The Azure Horizon World hung in the void like a drop of water suspended in a spider's web. To its people, it was boundless: nine continents, forty-eight minor states, sects that crossed sky and sea, rivers that ran with spiritual qi. The cultivators who lived upon it spoke of the heavens as myth—distant, unreachable.
Yun Shi knew better.
She had walked those heavens. She had fought across them. She had died in them, again and again.
A hundred thousand years of blood-soaked memory poured into the narrow vessel of her spirit as she stood alone on the terrace of the Divine Mist Pavilion, high above Cloudfall Peak. Beneath her lay the world she had once sworn to defend—a world so painfully small compared to the endless expanse of the Outer Star Archipelago, the Immortal Terraced Realms, the Abyssal Tide Spheres, and the countless inhabited planets orbiting beyond mortal sight.
Thousands of worlds. Hundreds of cultivation civilizations. Some weaker than this one. Many stronger. And some—she forced the memory back down—some that had been annihilated entirely.
Her own world had been one of the last.
Yun Shi closed her eyes. The cold wind slid over her Saint-rank body without effect; the cold that mattered was inside her. The weight of those memories pressed down with the clarity of recent grief.
Wars spanning galaxies. Enemies whose very presence cracked immortal domains. Slaughter without pause, without mercy, without meaning.
They had fought until they could no longer stand. They had held until the last flicker of spiritual will broke.
And in the end, she had watched all ten of them—those women who had fought beside her, bled beside her, loved her—fall one by one.
Her resurrection into this earlier era should have been impossible. Even now, she couldn't fully parse it. She had been the Saint of the Divine Mist Pavilion at this exact moment in history—but she vividly remembered dying as one of the last defenders of the cosmos tens of thousands of years later.
She should not be here.
She should not be alive.
And she most certainly did not want to start again.
She braced her arms on the jade railing and stared out at the mist-shrouded horizon. The world felt painfully fragile now. A provincial corner of the cosmos. A place blissfully ignorant of the catastrophes approaching it in the far future.
She envied them.
She pitied them.
And she had no intention of repeating that war.
What was the point? They had fought with everything they had and they still lost. Yun Shi had trained to the peak of Saint Emperor, cultivated forbidden arts, shouldered half the war's burden—it had not been enough.
What difference could she possibly make here?
Even worse—what difference could she make alone?
---
THE SYSTEM APPEARS
A quiet chime echoed inside her mind.
Not in her ears.
In her soul.
[Yun Shi.]
[A unique qualification has been detected.]
[The Diary System has been bound.]
She froze.
Then a humorless breath escaped her, too thin to be called a laugh.
Of course. A system. What else would cosmic irony choose?
The voice continued, calm and mechanical, as if addressing her from the end of the universe.
[Record your truths.]
[Your past, your decisions, your battles.]
[Those who read and trust your entries will contribute power to your path.]
[You may rise beyond your former limits.]
She sat down where she stood.
Not with relief.
Not with excitement.
Just exhaustion.
"Rise?" she murmured. "We rose. We fought. We died. What good is repeating a climb that ends in the same abyss?"
The system offered no argument. It simply placed a blank, ethereal page in her consciousness.
A diary entry field.
Staring at it, she felt nothing.
No hope.
No ambition.
No righteous determination.
Only the faintest obligation, born from habit older than continents.
She wrote the first line:
"In the one hundred thousand years that followed the sealing of the Void Rift, we failed."
A tremor ran through her when she finished.
Not from the writing.
From what came next.
Three golden threads shot outward from her spirit. They moved like lightning—crossing mountains, traversing clouds, piercing wards and arrays—and carried a single object with them: a flickering spectral diary page, identical to her own, appearing in three separate hands.
Three women.
Three fates she had watched break.
Three of the ten she had loved and lost.
They had received her words again.
And none of them knew yet.
In this era, they stood separated by sect, kingdom, and reputation. They had not even met her properly. They had never fought beside her. They had never died in her arms.
But they held the diary page all the same, blinking at the text.
And Yun Shi felt their reactions through the system like whispers:
Confusion.
Recognition.
A strange sense of resonance.
Not belief—not yet.
But the first stirrings of something more dangerous: possibility.
Soft light gathered in Yun Shi's core.
[Trust Detected: 3 Recipients.]
[Initial trust values recorded.]
[Accumulating.]
Yun Shi crushed the light between her spiritual fingers.
"I don't want this," she said.
The world didn't listen.
---
THE LORE OF THE WORLD AND BEYOND
This world knew only its own sky. Its people believed their realm to be the center of creation. They mapped the stars as if they were lanterns hung for their benefit. They told stories of ancient immortals who ascended beyond mortal reach.
Yet Yun Shi remembered the truth:
The planet beneath her feet was one of the lowest-grade cultivation worlds in the Inner Orbit Cluster—far from the cosmic highways, beneath the notice of true emperors, and utterly defenseless against the large-scale conflicts drifting slowly across the galactic sphere.
The final war had begun far from here.
But it had ended everywhere.
And this little world, this precious naive place, had been wiped out with all the others.
She gazed up. The night veil hid the star paths, the spiral qi trails, the transmission gates between worlds. Ordinary cultivators never saw them.
But she remembered every coordinate. Every battlefield.
Every dying scream.
Even the mightiest here—the Saint Emperors, the ancient divine beasts—were nothing compared to what awaited beyond the sky.
Yun Shi had every reason to give up.
To lie flat.
To grow flowers.
To drink tea on her peak and let fate do what it wanted.
She had carried too much for too long.
She had lost too much to try again.
And yet—
Her fingers subconsciously brushed the spiritual imprint where the diary entry had just settled.
A soft pulse answered: three hearts, three minds reacting to a story they did not yet understand.
Curious.
Moved.
Believing.
Too early.
Too soon.
She shut her eyes.
She didn't want hope.
Hope was lethal.
---
"The Azure Continent… small, fragile, peaceful."
"No one here knows that our world is one of thousands. A single drifting stone among countless realms—some prosperous, some dying, some consumed already by the war we failed to win."
"I crossed those worlds for ten thousand years. I fought on more battlefields than I can remember. The heaven-shaking clashes, the burning skies, the collapsing star plains… in the end none of it mattered. Not against them."
"I do not write this to frighten myself. I write because the truth does not soften just because we pretend it isn't there."
---
Her brush slowed, the strokes becoming thinner.
And then… she wrote the memories she never wanted to relive.
---
"Qingge…"
"My wife. My love. My master."
"She fell in the Forty-Seventh Campaign. We were surrounded, the battlefield collapsing into dust and screams. She forced me to retreat. Forced me. Even after I begged her not to."
"I told her we could fight together. She smiled and told me I was still too valuable."
"I left because she commanded it. Because I was too weak to refuse."
"When I returned, all I found was the echo of her sword intent—thin, fading, as if even the heavens struggled to remember her."
"No body. No blood."
"Just the trace of a woman who taught me how to hold a blade, how to live, how to love."
---
Ink pooled at the edge of the page—heavy, tired.
---
"Lin Yao…"
"The spoiled princess who once demanded I be hers and hers alone."
"She always spoke with arrogance, but when the skies cracked open above her kingdom, she burned her soul without hesitation."
"She stood against ten thousand enemy soldiers—not beasts, not mortals, but cultivators from the outer worlds, all stronger than she was."
"She held the line alone… just so I could finish evacuating the civilians."
"I still hear her voice, soft and steady, as her soul unravelled."
"She said she was happy to die protecting her people."
"But what about her? Who can tell me why she had to die?"
"Why couldn't I have taken her place?"
"Why wasn't I strong enough to save her?"
---
The tip of the brush trembled.
Just once.
---
"Hua Lian…"
"A saintess by right. My saintess. My betrothed."
"Loyal. Brave. Perhaps too loyal, too brave."
"She stood between me and the heavens during the Battle of the Ninth Sky Gate, when I was already gravely wounded. She burned her body and soul to protect what was left of me."
"She held back an army with nothing but her faith and her dying spiritual fire."
"She forced the sect elders to drag me away even as the heavens themselves descended upon her."
"Why… Why did you save me?"
"Didn't you know that life lost its worth the moment you fell?"
"Didn't you know that breathing after you vanished was torture?"
---
A long silence.
Then the final lines, thin and faint.
---
"I do not believe this system can change anything."
"I do not believe that strength—mine or anyone else's—can stop the future from coming."
"We barely survived before. In truth, we did not survive at all."
"If fate repeats itself… perhaps this time I will simply lie down and let the darkness take what it wants."
---
The ink dried.
The diary closed.
Far away, three hearts trembled—
not because they understood the future…
but because they had never imagined Yun Shi's past.
---
Mu Qingge
The sword peaks of Morning Frost Sect pierced the sky like a ring of jagged ice, their edges glowing faintly under the pale sunrise. Frost-laden branches sagged under their own crystalline weight, and every breath of wind chimed softly across the mountain range.
Mu Qingge stood alone before the edge of the highest cliff, her back straight, her robe fluttering lightly.
She always arrived before dawn.
Always alone.
Her sword—Snow Lantern—rested in the crook of her arm, its blade refracting the first light of day into pale blue arcs.
She breathed in.
Slow. Steady. Controlled.
Just as she had done every morning for nearly a century.
But today…
her pulse wasn't steady.
The diary floated before her—thin, transparent, unreadable to anyone else. It hovered at eye level like a silent ghost, the characters gleaming faintly in the cold morning air.
Words she should not have seen.
Words she could not unsee.
Qingge… my wife, my love, my master… fell in the Forty-Seventh Campaign…
Her fingers tightened around Snow Lantern until frost cracked beneath her grip.
Her eyes—usually placid, unwavering—shook.
"…wife?" she whispered.
The wind carried the sound away instantly.
Of all the phrases, all the confessions, all the brutal memories Yun Shi recorded—it was that single word that struck deepest.
Not the war.
Not the death.
Not the cosmic worlds.
Not even her fall.
But that she—
Mu Qingge—
had once loved Yun Shi deeply enough to marry her.
And that Yun Shi loved her back.
Her lips parted, then pressed into a thin line.
Was it delusion?
Was it a trick?
A misunderstanding?
Some spiritual illusion?
She had no answer.
But the entry did not feel like deception.
No—the emotion inside it was too raw. Too resigned. Too worn down by time.
Like someone who had said those words to an empty sky a thousand times before finally writing them down.
And yet…
Yun Shi was her disciple.
A talented one.
A dutiful one.
A gifted one.
But still a disciple.
She had watched the girl grow from a twelve-year-old orphan with steady eyes into a sect saint whose name carried weight far beyond their mountains.
A wife?
Her wife?
Absurd.
Impossible.
But her heart…
her heart did not reject the idea.
That frightened her most of all.
---
Mu Qingge's Past
The Morning Frost Sect adored Mu Qingge.
She was the youngest Sword Saint in centuries.
The coldest blade of the generation.
The untouchable peak beauty whose sword had never been stained by pointless slaughter.
But what they didn't know—
what she never allowed anyone to see—
was that her heart was quiet because it had never found room for warmth.
She had trained since she was six.
She learned to kill before she learned to play.
She lost her parents to a demonic raid, her first master to heavenly tribulation, her senior brothers to the war with bandit cultivators.
She understood loss.
She respected duty.
She believed in restraint.
But she had never known… affection.
Certainly not the kind Yun Shi described with such weary tenderness.
---
Her eyes moved to the next part of the diary.
She forced me to retreat…
All I found was the echo of her sword intent…
Mu Qingge's breath faltered.
"Retreat…?" she murmured. "I would never order a retreat unless—"
She stopped.
The thought came unbidden:
Unless I loved her more than my own life.
Her grip loosened.
Her heartbeat steadied.
Her chest, however, ached sharply.
The memory wasn't hers.
The pain wasn't hers.
Yet the sorrow felt real.
Real enough to hurt.
Real enough that she closed her eyes for several seconds before forcing herself to read on.
---
The Moment Her World Tilted
The next lines struck even deeper.
My wife. My love. My master.
Her knees nearly gave out.
Not because she believed it—
but because Yun Shi had written it so plainly.
So casually.
As if it were a truth carved into her bones.
Mu Qingge felt her sword tremble.
"What kind of life did you live…?" she whispered.
Her disciple—her quiet, polite, awkward disciple—
had lived a life that dwarfed empires and spanned worlds.
And suffered more than any mortal soul should.
Mu Qingge's expression softened.
Barely.
Imperceptibly.
"…you poor child."
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Her face hardened instantly afterward.
But it was too late.
The sympathy had already bloomed.
And sympathy, she knew, was the most dangerous seed of all.
---
Duty Over Emotion
Mu Qingge forced the diary closed with a mental command.
She stood straight again.
Her breathing calmed.
Her gaze regained its icy clarity.
A saint needed focus.
Composure.
Discipline.
This was too much emotion for a single dawn.
She needed distance.
She needed rationality.
She needed—
"Master."
The voice behind her was soft. Polite. Familiar.
Yun Shi.
Mu Qingge froze.
Her shoulders stiffened.
Her grip tightened.
Her heartbeat stumbled.
She turned, veil of frost settling back over her expression.
There stood Yun Shi—
beautiful, calm-eyed, deceptively gentle—
carrying the weight of ten thousand years in her gaze without even noticing.
And Mu Qingge, despite her effort, saw every trace of exhaustion Yun Shi had tried to hide.
Every fracture.
Every burden.
Every attempt to smile normally.
And for the first time in her life…
Mu Qingge didn't know how to speak.
Not as a master.
Not as a saint.
Not as a woman.
Just as someone who had just read the memory of her own death.
She swallowed.
"Yun Shi," she said quietly. "You are early."
Yun Shi bowed. "I wished to accompany Master in morning cultivation."
Mu Qingge studied her face.
The faint shadows beneath her eyes.
The weary softness of her smile.
The way she stood—too casual, too practiced, too forced.
Her disciple was acting.
Badly.
And Mu Qingge's chest tightened all over again.
"…Very well," she said after a moment. "Stand beside me."
As Yun Shi stepped forward, Mu Qingge kept her voice calm—
But inside, her thoughts whispered:
My wife… my love… my master?
I died for you?
And you lived ten thousand years carrying that memory alone?
Her hand trembled once.
Just once.
Hidden within her sleeve.
---
Frostwind swept along the stone terraces as Mu Qingge descended, Yun Shi following half a pace behind her. The mountain pathways spiraled gently around the Sword Saint Peak, carved from pale-blue stone that resonated faintly with sword intent. Every terrace held training platforms, embedded sword monuments, and frozen floral gardens—silent witnesses to generations of disciples.
But today, the mountain was quiet.
Too quiet.
As if the peak itself could sense that something epochal had arrived.
Yun Shi's footsteps were soft, careful in a way that made Qingge's throat tighten.
This girl… No—this woman who had survived another lifetime…
…moved like someone afraid of disturbing a ghost.
And Qingge was that ghost.
They reached the mid-terrace, where crystalline sword lilies grew beneath the frost. Mu Qingge stopped, and Yun Shi halted instantly—another overly obedient reflex.
Qingge turned slightly.
"Yun Shi."
"Yes, Master?"
"Remain here for a moment."
Yun Shi looked startled, but she bowed her head. "As you command."
Qingge stepped away—not far, only a dozen paces—but enough to create space. Enough to let her breathe.
Enough to face the diary page drifting behind Yun Shi.
The page pulsed once.
Just once.
Like a heartbeat.
And new ink formed.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Mu Qingge exhaled and read silently.
---
Master, if the heavens allowed me to carve only one truth into eternity—
it would be this:
Lin Yao died because of me.
Mu Qingge's heartbeat faltered.
Lin Yao?
The Imperial Princess Lin Yao of this era was famed for three things: her dragon lineage, her impeccable sword talent, and her cold, proud heart.
She had never even crossed paths with Yun Shi.
Not in this life.
Qingge continued reading.
In the past timeline, I met Princess Lin Yao at the boundary fortress during the Fractured Sky Era.
She hid her pain behind pride.
I hid my shame behind smiles.
She died on the sixth month of the Eternal Frost Campaign, still clutching my cloak, telling me—
"Live. If at least you live… then my choice was worth something."
The ink trembled faintly, as though recalling bitter ice.
Mu Qingge's fingers tightened.
Lin Yao… died for her?
But—
This princess had never left the capital in this life.
Qingge's breath grew thin.
There was more.
Her death broke me so deeply that even my sword refused to sing for three hundred years.
Mu Qingge felt a strange pressure behind her sternum.
Not disbelief.
Not anymore.
But the first tremor of something heavier.
A grief she had not lived, but Yun Shi had.
The diary continued, ink flowing like a wound reopening.
The Fractured Sky Era began when the heavens cracked at the North Star Seam. Laws collapsed.
Cultivation itself turned unstable—cores fractured, meridians withered, and entire sects vanished in a single breath.
The Ten Thousand Rifts opened next.
Each rift birthed remnants of divine beings—half-formed, half-mad, dripping with the authority of broken immortals.
They hunted anything that lived, and everything they touched warped.
Qingge's nails dug into her palm.
This was not the world she knew.
But the details were too… lived-in to dismiss.
Too vivid.
During the Eternal Frost Campaign, we lost ninety percent of our forces in the first winter.
Snow fell black.
Screams froze in the air before bodies hit the ground.
I did not sleep for three years.
I could not.
Those who closed their eyes never woke again.
Qingge's breath caught.
Slowly.
Painfully.
The diary wrote its final line.
Princess Lin Yao's last smile still haunts me.
She deserved a life filled with warmth.
Not a battlefield…
And not me.
The page stopped glowing.
Mu Qingge's hand trembled inside her sleeve.
Not visibly. Not enough for Yun Shi to notice.
But enough to crack the wall she had built around her heart.
Lin Yao… A stranger in this life. A sacrifice in another.
A life Yun Shi mourned with a sorrow so raw that the ink itself seemed to ache.
Mu Qingge inhaled sharply.
She turned her head.
Yun Shi stood where she had left her.
Hands clasped in front. Shoulders straight. Eyes calm.
But Mu Qingge recognized the truth now.
The girl was dying under the weight of memories she couldn't reveal.
And she was trying—desperately—to keep Qingge from seeing how deeply the past had carved her.
Why?
Why hide this from me? Why try so hard to appear harmless? Why look at me as though losing me once was already too much?
Mu Qingge stepped back toward her.
Yun Shi lifted her head slightly, eyes warm, polite, almost hopeful.
"Master?"
Mu Qingge spoke quietly.
"There is someone you must meet."
Yun Shi blinked. "A senior?"
"No," Mu Qingge said. "A peer. Someone the sect received this morning."
Yun Shi stiffened slightly—instinctive caution.
Qingge continued.
"She is… significant."
The way the diary had described her death…
Lin Yao was more than significant.
She was a faultline in Yun Shi's heart.
Mu Qingge motioned for Yun Shi to follow.
And as they descended toward the inner courtyard—
A powerful wave of imperial qi surged from below, sweeping across the mountain like the beat of a dragon's wing.
Yun Shi froze.
Her soul trembled.
Mu Qingge watched her carefully.
"Do you feel it?" she asked.
Yun Shi swallowed.
"Yes… It feels like—"
Her voice faltered.
Like someone I buried with my own hands.
But she didn't say it.
She couldn't.
Mu Qingge led her onward.
Toward the courtyard where the Imperial Princess Lin Yao awaited—
alive, untouched by war, proud and cold…
and unknowingly walking into the gravity field of a fate that had already claimed her once.
---
The lower terraces of Sword Saint Peak opened into a wide training courtyard of pale stone. Sword monuments circled the perimeter like silent guardians. Frost clung to the engraved runes, shimmering faintly under the morning sun.
But today the courtyard held someone far more imposing.
As Mu Qingge and Yun Shi stepped onto the platform, a wave of imperial qi washed over them—dense, majestic, and sharp as a dragon's claw. Yun Shi's breath hitched.
Standing at the center of the courtyard was a young woman in pale-gold robes embroidered with coiling dragons. Her long black hair fell straight down her back, and her eyes—crimson-gold, like burning embers—narrowed at the sound of footsteps.
Princess Lin Yao.
Alive.
Perfectly alive.
And nothing like the dying girl Yun Shi once held in her arms on a battlefield of black snow.
Mu Qingge's tone remained level. "Yun Shi. This is Her Highness, Princess Lin Yao of the Imperial Line."
Lin Yao shifted her gaze.
It was like being pinned by a blade.
Not hostile. Not warm. Just… evaluating.
Yun Shi lowered her head politely.
But her fingers trembled—so subtly only Mu Qingge noticed.
Lin Yao's eyes flicked to the movement.
And her brows drew together.
"Your disciple?" she asked Mu Qingge.
"She is," Qingge replied.
Lin Yao's eyes lingered on Yun Shi for exactly two seconds longer than etiquette required.
A completely insignificant pause.
Except it wasn't.
Because Lin Yao, proud and composed, suddenly felt something she had no reason to feel:
A flicker of déjà vu.
A small, sharp ripple under her sternum.
As if the world had whispered: You have seen this girl die before.
Lin Yao stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Ridiculous. Impossible.
She pushed the feeling aside.
Mu Qingge continued formally, "Her Highness has come to train on the peak for one month. The Imperial Palace is evaluating the formation network around the northern border."
That was the official reason.
But Lin Yao had her own: She wanted to test herself against the Sword Saints.
She was ambitious, prideful, and had little patience for weakness.
Her gaze returned to Yun Shi.
"Lift your head," she said.
Yun Shi obeyed.
And Lin Yao's breath caught.
Not for long. Not visibly. Not enough to embarrass herself.
But enough for her aura to waver.
This face…
She didn't recognize it. There was no memory. No past.
Yet her chest tightened sharply, like a phantom pain.
A memory she never lived.
She pushed it down ruthlessly.
"Your qi is strange," Lin Yao said bluntly.
Mu Qingge's eyes narrowed.
Yun Shi smiled politely. "My cultivation foundation is still unstable, Your Highness."
"Unstable?" Lin Yao stepped closer. "No. This is… something else."
She circled Yun Shi once.
Slow, deliberate, predatory.
Yun Shi held perfectly still. Her expression steady. Her heartbeat frantic beneath the calm.
Lin Yao stopped directly in front of her, their eyes nearly level.
And something inside the princess cracked.
Not a memory—she had none.
But a feeling.
A vivid, heart-wrenching certainty that made no sense:
This girl has cried for me before.
This girl has held me as I died.
This girl—
She clamped her jaw shut.
What is wrong with me?
Lin Yao stepped back quickly, clearing her throat. "Your disciple has an odd presence, Sword Saint Mu."
Yun Shi took a careful step away, hands clasped behind her back, posture controlled.
Mu Qingge watched both of them.
Lin Yao, unsettled by a stranger.
Yun Shi, trembling from recognition she wasn't allowed to show.
And the world between them— thin as rice paper, sharp as regret— began to vibrate.
Yun Shi spoke softly, "Your Highness, I am honored to meet you."
Lin Yao felt her throat tighten.
Why does your voice sound like it belongs in a dying winter?
She forced her expression cold, regal.
"You may rise."
Yun Shi was already standing.
Lin Yao realized the mistake. Heat sparked across her cheeks.
She turned away immediately, irritated at herself.
Mu Qingge almost smiled.
Almost.
Lin Yao cleared her throat again, recomposing her imperial mask. "Sword Saint Mu, I wish to test the terrace's resonance."
"Proceed," Qingge said.
Lin Yao stepped into the center.
Her aura surged.
And Yun Shi stepped back sharply—instinctively—like a soldier reacting to an artillery blast.
It lasted only half a second.
But Mu Qingge saw.
Lin Yao saw.
And the princess's pupils contracted.
That was no startled novice's movement.
That was battlefield reflex.
Lin Yao's voice dropped low. "Yun Shi. Why did you react like that?"
Yun Shi froze.
Mu Qingge's presence sharpened, almost protective.
The diary page shimmered faintly behind Yun Shi, as if waiting for the next truth.
Lin Yao took a step closer.
Her tone was not hostile.
Not curious.
But something deeper.
Almost pleading.
"Have we met before?"
Yun Shi's breath trembled.
She lowered her eyes.
"No, Your Highness. We have never met."
Lin Yao's heart lurched painfully.
It made no sense.
But she believed her.
And it hurt anyway.
She turned away abruptly, gripping her sword hilt. "Fine. Then let us spar later. I wish to see how you move."
Yun Shi flinched.
Not visibly.
But in her soul.
She had seen Lin Yao die in her arms— cut down before she could finish a final sentence.
Sparring her now felt like walking into lightning.
Mu Qingge stepped forward slightly, her tone calm but absolute.
"Her Highness will spar with a senior disciple first."
Lin Yao opened her mouth to protest—
—but she hesitated.
Her eyes drifted back to Yun Shi.
Something silent. Something unplaceable. Something wounded and strange.
She looked away quickly.
"…Very well."
For the first time in her life, Princess Lin Yao retreated.
Yun Shi exhaled very, very softly.
Mu Qingge stepped forward slightly, her voice low and level.
"Return to the hall after morning duties."
Yun Shi blinked, startled by the sudden seriousness. "Master…?"
Mu Qingge met her gaze with steady, unreadable eyes.
"There are matters I must clarify with you."
Yun Shi's breath caught. "I… understand."
Mu Qingge turned away before Yun Shi could read the concern she was trying to keep out of her expression.
"Do not be late."
The diary page brightened—
—and Princess Lin Yao, unaware of the truth written about her death in another lifetime…
stood only ten steps away.
Alive.
And fate, for the first time in this timeline…
shivered.
---