The room was quiet, save for the boy's even breathing.
Lin Xuan sat by the small window, moonlight casting a silver glow on his thoughtful expression. Liu Yue was nearby, gently adjusting a blanket over her brother.
Breaking the silence, Lin Xuan finally spoke.
"Liu Yue," he said, his tone calm but heavy, "why did the Liu Clan sell you out?"
Liu Yue's hands froze mid-motion. Her eyes dimmed, pain flashing behind them. She looked down, her voice trembling slightly.
"My father… Liu Ren… he was the head of the Liu Clan," she said slowly. "Everything changed after he disappeared two years ago."
Lin Xuan's body stiffened.
Liu Ren.
The name rang inside his mind like a struck bell. He couldn't place it—but it stirred something deep, something buried.
"That name…" Lin Xuan muttered, more to himself than her. "It's familiar to me."
Liu Yue didn't seem to hear him.
"After Father vanished, the Zhi Clan's eyes turned toward us," she continued. "They wanted my father's cultivation art. The one he guarded closely his entire life. When he disappeared, the elders… they broke apart. Unity crumbled. Some of them betrayed us. They said protecting our bloodline wasn't worth the risk."
Her voice cracked, but she went on.
"Two of the elders, Elder Qing and Elder Jiao, they were loyal. They tried to protect us when the betrayal came. They… they died buying us time to escape."
Lin Xuan's expression didn't change—but his fists clenched beneath his sleeves.
Another powerful clan corrupted by greed. Another tale of loyalty discarded.
"And the art?" he asked.
Liu Yue nodded hesitantly. "My mother kept it hidden. No one's been able to understand it."
Moments later, her mother entered the room—a graceful but tired woman with eyes that had seen too much. She handed Lin Xuan a scroll bound in crimson thread.
"This is the cultivation art," she said. "I don't know why Liu Ren valued it so much. But he told me… if anything happened to him, we were to protect this above all else."
Lin Xuan accepted the scroll with a small bow. The weight of it felt greater than the parchment and ink.
As he turned to go, the woman added quietly, "Be careful. Many have tried to understand it. All failed."
Lin Xuan returned to his room. He laid the scroll across the table, lit a single candle, and stared at the name etched into the corner of the cover: "Scripture of Severed Unity."
He didn't open it yet.
Instead, he sat on the floor, leaning against the cold wall, lost in thought.
Liu Ren… why does that name sound so familiar to me?
It gnawed at the edge of his memory. A shadow on the edge of recognition. A piece of himself—forgotten.
The candle flickered. The night grew deep.
And Lin Xuan's journey quietly shifted, no longer just one of power or vengeance…
…but of answers.
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