Mist was everywhere.
Thick.
Dense.
White as rain-soaked ashes.
Yanlong walked forward slowly, every sense on high alert.
Each step was measured, as though he were walking across a surface whose strength he did not know.
The Heart Seal had brought him here.
Into the depths of Tianyin’s mind.
To the place where the Ancient Tree was holding her captive.
He could see nothing ahead of him.
Only the mist.
This place wasn’t real.
He knew that.
It was Tianyin’s inner world.
Her memories.
Her thoughts.
The wounds she had carried all her life.
A place no one was ever meant to see.
A place she had never shown anyone.
And yet…
He was here.
Without ever being invited.
Then something appeared.
A fragment.
Floating through the mist like a leaf drifting across water.
An image.
Transparent.
Fragile.
Almost unreal.
Yanlong stopped.
And watched.
It was Tianyin.
Small.
Far younger than the woman who had crossed the threshold of his residence.
She was lying on a cloud, her eyes wide open as she stared into a sky without end.
Her arms were folded across her chest.
Her long hair spread around her as though the wind had abandoned it there.
She was talking to herself.
Softly.
Almost in a whisper.
As though saying the words aloud was the only way to make them real.
“No one here looks like me.”
“Even my sisters…”
“They look at me as though I came from somewhere else.”
“As though I don’t belong.”
Silence.
“Maybe they’re right.”
Yanlong didn’t move.
He had always believed Tianyin was a spoiled princess.
The youngest of the Celestial Emperor’s seven daughters.
Protected by her rank.
Carried by privilege.
A rebel by choice.
By boredom.
By comfort.
What he was seeing now…
Had nothing to do with childish whims.
It was a lonely little girl.
Lying on a cloud.
Talking to herself because there was no one else willing to listen.
The fragment dissolved.
Another took its place.
There were several figures this time.
Six girls dressed in celestial robes.
Their faces still carried the softness of childhood.
Their eyes were already as sharp as broken glass.
Tianyin stood before them.
Smaller.
Even younger.
Perhaps seven.
Or eight.
She wasn’t crying.
But her fists were clenched tightly at her sides.
“You’re not even truly one of us,” the eldest said with a smile devoid of kindness.
“Your mother was nothing but a servant.”
“A servant who seduced Father.”
“You’re the disgrace of our bloodline,” another added.
“Mother knows it.”
“The entire palace knows it.”
“You should never have been born.”
Tianyin said nothing.
She looked at each of them in turn.
Her jaw clenched.
Her eyes perfectly dry.
And when they finally turned away laughing…
When their voices faded into the marble corridors of the Celestial Palace…
She remained standing.
Alone.
Still standing.
Yanlong felt something tighten painfully inside his chest.
That little girl…
Who refused to fall.
Who would never give them the satisfaction of seeing her break.
He recognized her.
Not the spoiled princess he believed he had married.
Just…
A child who had learned never to fall.
The next fragment stole Yanlong’s breath.
Tianyin stood before the Celestial Emperor.
She looked about fifteen.
Her hair was still disheveled.
Her clothes stained with dirt from the forest.
She had clearly just returned from hunting in the Celestial Woods.
The scent of rain and pine resin lingered around her.
Her father slowly rose from his throne.
Then slapped her.
The sound cracked through the silent palace like thunder.
Tianyin staggered.
But she didn’t fall.
“How many times must I tell you?” he spat.
“You were supposed to receive your suitors today.”
“Men I personally selected for you.”
“And instead, you run through the forests like some wild animal.”
“As though the duties of your birth mean nothing.”
Tianyin slowly lifted her head.
Her cheek was turning red.
But her gaze never wavered.
“I don’t want to marry.”
“What you want doesn’t interest me!”
“You’re a burden, Tianyin.”
“You always have been.”
“Too different.”
“Too unruly.”
“A disgrace to the Celestial Imperial bloodline.”
He turned away from her.
As though he could no longer bear the sight of her.
“I regret ever loving your mother.”
“She’s the reason you turned out this way.”
Tianyin said nothing more.
Yanlong noticed her hands.
Trembling at her sides.
Her nails digging into her palms until they left crescent-shaped marks.
She refused to cry in front of him.
She would never give him that.
Not him.
Not the one person who should have been the last to hurt her.
The mist gathered once more.
Then parted again.
Yanlong saw a lacquered wooden wardrobe.
Tall.
Dark.
Tucked away in the corner of a room he didn’t recognize.
Its door was slightly ajar.
He walked toward it.
Tianyin was inside.
Curled into herself.
Her knees drawn tightly against her chest.
Her head bowed.
Her shoulders shook with silent sobs she was desperately trying to smother, both hands clamped over her mouth.
As though even her tears had to remain hidden.
As though even inside the darkness of a wardrobe…
She wasn’t allowed to make a sound.
And Yanlong heard her thoughts.
This time…
It wasn’t her voice he heard.
It was something deeper than that.
As though the Heart Seal had opened a door to everything she had never spoken aloud.
If I died…
Would he finally cry for me?
Yanlong stopped.
The words pierced through his chest like a blade of ice.
That little girl.
Hiding inside a wardrobe.
Wondering whether dying would finally change anything.
Growing up believing her very existence was a mistake that needed to be corrected.
He stood there for a long time.
Unable to tear his eyes away from her.
Then another fragment appeared.
The gentlest one.
The most painful of all.
Tianyin sat atop a gigantic tree deep within the Celestial Forest.
Beside her sat a woman.
The branches disappeared into the clouds.
Above them, the sky was filled with drifting stars that floated like lanterns carried by an invisible current.
The woman had Tianyin’s eyes.
Bright.
Free.
They sat together in silence.
Shoulder against shoulder.
And within that silence…
Yanlong saw something he had never imagined could exist upon Tianyin’s face.
Peace.
Then he heard her voice.
Younger.
Softer than anything he had ever heard from her.
“I love the scent of the forest after it rains.”
“It reminds me of you.”
The woman smiled.
She simply reached over…
And took Tianyin’s hand.
Nothing more.
Just her hand resting gently in hers.
“I’ll always be here.”
The fragment slowly faded.
And as the mist closed around it once more…
Yanlong heard what remained.
The words Tianyin had carried within herself ever since that day.
Hidden somewhere no one had ever looked.
She promised she’d always be there.
But she left.
And ever since that day…
I’ve been alone.
Yanlong didn’t move for a very long time.
The rebellious princess.
The one who disobeyed simply because she enjoyed it.
Who challenged every rule because she could.
Because she wanted to.
Because she believed the entire world belonged to her.
He had been wrong.
That shell.
The provocations.
The insolence.
The chin that never lowered.
The gaze that never yielded.
None of it was arrogance.
It was what remained…
After learning to endure everything alone.
It was armor.
Forged one slap at a time.
One silence at a time.
One wardrobe at a time.
Deep down…
Tianyin wasn’t a spoiled girl.
She was a wounded girl…
Who had refused to break.
Then the final memory returned to him.
Not hers.
Theirs.
The carriage.
The defiant look in her eyes.
And himself…
Cold.
Deliberate.
“I will never love you.”
Within that memory…
He noticed something he had completely missed before.
For the briefest instant—
Barely a heartbeat—
Tianyin’s eyes had shimmered.
Before the mask returned.
Before she answered him with that razor-sharp smile that revealed nothing.
Perhaps…
I went too far that day.
The thought crossed his mind before he could stop it.
He didn’t dwell on it.
There wasn’t time.
The mist slowly began to fade.
At first…
Gradually.
Then all at once.
Like a curtain being violently torn away.
And what he saw…
Made his blood run cold.
The Ancient Tree.
It towered at the center of a dark, raging abyss, overlooking a bottomless void whose walls quivered like living flesh.
Its roots plunged into the darkness below.
Enormous.
Twisted.
Black as charred coal.
Its trunk was carved with thousands of faces barely visible beneath the bark.
Women.
Their features frozen somewhere between agony…
And emptiness.
The voices it had absorbed.
The souls it had devoured.
Yanlong drew his sword.
The blade sang through the heavy air, vibrating with an energy that answered the surrounding darkness.
He advanced.
The closer he came, the more the burning mark on his forehead intensified.
The symbol of the Heart Seal pulsed against his skin like a second heart.
A dull, relentless pain reminding him with every step what he stood to lose.
He didn’t slow down.
Then…
He saw her.
Far away.
A faint glimmer within the darkness.
He narrowed his eyes.
The Ancient Tree had completely consumed her.
Her body had fused into the trunk.
Absorbed by the black bark as though the thing had swallowed her alive.
Her arms.
Her torso.
Her legs.
Her entire figure dissolved into the ancient wood.
Only her face remained visible.
Pale.
Her eyes closed.
The peaceful features of someone who had already stopped fighting.
Yanlong felt his jaw tighten.
But on her forehead…
The symbol was glowing.
The same one as his.
Identical.
Pulsing within the darkness like a star refusing to go out.
Slowly turning upon itself.
Casting its light through the mist.
Tearing the darkness apart…
As though it had been waiting to be found.
As though it were saying—
She’s here.
She’s still here.
The mark on Yanlong’s forehead suddenly flared with searing heat.
He tightened his grip on his sword.
And walked toward the Ancient Tree.