The Bone Lantern now rested in Yue Lian's spiritual sea—a haunting blue flame flickering within her core. But she was no longer merely Yue Lian. That name belonged to a past self, one forged in duty and sorrow. Now, transformed by memory and fire, she carried a new name: Lin Xue.
She whispered it to herself in the dark, a quiet rebirth: "Lin Xue... the one who remembers."
The flame whispered often, but not in words—in emotions, in images, in the fractured echoes of truths lost to time. She barely slept. Each time her eyes closed, she witnessed visions of those who once condemned Yan Zhuo as a tyrant.
In one memory, a disciple from the Frost River Sect cowered before Yan Zhuo. But the so-called tyrant did not strike—he shattered the disciple's chains, calling him by name with a gentleness no history book had preserved. In another vision, a dying elder gifted Yan Zhuo a talisman etched in blood. "The heavens fear the truth," the elder said with his final breath.
Yue Lian—now Lin Xue—awoke with tears she did not remember shedding.
She journeyed into the Whispering Grotto, where even light dared not linger. It was said that the spirits of traitors wept there, and the wind carried forgotten names. But Lin Xue knew now—this was not a cursed place, but a sacred one. A vault of untold truths.
The Bone Lantern pulsed.
Voices emerged from the gloom:
"Your truth is not welcome."
"You carry ruin."
And one, softer, almost kind: "But so did he."
Lin Xue struck her palm against the cold stone. Her qi erupted in waves, and the Bone Lantern ignited. Blue fire bloomed, washing over the grotto. Illusions shattered, and from the wreckage rose a gate—ancient, cracked, defiant.
Etched into its face were nine forbidden cultivation truths:
Bone is memory.
Flame is clarity.
Truth must first be lost.
Names carry karma.
Judgment is a choice.
Heaven is a lie.
Pain is a teacher.
Silence is never neutral.
The tyrant saw us all.
With trembling fingers, she opened the gate.
Beyond it lay the Tomb of Echoed Flames. No corpses. Only hovering coffins, each burning with spectral fire and bound in red talismans. Not graves—but prisons for memories.
One coffin called to her. Larger. Brighter. Marked not with a name, but a word: Remembrance.
A figure emerged from the shadows—a man draped in white robes, his face a blur behind fire.
"You should not be here," he warned.
"I seek truth," she said.
"You seek destruction."
"I seek him."
Lin Xue reached within herself. The Bone Lantern responded. A blue inferno erupted around her and she ignited the Remembrance Flame for the first time. The cavern bent under its power. The guardian screamed.
The coffin cracked.
Inside lay not a body—but a moment preserved in flame: Yan Zhuo kneeling before a terrified empire, offering peace. A blade struck his back while he begged them to choose mercy. The vision turned to ash.
"I saw him," Lin Xue whispered. "He begged them to choose differently."
A final voice echoed—not from the coffin, but from within her soul.
To be hated for truth is a worthy death. But if one soul remembers me rightly—then I have won.
In the distant heavens, within the Celestial Pavilion, the Judges stirred.
"She has awakened the first of the Nine Flames," one muttered.
"She will burn the sky next," warned another.
"No," murmured the Judge of Unfolding Dust. "She will cleanse it."
And Lin Xue—once Yue Lian—stood alone in fire, memory, and grief.
Her eyes, now alight with Remembrance, gazed toward the heavens.
"Let them come," she said. "I will show them what they chose to forget."