If there is one thing an immortal learns after a few millennia, it's that "coincidences" are just the universe being too lazy to write a proper plot twist.
I was currently on the roof of my apartment building, trying to convince the three-tailed cat from the laundromat to stop breathing fire on the satellite dishes. "Listen, Little Mao," I coaxed, holding out a piece of premium dried squid. "If you melt the landlord's TV receiver, she'll come up here. And trust me, you'd rather face a Heavenly Tribulation than Mrs. Zhao in a bathrobe."
The cat hissed, a spark of golden embers popping from its nostrils, before snatching the squid and vanishing into the shadows of the water tank.
"I see your taste in companions hasn't improved, Chen Feng."
The voice hit me like a bucket of ice water poured directly into my soul. I didn't move. I didn't need to. That specific cadence—half-mockery, half-melody—was etched into my memory deeper than any sword manual.
I turned slowly. Standing by the rusted railing was a woman who looked entirely too elegant for a rooftop that smelled of pigeon droppings and asphalt. She wore a trench coat the color of a bruised plum, her hair caught in a silver pin that I recognized instantly. I had carved it for her in the year 1204.
"Yue Qin," I said, my voice sounding more tired than I intended. "I heard you were living in Singapore. Something about a real estate empire?"
"Markets change, Sovereign," she said, stepping into the dim light. Her aura was a shimmering, opalescent veil—perfectly contained, unlike my own leaking mess. "And I prefer the term 'Property Development.' It's more honest than 'Sect Leadership.'"
Yue Qin. We had fought on opposite sides of the Great Jade War, spent fifty years as "cultivation partners" in a cave in the Qinling Mountains, and then spent another century trying to legally (and lethally) annul our spiritual contract. Our past wasn't just ambiguous; it was a sprawling, messy epic that neither of us had the energy to finish.
"What are you doing in my city, Qin? If you're here for the Golden Dew leaking from the sewers, I've already claimed this territory," I lied, crossing my arms.
She laughed, a sound like glass bells. "Always so protective of your scraps. No, I'm here because the Archive is getting loud. Mei Lin spoke to you, didn't she?"
I stiffened. "She mentioned a harvest. She mentioned silos."
Yue Qin walked over to the edge of the roof, looking out at the shimmering skyline. Her expression softened into something that looked suspiciously like pity. "You always were a better warrior than a scholar, Chen Feng. You see a thief and you want to draw your sword. But what if the 'thief' was just a builder?"
"A builder who stole the world's air?" I countered, stepping up beside her.
"A builder who saw the world was suffocating on its own power," she whispered. She reached out, her fingers brushing the air.
"The world couldn't handle us anymore, Chen Feng. We were too many, too powerful. We were tearing the fabric of reality just by breathing. Someone had to bottle it up to save the foundation."
"And you just happened to be there to help with the cork?" I snapped.
She didn't answer. She just leaned over and kissed my cheek—a touch that felt like a dying ember—and stepped off the ledge. I lunged forward, but she was gone, dissolved into the neon haze of the city before she even hit the tenth floor.
I stood there for a long time, the scent of her jasmine perfume lingering in the smog.
[Reader's Enlightenment:]
As Chen Feng looked down at the street, he failed to notice the small, rhythmic pulse of light beneath Yue Qin's skin as she walked away in the shadows far below.
While Chen Feng remembered their time in the cave as a romantic retreat, he didn't know that during those fifty years, Yue Qin hadn't just been meditating. She had been drawing the blueprints.
In her pocket, she carried a heavy, ancient master key—the same symbol Mei Lin had shown Chen Feng on the business card. Yue Qin wasn't just a witness to the Great Ebb. She was the one who had designed the first "Silo." She hadn't been hiding from the change; she had been managing the inventory. And the only reason she had come back to find Chen Feng wasn't for nostalgia.
The "Sovereign of the Fallen Leaf" wasn't just a victim. He was the only power source large enough to jumpstart the next phase of the Harvest.