation."
The woman slowly raised her head, lightning crackling in her fierce eyes.
"Then I will rewrite heaven itself," she vowed, her voice ringing with impossible defiance.
"Even if it utterly breaks me across all the realms."
The scene shattered violently.
Lin Xue woke up with a sharp, ragged scream caught in her throat.
Jinhai was already instantly beside her, his hand gripping her shoulder with surprising strength.
"Lin Xue! What happened?"
She gasped for air, clutching her pounding chest.
"I saw them again.
The floating temple, the woman… she said she would rewrite heaven."
His expression hardened instantly, radiating controlled power.
"That exact phrase—my father once told me it was strictly forbidden.
It belonged to an ancient, apocalyptic rebellion led by the ancient Goddess of Thunder."
Her pulse skipped rapidly.
"Goddess… of Thunder?"
"Yes.
A powerful deity who sought to violently sever the heavenly hierarchy and defy destiny.
She failed catastrophically.
Her soul was said to have scattered across thousands of mortal realms."
Lin Xue swallowed hard, the pieces clicking into a terrifying narrative.
"You're saying—"
"I'm saying your uncontrollable lightning, your profound strangeness, the impossible bond that keeps us alive—it all fits the legend.
You might carry a fragment of her rebellious soul."
"Great," she muttered, trying to find her humor and failing.
"So I'm the reincarnation of a cosmic rebel who failed spectacularly.
That's not ominous at all for my career."
Jinhai's gaze softened unexpectedly, radiating a focused intensity.
"If it is true, it doesn't change what you are now, Lin Xue."
She looked directly at him, meeting those calm, steady silver eyes.
"You really believe that, Prince Jinhai?"
"I have to believe it," he said quietly, releasing her shoulder and moving to sit back.
"Otherwise, I would have to believe that fate already chose the predetermined, tragic ending for us both."
Something deep in her chest ached in response to his vulnerability.
"And you don't believe in tragic endings?"
He smiled faintly, a brief flash of warmth.
"I prefer continuations."
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By the time they reached the capital gates, the palace was absolutely abuzz with escalating rumors.
Some called them saviors destined to rule. Others whispered fearfully of the forbidden divine rebellion being reborn.
When they entered the silent throne hall, the Emperor's ancient eyes lingered pointedly on the marks glowing faintly beneath their sleeves.
"You bring both victory and dark omen, my son," the Emperor stated.
"The heavens are clearly stirring again."
Jinhai bowed low.
"We will control this power, Your Majesty."
The Emperor's gaze flicked sharply to Lin Xue.
"Can you, Lady Lin? Or will the power control you?"
She hesitated, absorbing the immense weight of the question—but then she stood taller, meeting the gaze of the Emperor without blinking.
"I won't let this power dictate my life.
I will learn to master it, or I will deliberately burn it out myself."
It was a dangerous, impossible promise, but her sincere delivery made it real.
The Emperor nodded slowly, satisfied by her defiance.
"Then let the ancient records show: Heaven's Whisper has chosen.
The Lady of Thunder stands irrevocably beside the Crown Prince."
It wasn't a blessing of love.
It was a cold, formal decree of destiny.
And such decrees, they both knew, always came with massive consequences.
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Later, when the stressful council dismissed, Lin Xue found herself back in the garden, standing beneath plum blossoms that smelled faintly of recent rain and distant thunder.
Jinhai joined her silently.
For a long while, neither of them spoke, simply existing in the new, charged silence.
Finally, she said, "Do you think heaven genuinely remembers us from before?"
He looked up at the drifting petals, his expression thoughtful.
"If it does, then let it watch us now.
But this time, Lin Xue, we get to decide our own ending."
She smiled faintly, warmed by his shared determination.
"You're actually terrible at flirting, you know."
"Is that what that dangerous statement was?"
"Almost.
Keep practicing, Your Highness."
He let out a quiet, genuine huff of a laugh. "You are truly insufferable."
"Mutual suffering builds character, Prince Jinhai."
He glanced at her, his eyes bright with something far gentler than mere amusement.
"Then we shall have plenty of character to build, partner."
And when she smiled back, it wasn't only because the bond at her wrist glowed—it was because for the first time, she didn't feel like she was fighting a lonely, losing battle against fate.
She was walking decisively beside it.
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That night, when she touched the mark on her wrist, it pulsed once, strong and certain.
A whisper echoed faintly in her heart, not her own voice, but the First Protector's resolve.
"Two souls bound, reborn to defy the heavens again."
She opened her eyes to the darkness—and in the mirror across the room, for a single, vivid heartbeat, she saw her own reflection smile when she herself hadn't.