The mirror pulsed once.
Just once.
Then silence.
Su Xue stood inside the formation vault, the air thick with old magic. Lanterns glowed without warmth. Sealing arrays covered the walls—so old even their creators had faded from memory. Bai Yujing watched closely. The mirror wasn't supposed to react unless someone's soul touched the deeper layer of Tianxuan.
Lu Xuan hadn't even entered the chamber.
He'd passed by hours ago.
"He's resonating deeper," Bai Yujing said.
Su Xue didn't respond. Her seal had started pulsing again—not with danger, but with something slower. Like recognition.
She opened her scroll case. Inside were two sketches—one from Lu Xuan's quiet drawing, another copied from a burned Blood Lotus scroll.
They matched.
Not perfectly, but close enough to matter.
Bai Yujing tapped the center glyph—a spiral with five thin lines crossing it. It didn't look dangerous. It looked unfinished.
"What does it mean?" Su Xue asked.
"It doesn't mean," Bai Yujing replied. "It remembers."
Far in the south, inside the imperial palace, Emperor Zhao Rui listened as his envoy knelt before him.
"The mark has returned," the envoy said.
"Where?" Zhao asked.
"On skin."
The emperor didn't move.
"Lu Xuan?"
"Not directly. A guardian—Yao Lin—found a glyph imprint left in meditation. It wasn't carved. It appeared."
Zhao turned to his strategist, cloaked in silence.
"Prepare the talismans," he said.
"For protection?"
"For appearances," Zhao replied. "I don't plan to fight the boy. I plan to use him."
He stepped down from the throne, eyes calm.
"When the realms bend and the serpent stirs, I want every noble to say I saw it coming. Every merchant to carry my seal. Every sect to call me necessary."
He touched the soul-ring on his finger.
"Then I'll rule what's left."
In Celestial Dawn, Su Xue met Lu Xuan beneath the eastern sky bridge.
"You've been drawing again," she said.
He nodded.
"I don't mean to."
"But your soul does."
She showed him the copied glyph—the one from the Blood Lotus archives.
He flinched slightly.
"I know that one," he whispered. "Not the meaning. Just the feel."
"It's tied to failed seals," Su Xue said. "They buried it. But it didn't forget."
He looked out at the frost-covered garden.
"It's like something inside me isn't waking up—it's waiting for the world to remember."
Su Xue didn't speak.
She just listened.
That night, Su Xue didn't return to her room.
She walked through the quiet courtyard until she reached the meditation hall. Lu Xuan had fallen asleep inside—lying against the wall, breathing calm.
She didn't wake him.
She sat nearby, watching.
Moonlight filled the room. His fingers moved slightly, like he was dreaming. But his body didn't stir. The air around him felt heavier than usual. Not dangerous. Just… deep.
Su Xue touched the seal tucked in her robe.
It pulsed.
Not fast. Not loud.
But slow—soft—as if it were following his heartbeat, or listening to whatever he was seeing in sleep.
"Is his soul changing?" she wondered.
"Or is the seal learning him instead of holding him?"
She didn't know.
But she felt it.
The seal wasn't pushing anymore.
It was listening.
She stayed a little longer.
Then left before dawn.
The spiral sketch he'd drawn was still in her sleeve.
She didn't understand it yet.
But it felt important.
Inside Moonflame Hall, Bai Yujing studied formation maps.
The old serpent cult symbols—some linked to the Demon World—were showing up in Lu Xuan's resonance readings.
They weren't complete.
But they were active.
She traced one scroll written years before:
"The coil moves before the vessel.
Never seal the soul.
Seal the mirror."
Her fingers paused on the last line.
She didn't like it.
But she didn't ignore it.
In the garden, Yao Lin joined Lu Xuan near the frost pond.
"They're whispering your name more than the wind now," she said.
"I didn't ask them to."
"That doesn't matter."
She handed him another sketch.
It wasn't a spiral.
It was a sword frozen above one—hovering but never striking.
"You're dreaming of choices," she said.
"Or of Su Xue," he replied.
"If she seals you... you want it to be when you're no longer you."
"Exactly."
Yao Lin looked at the spiral again.
"Then you'd better stay you for as long as you can."
In a temple hidden by fog, Emperor Zhao opened a crystal from the edge of the Demon World. Inside, a soul fragment pulsed softly.
He whispered:
"Let the realms align."
Then turned to his envoy.
"Send Celestial Dawn their invitation.
The Twilight Summit begins soon."
"Do we invite Lu Xuan directly?"
Zhao smiled.
"No.
Just send the glyph."