The night wind howled softly through the broken trees.
Above the forest, the two moons hung close white and black, casting a strange harmony of light that made everything shimmer like a dream trapped between waking and memory.
Jian Wu stood beneath that fractured sky. His steps were slow, deliberate, as if afraid the earth beneath him might remember too much.
He could still feel the echo of Bai Lian's voice, soft, pleading, too familiar for a stranger. It lingered in his chest like an unhealed wound.
"Why do I keep hearing you…?" he whispered to the empty wind.
No answer came. Only the rustle of leaves, the whisper of something unseen that moved with purpose but left no trace.
Then he saw it.
A faint shimmer ahead, like moonlight caught in mist. It wasn't a person, not yet, but a presence, watching.
Far away, Mei Xue pressed through the fog-covered valley, her robe torn at the edge, her breath shallow but steady. The ground was uneven, soft from last night's rain, and every few steps her feet slipped slightly.
Yet she didn't stop.
Ever since that brief reflection on the river, the fleeting image of Jian Wu, she had followed the pull in her heart. It was faint, almost impossible to sense, but real.
Something called her east.
"Don't come here," Jian Wu's voice had warned.
But what kind of person would she be if she obeyed that?
"Sorry, Jian Wu," she murmured with a small, determined smile. "You should know by now, I don't listen when you tell me to leave."
The mist parted slightly.
And there, at the center of the valley, a single light pulsed, faint, rhythmic, like a heartbeat buried under the earth.
Mei Xue approached it, unaware that on the other side of that same pulse, Jian Wu felt the same pull.
Jian Wu reached a clearing.
The forest ended abruptly, giving way to a flat stretch of ground that glowed faintly under the twin moons.
At the center stood an ancient stone bridge, old enough that moss had claimed most of its body.
It stretched across a shallow river that shimmered with light instead of water liquid memory flowing endlessly.
He stepped closer, and the world grew silent.
No wind. No crickets. Even his heartbeat seemed to fade.
"This place…" he whispered.
"It remembers everything."
"Yes," came a voice familiar, female, echoing softly through the air.
Jian Wu froze.
From the other side of the bridge, a figure appeared, white robes drifting like mist, long hair fluttering in the windless air.
Bai Lian.
Her face was serene, but her eyes… her eyes carried the weight of lifetimes.
"You shouldn't be here," she said quietly. "This bridge was never meant to be crossed again."
"I didn't come to cross it," Jian Wu replied. "I came to understand why it still stands."
Bai Lian smiled faintly, almost sadly. "Because neither of us ever learned how to let go."
They stood facing each other, the bridge between them shimmering faintly.
The air vibrated with quiet tension, as though the world itself was holding its breath.
"Do you remember," Bai Lian asked softly, "the night we sealed the sky?"
Jian Wu frowned. "No. But… I dream about it."
Her gaze lowered. "That wasn't a dream."
For a moment, neither spoke. The light around them flickered, showing glimpses of another time, mountains collapsing, rivers flowing upward, two figures standing together beneath a bleeding sky.
"You tried to stop me," she continued. "You said mortals shouldn't carry the burden of creation. But I didn't listen. And so I became what I am now, a fragment that remembers too much."
"Then why do I feel like I'm the one who failed?" Jian Wu asked.
"Because you lived," she said simply.
Silence again.
The bridge began to hum softly, and light seeped from its cracks, weaving like threads between them.
"Every time the world tries to forget," Bai Lian said, "the bridge calls to us again. It wants to remember what we were."
Jian Wu shook his head. "What we were destroyed the world once. I won't let it happen again."
Bai Lian stepped closer. The air shimmered.
Her feet barely touched the surface of the bridge, but each step echoed deep inside his chest.
"Then tell me," she whispered, "what are you now?"
He met her gaze. "Something that shouldn't exist. But I'll keep walking until I understand why I do."
Her expression softened. "Always the same answer."
The river of memory rippled beneath them.
From its glow, faces and scenes emerged, fragments of the past: Lin Qian's trembling hand over a glowing stone, Mei Xue's eyes filled with defiance, the first sky split in two.
Jian Wu turned away. "These memories… they're not supposed to return."
"Yet they do," Bai Lian replied. "Because the world doesn't listen to rules anymore."
She reached out, hand trembling. "If you touch the bridge, Jian Wu… it will remember everything. It will remember us."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you'll keep walking in circles half awake, half forgotten. A man the world can't destroy, but also can't love."
The words hit him like wind through glas gentle, but breaking something inside.
Meanwhile, Mei Xue reached the far end of the valley.
The ground trembled beneath her feet, and a blinding light surged in the distance, the same bridge, the same light, though she could not see the two figures within it.
Her pulse quickened. "That's him…"
She ran faster, the mist swirling violently around her.
But the closer she got, the heavier the air became, pressing against her chest like invisible hands. She stumbled to her knees.
"No," she gasped. "I won't stop here…"
The silver pendant around her neck glowed, reacting to the same pulse that flowed through the bridge.
Back on the bridge, Jian Wu closed his eyes.
He could feel Mei Xue's energy faintly, warm, stubborn, alive. It steadied him.
"I can't lose myself again," he said quietly.
Bai Lian looked at him with eyes full of quiet pain. "You never lost yourself. You just became someone the world no longer recognized."
The light grew stronger.
The bridge pulsed like a beating heart, and cracks of white energy split the ground.
"Jian Wu," Bai Lian said softly, "whatever you choose tonight… the world will follow."
He looked at her, at the woman who had once been everything he couldn't save.
"Then let it follow," he whispered. "But this time, I'll decide where it leads."
He stepped forward, one step, then another onto the bridge.
The light exploded outward, swallowing the forest, the valley, even the sky itself.
Mei Xue cried out as the world blurred, the ground beneath her dissolving into streaks of silver.
And at the heart of it all, Jian Wu and Bai Lian stood face to face, the bridge burning between them like a living memory rediscovered.
For the first time, their reflections touched.
And the sky trembled once more.