— Don’t touch… Tianyin said firmly, her fingers closing around Yanlong’s wrist to stop him.
He looked up at her, surprised by the sudden firmness of her gesture, then slowly straightened on his horse, his gaze never leaving hers.
Something in her voice, in that unexpected authority, froze him more surely than any hand placed upon him.
— What do you think I want to see?
he asked, with such raw, such intense force that Tianyin was left speechless, no longer knowing how to answer a question that seemed to contain far more than its simple words.
She felt her heart beating faster, unable to tell whether it was anger, embarrassment, or something else, something more unsettling that she refused to name.
The silence that followed was brief—too brief for her to find the strength to respond, too charged for her to grasp its full meaning.
For it was at that precise moment that a wooden spear tore through the air between them, cutting their exchange short, and struck the ground near the rocks.
The instant it landed, it suddenly dried out, as though drained of all its sap, as though struck by an instantaneous curse, the wood cracking before their eyes in a fraction of a second.
Yanlong straightened at once, every one of his senses on alert.
— Prince Yanlong, a deep voice said, almost calm despite the threat it carried.
I’m sorry, but she’s coming with me!
A man stood there, appearing from nowhere, as though he had risen from the sand itself.
He was dressed in black from head to toe.
A wide-brimmed hat topped with a long dark veil completely concealed his face, revealing nothing but a silhouette and a presence that was as unsettling as it was magnetic.
In one hand, he held an umbrella covered in strange, indecipherable patterns, their meaning seeming to defy all mortal logic—symbols that appeared to move on their own whenever one stared at them for too long.
Tiny bells hung all around it, chiming at the slightest movement, like a metallic whisper accompanying each of his gestures, an almost gentle sound announcing a danger far greater than it should have.
— Who are you to dare claim something that doesn’t belong to you?
Yanlong demanded, his voice tense, his horse nervously taking a step backward as though it too could sense the threat hanging in the air.
The man did not answer.
With his other hand, in a movement of terrifying fluidity, he cast out a long whip.
It sliced through the air with a sharp hiss and coiled around Tianyin’s waist before she even had time to understand what was happening, yanking her toward him.
He caught her by the waist—and in that movement, his veil lifted slightly.
For barely an instant.
But it was enough.
Tianyin caught a glimpse of him. Get faster updates on g.com.
And at the same moment, he saw her too.
Their gazes met simultaneously, drawn toward one another despite the urgency of the danger, despite the fear that should have consumed her completely.
It lasted only a fleeting moment, barely a breath, yet she felt something inside her freeze, a strange sense of recognition, as though she had seen that gaze somewhere before, perhaps in another life.
— Let me go!
she finally cried, finding her voice again as she struggled with all her strength against the whip’s hold.
But the man tightened his grip around her wrists, immobilizing her with a precision that betrayed long experience with this kind of capture, as though he had done it a thousand times before, without ever taking pleasure or displeasure in it.
— Lingzhi!
Yanlong called, his voice cracking like an unquestionable command.
Lingzhi then appeared from the air in a flash, slicing through the sky toward him from wherever she had been resting, and rushed alone at the stranger, severing the relentless whip that held Tianyin.
It fell to the ground with a dull thud—and Tianyin realized in horror that it was not an ordinary whip at all, but a long serpent, now cut in two, its coils still writhing in spasms, its dark flesh gleaming with an almost metallic sheen beneath the fading light.
The sword did not stop there.
It suddenly multiplied into several spectral blades that came to surround the veiled man, forming a circle of shimmering metal ready to close around him at the slightest movement, each blade vibrating with contained energy, poised to strike.
— Shen Wuye… you?
Yanlong murmured, his voice filled with stunned disbelief and an old anger, as though he had recognized the man the instant he caught sight of the umbrella adorned with its impossible patterns.
After all this time… so it is you who dares show yourself.
— I’m sorry, my friend… the man beneath the black veil replied, his voice tinged with a regret that seemed sincere despite everything, almost weary, like that of a man who had long since resigned himself to playing a role he had never chosen.
— Sorry?
Yanlong repeated, an bitter smile twisting his features.
You dare call yourself sorry?
When you’re about to take her away right before my eyes?
Shen Wuye said nothing.
His silence spoke louder than any explanation, as though he carried a burden no words could ever lighten.
Without waiting any longer, he reached for his belt and pulled out a black powder resembling fine sand.
With a breath, he scattered it around himself.
At once, a thick whirlwind of black sand rose, swirling with sudden violence, engulfing him and Tianyin in an opaque veil impervious to Lingzhi’s blades, which struck uselessly against the whirling barrier without managing to pierce it.
— Tianyin! Get faster updates on g.com.
Yanlong shouted, trying to break through the wall of sand, but it seemed to absorb every attempt, every flash of light, every cry.
He seized Tianyin against himself as the whirlwind swallowed them.
For a moment, in that swirling darkness, she found herself pressed against his veil—and finally saw him, his face uncovered, hidden from every other gaze yet revealed to hers, as though the sand itself had wanted to make room for this encounter.
He was breathtakingly beautiful.
Even more so than Mo Yin.
A beauty that could easily rival Yanlong’s own, as though fate delighted in placing increasingly unsettling faces in her path, as if determined to lose her within a labyrinth of gazes and mysteries.
She had no time to examine his features any further before, with one final breath of black sand, the two of them vanished, leaving behind only a heavy silence and the severed serpent, motionless on the ground, the sole silent witness to what had just happened.
Yanlong remained motionless for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the empty spot where she had been standing only seconds before.
The wind that had carried the sandstorm seemed to fall silent all at once, leaving behind an almost unbearable stillness.
Then a thought imposed itself upon him, as certain as a sentence:
She must be at the Jiuye Abyss.
Where Shen Wuye’s entire family lay—transformed into wax statues for eternity because of him.
An ancient sin, born from having once fallen in love with the daughter of the King of the Northern Sands.
That love had destroyed him: betrayed by the woman he cherished, his entire clan had paid the price for his heart, condemned to remain walled away forever, frozen in waxen stillness, without end, without hope, silent statues watching over a pain that would never fade.
Since that day, Shen Wuye had sworn never to love again—and yet, Yanlong thought bitterly, here he was, returning, his veil lifted for the span of a heartbeat before the face of a stranger who had fallen from the sky.
He gathered the reins, ready to race toward the Abyss without another moment’s delay, his mind already wholly consumed by the journey he was about to undertake, when a voice stopped him dead.
— Yanlong!
The Grand Tutor Cangsong stood there, his face marked by age, and without another explanation, he threw an object through the air toward him.
Yanlong caught it with a swift movement—a package carefully wrapped in thick cloth, its weight and shape suggesting something ancient, precious, perhaps dangerous, something that seemed almost to vibrate between his hands.
— What is… he began, but the Grand Tutor’s gaze cut him off before he could finish his question.
— Only use it in case of absolute necessity!
the Grand Tutor said simply, his grave expression leaving no room for doubt as to the seriousness of his warning.
Yanlong held the package tightly against himself, feeling the weight of yet another mystery pressing upon his shoulders, that thick cloth concealing who knew what weapon, spell, or forgotten relic the Grand Tutor deemed dangerous enough to be summoned only on the brink of disaster.
He was not a man to ask too many questions when time was of the essence, so he fastened the package against himself, close to his heart, as though to better feel its presence with every stride of his horse.