Ye Xia did not die, but she crossed its threshold and lingered there for a month. The use of the Star-Severing Sword Intent, even a sliver of it, had burned through her meridians, her Qi, and nearly her soul. She existed in a coma, a faint spark in a vessel of cracked jade.
Mo never left her side. The world celebrated the sudden, inexplicable end of the Sigma strain as a miracle of viral attenuation. Only a handful knew the truth: that a silent war had been fought and won at a terrible cost. Mo managed the global recovery, his Benevolence Engine now directed by a single, personal purpose: to create a world worthy of her sacrifice.
He had her moved to the safest place on earth—a secret sanctuary built deep within a mountain, funded by wealth beyond measure and protected by technologies and wards that blended Silas's expertise with the most advanced cultivation arrays. Here, she was surrounded by the purest spiritual energy, fed by a constant drip of elixirs crafted by Liam Kane, who had dedicated his Frostfire Pulse entirely to her recovery.
Yun Ming, his own health stabilized by Liam's continued care, visited often, reading to her from family histories and business reports, keeping her spirit tethered to the world she had saved. The Yun family, now led by a council under his guidance, flourished in her name.
One night, as Mo sat holding her limp hand, he spoke not of business or war, but of the future they had barely dared to sketch.
"The house by the lake," he whispered, his voice rough with fatigue and emotion. "The one you said was too big. I bought it. It has a garden, large enough for children to run in. There's an old oak tree perfect for a swing. It's waiting for us, Xia. You just have to come back."
A single tear escaped his eye, tracing a path down his cheek. It fell onto her hand.
And in the profound silence of her inner world, where Ye Xia floated in a sea of cosmic fragments from the Sword Intent, she felt a warm, salty drop. It was an anchor, a pull back to a reality far more valuable than any celestial power.
A week later, her finger twitched.