Song Mingzhen felt like he was about to crumble to pieces. Could his own memories have somehow been mixed up with Mo Yuan’s as well? How would he have ended up experiencing these memories as if they were his own? He still didn’t want to believe what Yang Anxiang had told him, what even Ning Feiyun had wondered about. No matter how he tried to reason with this scenario, though, it didn’t look good.

The memory continued to play out— and despite his apprehensions, he could do nothing but continue to watch.

“Hush!” Mo Yuan hissed, beckoning Ning Feiyun into the shadow of the trees.

The other hesitated for a moment before giving in and approaching. Once both were concealed within the undergrowth, Ning Feiyun reiterated his question.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you know you’re still being hunted?” he asked. “If you want to leave peacefully you ought to travel beyond the clans’ reach.”

Mo Yuan didn’t reply right away. His heart began to beat more quickly, and there was a momentary catch in his breath. He shook his head. “I can’t do that… especially right now. I’ve been waiting here for you. I need your help, A-Qian.”

It was a strange feeling. This was the man who would set the cultivation world ablaze— and here he was, quietly pleading for help. He was trying hard to conceal his desperation, and yet unable to fully contain it. Here and there, traces of something akin to helplessness crept into his tone and body language.

Ning Feiyun, perceptive here as he was in the present, noticed it. Immediately, he softened a bit, taking a step forward to close the distance, the point of his spear turning down toward the ground. Not entirely unguarded, but no longer threatening.

“What do you need from me?” he asked. “You know very well who I am now. If you wanted me to help you… then you should have asked before you’d made a name for yourself.”

“A-Qian, please— just listen to me first.”

Silence fell for a moment. Ning Feiyun sighed, and nodded his head. “Fine. I’ll listen, this once.”

“I made a mistake,” Mo Yuan replied, “I… need you to get me through Baidong Mountain’s barrier.”

Ning Feiyun took a step back, his eyes flashing with alarm. “What?”

“There’s… something I need to do. It’s a matter of life and death.”

“I can’t just allow you inside!” Ning Feiyun hissed, his voice dropping into a whisper as though he feared being overheard by his father all the way atop the mountain. “Out of all known rogue cultivators, you’re one of those that the great clans wish most to apprehend!”

“A-Qian… you must listen.” Now, Mo Yuan’s voice had dropped. The desperation that formerly clung to it was nowhere to be heard, though it still weighed heavily within his heart, crackling through his veins. His expression and demeanor, though, had shifted. Shoulders drawn back, chin slightly lifted, eyes flickering with a glimmer of challenge. “I must get inside the barrier array. I can do so with your help, or I can do it on my own.”

“Why do you wish to provoke the great clans?” Ning Feiyun hissed, and though he tried to square up to Mo Yuan’s challenge, it was clear that he was, in fact, intimidated by it. “Doing this will only get you hurt at best. Just go.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“… I can’t tell you that,” Mo Yuan looked away once more.

Ning Feiyun looked somewhat torn. He was still rather young now, and it had only been a few years since he left Mengshan Temple. It seemed that he may have cared a little more for Mo Yuan than he wanted to let on.

“Please… let me help you,” Ning Feiyun said quietly. “I can’t let you through the barrier, but if you tell me what’s troubling you perhaps I can find some other way to aid?”

“Not possible,” Mo Yuan shook his head. “There… are some things I can’t tell you. You’re one of them now, after all. I didn’t wish to interfere with your chosen path, but I had hoped that for the sake of our old friendship, you could allow me this much. Just this once.”

Ning Feiyun considered his words, then sighed heavily. “The cultivation world might deem you a criminal and an evildoer… but you’ve never been someone who sought to harm. Are you truly the one behind the recent attacks?”

Mo Yuan startled a little, but did not answer. He simply looked away.

“I see.” Ning Feiyun’s voice sounded hollow. “Dayuan’s Song-zongzhu said that it was you and your followers that organized those raids. I didn’t want to believe it, though. If it’s all true… then I’m sorry. I cannot allow you to pass through the barrier. I won’t risk my clan’s safety.”

“I don’t mean to harm anyone!” Mo Yuan raised his voice ever so slightly, indignation and hurt flashing through him. His gaze darted from one side to the next, and when he continued speaking, it was in a near-whisper once more. “The clans are permitted to hunt down my companions however they please, and yet if I so much as raid a single caravan for supplies I become some heinous monster that deserves to be sealed or eradicated? I’ve only hurt those who try to harm me first! Had we simply been allowed to stand alongside the clans as we had petitioned during the conference, there would be no strife between us!”

That was the incident that had truly started the war— when Mo Yuan and six others had appeared at the Immortal Clans’ Conference a year before the attack on Baidong Mountain, demanding to be allowed to participate. Song Weicheng, as it was recorded, had permitted their participation, even going so far as to state that should they prove themselves, they would be offered a place within Ruijian Pavilion. These seven youths had good skills, and easily ended up in the top rankings of the competition— but when Song Weicheng approached Mo Yuan to extend an invitation to join Ruijian Pavilion, Mo Yuan had suddenly attacked the clan leader before escaping with his followers.

And now he had the audacity to bring up that incident as a wrong done to him?

Ning Feiyun, however, did not respond with indignation.

“You know very well the rules of the cultivation world,” he replied. “Why would you even reveal yourselves back then in the first place? You could have stayed hidden in the mountains…”

“I had no desire to live my whole life as a fugitive without just cause,” Mo Yuan snapped.

“So you hoped to create a reason to be hated? And… what of those who came with you that day? Qiu Wei and the others… did they also agree to be caught up in your dreams of glory?”

Silence fell, deafening as a peal of thunder.

Mo Yuan looked up with anger trembling between his brows.

“You know nothing, Luo Qian… Ning Feiyun. Nothing of the sort of life we live, or of the struggles that face us each day. I did not come here to cause any harm to your beloved clan, only to prevent it from being done to my own,” he said, his voice once more taking a dark turn. This time, though, it was carefully measured, the crackling of lightning beneath his words deliberate. “Now please… you may have taken a new name and a new life, and even gained the favor of the heavens— but we once were closer than brothers, were we not?”

Mo Yuan’s words were sharp as a razor’s edge, precise as a needle’s point. Ning Feiyun, who had stood resolute to not permit this, had begun to waver— and Mo Yuan had seized upon those weak points from the very start of their exchange, invoking Ning Feiyun’s concern, his sympathy, and the still-smoldering embers of the closeness they had once had. And yet despite that, Ning Feiyun was still more resolute than expected.

“Please…” Ning Feiyun sighed. “Even so, I can’t betray my clan. I cannot help you, Mo Yuan.”

“Yet you would betray a bond far older than that?” Mo Yuan countered. He was beginning to grow frustrated, and that frustration intertwined with his desperation to breed anger… and bitterness. His already sharp tongue turned scathing. “Must I remind you… that name you now bear, your current position… you owe it all to me. Had I not stood aside that day, I would be the one in your place now— it’s time for you to repay that debt.”

Ning Feiyun’s body went stiff, eyes widening. His expression turned anxious, throat bobbing as he swallowed. He took first one, then another step back, and could only meet Mo Yuan’s gaze for a moment longer before his own dropped to the ground. Even his grip on Shuangci grew slack, and with a flick of his fingers, the spear retracted back into its collapsed form, which he attached back onto his bracer. He didn’t reply for a good long while— and yet it was clear from the moment he looked toward the ground that with those final words, Mo Yuan had managed to shatter his defenses.

“Yuan-ge… please don’t do anything rash,” he practically whispered. “Are you… absolutely certain that you can’t tell me why you need to enter Baidong Mountain?”

Seeing that Ning Feiyun had yielded, Mo Yuan’s demeanor softened almost immediately. Still, though, he shook his head. “I still can’t fully trust you with that information, you understand that, right?” he asked. “But… I promise that I was not lying when I said I did not come here to cause harm… it would be best if my presence here is entirely unnoticed. I don’t intend to confront Yinshan’s cultivation clans… only to protect my own.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Will you kill anyone?” Ning Feiyun asked. It was as though he were trying to convince himself that he were still pushing back… but he’d already caved beneath the burden Mo Yuan had placed upon his shoulders.

And Mo Yuan was well aware of that. He reached out, clasping Ning Feiyun’s shoulder with a firm hand— though he didn’t reply right away. He allowed the touch to linger, the threat that had formerly darkened the corners of his expression evaporated, only hints of gratefulness left in its wake.

“I won’t kill anyone unless I have no other choice,” he promised. “If I am able to get in and out without being noticed… then I doubt anyone will have to die.”

It sounded as though he were simply making a reassurance, and yet there was something else there, a subtle probing, a hint of suggestion.

“Oh… there might be a way I can help with that,” Ning Feiyun replied.

“Is there?”

Anticipation swelled up within Mo Yuan’s chest as Ning Feiyun reached into the pouch he wore at his belt, drawing out a small, familiar-looking spiritual tool. It was a concealment device… the very same sort that they would use years later to silently infiltrate the mountain prison.

From the feeling of triumph that rushed through Mo Yuan upon seeing it, it was clear that this was exactly what he had been hoping for.

“This device will allow you to conceal yourself from the spiritual sense of others, even those whose cultivation is higher than yours,” Ning Feiyun explained. “If it will prevent anyone from being hurt… I will lend this to you. But please— once you’ve finished whatever it is you came here for, please return the device to me. If you cannot do so in person, then leave it in the hollow of this tree.”

He pointed to hollowed-out tree a few steps away.

“Very well,” Mo Yuan nodded his head, and as Ning Feiyun placed the device in his hands, genuine relief washed over him. The smile that followed, small and a bit exhausted, was also no act. “Thank you.”

Ning Feiyun still seemed uncertain and unsettled by all of this. Mo Yuan’s thanks fell upon ears that were not quite willing to hear it, the relieved expression on his face taken in by eyes that had turned dull with resignation. It was no wonder. Speaking to a wanted rogue cultivator like a friend was enough of an offense, but giving him a concealment device and turning a blind eye to his infiltration of a cultivation clan’s stronghold was outright treason. There was no way that the young Ning Feiyun didn’t know this… and yet those few words from Mo Yuan had stung him too deeply. How could one simply turn their back on one of their oldest friends, after all? Especially when a debt was owed…

Had he refused, would Mo Yuan have accepted it? It seemed unlikely. Mo Yuan was a dangerous person after all, his later actions proved that. Though it had seemed genuine, whether his promise to cause no harm could be trusted or not was a different matter…

Suddenly, it became clear when, precisely, this memory took place.

These events must have occurred shortly before the attack on Baidong Mountain, when the Nameless infiltrated the stronghold and nearly brought ruin to Yinshan’s cultivation clans— the battle in which Song Mingzhen’s timely arrival had just barely managed to turn the tide. No wonder Ning Feiyun’s demeanor was often so guarded and miserable. If he had been the one responsible for letting Mo Yuan inside the barrier after all… no doubt he’d been tormented by guilt ever since.

But something still seemed off.

Mo Yuan had promised that he wished to cause no harm— and in that moment, he had been telling the truth. After all, within this memory his feelings were plainly apparent. There was no lie in the statement that he wished to remain undiscovered, and his urgency was not one born from a desire to destroy and conquer, but regret and anxiety deep within him.

So what was it that had caused it all to change?

Had he somehow been caught by a patrol? But why would that cause him to attempt to lay waste to Baidong Mountain, instead of just wiping out the patrol? Mo Yuan might have been a feared evil cultivator, but at least now he seemed not to be particularly rash. Nor did it seem like he would have changed his plans on purpose. Even if he meant to betray Ning Feiyun’s trust, it would have been a much wiser decision to simply slip away and keep the concealment device for himself. Such a thing would give him a powerful advantage— as was evident with Ning Zhifeng’s case. If Mo Yuan sought to destroy Baidong Mountain and wipe out the Qin clan, It would have been far better to do so through clandestine means.

As these questions rose up and swirled through his mind like a tempest, the memory itself began to distort, time seeming to speed up, slow down, and collapse back onto himself, leaving him disoriented and dizzy.

Your memories aren’t intact.

The Fragrance of Memory worked by combining the scent of the incense with some kind of trigger scent— in that case, it had been the soft mossy fragrance from within the cave. Usually, if what he knew of the technique was correct, it would have allowed the entire memory in question to play out continuously, but this time that wasn’t the case. As soon as Mo Yuan within the memory had left that area, climbing in elevation and leaving behind the forest in the foothills, the memory that had been drawn up lost its clarity.

For awhile, it was like being tossed amid a river’s flow, tumbled beneath the rushing water one unfortunate breath away from drowning, with his head only occasionally able to breach the surface and catch a glimpse of how far he’d come. It was disorienting, and the panic that had begun to die down while the memory played out surged back up with renewed vigor. He struggled against the confusion to no avail, helplessly swept along until at last the flow shifted, and he found himself surfacing from the haze into another more distinctive memory.

This time, it opened onto darkness, senses flooded with the cool dampness of a cavern’s interior… and the hum of spiritual energy running through the walls, floor, and ceiling around him in a constant, steady flow.

This time, he knew exactly where he was.

He would not soon forget the sensation of descending into Baidong Mountain’s spirit caves.

So that was where Mo Yuan had gone while under the protection of Ning Feiyun’s concealment device. It wasn’t surprising at all— rogue cultivators rarely had the opportunity to enter such sacred places, and had to make do cultivating within the mortal world where the spiritual energy was far inferior. If one of them managed to sneak into one of the cultivation world’s strongholds without being caught, it only made sense that they would try to take advantage of such an opportunity. More likely than not, he would never get another such chance for advancement in his lifetime.

Strangely enough, though, Mo Yuan didn’t seem interested in the countless caves and passages that branched off in all directions. Neither the pools shimmering in the light of spiritual ore nor the stones that whispered ancient secrets caught his eye. Instead, he simply continued straight forward through the passage, deeper and deeper into the spirit caves. He wasn’t merely looking around— he was here with a distinct purpose.

The path he took through the caves was a familiar one. Down the winding passage, to a bridge that crossed over unfathomable depths, past a wall that unknowingly could be turned to sand in an instant. An invisible barrier stood before him, streams of inscriptions apparent only through spiritual sense, and there he stopped, and waited. He waited until the sound of approaching footsteps could be heard from the other side of the barrier. When one of the Ning clan’s guards opened the barrier to pass through, Mo Yuan slipped through at the same instant, remaining undiscovered.

Onward he went, silent and cautious, with growing anticipation and fear nestled within him, feeding off of one another until his veins were alight, steps urged ever-quicker. It wasn’t long before he arrived at that wide, open chamber, with the mountain prison rising up before him.

Pausing only for a moment, he continued forward.

Why had he come here?

It was a strange situation, at least compared to the events as recorded by the cultivation world. If Mo Yuan meant to attack Baidong Mountain, why come to a place where one wrong move would cost him his freedom or his life? He’d taken a great risk entering the spirit caves, only to place himself within the walls of the mountain prison…

And yet, it wasn’t an unfamiliar move. He wouldn’t be the last to enter this place, to risk his life, to breach those walls.

The further into the fortress he went, the more familiar it all seemed— carefully avoiding the surveillance arrays, even descending to the second level of cells.

Suddenly, whether through deduction or memory, everything became clear. Mo Yuan hadn’t been lying when he was persuading Ning Feiyun to let him in. He wasn’t here to attack at all.

He was here to rescue someone.

A few voices could be heard up ahead, the words indistinct and muffled. Mo Yuan stopped, leaning in to peer around the corner. A pair of low-ranking guards stood outside the door to one of the cells.

“Pity you can’t hear anything from out here,” one of them said. They were the only ones here, as far as he knew, so he didn’t bother speaking in a low voice.

His companion released a short laugh. “Well, I doubt he’ll have much voice left to scream with by now,” he replied. “That boy was so defiant when he was brought in… but from what I heard, he was soft. It didn’t take long to break him.”

Hearing these words, the fear and anger within Mo Yuan’s chest flared up even more. He clutched at the fabric of his sleeves, his breath catching in his lungs and burning as he inhaled.

“He won’t last much longer, most likely,” the second guard continued. “I think they’re planning on throwing the corpse out near the place the last shipment was attacked. I’ve heard their leader is actually here in Yinshan right now. Maybe this will get him to back off and run back to the wild lands.”

Mo Yuan was shaking, his hands and feet cold as ice while rage smoldered like a fire within his heart. He could barely keep himself from rushing forward and strangling these two men with his bare hands, and only after awhile was he able to slowly approach, step by step, hands tightly clenched into fists as he fought to remain calm. It wouldn’t be a good idea to kill them now… if he killed one, the other would raise the alarm, and even if he was fast enough to end both of their lives, there was someone else inside the cell who would see the bodies or sense traces of the conflict. Mo Yuan couldn’t afford to raise even the slightest suspicion right now.

The ringing of a bell, light and clear, sounded through the corridor.

The first guard reached for something attached to his belt— it was the key to the cell. “It sounds like they’re finished for now.”

“I don’t know why they’re dragging it out for so long,” the second guard sighed and shook his head, “Now it seems they’re just enjoying themselves.”

“I doubt that’s the case,” the first countered as he began to open the cell. “The heretics’ leader has an innate spiritual sense. He’ll be able to feel the boy’s suffering on his corpse— this way, the message will be more effective.”

Mo Yuan’s throat was tight as he remained pressed against the wall barely a chi away from where the two were standing, hoping that they didn’t reach out toward where he was concealed. His blood was turned to ice with dread, and he could barely hold himself upright. His heart was racing, and cold sweat ran from his brow down along his cheekbones. The door to the cell was opened, and the two guards fell silent as a man in fine white robes with his hair bound up in an elaborate silver guan exited, followed closely by another rough-looking man whose sleeves looked as though they had been dipped in a pool of blood. Neither of them spoke, and one of the guards turned to follow them back down the corridor while the other moved to close the cell.

Willing himself forward, Mo Yuan reached out to snatch the key that the departing guard carried. He made it through the cell door just as it closed, and the end of his dark robe caught between the door and the stone wall. The fabric tore as he tried to pull it free— but he couldn’t care less about that.

As soon as the door had shut behind him, his senses were assailed with the iron-copper stench of blood and the crackling, burning sensation of terror. Within the cell, it was complete darkness, but Mo Yuan raised a shaking hand and flicked his fingers, producing a small flame that lit up the hellish space.

Immediately, he wished that he hadn’t.

In the center of the cell, suspended with heavy chains around his neck, wrists, and ankles so that his arms were outstretched and his feet could barely touch the ground, was a youth who couldn’t have been any older than fourteen, his face and body beaten and bloodied until he was almost unrecognizable.