Chapter Text
The damp chill of the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods had long since stopped biting at my skin. When Jun Wu played his final card, trapping my body in an eternal, frozen stasis, he had smiled with that terrible, parental cruelty.
“A curse, Xianle,” he had whispered, his voice echoing with hollow divinity as the stone crawled up my throat, choking out my final screams. “So that your beloved will never return to you. Until he does, you shall remain an unmoving monument for all eternity.”
He knew. The hypocritical emperor knew that San Lang’s soul had been scattered to the winds. He knew the devastating mathematical certainty of his curse: I could only wake if the one I loved returned to my side, but the one I loved was gone, reduced to ash and memories.
For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, I was a living corpse. Feng Xin and Mu Qing, weeping and cursing, had moved my frozen form deep into the cave, hiding my stone-cold body among the countless statues San Lang had carved for me. My eyes were forced wide open, staring at the dark cave ceiling, unable to blink, unable to weep. But inside the prison of my mind, I was screaming. I cursed Jun Wu with every fiber of my being, every shred of my immortal soul. And above all, I yearned.
San Lang. San Lang, please come back. Please.
Until one day... a violent gasp tore from my throat.
Air rushing into my lungs felt like swallowing shards of glass. My limbs trembled, a horrifying, deafening crack echoing through the cavern as layers of ancient stone shattered away from my skin. I collapsed forward, my hands hitting the dirt floor of the cave, my chest heaving as the weight of centuries slid off my shoulders.
I woke up. Huh?
My vision blurred, adjusting to a strange, soft light that didn't belong to a spiritual flame. I was still in the cave, but someone was kneeling right next to me, hovering over me with wide, panicked eyes. My heart stopped.
The man had short, messy black hair tied back into a small, low ponytail. A modern, black leather eyepatch covered his right eye. He wore strange, practical clothes—heavy canvas trousers, sturdy boots, and a pocketed utility vest—looking entirely unlike the ancient world I knew. Yet, his face... it was a face I had memorized over centuries of darkness.
"San Lang...?" I tried to croak out, but my voice was a broken, useless rasp.
He spoke to me immediately. His voice was deep and rich, carrying that familiar, melodic cadence, but the words rushing from his mouth were completely foreign. I couldn’t understand a single syllable. I stared at him, bewildered, terrified, and utterly overwhelmed as tears finally spilled over my eyelids, hot against my raw skin.
Seeing my profound confusion and distress, the man paused. He reached into his pack, pulling out a strange, smooth white pad of paper and a clicking plastic stick. He scribbled something quickly with an awkward, sweeping motion and held it up to my face.
Do you understand me?
My breath hitched. The characters were crooked, horribly spaced, and utterly chaotic. It was the absolute worst calligraphy I had ever seen in my life—a chaotic mess that looked less like writing and more like a chicken scratching at mud. It was a handwriting that belonged to only one soul in the three realms.
Hands shaking violently, I took the writing stick from him. My fingers felt weak, but I managed to press the tip down, writing a single, elegant, trembling word beneath his: No.
The man blinked, staring at my archaic, perfectly balanced script. He took the paper back, a sheepish, familiar grin tugging at the corner of his lips that made my soul ache. He wrote again.
Right. I'm Hua Cheng, sir. I'm an archaeologist and I found you here. You collapsed the moment I touched you. I assumed you were a statue until I touched you—you felt quite human. So tell me, what's a beauty like you doing here in this cave?
A sob caught in my chest. Hua Cheng.
He didn't know who he was. The scattering of his soul must have forced him into the mortal wheel of reincarnation. He had no memory of the Ghost King, of Mount Tonglu, of the silver butterflies, or of me. But his soul... his soul had still driven him across centuries, through history books and excavation sites, straight into this cursed cave, just to touch the stone face of the god he had forgotten. He had broken Jun Wu's eternal curse without even knowing it.
My vision swam with tears as I took the paper. I pressed the tip down, my heart pouring into the ink.
Waiting for you. I was waiting for you.
Hua Cheng read the words. His brow furrowed, a flash of deep, profound confusion crossing his handsome face. He looked at me, his one dark eye searching mine, looking for a ghost of a memory that his mortal brain couldn't grasp. He slowly took the pen back, his movements hesitant for the first time, and wrote:
Do I know you, sir? I'm sorry, but I've never come across someone with your face.
The words pierced through me, breaking my heart into a thousand pieces all over again. He didn't remember. He looked at me as a fascinating historical anomaly. A stranger.
Suddenly, a memory from the eve of our final battle flooded my mind. San Lang had been teasing me, joking about actually marrying me once the world was safe. I had flusteredly told him not to joke about such sacred things, but in a quiet, vulnerable moment, I had asked him if he truly meant it.
I could still hear his ghost-voice echoing in my ears, vibrant and full of unyielding devotion: “I promise, gege. The moment everything is over, the moment those cursed shackles are off your beautiful skin, I will marry you. And we can do it however you want it to be. We can have it done according to Xianle tradition. Anything for my beautiful Dianxia.”
The shackles were gone. The curse was broken. He was here, standing right in front of me. But he didn't know who his Dianxia was.
Wiping the tears from my face with a trembling, tattered white sleeve, I took the paper back. I forced my hand to be steady, writing the lie that cut me to the absolute core.
I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else... someone I dearly love. You look exactly like him. That's why. I'm so sorry.
Hua Cheng took the pad back. He read it, and a look of genuine, gentle sympathy softened his features. The underlying warmth in his gaze hadn't changed at all across lifetimes. He quickly scribbled a reply.
Oh, I'm so sorry about that. But why are you here?
I took the pen one more time, my hand still trembling as I pressed it against the page, keeping the answer as simple as my breaking heart could manage.
I was trapped here.
Hua Cheng tilted his head as he read my reply. He looked at the classical, elegant characters I had written, then looked back up at me, a sharp spark of recognition—or perhaps academic realization—lighting up his eye. He spoke again, his voice dropping into a thoughtful, resonant murmur. I couldn't understand the modern words, but he seemed to realize it, pausing to write down his thoughts once more.
Hm. From the way you write, your language sounds ancient... Question: is your dialect from the Xianle dynasty?
My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the paper, then slowly, hesitantly, nodded my head.
Hua Cheng’s eye widened slightly. He cleared his throat, coughing into his hand as if trying to dig up a piece of buried history he had studied deeply in university. When he opened his mouth again, the foreign, modern words were gone. Instead, he spoke in a slightly stiff, heavily accented, but perfectly recognizable dialect of my long-lost kingdom.
"Right," he said, the ancient words sounding incredibly sweet coming from his lips. He looked at my shaking shoulders, and his expression instantly shifted into one of immediate, intense worry. "Wait. Stay here. I'll get you a blanket. You're shivering, you must be cold."
Before I could even attempt to answer, he was already scrambling toward his large backpack. Even without his memories, even as a mortal archaeologist in a world I no longer recognized, his instinct to protect me, to comfort me, and to keep me safe overrode everything else.
He didn't remember my name, but his soul still knew exactly how to care for me.