The sky cracked open like a dropped plate.
A beam of black-silver light shot downward, punching a hole through the clouds above Qinghe village. For a heartbeat the hole showed stars — then it sealed, leaving only a swirl of hot wind and the smell of burnt sky.
In the centre of the village square, the wind settled.
Where light had struck, a boy now stood — sixteen, barefoot, wearing a simple grey robe that did not belong to this age. His eyes were black mirrors, reflecting nothing. On his chest bloomed a lotus mark, faintly glowing like cooled embers.
Lin Yan had returned.
But the boy who came back was not the one who left.
The villagers found him at dawn. They whispered his name, unsure whether to bow or run. They remembered him as the orphan who vanished into the mountains three years ago — and the mountains, everyone knew, ate what they took.
Now he walked among them like a ghost who had learned to breathe again.
"Who are you?" asked an old woman.
He smiled, gentle but wrong. "Someone who used to be Lin Yan."
By nightfall, the lotus began to whisper again.
"You severed Death. You broke Time. And now you dare to live?"
He ignored it at first. He washed his face in the river, watched the ripples bend his reflection. His heartbeat was steady — too steady. The lotus pulsed in rhythm, like a second heart stitched into his chest.
"You think you are free? You think Heaven grants gifts without teeth?"
"Enough," he muttered, voice trembling. "I ended you."
"You ended laws, not me."
The voice slid through his veins like smoke. He felt his skin crawl. Every breath he took belonged partly to something else — something watching from inside, patient as rot.
He fell to his knees, clutching his chest. The mark burned.
When he woke, he was no longer by the river.
He stood in a white room without walls, without floor, without shadow. Time did not exist here. Every heartbeat echoed forever.
Across from him floated the Black Lotus, full-bloom, its petals made of shifting memories — his deaths, Mira's smile, Kai's eyes behind the mask, the wall, the clock, the pain.
It spoke with his own voice.
"Why do you fight me? We are the same cut. You are the wound, I am the scar."
Lin Yan clenched his fists. "You used me."
"I shaped you. Without me, you were clay waiting to dry. I gave you form, purpose, hunger."
"You turned me into a weapon."
"And weapons survive longer than men."
The words stung. Because he remembered the labyrinth, and how many times he'd died before he learned to stop dying. He had killed mercy to build willpower. He had silenced fear to find focus. Every strength he owned bore the lotus's fingerprint.
"You don't want freedom," said the lotus. "You want control. You want to choose who breaks you."
"I want peace."
"Then die."
The Negotiation
He took a slow breath. "What do you want?"
"To finish what we began. You've cut four laws. Only one remains. The Wall. Break it, and the heavens fall. Then we are whole."
"And if I refuse?"
"You will rot in this borrowed body. The world outside will forget you again. Every second you breathe, I'll drink."
Lin Yan looked down. The white floor beneath him rippled — not marble but memory. Images surfaced — Wan-Er offering the peach bun, Mira turning to ash, Kai's hour-glass breaking. Their faces blurred, flickered, faded.
"They are gone," whispered the lotus. "Only I stay."
"No," he said softly. "You're just the echo of what I've lost."
He raised his head. "You feed on pain. I've learned to live with it."
The lotus paused, petals flickering uncertainly. For the first time, it seemed to hesitate.
"You think endurance is victory?"
"I think remembering is."
The space darkened. The lotus split open like an eye. Inside it, he saw himself — a thousand versions, each twisted differently.
One wore a crown of bone. One knelt amid corpses. One burned a city made of clocks. One smiled as he crushed a lotus between his teeth.
"These are your possibilities," the lotus whispered. "Pick one. Or I'll pick for you."
He stared. Each reflection offered power, peace, perfection — lies dressed as destiny.
Then he noticed something small.
At the very edge of the mirror, a faint image — a boy sitting under a peach tree, dirt on his hands, watching the sunrise. No power, no lotus, no laws. Just quiet.
"That one," he said.
The lotus flinched. "That is not strength."
"It's choice."
The mirrors shattered. Shards flew outward, slicing through the white room. Light poured from the cracks — pure, blinding.
Breaking the Link
Pain hit like lightning. The lotus screamed, not with words but with centuries of hunger. It tried to crawl back into him, wrapping roots around his heart.
He grabbed his own chest, fingers digging in until blood welled.
"Get out," he whispered.
"You need me!"
"Then I'll live needing nothing."
He pulled.
Black light exploded. The mark tore free, a burning flower screaming as it left flesh. The room shook, fracturing into fragments of time and sound.
Lin Yan fell again — but this time he landed hard, on stone, in the real world.
He looked down. His chest was bare, bleeding, but the mark was gone.
For the first time since the Misty Peak, he could not feel the lotus.
Only his heartbeat. Weak, uneven, human.
He laughed — a broken, beautiful sound.
Morning crept over the valley. Birds sang, awkwardly alive. The mountains glowed gold. Lin Yan climbed a ridge and looked at the world he had left behind.
Every blade of grass shimmered. Time flowed right again. The air was real.
Behind him, the village bells rang. People pointed — the boy had returned, and this time the light did not burn.
He turned to face them, but stopped. His vision blurred. Every death he'd survived rushed back, all at once — a wave of memories collapsing inward.
He fell to one knee, gasping.
In that breath between collapse and calm, he heard a whisper — not the lotus, but something older.
"Freedom costs shape. Are you ready to become undefined?"
He didn't answer. He simply breathed. Once. Twice.
Then stood.
Far above the clouds, Heaven watched.
The Laws Lin Yan had broken hung like torn scrolls in the firmament. Death. Time. Void. Identity. All rewritten.
A voice like thunder spoke, unseen:
"He has cut his strings. Shall we erase him or reward him?"
Another voice — calm, amused.
"He cannot be erased. The moment he severed Time, he became untethered. Let him fall. Let him live. Give him a world where he can test what freedom means."
And so, Heaven blinked.
A new star lit up over Qinghe village — then fell, unseen, through folds of space, carrying Lin Yan's sleeping body toward a realm without history, where even gods forgot their names.
He awoke in a field of silver grass beneath twin suns. The air hummed with unfamiliar constellations. Mountains floated upside-down; rivers ran backward into the clouds.
A new world. A new life.
He touched his chest. Smooth. Whole. The lotus gone. Yet somewhere deep inside, beneath the scar, something small and quiet still pulsed — not the lotus, but memory of what it had taught him:
that to be alive is to break and mend, again and again.
He smiled, looked up at the strange sky, and whispered:
"Let's begin from zero."
End of Chapter 8