🌘----
The pain in Lian Yue's chest faded as quickly as it had come, but the unease it left behind refused to disappear.
She sat by the dying fire, one hand pressed over her heart, listening to the quiet sounds of the forest.
"What do you mean… something was silenced?" she asked softly.
Li Yun didn't answer immediately.
The flames reflected in his eyes, and for a moment, he looked very old.
"The Council doesn't like loose ends," he said finally. "If a piece on the board is no longer useful, they remove it."
Lian Yue felt a chill. "You mean the man from the village…"
"He sent his report," Li Yun said. "That's all they needed."
Lian Feng, who had woken during their conversation, clenched his fists. "They killed their own?"
Li Yun nodded. "They always have."
Silence fell again.
The forest felt darker than before.
---
They didn't sleep much that night.
At dawn, they continued deeper into the wilderness, away from roads and villages. Li Yun chose paths that were difficult even for mortals to walk—steep slopes, narrow animal trails, places where tracking would be harder.
By midday, they reached a valley hidden between two cliffs.
A small, broken shrine stood there.
It was old. Very old.
Most of it had collapsed, and weeds grew between the stones. The statue at its center had lost its face.
Lian Yue felt something strange the moment she stepped closer.
"…This place feels familiar," she said.
Li Yun's expression changed. "You feel it too?"
"Yes," she said slowly. "Like… I've been here before. But that's impossible."
"Not impossible," Li Yun replied quietly. "Just forgotten."
---
They rested near the shrine.
While Lian Feng slept, Li Yun began clearing away some of the vines and debris.
Underneath, old carvings appeared—so worn they were barely readable.
Lian Yue traced one with her fingers.
"What does it say?"
Li Yun looked at it for a long time before answering.
"It's a name."
Her heart skipped. "Whose?"
He hesitated.
"…Yours."
She stared at him. "What?"
"Not the name you have now," he said. "Your first name."
She felt dizzy. "I don't understand."
Li Yun took a slow breath. "Before you were the Moon Goddess. Before the Council. Before the seal."
He looked at her.
"You existed."
---
The world seemed to tilt.
"I… always existed," she said weakly. "Didn't I?"
"No," Li Yun said gently. "You were born. Like anyone else. Just… much earlier than most."
Her hands began to shake. "Then why don't I remember?"
"Because they erased it," he said.
Lian Feng woke up fully at that. "Erased what?"
"Her past," Li Yun replied. "Her life before she became what the heavens wanted."
Lian Yue's head hurt.
Fragments—no, not memories, but feelings—began to surface.
A warm sky.
Wind.
Laughter.
Then chains of light.
"I was…" She pressed her temples. "I was someone else."
"Yes," Li Yun said. "And you were kind."
She looked at him, tears forming without her realizing. "Do you remember?"
"I do."
"…What was my name?"
Li Yun looked at the broken statue.
"Xing Yue," he said. "The Star-Moon."
---
The name echoed in her chest.
Xing Yue.
Something inside her responded.
Not the sealed thing.
But her.
"I don't know who that is," she whispered. "But… it feels like me."
"That's because it is you," Li Yun said.
Lian Feng was silent, then said carefully, "So the Council took her… turned her into the Moon Goddess… and used her as a cage."
"Yes," Li Yun said. "And erased the person she was so she wouldn't resist."
Lian Yue felt anger.
Not the explosive kind.
The cold, deep kind.
---
They stayed in the shrine until evening.
Li Yun tried to restore some of the protective markings around it.
"This place is hidden," he said. "Not just physically. Spiritually. It used to be a sanctuary for… old things. Forgotten things."
"Like me," Lian Yue said.
"Yes," he replied.
That night, she dreamed.
She stood in a field of stars.
But they were not above her.
They were around her.
And someone was calling her by a name she had forgotten.
---
Far away, in the highest reaches of heaven, the Celestial Council gathered again.
"The seal is reacting faster than predicted," one elder said.
"Her memories are returning," another added.
"That should be impossible."
A cold voice replied, "Nothing is impossible when the prison begins to remember it was once a person."
Silence fell.
Then:
"Prepare the Star Execution Array."
---
In the ruined shrine, Lian Yue woke with a single word on her lips.
"…Xing Yue."
And somewhere deep inside her—
Something ancient shifted.
Not in hunger.
But in recognition.