The tether should have been quiet.
After all, both souls had withdrawn. Both minds had retreated into silence. There were no shared glances. No accidental brushes of Qi. Just distance.
And yet…
The bond seethed.
Xian Lei stood at the edge of the sparring cliff, wind tugging at his robe.
His thoughts were a storm.
The last few days had been too much—ascending again, surviving the emotional surge from Yue's execution of Elder Ran, and watching her disappear back behind a wall of ice.
Not once had she sought him out.
Not once had she acknowledged that her anguish had nearly crushed him.
You want me to feel it all, but say nothing?You want me to carry the pain… and act like it never happened?
His fists clenched.
Beneath his skin, his Qi pulsed erratically.
The tether vibrated.
Then—
A cold presence surged across it.
"Are you sulking?"
The voice wasn't audible. Not exactly.
But it echoed inside him with crystal clarity.
Yue Qianlan.
System Alert:Passive Tether Communication Engaged
Emotional Channel Opened – VolatileBoth Entities' emotions are unstable
Proceed with caution.
Xian Lei didn't respond.
Not with words.
But his resentment surged across the link like wildfire in snow.
No. I'm just realizing I was wrong about you.
That caught her off guard.
The bond twitched—a pulse of confusion, then irritation.
"Wrong?"
"I thought you were changing."
"Because I showed regret once? Do you want a medal for catching my tears?"
"I nearly died, Yue."
The tether shivered—not from power.
But from the sharpness of the truth.
"When you executed him, I felt it all. His final thoughts. Your grief. Your guilt. The backlash nearly tore my soul in half."
"I didn't ask you to bear it."
"But you did."
Silence.
Then:
"I didn't know it would… affect you like that."
"You did. You just didn't care."
System Notice:Emotional Feedback – Rising ConflictHost Emotion: Betrayal / Wounded PrideBound Entity Emotion: Guilt / Defensive Rage
Tether Sync: 85.5% → 84.1%
Temporary Status: Resonance Discord
Cultivation benefits haltedEmotional leakage suppressedRisk of backlash: Moderate
In her private meditation chamber, Yue Qianlan sat cross-legged, trembling despite herself.
The bond was hurting.
Not physically. But like a rope fraying under strain.
She wanted to shut it down.
Wanted to walk away.
But something ugly bubbled up.
Words she hadn't meant to say.
"Do you think I don't suffer every time someone dies because of me?"
"Then stop treating death like ceremony."
"I have to! I can't afford to collapse every time blood stains my hands. If I break now, I won't survive what's coming!"
"Then why bind your life to mine? Why let me in?!"
"I didn't choose this!"
That silence—violent, deafening—lasted longer than anything.
Yue's eyes widened.
Her breath caught.
Because she realized what she'd just said.
"I didn't mean—"
"Yes. You did."
System Alert:Emotional Spike: Betrayal → Withdrawal
Host Internal Condition: Spiritual Wound FormingBound Entity Emotional Core: Frozen
Tether Sync: 84.1% → 82.0%
Xian Lei turned his back to the wind.
He closed the bond.
Just slightly.
Not enough to sever it.
But enough to mute her.
Yue felt it instantly.
A sudden vacuum where once there was warmth.
No emotion leaked through.
No shared heartbeat.
No shared breath.
Just silence.
She gasped—hand to chest, not from pain… but absence.
"Xian…"
No reply.
Not even in thought.
Far from the sect, Xian Lei walked into the outer wilderness, letting the night devour him.
He needed space.
He needed air.
But more than that—
He needed to not care.
"I'm not your weapon," he whispered into the trees."I'm not your shadow, or shield, or anchor.""I'm me. And if you keep treating me like a consequence… I'll break."
A flicker of fire bloomed in his palm.
For the first time in days, it burned steady.
FLASHBACK – Memory Fragment Through the Bond
Yue Qianlan as a child, maybe eleven. Alone in a frozen courtyard.Her mother's voice echoing off cold walls:
"Stop crying. Only the weak weep for those who fail."
The child wipes her tears. Nods. Never speaks again that night.
The frost forms under her skin.
Xian Lei inhaled sharply.
He hadn't meant to.
Hadn't tried to access the memory fragment.
But the crack in their bond had exposed it.
And now…
His anger began to thaw.
"You've never been allowed to feel anything," he murmured."So you stopped letting anyone else matter."
He let the flame vanish.
And sat beneath a tree, staring at the stars.
"Maybe I was too quick to hope," he said to himself.
"But I won't be the reason she learns to shut herself off again."
Scene Shift – Yue's Chambers
Yue sat at her mirror, unmoving.
She didn't know if hours or minutes had passed.
All she knew was that something inside her was missing.
That tether—so annoying, so strange, so intimate—had become her only constant.
And now it was…
Dim.
Muted.
She hadn't realized how deeply it had twined itself through her core.
Or how much she'd come to rely on his warmth.
"…Xian Lei," she whispered, touching her chest.
No answer.
She closed her eyes.
And for the first time since her own execution trial at age fifteen—
She wept.
No witnesses.
No sound.
Just quiet, burning tears.
System Update:Host and Bound Entity currently in Disconnected Emotional State
Soul Link Integrity: Stable, but Fragile
Next Trigger Event Required for Reconnection:
Shared DangerUnwilling EmpathyMutual Vulnerability
Cultivation HaltedTraits Temporarily Frozen