Song Mingzhen stared at the paper on the ground for a moment. A haunting sense of familiarity filled him, chilling him to the bone. He could sense no one outside, nor could he hear the sound of footsteps, even though the one who left the paper should still be here. Once more, his senses were obscured… just as they had been before.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he crossed the room to pick up the slip of paper, carefully unfolding it.

Just as before, it appeared blank at first. Just as before, when he applied a bit of spiritual energy, the characters written there gradually began to appear.

If you seek the answers to your questions, return now to the place where the crimson blades reawakened. There, you will find the truth.

It was the same handwriting as before, too.

Without a doubt, this letter was written by the same person who had left the others… a person who had already died. At least, that was what everyone had been led to believe.

Song Mingzhen’s heart began to beat faster, and his hands trembled as they held the letter, the paper crinkling slightly in his grasp.

Yang Anxiang… she must still be alive.

She was alive, and somehow, she knew what had happened in the valley that day. She knew about the strange power that had awakened within him. Had she been there then, just watching the whole time? It wouldn’t be that surprising, since she’d done the same while he cultivated at the back of the mountain that night. So much had been happening in those moments that Song Mingzhen could have easily failed to notice her presence, since she hadn’t been directly involved with the skirmish.

Just what exactly was her role in all of this?

Ning Xuemin’s words rang in his ears. Yang Anxiang had been involved with the Nameless… could it be that she hadn’t been threatened at all?

Maybe they had been working hand in hand the entire time.

Whatever the circumstances were, this couldn’t be ignored. Whether about Yang Anxiang or about his own strange power and the questions that plagued him, if this note led to an answer, he had to follow its instructions. No matter if there really was nothing to find, he still couldn’t take the chance and allow it to slip by.

He had to go back to the valley.

A sense of urgency bubbled up within him, rising until it boiled over. He immediately turned toward the door, flinging it open and rushing out into the night. He didn’t give it much thought— all he knew was that he had to make it to the valley, he had to find the answers to his questions.

He didn’t get very far, though. Before he could even leave the village, he sensed someone approaching— there was no killing intent, but the approach was too rapid to avoid. Fingers caught around his wrist, pulling him aside into the space between two buildings. Before he could summon up the power to resist, his back was slammed against the stone wall and his arms pinned above his head. Before he had the chance to call out for help, a hand clapped tightly over his mouth.

“Where do you think you’re going now?”

Song Mingzhen startled, eyes going wide. He made a noise of surprise behind the hand covering his mouth. Then, instinctively, he bit down. Hard.

Ning Feiyun— for that was his attacker’s identity— yelped and withdrew his hand from Song Mingzhen’s mouth. His other hand, however, remained firmly pinning his wrists against the wall. Ning Feiyun leaned in to hold him there, using his slight height advantage to bear down upon him and make it difficult to escape. The bite had done nothing to loosen his grip— in fact, it almost seemed like Ning Feiyun had expected it.

“What are you doing? What is the meaning of this?” Song Mingzhen hissed out, irritation flashing through his eyes and across his features. He struggled against Ning Feiyun’s grasp, but his opponent was by no means weak, and it wouldn’t be so easy to get free. “I don’t recall being forbidden from going where I please.”

“Oh?” Ning Feiyun shot back, his voice a low whisper. “I never said you could not go, I only asked where.”

“And why does that matter?” Song Mingzhen felt quite indignant now at this treatment, his eyes narrowing.

“As mountain patrol commander, I think it’s well within my power to ask such questions. Especially considering the situation as of late.”

Song Mingzhen fell quiet. Ning Feiyun had a point… still, there was no reason he had to go about it all so violently! Dragging him off the street and pinning him against the wall like he was apprehending a common criminal, covering his mouth so he couldn’t cry out, it was all unnecessary. Just because of that, Song Mingzhen stubbornly shut his mouth and refused to give an answer.

Come to think of it… why was Ning Feiyun out here in the middle of the night to catch him anyway?

“Were you waiting around to watch me? Am I some sort of criminal?” he asked, voice laced with indignation. “Release me now and I won’t mention this to anyone. I’ve done nothing wrong, unless leaving my own lodgings has suddenly become a crime.”

Why did Ning Feiyun have it out for him now?

After another uncomfortable moment with the two glaring at one another, Ning Feiyun finally relented and released his grip on Song Mingzhen’s wrists. They felt a little bruised now, and he frowned as he rubbed at them, shaking out his hands. He was about to make some kind of comment or retort on it, but Ning Feiyun spoke up and cut him off before he could.

“Who are you, really?”

Song Mingzhen’s breath caught in his throat. His heart froze within his chest. “I… can’t say I know what you mean.”

What was this question? Had Ning Feiyun heard something strange? Had he gone back to speak to Ning Zhifeng, and had the man told him the same things he’d told Song Mingzhen?

“Song-gongzi is a sword cultivator, wise for his age and well-mannered. He has the epitome of a gentleman’s bearing, and every youth in the cultivation world aspires to emulate him,” Ning Feiyun continued. His voice grew quieter with practically every syllable he spoke. “He is not someone who seeks out and targets the weak points of both friends and foes, who strikes first where it hurts most. He is not someone… who wields evil techniques and kills where he claimed his intention was to capture.”

He took a few steps away, still facing Song Mingzhen with one hand on the retracted Shuangci spear. At his side. There was a slight tremor in his shoulders, and he refused to meet the other man’s gaze, instead staring at the wall behind his head. Ning Feiyun’s emotions were written all over his face— anger, fear, and confusion.

“The instability in your cultivation, that I can understand on account of your injury,” he said, “but can a person truly change almost everything about themselves, just because of a bit of memory loss? Are you… are you truly Song Mingzhen? Or simply someone who wears his name?”

The chill within Song Mingzhen’s heart spread out into his limbs. He should retort back, he should lash out, he should scold Ning Feiyun for questioning his very identity like this! And yet, his lips remained closed, the words sticking into his throat and refusing to leave it.

That was, of course… because Ning Feiyun had voiced the very question that had been buried deep within himself these past few months. Ever since he set foot outside his courtyard… no, ever since he regained consciousness, he felt as if he were wearing another’s clothes, walking in another’s footsteps, wielding another’s sword. He hardly recognized his father, he didn’t even recall his brother’s existence. Each step he took felt more uncomfortable, more unnatural than the last. The only time he felt even somewhat at ease was when he was all on his own… or when he was behaving in a way decidedly unlike the persona of “Song Mingzhen.”

Back in the spirit caves, Ning Feiyun had told him he seemed different, and in the end… he couldn’t help but agree. Whenever he had tried to cultivate the Dao of the Sword, he came up against endless walls and bottlenecks, but when he took a step down another path the world opened before him. In a moment of crisis, he relied not on his own, on Song Mingzhen’s techniques, but on a different combat style entirely, a dead man’s vital weapon defending him instead of his own sword.

So much had changed. Whoever he may have once been, could he even say now that he was truly Song Mingzhen at all?

It was… a question that he wasn’t sure how to answer.

He could only take a slow, shaky breath as he lifted his head to meet Ning Feiyun’s gaze once more. “I… don’t know,” he whispered.

He should have protested, he should have argued, but the fact of the matter was that he… was tired of this. So he told the truth, and once he had, it suddenly became much easier to keep going.

“Since I first regained consciousness, I haven’t been able to recall anything from my past. Those few memories that do appear within my thoughts or dreams from time to time are more confusing than they are helpful,” he admitted. He couldn’t explain what happened in the valley, the power he’d used or how he used it. Even thinking about those implications made his head start pounding and sent a wave of dizziness rushing through him. “It’s true, Ning-xiong… I can’t say for sure who I really am. But… I would like to know the truth. That… that is why I left tonight. I was going to find it.”

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Ning Feiyun frowned, but moved his hand away from his spear. “The truth?” he asked, “And where are you planning to find that?”

Song Mingzhen reached into his sleeve to take hold of the note, but hesitated before pulling it out. In the end, though, hadn’t he planned to tell Ning Feiyun about all of this anyway? The circumstances might have been different then, but… he really had no reason to keep this a secret. Especially now that Ning Feiyun had confronted him directly.

“I believe… that Yang Anxiang may still be alive.”

“Yang Anxiang… but how?” Ning Feiyun asked, eyes narrowing. “Her body was found beneath the palace walls, and has already been buried.”

“I’m not sure how,” Song Mingzhen shook his head, “but look at this.”

He took out the paper, channeled a bit of spiritual power into it until the writing reappeared, and then handed it to Ning Feiyun.

Ning Feiyun took the note, his gaze skimming across it before he looked up once more. “How do you know this was sent by Yang Anxiang?”

“This… is not the first time she has contacted me.”

“What?”

“The night I arrived in Yinshang, Yang-xiaoniang left a message for me in the exact same way. The handwriting is hers, without a doubt. I met her at the back of the mountain that night.”

He went on to explain the warnings she had given him, the information she had revealed, and the suspicion she had cast upon those around her. He recounted the second message she had sent the night before her apparent “death,” what Ning Xuemin had told him about her rumored past, and finally the surprising appearance of another message tonight.

Ning Feiyun listened in silence, his expression shifting and changing from confusion, to anger, to hurt, and back. Once the other finished speaking, he stood for awhile, staring at the paper, then down at the ground, before finally looking back up to fix the man before him with a hard, steel-sharp glare.

“Why have you not mentioned any of this before?” he asked.

“At the time,” Song Mingzhen replied, slowly, “I was under the impression that she was in danger— and also, she had placed her trust in me. I thought she must have come to me instead of your clan for a reason, and I did not wish to break her trust. I did not know of her connection to the Nameless, or that she may have been anything more than a victim of all of this.”

Ning Feiyun still seemed a bit upset, but he just shook his head. “I see.”

He crumbled the paper in his hand into a ball and tucked it away inside his collars. Then, he suddenly summoned his spear to his hand— and Song Mingzhen’s eyes went wide. He hurriedly backed away, raising his hand in front of him with a half-formed seal. Ning Feiyun, however, did not strike out at him. Instead, he just gave Song Mingzhen a bit of an odd look.

“Well?” he asked.

Song Mingzhen questioningly tilted his head to the side.

Ning Feiyun gestured toward the sea of clouds beyond the mountain peak. “The note tells you where to go for answers. I’m just as interested as you are in finding them— it’s the valley where we fought my former commander, right? We should get going.”

Oh. Well, that was a little embarrassing. Song Mingzhen had really thought that Ning Feiyun was about to attack him. But… at the same time, he hesitated. He was anxious enough about going out on his own, but depending on what this “truth” was, could he truly trust Ning Feiyun to learn it alongside him? He didn’t even know how he would react, let alone someone else… if there even was a truth to be found. There was still a possibility that it was all no more than a trap.

A hand reached out to catch hold of his arm— the touch wasn’t sharp and abrupt this time, though, but instead it was steadying, reassuring. He raised his gaze to meet Ning Feiyun’s once again.

“You and I both want to know the truth,” Ning Feiyun said, his voice barely above a whisper. “About these past few months… about you, and what happened to you. Besides that, you shouldn’t go alone. If the sender wishes to deal you harm, you would do well to have someone by your side, guarding your back. Please… you are not the only one with questions.”

There was something in the other man’s voice that gave him pause. He swallowed at the lump that had begun to form in his throat.

“And what if… what if learning the truth reveals things that would be better left buried?”

Those answers, those memories that lingered just at the cusp of his awareness, tainting his thoughts and his actions, tormenting him equally whether they were known or remained unknown… with each day that passed, they seemed to grow stronger, the shadows lengthening and crossing over one another, overlapping over him until he could hardly tell where he ended and they began. With the emergence of the crimson blades, the ignition of a power within him that felt simultaneously strange yet familiar fueled the flames that threatened to consume his remaining sanity.

Ning Feiyun’s hand on his arm was warm against the cold winds that whistled across the mountaintop. Steady and calm against the storm that whirled within his mind. Almost subconsciously, he reached out his own hand to place it over Ning Feiyun’s. He felt the warmth beneath his palm, the pulse rippling beneath the other’s skin tying him down like an anchor.

“If the truth really is such a dangerous, terrible thing, then we will face it when it reveals itself,” Ning Feiyun said. “Now, let us go. Let’s put an end to all these questions. Isn’t that why you came here to begin with?”

With a sigh, Song Mingzhen nodded his head. “Yes, it is.”

The Chengxiao sword hung in its scabbard at his side. Once more, it did not even tremble when he attempted to to summon it. Ning Feiyun glanced down at the seal he formed with his fingers, saw the lack of response, then reached out his hand again.

“You’ve been having trouble with your sword,” he noted. “It wouldn’t be good if you lost control while we were flying. Come along with me again.”

Not once had the sword obeyed his command since the crimson blades awoke. The implications of that fact made him feel rather nauseous, and thinking about how they might be close to uncovering what lay behind the shadows and the flames made him want to turn around and flee.

He took Ning Feiyun’s hand, and they rose up into the sky.

It was too late now to turn back. It was either go forward, or remain trapped and tormented by confusion.

The Shuangci spear cut easily through sheets of icy cloud, crystalline vapors shattering around them as they shot across the night sky. Stars above, mountains below, and clouds all around, a hundred li of mountains passed beneath them in hardly a few moments’ flight, and they landed back in that quiet, blood-stained valley.

It was time to put an end to all this.

The pair stood there near the frozen stream, listening to the breeze rattling through frost-covered branches, the soft crunch of snow beneath their feet. A faint glimmer of light shone within the thicket of trees, near the place where the fight had ended. Upon approach, it became clear that it was the figure of a young woman— it was Yang Anxiang, standing with her back leaned up against the very tree where Ning Zhifeng had fallen. Seeing someone who was thought to be dead standing there before them was startling enough, but even though there was no ghostly qi that radiated from her, there was still something strange. The two drew their weapons as they drew near, but Yang Anxiang didn’t react to them. She didn’t even seem to notice them at all.

Before they could reach her, she vanished into thin air. Ning Feiyun startled, his back and shoulders stiffening as he swung his spear to check behind them. Song Mingzhen, however, broke into a jog and hurried to the base of the tree. Within his spiritual sense there were faint sparks glimmering, and when he bent down to the ground and brushed aside the snow, he found the ashes of a talisman that had been burned away.

A moment later, Yang Anxiang reappeared again, a few zhang further into the mountain’s shadow.

“What… is this?” Ning Feiyun asked as he came to Song Mingzhen’s side.

Song Mingzhen’s eyes widened as he picked up a small fragment of the burned-away talisman.

“Illusions.”

He recalled the time he had met Yang Anxiang at the back of the mountain. The way she had remained concealed, not revealing herself until after Song Mingzhen had already figured out where she was hiding. He had thought before that perhaps she had obtained one of the Qin clan’s concealment tools, but hadn’t even considered another option— that she cultivated the Dao of Illusion.

He already knew she was far more accomplished than she made herself out to be. Different cultivation paths had their own strengths and weaknesses— but those who used illusions specialized in shaping stories and perceptions to their will. Concealing one’s presence, donning and switching disguises, making those around them believe a lie… even though it was difficult to trick a cultivator’s spiritual sense, most wouldn’t think to question their eyes and their ears. An illusionist might have little power of their own, little combat prowess, and yet could still bring an army to their knees should their tricks be placed carefully enough.

The disappearance of the attackers in Anfeng City, the ability to enter a clan’s stronghold and get close enough to slay the clan leader, to trick the guards and surveillance within the mountain prison… feats which seemed almost impossible were suddenly far more plausible if they were dealing with a master of illusion. This path was difficult to master, as many techniques required simultaneously a great strength as well as malleability of consciousness— an illusionist would need to be able to convince themselves of their falsehood before they could trick the minds of others.

If this person had managed to make the fallen rogue cultivators disappear before his eyes back then, though… they were no small threat.

“What do we do now?” Ning Feiyun whispered.

“Follow them.”

The second illusion had appeared almost immediately after the first vanished. Once they stood up and turned toward it, this one too vanished, a third appearing further along. Beneath the snow, yet again, were the remains of a talisman… there was a trail here.

“They’re leading us along,” he said. “Whether it is truly Yang Anxiang or not, whether it is genuine or an attempt to deceive us, we won’t learn anything unless we follow.”

One illusion after the next, they made their way through the trees, winding back and forth, all senses on the alert for any sign of ambush or any traps that might lie in wait. The path, however, remained clear, and the valley silent as they were led out from its mouth, further out toward the foothills and the plains beyond. They traveled some distance following the illusions. Gradually, the poses began to change, from standing idle, leaning up against trees or sitting on stones, to pointing them in the direction they ought to go. The illusory Yang Anxiang’s expressions were flat and unreadable at first, but the further they went, the more her lips twitched into a coy smile, the more her eyes narrowed, the more she turned from calm and demure to cunning and mischievous. At last, they reached a small crevice between two cliffs, deep within the forest. One final illusion stood before it, a hand placed within the groove on the stone, a light shimmering beneath it.

Song Mingzhen and Ning Feiyun traded glances, then stepped forward. The illusion vanished, as did the light beneath its palm— but the grooves in the stone remained. Song Mingzhen placed his hand there, summoning up a burst of spiritual power and sending it into the channels of the array he could feel beneath his fingertips. A series of inscriptions upon the stone lit up briefly, then it shifted aside to reveal a passage.

“Did you know about this?” he asked.

Ning Feiyun shook his head. “No. I’ve never seen this passage before.”

They paused for a moment. The path before them was darker than a night without stars, black as the depths of the sea. From within, there was a faint hum of spiritual power. Once more, they met each others’ gaze. Ning Feiyun nodded his head. Song Mingzhen took a shaky breath, steadied himself, and then stepped forward.

As soon as both of their feet had crossed over the threshold, the stone behind them shook and rumbled, and the passage sealed closed, plunging them into total darkness.