A Memory Carved in Ash

Once, this temple had been alive.

The halls had not been empty, the air not so deathly still.

Once, this place had been a sanctuary of learning, of power, of purpose.

The Northern Sky Sect (北天宗) had stood at the peak of 归墟山脉 (Guī Xū Shānmài), its disciples moving through the stone corridors with measured grace, their robes whispering against the polished floors. The scent of incense and old parchment had mingled with the distant ringing of celestial bells. The mountain air had carried the murmur of chants, the clash of steel upon steel, the steady rhythm of a thousand cultivators honing their craft.

Mo Chen had walked these halls as one of them.

He had been young once, not in years, but in belief. He had carried a sword on his back and an oath in his heart. He had trained beneath the watchful eyes of the elders, who had called him the future of their sect.

"You walk the path of the heavens, Mo Chen. One day, you will lead others toward enlightenment."

A lie.

"Strength lies not in the blade alone, but in the spirit that guides it. Temper your heart like fine steel, and your blade will never falter."

A lie.

"When your heart grows heavy, look up. No sky remains stormy forever."

A lie.

"Endure winter patiently, Mo Chen, for spring always follows, and it brings new blossoms."

Lie.

The day the temple burned, Mo Chen had stood at its heart, hands stained crimson and blackened by far more than just ash. He had watched, motionless, as the sanctuary of his youth, the sacred halls that had once echoed with laughter and cultivation chants, became an inferno.

Not by the hands of demons. Not by the blades of outsiders. But by their own treacherous hands.

The flames had come slowly, creeping like poison through the veins of a dying man. They rose from within, sparked by ambition hidden behind gentle smiles, ignited by greed beneath robes that once symbolized purity.

It was betrayal in its cruelest form, not sudden, not shocking, but a slow decay that had festered long before the first spark.

Mo Chen could still hear the echoes of that day:

The clash of swords wielded not against enemies, but against friends and brothers. The cries of disciples, once bound by oaths, now severing them with cold steel. The fear, the rage, the madness, How swiftly devotion turned to violence. How quickly love twisted into hatred.

And of all the memories burned into Mo Chen’s soul, none was more agonizing than those final moments, when the heavens turned away.

His master had fallen first.

Mo Chen could still see it, his shifu’s body crumpling to the temple’s pristine stone floor, blood spilling like ink upon untouched snow.

"Mo Chen," his master had whispered, voice trembling, heavy with sorrow. "The heavens are not as just as we once believed."

Those were his final words.

Mo Chen had long sensed the truth in them, but hearing them spoken with the last breath of the man who had shaped him, it was a wound deeper than any blade could deliver.

And then, her.

She had stood before him, her robes once radiant with celestial light, now darkened with blood.

She had called his name, his real name.

Her voice had been steady. Even as the flames rose. Even as the betrayal closed in.

He had moved to reach her. But he had been too slow.

His hands, the same hands that had sworn to protect, grasped at nothing but empty air.

She had fallen before him, a sacrifice given freely.

For him. For the one who lived when no one else did.

And when the flames had finally receded, When all that remained were ashes and silence, Mo Chen had stood alone.

Not victorious. Not righteous. Simply alone.

The Present -- The Mortal in His Arms

The past bled into the present, curling like cold mist around the edges of his mind.

Mo Chen exhaled, his gaze returning to the girl at his feet.

She should have died.

He should have let her.

And yet, he had lifted a hand, had unraveled the 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) without hesitation. He had acted before his mind had even processed the choice.

Why?

Perhaps it was because she had stumbled into a temple where no one else dared tread. Perhaps it was because she had not begged, had not pleaded. Perhaps it was because, for the briefest of moments, her eyes had burned with something that reminded him of those he had lost.

A mistake. A moment of weakness. One he would soon regret.

Mo Chen knelt, fingers hovering just above her wrist, measuring the faint pulse beneath her skin.

She was alive. Barely.

His lips pressed into a thin line.

It would not be the first time he buried someone in these mountains.

And yet, he did not let go.

Why this time?

His hands found her first at her back and under her knees, lifting her from the ground with effortless ease.

She was light. Too light.

Even through the layers of torn fabric and dried blood, he could feel the frailness of her frame, the sharpness of bone beneath malnourished skin.

Yet, there was a softness to her as well.

Not just in the fragility of her form, but in the warmth that still clung to her, even in unconsciousness.

A mortal’s warmth. Something he had not felt in lifetimes.

Her breath ghosted against his collarbone, weak, uneven. A fever was setting in. He could feel it even through the fabric of his robes.

A strand of dark hair slipped loose from its braid, brushing against his wrist, fine as silk, tangled from wind and struggle.

The scent of blood and rain clung to her, yet beneath it, there was something else.

Something unfamiliar. Something forgotten.

His grip did not falter, but something uneasy stirred within him.

She should not be here. She should never have reached this mountain. She should never have grasped his robe. She should never have looked at him with those warm, defiant amber eyes.

And yet, she had.

A mistake. A problem.

One that was now in his arms, bleeding onto the silence of his temple.

_ _

Xu Lian did not wake.

Not on the first day. Not on the second.

She drifted in the liminal space between life and death, trapped in a battle unseen, one waged not with swords, but within the very marrow of her soul. Shadows curled at the edges of her breath, lingering like ghosts that would not let her go.

Mo Chen should have ignored her. Should have left her to fate, untouched, unconsidered.

But he did not.

The temple had been a tomb for centuries, its walls steeped in the silence of those long perished. Cold had settled into the very bones of the structure, a stillness that even time dared not disturb.

Yet now, now, there was something different.

A whisper of warmth. The faintest pulse of heat.

Across the chamber, a lone brazier smoldered, its embers a slow, rhythmic breath of gold and crimson. Two more, dragged from storage long forgotten, stood sentinel at her bedside, rusted iron forms, their flames flickering against the stone walls like spectral lanterns in an endless dusk.

It had been an eternity since warmth last graced the temple’s ancient stones.

Yet now it did.

And despite himself, he adjusted the folds of her blanket when the night’s chill crept too close.

His fingers brushed against the fabric, too lightly to be called care, yet too deliberately to be called indifference.

It was not her he thought of.

No, his mind wandered to something far more distant, to a time when fire and blood ruled the heavens.

Once, long ago.

A memory loomed at the edges of his mind, fragmented, fleeting, like the remnants of a dream torn away at dawn.

A figure bathed in scarlet. A voice lost to time. A name whispered on the wind, only for the heavens to steal it away.

A name the world had erased. A name the gods had forsaken. Yet a name his soul had never forgotten.

And now, as he sat in the dim glow of dying embers, that name returned--- Not in sound. Not in certainty. But in the aching hollowness it left in his chest.

Mo Chen had long since forgotten what it meant to wait for someone.

And he did not like it.

The Amulet

On the third day, he found the amulet.

Mo Chen had not been searching for it.

He had only meant to change the damp cloth at her forehead, to ensure she was still breathing. But when he shifted the tattered remains of her outer robes, his fingers brushed against something cool beneath the fabric, smooth, solid, ancient.

Jade.

His hand paused.

He stilled, listening to the silence, as if the very air of the temple had taken note of this moment.

Then, with deliberate care, he pulled it free.

The 辟邪 (Bìxié) jade rested in his palm, dark green and old with years of wear. The weight of it was familiar, not merely in the way of fine craftsmanship, but in the way that something from the past grips the present.

Not a common traveler’s possession. Not something she should have.

The jade bore the faint carving of a mythical beast, its sinuous body curled in motion, fierce yet graceful.

A Bìxié, a celestial guardian of old.

A creature meant to ward off evil, dispel corruption, and safeguard those who carried it.

But this was no mere talisman for good fortune.

This was an heirloom. A relic.

Mo Chen’s fingers brushed over the carving, tracing the softened ridges. The jade was worn, polished by years of touch, as though someone had carried it always, pressing it between their fingers in thought, in grief, in prayer.

He turned it over.

There, along the back, faint but unmistakable, was an inscription.

Or rather, what remained of one.

Mo Chen’s brow furrowed. The delicate characters, once carved with precision, were nearly eroded with time. The strokes had faded, the name incomplete, blurred at the edges by age and wear.

But something about it was familiar.

His breath slowed.

His grip on the amulet tightened ever so slightly.

The memory did not come--- Yet something within him stirred.

An echo. A whisper. A thread pulled from the depths of a past he had long buried.

His mind reached for it instinctively, seeking the name, the shape of it, the voice that might have once spoken it aloud.

But the answer remained just beyond his grasp, Shrouded in the haze of time.

Frustration flickered through him, brief but sharp.

This was a mistake.

He should not be standing here, fingers pressed against something that belonged to another life, another world.

He should not be feeling anything.

And yet,

His gaze drifted back to the girl.

She had not stirred.

The fever had not yet left her, but she breathed easier now.

The color had returned to her lips, her skin no longer the deathly pallor it had been on the first night.

The braziers had warmed the chamber, dispelling the chill that had settled into her bones, though Mo Chen had no reason to know this, no reason to care.

And yet.

She had this amulet.

This 辟邪 jade, carved with the sigil of protection, of defiance against corruption, against destruction.

It should not be here. She should not be here.

Mo Chen ran his fingers over the jade once more, this time slower, as if daring it to reveal its secrets.

The past did not speak--- But it did not need to.

The weight of it in his palm was answer enough.

Had she come here seeking death?

Or had she, unknowingly, come here to disrupt his?