After Yang Anxiang vanished, silence descended like a veil upon the cavern. The only sound that remained was the rush of water from the nearby cascades and the softer trickle where the underground river lapped against the bank where the two men rested.

Some time passed before Ning Feiyun awoke. As his consciousness resurfaced, he found that the chill had been chased from his bones and the water from his lungs, and though his clothes were still a bit damp it was not uncomfortably so. He opened his eyes, taking a deep breath of the faintly moss-scented air as he propped himself up onto his elbows.

The underground cavern was lit by a faint crimson glow, reflecting off the ripples of the river and branching out like veins or spider webs across the uneven stone walls.

The source of the light was a petal-shaped blade about a hand’s length, slowly turning around and around as it hovered above the palm of a young man clad in gold.

Mo Yuan— no, Song Mingzhen— no… which one was it?

Ning Feiyun slowly sat up. Upon taking a closer look, it was definitely Song Mingzhen.

And yet…

It was also Mo Yuan.

How was this possible?

He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed at them a bit, then opened them once again. It was Song Mingzhen, wreathed in the light of a dead man’s vital weapon.

Unless…

“So… how did you do it?” he asked without thinking.

Mo Yuan— Song Mingzhen— whoever he was— looked up and turned toward Ning Feiyun, meeting his gaze for hardly a breath before he looked away again.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” he said.

“How did you trick everyone and escape with your life?” Ning Feiyun asked.

That had to be the answer, right? Mo Yuan had found a way to fool the entire cultivation world, faked his death and took Song Mingzhen’s place. Ning Feiyun had only met Song Mingzhen a few times, but it could be that the two of them really did look alike, even if their demeanor was quite different.

But why go through all of this, then? If he wanted to keep his identity a secret, why actually go through with Yang Anxiang’s little scheme, and why let Ning Feiyun know the truth as well?

Mo Yuan didn’t reply, he just returned to staring at the blade that floated above his hand. Then, with a flick of his fingers, it turned into a beam of light and disappeared back into his jindan.

No wonder “Song Mingzhen” had seemed so much stronger than Ning Feiyun remembered… it turned out that his cultivation had been a major boundary higher than everyone thought all along.

Ning Feiyun felt a little bit sick thinking about this, about how he’d been deceived, how everyone had been deceived.

“Why did you bring me into this?” he blurted out. “What are you going to do to me, now that I know the truth?”

Mo Yuan still said nothing. Only the occasional, faint sound of his breathing told Ning Feiyun that he was even still here. Without the light of the Xuelian blade, the cavern had been plunged back into darkness.

But that wouldn’t be a problem for Mo Yuan at all. From the beginning, he had been a prodigy— perhaps even the greatest in his generation, someone born with both a profound spiritual sense and a first-rate spiritual root. If he had been born to one of the great clans, he would have been hailed as a great hero, and likely risen to the same heights as Qin Wenying’s father had in his time, if not even higher— but because he had instead been brought to Mengshan Temple from a destitute life on the streets, nameless and with no family to speak of, he had become something feared and despised by the world. In the end, his talent allowed him to rise, but it had also painted a target on his back, rallying the world to call for his downfall.

The darkness here wouldn’t hinder someone like him, because he didn’t see the world in the way that Ning Feiyun or anyone else did— more than likely, he could “see” every move Ning Feiyun made, anticipate every breath he took…

“I’m not Mo Yuan.”

The voice with which he spoke was flat, emotionless.

Ning Feiyun’s fingers curled into tight fists, nails digging into his palm. So he was still going to deny it? “Then how do you have the Xuelian twin blades?” he asked.

Once again, Mo Yuan didn’t answer.

Ning Feiyun felt an ache deep in his throat, a tension at the base of his neck, and a stinging sensation in his eyes. He wanted to say something more… he wanted to argue with him, to make accusations, to order Mo Yuan to tell him everything that had happened, how he was still alive, how he had managed to trick everyone into thinking he was Song Mingzhen, how he had kept up the act for so long, even around those who had known him before— in the end, though, all Ning Feiyun could manage was a single, choked syllable.

“Why?”

He had always wanted to ask, but never had the chance to. After the attack on Baidong Mountain, Mo Yuan had disappeared again, only to reemerge as someone who wanted to burn the cultivation world to ashes— someone who could not be negotiated with, who wouldn’t even look twice at Ning Feiyun before killing him.

They had been friends once— in fact, in all of Ning Feiyun’s life, he had never been so close with anyone as he had been with Mo Yuan back then. He still recalled Mo Yuan’s infectious grin, the spark in his eyes like a firework when he came up with some new trick or theory. Then, that spark had utterly vanished. That day when Ning Feiyun had rushed into the mountain prison, he had seen Mo Yuan collapsed on his knees, a pair of dark arrow shafts protruding from his body and his eyes dull and tarnished.

Why?

Why had things turned out that way?

Why had Mo Yuan thrown himself off the ledge? What had driven him to throw away his life, and later to set out on a murderous rampage?

Ning Feiyun had so many questions that he had buried deep all these years, questions that he had long accepted he would never have an answer for— now that Mo Yuan stood before him once more, they all began to bubble up to the surface.

Before he could ask any of them, though, Mo Yuan spoke up once again. His voice was still flat and expressionless, as dull as his eyes had been on that day.

“It’s a good thing that Baidong Mountain managed to retrieve the Zhiming Mirror, in the end.”

Ning Feiyun felt a sudden shock to the pit of his stomach. In an instant, all of those emotions and questions that had risen to the surface were pushed back down, tied up tightly, and shoved into the back corner of his mind.

“What?” he asked.

“The Zhiming Mirror,” Mo Yuan replied. “Yinmeng Xuelian took it from the spirit caves. That was how his attack on Baidong Mountain was able to succeed. It’s a good thing that it is now back under the Qin clan’s guard.”

Ning Feiyun’s breath caught in his throat. He’d not heard of any of this. Or… had he?

Zhiming Mirror… Zhiming Mirror… there was something important there, something he was forgetting. He tried harder to remember— then gasped in pain as a searing pain raced between his temples like a lightning bolt, sending his mind spinning and his stomach churning.

When he looked up again, he saw Mo Yuan watching him with a calm yet inquisitive expression on his face. That familiar needling gaze had always made him so self-conscious as a child, and yet after he left Mengshan Temple, he’d come to miss it. Back then, he’d actually believed that Mo Yuan could read his mind. Of course, that wasn’t true— Ning Feiyun had tested it several times— but right now, he could feel that same sense of unease.

“So… it’s true then,” Mo Yuan murmured.

Ning Feiyun hesitated. “What’s true?”

“The Zhiming Mirror was never returned, was it?” Mo Yuan asked.

Ning Feiyun swallowed. He shook his head. “I… did not even know it was gone,” he admitted.

But in the end, it made sense. All throughout the war, it was Yinshan’s cultivators that fared the worst against the Nameless. Everyone had just assumed that it was because of the old clan leader’s death at the start of it all, and because Qin Wenying was far from as capable a leader as his father…

Maybe there had been another reason.

Ning Feiyun couldn’t spend too long contemplating that, though, before Mo Yuan’s next words rattled him to the core yet again.

“Are you so sure you didn’t know?”

What… what was he talking about? Ning Feiyun opened his mouth to reply, but then paused. That sudden pain in his head, the disorientation that followed, the lingering nausea and sense of anxiety that now wrapped around his shoulders… and more than anything else, that maddening feeling that something was missing… Ning Feiyun felt like he was about to be sick. Were these not the same symptoms that “Song Mingzhen” had been experiencing?

“I… I don’t know,” Ning Feiyun whispered, his eyes widening as he stared at Mo Yuan… Song Mingzhen…

The Zhiming Mirror’s power was to overwrite “reality.”

Suddenly, everything made sense.

“You… truly weren’t lying, were you?” he asked. “You really had lost your memories.”

There was no response, but the silence that followed answered his question regardless.

“Ning-xiong… let’s go to where the Zhiming Mirror is kept,” Mo Yuan said, his voice tired. “I think I might know what happened— and it seems you have come to the same conclusion. But first, we must see for ourselves.”

Ning Feiyun nodded, and the two prepared to leave.

There was no sign of Yang Anxiang. Ning Feiyun didn’t even need to ask his companion— it was clear that she had followed through with what she told him before. She was long gone. He could only hope that she had spoken the truth about her intentions, and simply stayed in hiding, wherever she was now.

Mo Yuan— no, for now at least, he was still Song Mingzhen— stood up and ignited a light talisman. He led the two of them out from the caverns, back into the foothills of the mountains. Dawn had broken, casting its soft glow across the snow-covered landscape.

Once they had exited the cavern, Song Mingzhen paused, then looked over his shoulder at Ning Feiyun.

“I may need your help again, to get back to the mountain.”

Ning Feiyun dipped his head. “Of course,” he said. With a hand seal, he summoned Shuangci to his side, extending it to its full length so that the two could stand atop it.

It made sense— while the Chengxiao sword was no vital weapon, it was still bonded to Song Mingzhen, not Mo Yuan. Now that the illusion had been broken, it was only natural that he would struggle to command the blade.

They entered the spirit caves together, the guards letting them through without a word. Ning Feiyun was still carrying the key with him from before. Somehow, he already knew that it would allow him to unlock the hidden chamber where the Zhiming Mirror was kept.

Somehow, he already knew the way to get there, even though he’d never been there before.

Somehow, he knew to draw upon his spiritual power to shield himself from the pressure of the spirit veins as they traveled deeper and deeper beneath Baidong Mountain.

And he knew as well, by the time they reached the sealed chamber, that it would be empty when he opened it up.

Because he had been here before.

He and Song Mingzhen both had come here, after Song Mingzhen had been drawn down through the narrow tunnels like a fish on a line.

“We informed your father that it was missing,” Song Mingzhen said quietly as they stood together in the empty chamber, its inscriptions still intact save for a small section near one of the corners. “He then informed the other leaders of the great clans. We thought that Qin-zongzhu’s assassin had been the one to take the mirror, but… I suspect it has been gone for far longer.”

“But… since we’ve been here before, and already discovered this, then why had I forgotten?” Ning Feiyun whispered, shaking his head.

“That is because… the Zhiming Mirror is in the possession of another. Someone who knows how to use it.”

Ning Feiyun’s heart sank.

There was little doubt in his mind now— that demonic tool was the source of all of this trouble. But why?

“Do you know when you… when Mo Yuan lost it?” he asked.

His companion shook his head. “No. The memory cut off after the attack on Baidong Mountain. At that point… it had not yet been lost.”

A flash of pain warped his expression momentarily, and he looked as though he’d been pierced through the heart. It was the same expression that Ning Feiyun had seen on Mo Yuan’s face that day, before he’d thrown himself from the ledge. The dullness of his eyes, the could of despair that seemed like it was about to swallow him whole… whatever he had seen in that memory had left him badly shaken.

“… then how will we find it?” Ning Feiyun asked. Right now, he wasn’t sure whether his companion wished to speak of it, or whether drawing attention to it would just make everything worse.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Once more, he didn’t get a response. It seemed his companion didn’t have the answer either.

“Yang Anxiang knew,” he said at last, taking a slow, shaky breath. “She knew that my memories were affected by the Zhiming Mirror. Before she disappeared, she gave me a clue so that I could figure it out. But… I don’t think she was the one to use the mirror on me. Everyone I’ve met since I woke up believed that I was Song Mingzhen. No one at Ruijian Pavilion questioned it either.”

Ning Feiyun furrowed his brow. Now that they’d come here, and seen the empty chamber, he too remembered the events that had transpired— but not completely. There was still a small part of him, an insistent voice in the back of his mind that told him to disregard all of this, that the Zhiming Mirror was still safe and sound in its chamber as it always had been— even while Ning Feiyun was looking directly at its empty stand. It was uncanny to the point where if he thought about it too long, the anxiety became almost unbearable— if he could not trust his own mind, his own memories, even his own eyes, then what could he trust?

He looked toward his companion, and saw plainly the shadows beneath his eyes, the colorless pallor of his cheeks.

He had been living with this weight for far longer, and on a far greater scale than Ning Feiyun had. Now, was there a single thought, a single thing about himself that he did not doubt?

Ning Feiyun took a deep breath, and then after another moment of hesitation, he reached out to place a hand on his companion’s shoulder.

“I will handle the matter of the Zhiming mirror,” he said, still quietly. “We already went and informed my father of this in the past. From that point onward, only a few people knew of it… aside from ourselves and my father, the only ones who knew that the mirror had been discovered missing would be the leaders of the great clans. If Fuqin also does not remember…”

“Then it must be one of the others,” his companion finished with a tired nod of his head.

“Most likely,” Ning Feiyun agreed. “However… we can’t know for sure.”

“The only one who is aware that something was changed by the Zhiming Mirror is the one who used it. Apart from that person, all others will be none the wiser.”

He spoke with such certainty— no doubt he had seen some of the mirror’s capabilities within his memories. But how had he come to lose it? How had he come under its effects? And who had it now?

The memory he had already experienced wouldn’t be any help— and Yang Anxiang wasn’t here to prepare another Fragrance of Memory.

Ning Feiyun would need to find the Zhiming Mirror’s current owner on his own.

“Then the one who remembers that the mirror has gone missing is the one into whose hands it has fallen,” he confirmed. “Perhaps with the right questions, the truth might come out. If only we were able to unearth more of your own memories… if you do happen to recall something more, please tell me.”

An uncomfortable silence descended between them. Song Mingzhen looked down toward his feet, his shoulders tensing up as his fingers curled into fists within his sleeves.

Suddenly, Ning Feiyun recalled the way he had reacted while deep in the flow of memories, the outburst of volatile energy that had torn the floor out from beneath them. The memories he had unearthed had not been pleasant, and who knows how many more unhappy memories were hidden within Mo Yuan’s past?

Maybe it was a little cruel to say he should try to seek out more of them. As helpful as it could be to Ning Feiyun’s investigation, trying to bring Mo Yuan’s memories back to the surface before he was ready might not be the best way to find information.

He had just discovered that everything he knew about himself and his past was a lie, after all.

He was already distressed enough. Ning Feiyun would find another way to search for answers.

“For all intents and purposes, your business here in Yinshan is finished,” he said after a moment, his voice stiff and formal once more. “The ones responsible for the attacks have been apprehended, and peace and security has been restored. There’s no need for you to remain here— the matter of the Zhiming Mirror is not one that concerns you.”

He paused now, pressing his lips together and glancing around the empty vault. Then, he turned back toward his companion. “You and I are the only ones who know the truth… so I must ask you, ‘Song-gongzi’— what do you plan on doing with what you’ve learned in these past few days?”

Silence once more.

Song Mingzhen opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again before a single sound came out.

He closed his eyes, then shook his head, and another moment passed before he regained his powers of speech.

“I don’t know yet what I will do,” he admitted. “I don’t even know who I really am. If I am Mo Yuan after all, then that makes me an enemy of the cultivation world, but any time someone looks at me, they only see the Song clan’s beloved heir. Yinmeng Xuelian wanted to burn the cultivation world to ashes— if I truly were him, wouldn’t I want to use this opportunity to achieve that? But… that isn’t what I want. Of that I can assure you.”

“Then what is it that you do want?” Ning Feiyun asked.

“I want to understand,” he replied. “More than that, though… I wish to live peacefully. Please, Ning-xiong, don’t speak of this to anyone. Later, once I remember more, or once the matter of the Zhiming Mirror is resolved… maybe then I will know what to do. For now, I intend to continue living as Song Mingzhen, as though none of this has ever happened. I don’t have any interest in whatever remains of Yinmeng Xuelian.”

Ning Feiyun closed his eyes, then slowly nodded his head. “I believe you,” he said, “and I understand.”

He too understood what it was to live with a terrible secret, to have blood on his hands that he hadn’t wished to shed. To live in peace… Yang Anxiang had said something similar. It remained to be seen whether either of these declarations were true— but the man who was now known as Song Mingzhen hadn’t shown himself to have any ill intentions. Ning Feiyun might not be able to fully trust him… but he had his own secrets, after all. For now, he would keep “Song Mingzhen’s” secrets as well.

Song Mingzhen sighed, kneading at his brow with his fingers. Ever since he’d arrived in Yinshan, Ning Feiyun had noticed him doing that same gesture over and over again. It must have been because of the headaches… and maybe because being here in Yinshan was enough to stir up those overwritten memories within him.

Though there were plenty of warnings and ancient legends, no one really knew just how powerful the Zhiming Mirror was. Maybe its effects, though potent, were not permanent, and began to wear off in time.

If that was the case, maybe Song Mingzhen would come to remember more of his past as Mo Yuan on his own.

He was right though— until that happened, there was no reason to push the matter further.

“I won’t reveal anything to my father, or to anyone else. We’ll allow Shushu to take responsibility for the attacks as he wished,” Ning Feiyun stated with a short, definitive nod. If he thought about it for too much longer, the weight of guilt and shame would bear down upon his shoulders and drive him into the ground— so it was better to just put it behind him.

Song Mingzhen, though, didn’t seem relieved by his statement. Instead, he started to look even more anxious than before. Then, he looked up from the ground and met Ning Feiyun’s gaze once more. A quiet plea condensed within his dark irises.

“Then… can I ask for your help one more time?” he asked. “It is something that would be a crime… but also something that I must do, or otherwise I will regret it for the rest of my life.”

Ning Feiyun shut his eyes. A shiver ran down his spine, every muscle in his body tightening up as a wave of nausea welled up from his stomach to his throat.

Of course.

In the end, didn’t it just make sense for something like this to happen?

Seven years ago, Mo Yuan had asked him to help him, and now, here they were again.

He wondered, what would the request be this time? And as for the outcome… would history repeat itself once more?

“What is it you need from me?” Ning Feiyun asked.

Even still, he couldn’t just refuse outright. He needed to at least hear the other’s request first…

“I need the key you carry, and the concealment device. I must get someone out of the mountain prison.”

… Ah.

Ning Feiyun’s legs felt weak, and he drove Shuangci’s point into the ground to steady himself.

So it really was just like back then?

Once again, Mo Yuan was asking him to help him sneak into Baidong Mountain’s stronghold… he might call himself Song Mingzhen now, but it turned out he was still the same.

Last time, Ning Feiyun had yielded to his request.

Then, the cultivation world had been plunged into war.

He didn’t know what had happened that day— what had caused Mo Yuan to go back on his word that he didn’t plan to kill anyone, turning him from secretive to suicidal and then to a murderer who carved a path of blood across Baidong Mountain’s peaks. He knew there must be more to it— that there must have been a reason.

But Mo Yuan wouldn’t tell him.

And no one else could truly know.

If he agreed to help Song Mingzhen now, would the past repeat itself?

Last time, Ning Feiyun hadn’t asked any questions. The more he knew, the more incriminating it could be— the harder it would be to turn a blind eye to his own treason.

This time, he would make sure he knew exactly what his companion had planned. No more surprises, no more tricks… whether he agreed or not.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“The rogue cultivator girl that was wounded by my… by the Xuelian blades,” Song Mingzhen replied. “Ning Zhifeng asked me to save her life.”

The girl whose wounds shone with a faint crimson light, the only one aside from Ning Zhifeng who had survived that battle. Of course. Ning Feiyun sighed, but didn’t give an answer at first. He wasn’t exactly certain what his old mentor’s connection to this girl was, but they must have been close. So that was what Ning Zhifeng had talked to Song Mingzhen about, when they had been left alone. He couldn’t help but feel a little envious that Ning Zhifeng had chosen to confide in a stranger instead of him… even if it made perfect sense now.

After all, Song Mingzhen wasn’t really Song Mingzhen.

Ning Zhifeng had joined the Nameless. Mo Yuan was the leader of the Nameless.

And “Song Mingzhen” was Mo Yuan.

Ning Zhifeng, like Ning Feiyun, must have figured something out when he saw the Xuelian blades appear.

“Is that so?” Ning Feiyun asked, quietly. “It was the girl’s wound that made me truly begin to question your identity, you know. But… if you truly are— if you truly command the Xuelian blades, then what need have you to free her from the mountain prison? Can you not simply reverse the damage here and now?”

Song Mingzhen’s gaze darkened, fingers clenched into fists. It was like a shadow had descended upon his brow, clinging like a cloak about his shoulders.

“And let her live out the rest of her life there, with her cultivation sealed, trapped in one of those cells until either her mind or body gives out?” he asked, a sharpened edge creeping into his voice. “If that is the future that awaits her… then it would be better to do the opposite, and end her suffering now. Ning Feiyun, don’t you see? I can’t just leave her to that fate.”

He kept his voice barely above a whisper. He was unwilling to speak any louder, even though it was only the two of them here, deep within the mountain’s heart. Despite that, each syllable rang out with a searing pain, like he’d been burnt by a hot iron.

Ning Feiyun didn’t have a response to that.

He truthfully hadn’t thought much about it.

The mountain prison was indeed a place of terrible suffering, but it was where the worst of the cultivation world’s criminals were confined, those who had committed heinous crimes, or who were too dangerous to allow to roam free. But did that girl really fit that description?

What about Qiu Wei— even after what she had done, had she truly deserved the fate she suffered?

And the rest too, the “monsters” and “demons” that were sealed inside those dismal cells, what if among them were those like Qiu Wei, Mo Yuan, and the young girl wreathed in red silk— those born with innate talent but to the wrong families, who had nurtured that talent against the will of the great clans, who had been drawn down into darkness.

Whatever Qiu Wei and Mo Yuan had gone on to do, Ning Feiyun had once called them his friends.

How could he truly see them as monsters to be eradicated?

Mo Yuan, seven years ago, had broken into the mountain prison, and whatever he saw there had been enough to make him cast himself into a bottomless chasm, and later to rain destruction down upon Baidong Mountain, even killing a hundreds-year-old clan leader in his rage.

Ning Feiyun knew very little about what happened within the walls of the mountain prison— but he knew Mo Yuan, and he knew that it took a lot to shake him.

“If I agree to help, and you free her… then what will you do?” Ning Feiyun asked.

In his heart, he already knew how he would answer.

That girl was still practically a child, and he had been a youth once too— not even mentioning the fact that this was his mentor’s final request, he could not condemn her to such a fate.

“I’ll take her away from this place and keep her hidden,” Song Mingzhen replied. “I’ve already told you that I have no desire to take on Yinmeng Xuelian’s legacy. Just as I mean to live peacefully… I hope that she will be able to do so as well.”

Ning Feiyun stared down at his feet. Though Song Mingzhen’s words were sincere, there was also a note of uncertainty within them— as though he recognized that he couldn’t guarantee that this wouldn’t end badly.

“I won’t involve you any more than you have to be,” Song Mingzhen went on. “Just let me borrow those things. I won’t harm anyone— I swear that I won’t.”

“And what about when the physicians and wardens realize that the girl has disappeared?” Ning Feiyun asked.

“All of this… it’s given me an idea. To everyone there, it will seem that she died of her wounds. It isn’t an ordinary wound, after all— who is to say that, with something like this, there would definitely be a corpse left behind?” Song Mingzhen replied. “If she is thought to be dead, then no one will look for her. And if no one looks for her… then perhaps she has a chance to live a new life.”

Ning Feiyun took a shaky breath, and nodded his head. “It is a risky plan,” he said. “If it goes wrong…”

“Then I will take responsibility for it,” Song Mingzhen interrupted him. “Please… I must do this. Once I’ve finished, I will return to Dayuan. I’ll leave the tools in a certain place just beyond the border for you to retrieve. I think you may already know the place I speak of.”

Ning Feiyun stiffened, his throat closing up again. He looked up to meet his companion’s eyes, and found Mo Yuan’s sharp, dissecting gaze boring into him once more, studying and analyzing every little twitch of his expression, just as he used to do.

A place he already knew… of course. Last time Mo Yuan had asked him to borrow these tools, he had told him to leave them in the hollow of a tree beyond Baidong Mountain’s barrier array.

Of course, back then, what with Mo Yuan’s fall into the bottomless pit and the ensuing war, they had never been returned. From time to time, Ning Feiyun had checked, just in case— but the hollow tree remained empty.

Though it was weathered and now half-rotted, it was still there to this day, empty and waiting.

This was a test— but Ning Feiyun, this time, was not the one being tested.

It was a test of that memory’s truthfulness… and an offer from Song Mingzhen to test himself.

It was an unspoken promise— that this time, things would be different.

“Very well,” Ning Feiyun said, at last— for what could he do except agree? “This time, though, you must do as you promised and return the items. And— Song-gongzi, Mo Yuan, whoever it is you truly are— just because I am helping you now doesn’t mean that I always will. I am still a son of Yinshan’s Ning clan. If you or anyone else threatens Baidong Mountain, or if you bring danger to the cultivation world and to those people that are under our protection, then I will stand against you.”

Song Mingzhen blinked once, then the corners of his lips twitched. Whether it was a smile or a frown, Ning Feiyun couldn’t quite tell.

“Of course,” he said. “I would expect nothing less. Thank you, my friend.”

Ning Feiyun sighed, reaching up to press out his own headache.

“Fine, then— if you have a plan that will actually work, then you should get going. I don’t want to hear any more of it,” he said.

If he had to think about it any longer, he wasn’t sure how he would be able to go back and return to his life and duties as normal. Knowing what he did now, it was already going to be difficult enough.

“No one gets hurt,” he went on, placing the two devices in Song Mingzhen’s hands. “If you break that promise…”

“I know, I know,” Song Mingzhen replied, his voice turning sincere once more. “If I break that promise, then I will bear whatever punishment is required.”

The two sealed up the Zhiming Mirror’s empty vault and parted ways— one returning to the surface, the other traveling deeper into the winding tunnels of the spirit caves.

After that, Mo Yuan disappeared once more. Ning Feiyun returned to Baiyu Palace, saying nothing of that night’s journey out to the foothills, of Yang Anxiang’s survival and her escape, of all that he had discovered and Song Mingzhen’s true identity.

A few days later, Song Mingzhen came to Baiyu Palace to bid farewell to Ning Jianlin. When he met Ning Feiyun’s gaze, the expression on his face revealed nothing— as though the events of the past few days, and their heretical agreement, had been nothing but a distant, fading dream.

Song Mingzhen returned to Dayuan. The next morning, Ning Feiyun passed by a certain place on patrol, and paused next to a snow-covered, hollowed-out tree.

Within the hollow, he found the concealment device and key, left hidden there as promised.

The rogue cultivator girl had suddenly died of her wounds— at least, that was the story that was told to Baiyu Palace. Since she was badly injured, and had shown no signs of waking, she wasn’t guarded too carefully. The prison’s physician had come to check on her during the night and found that nothing remained within her bed aside from ashes and a faint trace of spiritual qi.

As far as anyone knew, she was simply an ordinary rogue cultivator, and besides that, it had happened within the walls of Yinshan’s mountain prison. There was no reason to suspect anything more than a somewhat unusual death. And that was that.

Yang Anxiang had thrown herself from the walls of Baiyu Palace.

The Second General had indeed vanished, but with her cultivation destroyed and her mind and body weakened from years of imprisonment, there was little need to keep chasing after her.

The young prisoner had also died— and from the beginning, she was hardly important.

Mo Yuan… had perished five years ago at the end of the war.

All four of them were now “dead.” For all intents and purposes, they no longer existed— they were no longer a threat, no longer a priority. One way or another, each of them had truly become “Nameless.”

There was no one in this world who knew the truth about what had happened to them— none but Ning Feiyun.

The cold winds from the north swept in billowing clouds. A day after Song Mingzhen departed, a storm whirled across the western skies, blanketing Yinshan in a fresh layer of snow. The traces of battle, the deep red of spilled blood, and the terrible secrets that had risen up from beneath the earth were all covered up, vanishing beneath an expanse of pure white.

Ning Feiyun stood upon his balcony, gazing off toward the east. Dawn had just broken, the clouds above and snow beneath painted with magnificent hues of gold and crimson. In the frigid winter air, his breath crystallized into plumes of smoke.

He shut his eyes, turned away, and retreated back inside Baiyu Palace’s smooth, cold stone walls.

Conflict and turmoil that had long fallen quiet within him had been stirred up anew, old questions still unanswered whispering across his mind. And yet, despite the tumult, when he paused to look upon his reflection in the mirror, his expression remained calm.

The future was uncertain, but Ning Feiyun was more than used to secrets.

The dead would remain dead, the nameless would remain nameless.

And the truth, for now, would remain hidden beneath the mirror’s surface— the reflection’s facade continuing on, unbroken.