The mist came without warning.
It clung to Li Zhen's skin like breath from a forgotten god, veiling the path ahead in a pale, shifting silence. Trees dissolved into silhouettes. The wind held its tongue. He could hear only his footsteps and the slow rhythm of the sword strapped to his back, thudding against his spine like a drum counting time in reverse.
He had wandered for days, following a trail that wasn't there—just a pull, a sensation buried deep in his ribs, as if some unseen thread were reeling him forward. The sword hadn't spoken in hours. Even it, for once, seemed unsure.
Then, as if summoned by that uncertainty, a village emerged from the fog.
It was nestled in the crook of two hills, hidden like a secret. Humble houses of worn wood and moss-covered roofs stood quietly among overgrown paths. Smoke drifted from chimneys, curling upward as if unsure whether to rise or descend. Lanterns hung from trees, swaying in the invisible breeze. People moved in silence, their forms flickering like memories just out of reach.
Li Zhen stepped into the village cautiously.
No one ran. No one greeted him. Yet all eyes turned toward him—briefly, subtly, like leaves twitching toward the sun. A child pointed at him and was quickly hushed. An old man sweeping paused mid-motion and muttered, "He returns."
Then the villagers began whispering among themselves, repeating one name over and over like a mantra.
"Zhen."
Li Zhen stiffened. "What is this?"
A woman selling herbs on the roadside looked at him with curious eyes. "You've come back earlier than usual," she said, "though you look more troubled than before."
"I've never been here before," Li Zhen said flatly.
The woman smiled, soft and sad. "That's what you said last time, too."
The sword at his side gave a subtle hum.
"He's near."
Li Zhen's hand tensed near the hilt. "Who?"
"The one with your face."
They led him to a garden on the edge of the village.
It was unlike the rest of the place—vibrant and alive, bursting with herbs, flowers, and vines in meticulous harmony. A small shrine sat in the center, its stones warm with incense smoke. A wooden house rested behind it, modest but cared for, its windows open to the soft light.
And then he saw him.
A man stood among the plants, kneeling beside a wounded deer. His hands glowed faintly, fingertips brushing against the creature's fur. The wound closed slowly, skin knitting together as if time itself had reversed in that one spot. When the task was done, the deer blinked once, then limped away into the fog.
The man rose.
Li Zhen froze.
The face was his. Exactly. Not a mirror, but a living echo—his posture, his gait, even the scar beneath his left eye. But there was something different in the eyes. Peace. Stillness. A softness that Li Zhen had never felt in himself.
"Welcome," the man said gently. "You must be tired."
Li Zhen didn't answer right away. He took a step forward. "You… are me?"
The man nodded. "Once. Perhaps still. I don't know."
Li Zhen drew a breath that tasted like confusion. "The villagers call you Zhen the Merciful."
"A name they gave me," said the man, brushing soil from his hands. "I never corrected them."
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you here?" the other returned, smiling with a kindness that somehow made Li Zhen feel smaller. "Did the sword bring you?"
Li Zhen hesitated. "Yes."
The man nodded. "It always does."
They sat beneath a tree as evening crept in.
No duel. No conflict. Just two men with the same face, separated by choices neither could remember making.
"I walked away from the sword a long time ago," said Zhen the Merciful. "Not because I was afraid of it. But because I saw what it made of me."
Li Zhen looked down at his hands, still calloused from endless battle. "And what did it make of you?"
"A man who could kill without thinking," he replied. "A man who believed pain was the only path to truth."
Li Zhen's eyes narrowed. "That's not weakness. That's survival."
"It is," the healer agreed. "But not life."
The silence between them grew heavy.
"Do you remember dying?" Li Zhen asked suddenly.
The healer nodded. "I died in a storm. A real one, not just wind and rain. It tore the mountains apart. I chose to stay and save the villagers. I didn't regret it."
Li Zhen swallowed hard. "Then how are you here?"
"I don't know," he said, almost with amusement. "Perhaps you remember me. Perhaps I'm a shadow given form. Or perhaps… we are both shadows."
Li Zhen's chest tightened.
"He doesn't fight. But that doesn't make him weak," the sword whispered.
"What did you see," Li Zhen asked quietly, "when you walked away from the sword?"
Zhen the Merciful looked up at the sky, now dark and starless. "I saw myself. Not a warrior. Not a legend. Just a man who had lost too many things pretending they didn't matter. So I let it go. I let myself be."
Li Zhen felt something shift inside him—a quiet cracking of ice. The sword grew heavier.
"Then why am I still carrying this?" he asked aloud, more to himself.
The healer answered anyway.
"Because you haven't chosen what kind of man you want to be."
When he rose to leave, the healer walked him to the edge of the village.
Neither said goodbye.
But as Li Zhen stepped once more into the mist, the healer called out:
"You don't have to keep killing yourself to understand who you are."
Li Zhen paused. His hand brushed the hilt of the sword.
"I'm not sure there's any other way," he said.
Zhen the Merciful smiled softly. "There is. But it's quieter. And far more difficult."
Then the mist swallowed the village whole, and Li Zhen was alone again.
But something lingered—a memory not entirely his, a question still echoing.
What if I had chosen peace?
And for the first time in a long while, the sword at his side had no answer.