Chapter Text
### Chapter One: The Weight of a Second Chance
He remembered the crushing weight. The splintering of wood and bone. The betrayal in Lan Xichen’s eyes, a wound far deeper than any physical blow. He remembered the final, shuddering breath as the world went dark, as the temple became his tomb.
So why was he now blinking in the bright, unforgiving sunlight of a bustling market street?
Jin Guangyao stood frozen, his mind a chaotic whirlpool of fragmented memories and impossible sensations. The air smelled of roasting chestnuts and fried dough, not of dust and blood. The sounds were of haggling merchants and laughing children, not of weeping and collapse. He looked down at his hands. They were clean, unblemished, clad in simple, coarse-spun robes that were not his own. His hat was gone. His face, he knew, was bare for all the world to see.
A wave of dizzying panic seized him. This was not a dream. The cobblestones beneath his thin shoes were solid and real. The ache in his chest, a phantom echo of his death, was a constant, throbbing reminder. He had to get away, to find a shadowy corner to piece together this madness.
He took a hurried step back, turning to flee into the nearest alley, and collided solidly with someone.
"Hey! Watch where you're—" a familiar, lively voice began, then cut off.
Jin Guangyao’s blood ran cold. He looked up, and his world tilted on its axis. There, standing before him with a bag of lotus pods in one hand, was Wei Wuxian. Beside him, a silent, imposing pillar of white and pale blue, was Lan Wangji. And just a step behind, his expression a familiar storm cloud of perpetual irritation, was Jiang Cheng, Zidian sparking faintly on his finger.
Time seemed to stretch and warp. Jin Guangyao’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. He saw the confusion on Wei Wuxian’s face, the cold, assessing glare from Lan Wangji, the dawning, furious recognition in Jiang Cheng’s eyes.
But it was the young voice from the side that truly sealed his fate.
"Jiujiu? What's—" Jin Ling emerged from behind Jiang Cheng, holding a little painted clay doll. His eyes, so much like his father’s, swept over the scene and landed squarely on Jin Guangyao. The boy’s face paled, then flushed with a mixture of shock and anger. "You!" he breathed, his voice trembling. "You're… you're supposed to be dead!"
There was no time for words, for explanations, for the thousand lies that usually sprang so readily to his lips. There was only the primal, overwhelming instinct to run. He was a ghost, an impossibility, and they were the living who would surely exorcise him.
He spun on his heel, his short legs carrying him with a speed born of sheer terror. He didn't look back, weaving through the startled crowd, the shouts of his name—"Jin Guangyao!" "Stop him!"—fueling his flight. He could hear the commotion behind him, the sound of pursuit.
A hand shot out from a vendor's stall, grabbing for his sleeve. He twisted away, his small stature allowing him to duck under a cart laden with pottery. For a fleeting moment, he thought he might escape, might vanish into the labyrinth of the market.
Then, a shadow fell over him. A large, powerful hand clamped down on his shoulder with the force of an iron manacle. The grip was immovable. He was yanked to a halt so abruptly his feet nearly left the ground. He struggled instinctively, a frantic, futile effort, but the hand only tightened.
And then, to his utter humiliation, he was lifted. His feet dangled a good few inches above the cobblestones. He hung there, suspended in the air like a misbehaving kitten, held aloft by Jiang Cheng, whose face was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
"Going somewhere?" Jiang Cheng snarled, his voice low and venomous.
Jin Guangyao went limp. The fight drained out of him as quickly as it had come. What was the point? He was caught. By the very people who had witnessed his end, who had every reason to despise him. He closed his eyes, the shame of his position warring with the bizarre, dizzying relief of simply being *alive*. He didn't know how. He didn't know why. But as he hung from Jiang Cheng's unforgiving grip, the crushing weight of the temple's rubble was replaced by a new, equally heavy burden: the weight of a second chance he had never asked for, and a future more terrifying than his death had ever been.