Next morning..
The tower was gone.
Where the ivy-covered door once stood, there was only smooth stone. No trace of hinges. No sign it had ever existed.
Yet Yan Rui remembered everything — the dust on the scrolls, the flicker of regret in Mo Jue's words, and that single line written like a wound:
> "You look nothing like him. But you speak like someone who could ruin me again."
He couldn't sleep that night. Not with the weight of unread names pressing on his chest.
And so, when the pale snake appeared again — silent and glowing under moonlight — he followed.
---
It slithered through the palace shadows, past the Cold Courtyard and into a place beneath the earth. A narrow passage, carved in ancient stone, where the air grew thick with silence. The walls were covered in carvings: coiled serpents, broken altars, and men with faces erased.
At the end of the tunnel was a hidden chamber.
Lanterns burned with cold blue flame. In the center stood Mo Jue — not as a god, not as a ruler, but as a man alone in mourning. No crown. No attendants. Just him and an ancient stone basin filled with dark liquid that did not reflect light.
> "You came," Mo Jue said without turning.
Yan Rui stepped in slowly. "You sent the snake."
Mo Jue said nothing.
On the altar lay a sealed scroll. Its wax emblem was not red, not gold — but black, wrapped with a serpent devouring its own tail.
> "That scroll," Yan Rui said. "What is it?"
> "Your name," Mo Jue replied, quietly. "Before this life."
The air grew still.
> "You once swore an oath here, beneath this chamber. And died for it."
Yan Rui looked at the scroll. Then at the ceremonial blade placed beside it. Silver. Elegant. Covered in writing he somehow understood.
> "If I open it… what happens?"
> "You'll remember what was taken from you."
> "And if I don't?"
Mo Jue turned then, slowly. His eyes gleamed like gold through mist.
> "Then you'll continue living with half a soul, and I will continue watching the one I once loved look at me like a stranger."
The words pierced deeper than any blade.
> "You said I died for you," Yan Rui said. "Did you love me back?"
Mo Jue walked forward, stopping just a breath away.
> "I did not know how to love then," he said. "But I destroyed everything when you were gone. Does that count for something?"
Silence stretched.
Yan Rui looked down, picked up the blade, and pressed the edge against his palm. A thin line of red bloomed. His blood dripped into the basin.
The liquid pulsed — like a heartbeat.
The wax seal on the scroll broke with a hiss.
Slowly, the parchment unrolled itself.
At the center, written in glowing ink, was one word: Lián.
His true name.
Something trembled deep inside him.
Images flooded his mind — a golden temple, voices shouting, his own hand raised in vow, a serpent coiled around his wrist, and Mo Jue's face, covered in blood, whispering his name before darkness swallowed all.
He staggered.
Mo Jue caught him, steady hands on his shoulders.
> "It's too much," Yan Rui whispered. "I wasn't ready."
> "You were never meant to forget," Mo Jue said. "But they forced it from you."
Yan Rui looked up, breathing hard.
> "Who?"
> "The high priests," Mo Jue said. "They used you as an offering. You were meant to be sacrificed — not saved. But I broke the rules. I stole your soul from the gods before it could fade."
Yan Rui's fingers curled around Mo Jue's robes. "Why…?"
> "Because I chose you. Even when the heavens didn't."
Their foreheads touched. The air was heavy. Between them, something ancient stirred — not just memory, but power. The bond that once tethered them had awakened.
And this time, Yan Rui wasn't sure he wanted to run.
---
End of Chapter 7