Liang's POV
I no longer knew whether this was still night—or simply the lingering darkness of a world that should've died long ago. The air around me was heavy, thick with the scent of dried blood and damp earth, like the breath of a grave left open too long. Faint red light seeped through the cracks in the stone, pulsing like a wound that refused to close.
Yet I felt no fear.
When the altar swallowed me whole and dragged me beneath the ruins of Fengluo, I knew—this was no ordinary space. This was a living part of the Bone Scripture itself. A chamber that judged, that waited. And now, I stood at its heart.
Before me lay a stone altar shaped like a skull, grinning with hollow patience. Atop it rested a ritual knife—its handle crafted from human bone, worn smooth with time, and its blade thin and cruel, made not to kill… but to carve.
Below the altar, a scroll of human skin was unfurled. The first formation was already beginning to glow as I approached, drawn by something ancient and unspeakable.
The Bone Scripture would not teach through words. It demanded more.
It demanded sacrifice.
---
I sat cross-legged and slowly pulled off my outer robe. Scars crisscrossed my skin—remnants of battles past—but tonight was different. I wasn't marking flesh. I was reaching deeper.
Tonight, I would carve into my own bones.
My hand reached for the ritual blade.
Cold.
Alive.
The moment I touched it, it trembled—recognizing the bloodline of the one who once wielded it.
"Father," I whispered. "If this was the path you walked… then let me follow."
I placed the blade against my left forearm. Carefully, I dragged it downward. The sound was subtle—a faint crack as the knife reached the bone. Pain flared, white-hot and searing, as though a volcano had erupted beneath my skin.
But I didn't stop.
One curve.
Two intersecting lines.
Three spirit points.
My blood did not drip to the ground—it rose into the air, dancing in spirals, forming glowing glyphs in an ancient tongue lost to history. Then the letters dissolved, and silence returned.
That's when I heard it.
---
"Shen'er…"
I froze.
The voice didn't come from the chamber. Not from outside. Not even from my thoughts.
It came from within my blood—through the channels newly carved into bone.
It was deep, steady… and agonizingly familiar.
It was my father's voice.
"Do not carve the right rib," he warned, echoing in my chest.
Tears welled in my eyes. I hadn't heard him since the night they burned his body, the night betrayal shattered our clan. But now… now he was speaking to me. Through the bone. Through blood.
"If you carve there… you'll trap your soul. A soul trapped in bone cannot reincarnate… cannot love, cannot die."
Why now?
Why speak… now that I've begun to become like you?
---
My hand trembled, but I couldn't stop.
Something inside me stirred. My bones… were absorbing the formation. And from within, I felt something rise. Not another spirit.
My own soul.
It felt like I was being peeled apart, layer by layer—my very essence unraveled and reassembled.
I nearly lost consciousness—until footsteps echoed from the far corridor.
I turned my head, gasping.
And I saw her.
Qin Yao.
---
She stood at the stone threshold, her hair disheveled and her robes dust-covered, but her eyes—those eyes—remained sharp, just as they were the first night I met her beneath the bloodplum tree.
"Liang Shen!" she ran toward me. "What are you doing?!"
I looked down, ashamed. I didn't want her to see me—bleeding, carved, half-possessed.
"Leave," I said quietly. "This place isn't meant for you."
She knelt in front of me, pale and trembling. "You've carved into your own bone. The First Formation… Shen, are you insane?!"
"There was no other way," I said hollowly. "I had to know the truth. My father… his voice… he spoke to me."
Qin Yao froze. "You heard his voice?"
I nodded. But something about it was… wrong. It didn't sound like the man I remembered.
---
She took my hand, carefully avoiding the wound.
"Listen to me," she whispered. "Bone-forming techniques don't just open the spirit realm. They open the gate between you and something deeper."
"You don't understand—"
"I do!" she snapped, her eyes glassy. "You think you're the only one who's lost someone? I buried my parents during a blood ritual. I heard my mother's voice in the night—and I know it wasn't her. It was something wearing her voice."
I shivered.
If that was true…
Then the voice I heard…
Wasn't my father?
---
Before I could speak again, my body spasmed.
The final carving—on my right rib—began to glow on its own, even though I hadn't touched it.
Suddenly… a sigil formed.
A soulbond mark.
I stared at it, stunned.
"Why…?" I murmured.
Qin Yao went still.
That symbol… only appeared when two souls had intertwined before death. But we weren't dead… and I had never truly given myself to anyone like that.
Yet the mark was there. Bleeding. Alive.
She gently touched the carving. Her fingers shimmered faintly.
"You don't need to die to love," she whispered.
---
I looked at her.
"Why did you come?" I asked.
She drew in a trembling breath. "Because you pull me in—even when I hate you."
"But I've dragged you into darkness."
She gave a soft, broken laugh. "Then I chose that darkness. If you fall… I fall with you."
I wanted to answer. To touch her face. To tell her that all this time… I'd been hoping she would come.
But my body began to burn. The carvings pulsed violently, forming a vortex of symbols, and I started… rising.
"Qin Yao—step back!"
But she held my hand tighter.
"I'm not letting go!"
---
That's when I saw him.
A pale figure stood at the edge of the altar, his smile as jagged as broken bone.
"Child of Liang Yu…" he said calmly. "You have completed the First Carving."
My breath caught.
His face… was blurred by light, but I knew him.
A face from the paintings in our ancestral hall.
A face that should have been dead for centuries.
> "Welcome, Liang Shen. Your legacy… has finally chosen you."
And the mark on my chest began to twist.
Becoming something never recorded in any Bone Scripture.
Something alive.