Seven years ago, Shen Liufeng made a choice.
He still dreams of it.
In his nightmares, the Cold Ash River is endless. Lin Xiyan's figure stands in the water, unmoving, eyes wide with betrayal. Shen wants to run to him, to shout that it wasn't what it seemed, that he had no choice.
But in the dream, he always turns away.
He always leaves.
And every time, he wakes with his heart clawing against his ribs, like it's trying to tear itself free.
In the quiet of his chambers, he reaches under the floorboards.
There, wrapped in plain cloth, lay a sword—Lin Xiyan's sword. The hilt worn smooth from years of use. The tassel still knotted with a thread of pale blue silk.
He had gone back to that river after the ambush. Bloodied. Lost.
He hadn't expected to find anything.
But the sword had still been there, half-buried in the frozen mud, like it was waiting.
He fell to his knees when he saw it.
And for the first time since he was a child, he cried.
Not the loud, broken sobs of someone begging the heavens.
But the silent kind. The kind that burns behind the eyes and tastes like iron on the tongue. The kind that makes your body shake without a sound.
He clutched the sword to his chest and stayed there until dawn, whispering Xiyan's name like a prayer and a curse all in one.
In the years after, he became a ghost of the man he used to be.
He wandered the martial world without purpose, taking on deadly missions no one else would. Not because he wanted to be a hero.
Because he wanted to die.
But fate refused him that mercy.
Every time he stepped into danger, something pulled him back. A memory. A voice. A face.
Lin Xiyan's face.
The same face that now stood before him again, seven years later.
Alive.
Cold.
Distant.
Not the boy Shen remembered.
And why would he be?
Shen had killed him—if not in body, then in heart.
Now, as he held the sword in his hands once more, he traced the faded engraving on the blade: 「夕言」—Evening Words.
He closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I should have stayed."
The sword didn't answer.
But somewhere in the silence, he imagined he heard Lin's voice again.
"This time… don't leave me again."
And Shen wept.