Lan Yue's head, which had been bowed in the cold shadow of despair for an entire, agonizing month, snapped up. Her body, a statue of grief, remained immobile, but her spirit, a guttering candle flame on the verge of extinguishing, roared back to life like a cornered star. Her vacant, grief hollowed eyes, for the first time since that terrible dawn, flared with a new, shocking, and utterly impossible light.
Hope. It was a poison, a promise, a pain sharper than any she had yet known.
Her entire being, every last shred of her diminished power, focused on that single, anomalous flicker in the fabric of reality. The whisper was not a sound from the outside world; it was an event happening inside her. It grew, not in volume, but in presence, unfolding like a celestial lotus from within the very void Xue Lian had left behind. It coalesced, gathering the weight of galaxies and the substance of starlight, until it finally resolved into immense, resonant words that felt like the turning of the universe.
Child of Starlight. Mother of a New Dawn.
The voice was a final, cruel hallucination. The universe was mocking her with the titles she had earned at the cost of everything.
Leave me, she projected, her thought a blade of pure, distilled agony. There is nothing for you here. The story is over. You have had your ending.
The Voice persisted, but its tone shifted with a spiritual whiplash so violent it felt like a physical blow. The cosmic symphony screeched to a halt, replaced by a sound so jarringly, horrifyingly casual it was a profound violation of the sacred silence of her grief.
"Leaving? Oh, honey, we are way past that." The change was a splash of ice water on a frostbitten soul. "Hi, what's up? It's me. The Author."
A wave of pure, unadulterated shock pierced through Lan Yue's apathy. This was it. The careless god. The weaver of fates. The entity Xue Lian had railed against, the architect of her doom. The rage that had simmered beneath her sorrow ignited.
"My bad, gang," the Author's Voice continued, its tone one of cheerful, unconcerned amusement that was the most monstrous sound she had ever heard. "Gotta be honest, the whole 'tragic sacrifice' ending? It was just too entertaining. The angst, the pathos, the sheer, beautiful agony of it all. It was peak fiction, and frankly, I was entertained. Sorry, not sorry. I just have a bit of a god complex. I mean, I am a god, so… it's less of a complex and more of an accurate job description, you know?"
The flippant, grotesque apology for her universe of pain finally shattered the last remnants of Lan Yue's catatonia. A sound tore from her throat, not a scream, but a low, guttural snarl of a celestial being pushed beyond its limits.
Entertaining? she spat, her thought voice shaking with a fury that made the very air in the Orrery tremble. You are a parasite. A carrion god feeding on the love and suffering of those you create. Our lives, our love, our daughter… she will grow up without one of her mothers because you found our pain to be a good show? You are not a god. You are a monstrous, petty child playing with lives you are not worthy of even conceiving.
There was a pause, and for a moment, the Voice seemed to radiate a genuine, almost academic, surprise. Then, a wave of sickening amusement.
"Ooh, feisty. I like it. See? This is what I'm talking about. The grief turning to rage? Classic character development. A beautiful beat. You're a much more compelling protagonist now than you were a month ago, just sitting there."
The condescension was a final insult. Lan Yue gathered what little strength she had left. I am not your protagonist! And she was not a plot device! She was the heart of this world, a will of fire and genius that you, in your lazy, nihilistic pursuit of a cheap tragedy, snuffed out for your own amusement!
The Author's voice, for the first time, lost its goofy affectation, becoming immense, cold, and inexorable again. The jester had removed its mask, revealing the terrifying, impassive face of the divine.
"You speak of that which you do not understand. You were Soul Bound. A bond forged in defiance of fate itself, stronger than any magic I have ever written. If her soul were extinguished… such a bond does not break quietly. It is not a thread that snips. It is a star that goes supernova, annihilating the soul to which it was tethered. You would not be kneeling here, child, railing against your creator. You would have turned to starlight and scattered on the wind at the very moment of her passing. You are two halves of a single whole."
Lan Yue's breath hitched, a sharp, painful sound. Her rage faltered, replaced by a dizzying, terrifying vertigo. Her eyes, dry and burning, finally opened fully, her entire focus turned inward.
"You live. Therefore, she lives."
The words landed not as a statement, but as a verdict that overturned the fundamental reality of her world. It was a lifeline, but it was wrapped in barbs.
You lie, she thought, the accusation weak, desperate. I felt it. I felt the bond sever. I feel the emptiness every moment of every day. It is a wound that will never heal.
The tether did not break, the Author corrected, its tone that of a patient teacher explaining a complex law of physics. It stretched. Across a distance you cannot comprehend. The wound you feel is not the amputation of your soul. It is the strain of a connection stretched across the void between worlds.
Her essence is not here. She used her power to become the Lock. But the key… the soul that is her… that is elsewhere.
The spark of hope, once a fragile flicker, now blazed into a bonfire. "Where?" The thought was a desperate, raw plea, a demand born of an agony that was swiftly transmuting into purpose. "WHERE IS SHE?"
There was a sense of immense, ancient amusement, a sound like galaxies swirling.
"She… out maneuvered me. It's the most fascinating plot twist I've encountered in millennia. She fought me, not with force, but with the sheer, terrifying power of her love for you. She argued. She bargained. She used her knowledge of my own narrative tropes against me... She loved you so fiercely that she carved a loophole in destiny itself. For you. For your daughter. For one, single chance. The Voice seemed almost… impressed. For that… I am inclined to grant it."
The world around Lan Yue shimmered and warped.
"You will go to a world unlike any you have known. A place of cold, hard logic and towering steel, where magic is a forgotten dream. They call it the 21st century. Her soul has been cast adrift there, a seed on barren soil, with no memory of who she was. You must find her. You must win her back. Not with power, for you will have little. Not with commands, for you will have no authority. You must make her remember who she is, and in doing so, remember who you are to her. You must make her love you again, not because a bond compels her, but because her soul, even amnesiac and mortal, cannot help but find its way home to yours."
The Author paused, letting the weight of the task settle before adding the final, crucial condition.
"And if you succeed? If you can truly rekindle that flame in a soul that has been wiped clean? Then you may have your reward. Once you find her soul and she has remembered her love for you, you can go back to this world, if that's what she wants. The words were a casual, devastating caveat. She will have a choice. Her old life of impossible power and cosmic sorrow, or her new one of quiet, blissful ignorance. If not, well… I don't know. It's your choice to remain there with her, I suppose. A goddess in a world that has no gods. How delightfully tragic."
The terms began to crystallize, and with them, a terrifying, absolute rule.
But hear my rule, Child of Starlight, for it is absolute. You may not tell her. You cannot speak of this world, of the Dynasty, of your daughter, of our battle. To speak the truth is to shatter the chance. Her mind, fragile and mortal in that realm, would break... You must only show her. You must only be. You must let her soul discover the truth on its own. Do you agree to these terms?
It was an impossible, torturous task. The rage from before returned, colder and more focused.
You would have me lie to her? Lan Yue challenged, her spirit rising in defiance. You would have me approach the soul of my soul as a complete stranger? To stand before her and not speak of our daughter? That is a torment beyond any you have written before.
It is the only story available, the Author replied, its voice devoid of sympathy. These are the rules of the game. Her love for you must be a rediscovery, not a recitation. So, I ask again. Do you agree to my terms?
To find a single, lost soul in a world of billions. To love without being able to say why. To be a stranger to the one person who made her whole, with no guarantee that she would ever choose to return. It was the cruelest thing she could imagine.
She looked up, her silver eyes, once dull with grief, now blazing with a terrifying, hopeful resolve. She looked at the preserved body, no longer a tomb, but a testament to a love so powerful it had bent the will of a god. Xue Lian had fought the Author for this one, impossible chance. She had not surrendered. She had bargained.
How could Lan Yue do any less?
She drew a shuddering breath. It was a vow not of submission, but of pure, unadulterated purpose, a promise made to the soul of her soul across the void. Her own thought voice rang out, clear and absolute, not as a challenge to the god, but as a statement of incontrovertible fact.
"I'll bring her back."
Then, turning her focus back to the Weaver of Lies, she sealed her fate. "I agree to your terms."
A final, strange ripple of what felt like genuine, ethereal satisfaction emanated from the Author.
Then go.
The world dissolved. The Orrery, the crystal, the battlefield beyond it all bled away into a maelstrom of blinding, silver light. There was no pain, only a sensation of incredible speed, of being unraveled and rewoven. She felt her celestial power, her formidable cultivation, being carefully, meticulously boxed away and sealed deep within her soul, leaving behind only the core of who she was: Lan Yue, a woman on a desperate, impossible quest.
The last thing she felt was not the voice of a god, but the faint, distant, and beloved echo of a laugh she thought she'd never hear again, followed by two final, whispered words that were both a plea and a command.
Find me.
And then, nothing.