When the black moss within the cliff's fissure completed its seventh cycle of withering and renewal, Lin Wan knew the threshold had been crossed.
Her body—sustained by the Fate Chart's steady nourishment and disciplined Return-to-Origin breathing—was no longer a dying vessel leaking life at every seam. It had become something crudely mended: fragile clay, yes, but whole enough to hold what little strength she gathered.
She could stand.
She could move.
She could act.
The deeper change, however, lay within.
Repeated refinement of the sword-intent fragments siphoned from Gu Xuan, coupled with the strain and recovery of probing ancient relic nodes, had tempered her spirit. What had once flickered weakly now held sharper cohesion. Her perception cut deeper. Her will compressed tighter.
It was time to leave the Burial Immortal Cliff.
Not as Lin Wan.
That name had died in the bridal hall—died beneath betrayal, died in cold stone and silence.
The one who would return must wear another face.
The Art of Alteration
Among Xuanji Zi's surviving memories lay a technique called Phantom Bone Shifting—a foundational method requiring no spiritual energy, only extraordinary mental precision. By subtly manipulating muscle fibers and minute skeletal positions, and guiding breath and blood flow in calculated rhythms, one could alter form at its structural root.
The price was mental strain.
The result, if perfected, was nearly impossible to detect.
Lin Wan closed her eyes and mapped her own face from within.
Her brow softened inward.
Her cheekbones lowered, widening slightly.
Her jawline squared, diminishing feminine grace.
Her nose flattened by a breath's width.
Her eyes—once luminous—were dulled through minute changes to angle and tension. Even her skin tone shifted, circulation redirected to produce a faint sallow cast.
Pain bloomed behind her temples. Sweat traced unfamiliar contours.
Hours passed.
When she examined her reflection in pooled water, the face staring back was unremarkable—seventeen perhaps, weary, faintly malnourished, forgettable.
No trace of the former Lin Wan remained.
She lowered her voice deliberately, altering resonance in her throat.
"Lin Wan is dead."
A pause.
"From this day forward… I am Lin Wang."
Not forgetfulness.
Concealment beneath the pretense of forgetting.
Veiling the Soul
Her cultivation was ruined; that in itself served as camouflage. But traces of ancient resonance still lingered.
She guided a faint strand of sect destiny—borrowed through the Fate Chart—to settle around her like a thin veil. It held no defensive power, yet it blurred her presence, smoothing sharp edges of spiritual distinction.
The stray strands of Chaos aura absorbed from Lin Qingyao were drawn inward and sealed deep within the hollow where her Immortal Bone once lay.
Nothing must leak.
The Path Back
Through months of observation, she had studied patterns within the Fate Chart. Outer disciples vanished. New motes appeared—recruited from satellite towns.
One such place: Qingstone Town.
The external steward overseeing the upcoming intake was careless and greedy. Documentation, if accompanied by modest persuasion, would not be scrutinized.
This was her entry point.
She changed into rough grey cloth scavenged and cleaned from the cliff's remnants. Her mother's ring she bound on a cord beneath her garments.
Then she turned toward the cliff face.
The ascent would be suicide for most mortals.
For her—it was inevitability.
Climbing from Death
She did not climb blindly.
Her spirit extended outward, feeling for cracks, irregularities, concealed ledges. Return-to-Origin breathing maintained fragile stamina. The faint destiny-veil harmonized her movements with the terrain.
Hands tore. Fabric split. Muscles screamed.
Still she climbed.
Hours blurred.
When she neared the upper ledge, the Fate Chart pulsed warning.
Three low-tier Rockscale Serpents lay coiled in shadow above.
A healthy adult might endure their bite.
In her condition—it would end everything.
She waited.
Her will brushed one serpent's perception, nudging its balance ever so slightly. It shifted. The others followed.
A stone flicked toward a distant crevice.
The serpents struck toward the sound.
Lin Wang moved.
She hauled herself onto the ledge, crossed it in silence, and continued upward without looking back.
At last—
Light.
True sky filtered through branches. Air rich with grass and living breath.
She collapsed briefly among the brush, body trembling, lungs burning.
Then she stood.
Behind her lay the abyss that had buried Lin Wan.
Ahead lay Qingstone Town.
Tianyan Sect.
Her enemies.
Her first step was unsteady.
Her resolve was not.
From this day forward:
She was Lin Wang—an orphan seeking refuge, a future menial servant within Tianyan Sect.
No one would see more than a thin, ordinary girl.
No one would suspect that beneath that plain exterior slept an ancient soul—and a hatred vast enough to remake destinies.
A butterfly, perhaps.
But even a butterfly, when caught within the currents of heaven and sect, can summon a storm.