“They’re them.” The moment Feng Yuqin’s eyes landed on the portraits, an inexplicable warmth settled in her chest, a familiarity that would not let go.
The Sect Master of Shenyue watched her fixate on the images and said, “I imagine you must be closely tied to these two.”
Several elders nearby studied her just as intently. Even without the portraits, her face alone made it hard to believe she wasn’t connected. More than that, the way she had arrived had convinced them: only one with the bloodline of those benefactors could come through the secret stone forest’s formation. Otherwise, it was just an ordinary grove—no passage, nothing special.
“Do you know where they are?” Feng Yuqin asked. There was no trace of hostility or danger in the air around the sect members—only an odd flutter of anticipation, as if they had been waiting for her for a long time.
“Of course…” The Sect Master led her alone into the chamber. The room held nothing but a circular teleportation array set flush into the floor.
“This is the array they left behind,” he said.
Feng Yuqin peered at the pattern, puzzled. “There’s no energy at all.”
“They said only a child of their blood could awaken it,” the Sect Master replied.
“Did they leave any other message?” she asked.
“When you activate the array, everything you need to know will appear,” he said.
Feng Yuqin walked forward. “Do any of you sense danger from this formation?” she asked aloud, glancing to the spirit companions hovering in the space—Soul-ice shook her head; Little Gold and Little Shade were equally calm.
She stepped onto the circle and pressed a thumb to the carved runes, letting a drop of her blood fall into the center. The formation flared and hummed. Before the Sect Master could say more, she turned to him. “Thank you.”
“It’s what I should have done years ago.” Relief crossed his face. For decades that guilt had sat heavy in him; finally, he could do something for the people who had once saved them.
The array swallowed Feng Yuqin’s silhouette in a ripple of light. When the glow faded, she stood in a palace hall. A shifting light-screen on the far wall resolved into the images of a man and a woman.
He looked about thirty, draped in white like a celestial exile. She had a doll-like face and wore white as well—delicate, otherworldly, devastatingly beautiful. Together they were a picture of impossible grace.
Memories—fragments from the portraits—clicked into place in Feng Yuqin’s mind. A voice, distant but unmistakable, called her name. “A-qin…”
“You truly are our child,” Feng Tianhua said, a tone threaded with pride and disbelief. “You’ve progressed faster than we dared hope.”
Beside him, Xi Zhiyue’s eyes were wet. She stared at Feng Yuqin as if willing her back through the veil. “My child… my daughter…” Her voice broke.
Feng Yuqin stepped closer to the light. Her voice was steady even as her heart raced. “Father? Mother?”
The man’s gaze softened. “This is but a sliver of our soul, A-qin. It cannot hold for long. I will be brief.”
He told her then what she had been—what she still was. She had been born to the Phoenix Clan of Tianxuan Mountain in the Divine Realm, a favored daughter of their house, but fate had torn her away to the Lower Continent. Her soul had been fragmented; part of it had been transported to another world, and what remained clung to life among the Phoenix until it nearly dissipated.
The explanation came steady but sorrowful. Her former life had been undone by treachery—at the very least, the child promised to Feng Pingqiu and Yan Aojun had died before birth, a death plotted by those who should not have wished it. Feng Yuqin’s own soul had been hollowed; only pieces of memory and power remained.
There were names and consequences. Mu Weizhu and her family had been punished by the Phoenix Clan and cast down to the Arid Dragon Continent, their strength and recollections stripped. They had been both perpetrators and victims of a long chain of retribution—linked to Feng Yuqin’s fate. Even after reincarnation, those with corrupt hearts would always collide with her. Old enmities, it seemed, had been baked into the world.
Feng Tianhua admitted that restoring her had cost them dearly. “We were judged,” he said. “We are sealed within the forbidden grounds of Tianxuan Mountain for a hundred years.”
A hundred years. The number struck Feng Yuqin harder than she expected, a heavy, cold thing. “A hundred years for you to be freed?” she asked, unsure what to feel.
There was a pause. Then he added, “There is another way.”
Xi Zhiyue’s fear flitted across her face. “Husband—” she began, as if to stop him.
Feng Yuqin met their eyes. “Whatever it is, tell me.”
“You must ascend to become an Ascendant God.” Feng Tianhua’s voice was calm but grave.
Feng Yuqin frowned. “What is an Ascendant God?”
“When you reach the Juyuan stage—when you consolidate your core and gather your primal energy—your spirit companion, the Phantom Phoenix, will awaken and tell you everything,” he explained. The Juyuan stage, the phase of cultivation where one stabilizes and concentrates their core essence, was the key.
“You’re not strong enough yet. The spirit companion’s memory is sealed,” he continued. “As you grow, those sealed memories will return—what we bound will unravel. But your blood… it must never be exposed. If others learn what you carry, they will covet it, and history will repeat itself.”
“You mean they would come for me, like before?” Feng Yuqin finished for him.
Feng Tianhua nodded, then spoke of the Divine Realm and of Tianxuan Mountain—of things he had permission to share and things he did not. He gave her all he could.
“A-qin, cultivate well,” he said, a father’s weary plea threaded with pride, worry, and a tenderness that ached in the space between them.
Xi Zhiyue’s tears flowed freely now. “You must protect yourself,” she sobbed. “Promise me—promise us.”
Feng Yuqin looked at the flickering faces, at the two souls who had sacrificed everything to bring her back. She felt the weight of names and debts settle on her shoulders, and beneath it, a stubborn, fierce resolve kindled.
“I will,” she said.