The town of Lianshui was tucked between a gentle bend of the river and the crumbling ridge of the Black Iron Mountains. It was a place neither large nor small, where silk peddlers sold dye-bright fabrics in the morning and storytellers lured drunkards with tales by dusk.
Wuyin had passed through it once before, months ago. Alone.
Now, walking beside Yujin under a spring-dappled sky, it felt different. Softer. Quieter. Like a place where she didn't need to sleep with her blade half-drawn.
"You've been here before," Yujin remarked, glancing sideways.
Wuyin nodded. "Briefly. I slept in an abandoned mill and traded medicine for maps." Her tone was casual, but her fingers twitched at her side, like they were still tracing the path she once took.
"You really lived like a ghost."
"Better a ghost than a corpse," Wuyin replied simply.
Yujin didn't press further. She knew by now that Wuyin's past came out in fragments — like the slow melting of frost. But every piece mattered. She filed it away.
The marketplace greeted them with color and warmth. A street musician played a gentle flute by the corner, the notes drifting like cherry blossoms in the wind. Children chased each other past fruit stalls. A washerwoman laughed, pointing at a man who'd stepped in pig dung.
Peace.
It was almost suspicious.
Yujin was the first to say it. "It's too quiet."
Wuyin's gaze swept the crowd. Her instincts agreed. This town had no sect presence, no governing clan, and yet — no fear. That was rare. Too rare.
They moved to an inn by the riverside, the owner a weathered man who barely looked up as Yujin paid in silver. He led them to a small room with lattice windows and pale cushions.
Only once the door closed did Wuyin exhale.
"I don't like this place," she murmured. "It feels like a painting with nothing underneath."
Yujin sat on the window ledge, watching the river. "Maybe you're just not used to calm."
Wuyin's lips curved faintly. "Maybe."
A pause.
Then: "Yujin."
The way she said her name — low, careful — made Yujin turn fully to her.
"There's something I haven't told you," Wuyin said. "About… before all of this. Before the forest. Before the inheritance."
Yujin waited, still and quiet.
Wuyin's voice dropped further, her eyes unfocusing slightly — as though recalling something long buried. "I wasn't born here. Not in this world. I came from somewhere… colder. Crueler. I was raised to kill before I could read. Trained in poisons, silent steps, shadows. I was called an assassin — but really, I was just a blade in someone else's hand."
Yujin didn't flinch. She stepped down and walked toward her slowly. "And you died?"
Wuyin nodded. "In that world, yes. Betrayed by the one I trusted most. I opened my eyes again… in this body. Three years old. Alone in the forest. And before she — the original — fully vanished, she said something to me."
"What did she say?"
"She asked me to find the truth. About what happened to her. Why she was left in that forest. Why she never inherited the Silent Monarch's full legacy."
Yujin placed a hand gently over Wuyin's. "So it's not just your past you carry. It's hers too."
"I don't know where she ends and I begin sometimes."
"You don't have to know yet," Yujin said. "Just keep walking forward. I'll walk with you."
Wuyin closed her eyes briefly. Then nodded.
Just then — a knock at the door.
Wuyin was already on her feet, blade halfway unsheathed.
Yujin opened it calmly.
A child stood there, holding a folded scrap of paper. She offered it without a word, then ran.
Yujin opened it.
A drawing. Rough charcoal on rice parchment. Two figures — one with a sword, one with long hair in a braid. Behind them, a twisting shape with many hands and no face.
Beneath it, a single sentence in blocky characters:
"The past waits in stone. The blood remembers."
Wuyin stared at the sketch. The second figure's posture — it looked like the girl in her fragmented memories. The one from the forest. The real heir.
Her fingers clenched.
The past wasn't done with them.
Not yet.