Chapter 39 The Man Who Should Have Been Dead
For a long moment, not even the forest dared to breathe.
Lian Hua stood frozen, the rain sliding down her face like cold fingers tracing her grief. Her uncle—her last family—had died buying her escape. She remembered the flames, the screams, the collapse of the spring’s guardian sanctuary.
She had held his hand as his breath faded.
She had buried him with her own trembling fingers.
He couldn’t be alive.
He couldn’t.
But the masked man lifted the bracelet—
her mother’s bracelet—
and the glow pulsed as though answering something unseen.
Something alive.
“You’re lying,” Lian Hua whispered, though her voice shook like a leaf.
“You’re trying to break me.”
Shen Wei stepped in front of her again, shoulders stiff, stance wide and protective.
“Speak clearly,” he growled. “If her uncle lives, prove it. Or I’ll take your mask off your corpse.”
The masked figure didn’t flinch.
Instead, he reached into his cloak and withdrew a second slip of silver paper. He flicked it toward them. It landed in the wet dirt at Shen Wei’s feet.
He bent, snatching it up.
Lian Hua leaned close.
Her breath caught.
There, written in ink she knew as intimately as her own heartbeat, was a line in her uncle’s calligraphy—
bold strokes, slightly uneven where his fingers had always trembled.
It read:
“Do not fear me, Xue’er. I am still watching.”
Her vision blurred instantly.
“No…” she whispered, voice cracking. “This… this can’t be”
Shen Wei wrapped an arm around her shoulders as her knees weakened.
Elder Ming and Dao Lu gasped behind them, horror blooming in their faces.
The masked man spoke again, voice smooth and cruel:
“He lives. But not as he once was.”
Lian Hua’s stomach twisted painfully.
“What did you do to him?” she cried, stepping forward despite Shen Wei’s grip.
The masked figure answered without emotion:
“He pledged himself to the Court. In exchange, we spared his life. He lives now as one of us bound, cloaked, and loyal.”
Lian Hua’s scream was soft but raw, ripped straight from her breaking heart.
Shen Wei’s entire body trembled with fury.
“If you twisted him into a monster”
“He chose survival,” the intruder cut in coldly.
“And he demands your return.”
“My uncle would never!”
“Blood calls to blood,” he said simply.
“And the Spirit Spring calls to its heir, you are the last. You will come.”
Shen Wei stepped forward, dagger raised.
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
The masked man tilted his head slowly, as though considering him like an insect.
“You are brave,” he said, “for someone who cannot even sense what approaches.”
“What approaches?” Shen Wei snarled.
The masked man turned toward the shrine.
“The opening.”
A pulse of sickly silver light suddenly rippled across the shrine’s entrance. The vines recoiled. The stone glowed faintly, as though awakening.
Lian Hua gasped.
“That light That’s Spirit Spring qi.”
Shen Wei steadied her. “How can this shrine be connected to the spring?”
“It’s not,” she whispered. “But the Court uses corrupted fragments to forge gateways. They’ve activated one.”
The masked figure lifted the glowing bracelet but now the glow was being pulled toward the shrine like a thread being drawn tight.
Shen Wei’s eyes widened.
“They’re using your mother’s bracelet to anchor the gateway to you.”
“And once the gateway opens…” Elder Ming whispered slowly, “…the Court could enter our land.”
Dao Lu stepped back in horror.
Shen Wei looked at Lian Hua. “We need to break it.”
She nodded, wiping her tears with trembling fingers.
The masked man let out a quiet, mocking laugh.
“You cannot break what was forged from blood.”
“We’ll see,” Shen Wei snapped.
He lunged,fast,silent,deadly.
But the masked man flicked his wrist and a burst of silver qi struck the ground, exploding outward like a shockwave.
Shen Wei was thrown back, skidding across wet earth.
“Shen Wei!” Lian Hua ran to him immediately, helping him up.
He shook his head, wiping blood from his lip.
“I’m fine,” he muttered, though his dark eyes were burning. “Stay back.”
The masked man lowered his hand, completely unshaken.
“You are outmatched. This is not your fight.”
Shen Wei spat blood.
“It is now.”
The man took one slow step forward.
Then another.
The bracelet in his hand pulsed brighter and brighter until the shrine behind him responded the doorway shimmering like rippling water.
Lian Hua felt her heart being tugged toward it.
It was subtle, but unmistakable a pull on her blood, her bones, her birthright.
She clutched her chest. “I can feel it…”
Shen Wei wrapped his arms around her.
“They’re trying to draw you in.”
“Yes,” the masked man said calmly.
“And if you resist, your uncle will die. Or worse he will come here himself.”
Lian Hua stiffened.
“My uncle… wouldn’t hurt me.”
The masked man’s answer was slow and cruel:
“He serves us. If we command it, he will obey.”
Lian Hua trembled violently.
Shen Wei shook his head fiercely.
“No. Lian Hua, they’re trying to break you. Don’t listen.”
But the masked figure raised a finger.
The shrine’s humming deepened no longer soft.
Now it roared like something awakening after centuries.
And the air split open with a crack like thunder.
From within the shimmering gateway, a hand emerged.
Human,but wrapped in black cloth and bound with metal rings.
Lian Hua’s entire world stopped.
Recognizable.Impossible.
Her voice was a whisper.
“…Uncle?”
The masked man bowed his head slightly.
“He has heard your call.”
Shen Wei stepped in front of Lian Hua instantly.
“Lian Hua, don’t look. It might not be”
But the rest of Shen Wei’s words died.
Because the figure stepped out fully.
Not a stranger,not a monster.
But her uncle or what was left of him.
His face was pale under the faint moonlight, marked by dark sigils. His eyes were clouded, as though another will lived behind them.
He looked at Lian Hua.
And though his body was rigid, his lips parted.
“Xue’er…”
Lian Hua broke.
Her legs gave out.
Shen Wei grabbed her, holding her upright as she sobbed.
Her uncle her protector the man she had mourned was standing before her like a ghost pulled from hell.
But his gaze wasn’t his.
It was hollow.
Controlled.
Bound.
The masked intruder folded his hands behind his back.
“Now, Lián Xue.
Will you come willingly…”
His voice dropped to a cold whisper.
“…or must your uncle drag you into the dark?”
The shrine roared.
Her uncle took a step toward her.
And Lian Hua felt the whole world tilt—