The red ink bled through the parchment like fresh blood.

Yan Rui stared at the letter long after its words had sunk into his mind. The gods may forget, but the high court remembers.

He folded it carefully, fingers trembling — not from fear, but from something colder: recognition.

Someone had waited a long time for him to return.

---

That morning, the palace atmosphere shifted.

The Cold Courtyard, once quiet and distant, buzzed with veiled whispers and new faces. Attendants who didn’t belong. Guards in unfamiliar armor. And in the garden, strange incense burned — the kind used only during high court ceremonies.

> “They’re here,” said a voice behind him.

Mo Jue stood beneath the shadow of the serpent tree, arms crossed, his robes darker than usual — black threaded with dull silver.

> “The high court?” Yan Rui asked.

Mo Jue’s jaw tightened. “What’s left of it.”

> “Then why do they walk so freely through your palace?”

> “Because this is their palace too,” Mo Jue replied, voice like stone. “And I may rule by fear, but they rule by memory.”

---

Yan Rui was summoned to the Pavilion of Dusk, a place he had never seen before — carved into the cliffside, overlooking a mist-filled valley where ancient bodies were once said to be thrown.

He expected servants. Guards. Scribes.

But instead, he found only one man seated on a jade throne with no crown.

He was younger than expected — perhaps thirty — yet his presence chilled the air. Hair tied in crimson thread. A pale scar across his lower lip. His robes bore no crest, only a faint outline of a flame coiled by a serpent.

> “You are the oath-bearer,” the man said without preamble.

> “And you are?”

> “Chancellor Xuan.” His voice was slow, deliberate. “The last tongue of the gods.”

Yan Rui said nothing.

Xuan’s eyes narrowed.

> “You carry a soul that once betrayed the divine. You remember it now, don’t you?”

Yan Rui looked him in the eye. “I remember being sacrificed. I remember being loved. And I remember burning.”

> “Then you also remember your crime.”

The room fell silent.

> “What crime?” Yan Rui asked, quieter.

> “You broke the seal,” Xuan whispered. “And taught a god to disobey.”

---

Later that night, back in the Cold Courtyard, Yan Rui confronted Mo Jue.

> “What did I do in my past life?” he asked, standing before the serpent pond.

> “You loved me,” Mo Jue said simply. “That was enough.”

> “That’s not the whole answer.”

Mo Jue turned toward him — and for once, there was no mask in his expression.

> “You led a rebellion inside the Temple itself,” he said. “You convinced others — priests, scribes, even immortals — that the gods were wrong to take lives as offerings.”

> “And then?”

> “And then they made you the next offering. To silence the revolt. And I… let them.”

The words echoed like stone falling into a well.

> “You let them?” Yan Rui’s voice cracked.

> “I wasn’t a god then,” Mo Jue whispered. “Not fully. I was still crawling toward power. And you— you were already burning for a cause.”

Yan Rui stared at him.

> “And now?”

Mo Jue stepped forward, slowly.

> “Now I would burn the world before letting you go again.”

They stood close — not touching, but trembling with everything unsaid.

> “Then tell me this,” Yan Rui whispered. “Who was the serpent before me?”

Mo Jue’s eyes darkened.

> “There was no one. Only silence. Until you.”

---

That night, Yan Rui dreamed again.

But this time, it wasn’t the temple, or fire, or sacrifice.

It was a garden — broken, overgrown, bleeding silver petals.

And in the center stood a statue.

His face.

But the name carved at the base had been scratched out.

---

End of Chapter 9

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