Dawn broke like a bruise across the sky—swollen, ugly, and sore. The light that spilled over the horizon was not golden, nor warming. It was the pale hue of something sick trying to pretend it was still alive.
Li Zhen walked.
The ruined village behind him grew smaller with each step, swallowed slowly by the rolling hills and crooked trees that lined the narrow path eastward. The sword lay across his back now, strapped with a cord of hemp torn from the remnants of a burned stable. The talisman Jianye had given him hung at his waist, still and silent. For now.
His breath fogged in the morning chill.
And yet, there was no true cold.
No true warmth either.
Only the haunting neutrality of a world abandoned by contrast.
"You're quiet," the sword said after a long time.
"So are you."
"I speak when your silence becomes dangerous."
He didn't respond.
His legs moved, but his mind wandered. Every step seemed to echo. Not just in the dirt beneath him, but in his thoughts. Each footfall like a reminder that this was real, that he was alive. That his body moved because something unseen had given it permission to do so.
And that was what unsettled him the most.
It wasn't the lack of memory.
It was the certainty that something had brought him back for a reason he had no part in choosing.
His hand touched the hilt of the sword—not to draw it, just to feel it. To prove it was there.
A bird cried overhead. Sharp. Singular.
He looked up, just in time to see it vanish into the clouds.
And then—
Everything changed.
Without warning. Without sound. Without transition.
One blink.
He was no longer walking.
He was standing. Somewhere else.
A courtyard.
It was raining, but the rain was red.
Blood.
He turned his head slowly, and there he was.
He—but not him. Not quite.
A version of himself, dressed in ceremonial robes soaked in crimson, holding a sword that wept blood.
All around, bodies. Dozens. Maybe more.
Faces twisted in shock. In betrayal.
He tried to step forward, but his legs wouldn't move. He was trapped in the vision—an observer in his own past.
Then the voice came.
Not the sword.
A woman's voice.
Faint. Mournful.
"You could have chosen peace."
The figure turned.
She stood at the edge of the massacre—eyes hollow, throat slit.
Yet she spoke.
"You chose memory over mercy."
The scene shattered like glass.
Reality came back with a jerk—Li Zhen falling to one knee, gasping for breath.
His palms were bloody.
He looked around frantically. He was back in the forested path. Alone.
No rain.
No corpses.
But the blood on his hands was real.
"The blade remembers more than it should," the sword whispered.
"What was that?"
"A sliver. A shard. You walked into a piece of your past not buried deep enough."
"She said I chose memory over mercy."
"You did. Often."
He stood shakily, wiping his hands on the moss beneath him.
"How many people have I killed?"
"Enough that you stopped counting long before your last breath."
A scream pierced the air.
Li Zhen's head snapped toward the sound.
Not far. Not imagined.
This one was real.
He sprinted toward it.
He found the boy in a clearing—cornered by three men in patched robes, each wielding short blades curved for dismemberment rather than war.
Bandits.
The kind drawn to weak places and fractured times.
The boy was maybe ten. Dirty, shivering, bleeding from a gash across his leg.
The bandits laughed as they toyed with him.
Li Zhen stepped into the clearing without a word.
All three turned at once, blades rising.
The man closest to him sneered. "This ain't your busi—"
He didn't finish.
Li Zhen's sword was already out.
The cut was clean.
The man fell in two pieces before his brain could process fear.
The others didn't speak. They charged.
Li Zhen danced through them like wind through fire.
One stroke. Two.
He didn't think.
Didn't hesitate.
The second died with his eyes still open.
The third tried to run.
Li Zhen didn't let him.
When it was over, the forest was still again.
The boy stared at him in silent terror.
Li Zhen sheathed the blade slowly. "Can you walk?"
The boy nodded.
"Then go."
"Wh—where?"
"Somewhere away from here."
The boy didn't wait for more.
He fled.
Li Zhen turned back toward the trees, but didn't move.
He stared at the corpses.
Not with regret.
But with detachment.
Like an artist revisiting old brushstrokes.
"You killed them to save the boy."
"I did."
"But you enjoyed it."
Li Zhen closed his eyes. "Maybe."
"Because killing is the only thing you remember doing well."
He didn't argue.
He couldn't.
Because deep down, something inside him had felt it—the echo of control, of absolute certainty in those moments.
The sword hummed. Not pleased. Not scolding.
Just acknowledging.
"You cannot fix a self by returning to it."
"I don't even know what I'm returning to."
"Then stop chasing. Let the past rot."
"I can't. Not until I know why I came back."
"Then be ready to lose what little of yourself you've gathered."
He made camp by a crooked stream that night.
No stars overhead. No moon.
Only stillness.
He didn't sleep.
Instead, he stared into the water, and saw not his reflection—but dozens.
Each flickering like candle flames.
Each version of himself.
Some weeping.
Some laughing.
One—a version with no eyes—was screaming.
And in the center of them all:
A child.
Young. Innocent. Carrying the same sword.
Bleeding from a wound in his chest.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came.
Only silence.
And Li Zhen whispered back.
"I don't remember you. But I think I miss you."
The child nodded once.
And vanished.