The night deepened, but the Xu estate did not sleep.
Though the attack had been swiftly repelled, the atmosphere remained thick with tension. Guards doubled their patrols. Servants whispered behind closed doors. The head steward quietly ordered for every window to be bolted and lanterns to remain lit until sunrise. A silence fell over the compound—not the peaceful silence of rest, but the breathless kind that came before a storm.
Xu Wenyan sat beneath the peach tree in the east courtyard, away from his chambers and the worried murmurs of his family. His hand rested loosely on the hilt of his blade, his posture still and upright. Dew gathered on the grass beneath him, catching the moonlight like tears on glass.
His mind was far from still.
He should have felt exhausted. His body ached faintly from the fight, and the cut on his arm throbbed with a dull pulse. But sleep was impossible. His thoughts raced with images of the masked warrior—her blade slicing through the air, the quiet poise in her stance, the echo of her words.
"You shouldn't have died tonight."
Why? What did she mean by that?
And the way she moved. It wasn't just skill. It was familiar.
Wenyan's brows drew together.
He had trained with some of the finest martial instructors his father could find. He knew the difference between raw strength and cultivated finesse. But the masked woman had wielded her body like a brush, each movement deliberate and layered with meaning. She wasn't just a warrior. She was someone used to commanding life and death.
And still… he had the absurd feeling he had known her. Not in this life—but deeper. In the marrow of his bones.
He leaned back against the trunk of the peach tree, head tilted toward the stars. A breeze stirred the petals above him. One drifted down, brushing his cheek. He caught it in his hand. Pale pink. Soft. Fragile.
Like a memory that refused to return.
"Yelan," he whispered again.
He didn't know where the name came from, but it lingered on his tongue like the scent of incense in an empty hall—faint, but impossible to forget.
---
Morning came slowly, creeping over the mountains like a waking beast.
By sunrise, the household was back in motion. Wenyan's younger sister, Xu Yuelin, danced barefoot through the inner courtyard with ribbons in her hand, giggling despite the lingering shadows of the night. His younger brother, Xu Zhiheng, was already sparring with one of the guards, mimicking Wenyan's movements with awkward enthusiasm.
Their parents watched from the pavilion. Madam Xu, elegant even in her simple robe, sipped tea while Lord Xu Tianlong remained silent, his gaze occasionally drifting toward Wenyan.
The patriarch of the Xu family had once been a force to reckon with—a famed general whose name had made entire clans think twice before drawing their blades. But he had retired early, giving up the sword for politics in the provincial courts. Age had softened his appearance, but not his instincts.
When Wenyan finally entered the pavilion, his father raised a brow.
"You didn't sleep."
It wasn't a question.
"No," Wenyan replied simply.
A pause.
"Sit," his father said.
He obeyed. A servant poured him tea, but he didn't drink. His fingers curled around the cup like a man grasping at control.
Tianlong studied his son. "What do you remember about your childhood?"
Wenyan blinked. "What?"
"I asked what you remember. Before we settled here. Before the mountains and rice fields."
Wenyan hesitated. The question was so sudden, so jarring, it threw him off balance.
"I... remember some things. Not everything."
"Tell me."
Wenyan looked away, watching the sunlight filter through the gauzy curtains.
"I remember fire," he said slowly. "Running. Cold nights. But it's all like pieces of a dream. They don't fit together."
Tianlong nodded slightly, as if he had expected this.
Madam Xu set her tea down gently. "Do you remember the illness?"
"Illness?"
"You had a fever," she said softly. "When you were ten. It burned for three days. You nearly died."
Wenyan frowned. "No. I don't remember that."
"You changed after that," she continued. "You didn't smile as much. You forgot the names of your cousins. You forgot the song your nursemaid used to sing."
He stared at her.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"We did," Tianlong said. "You just didn't believe us. And after a while, it no longer seemed to matter."
Wenyan stood suddenly. The movement wasn't angry—but it was sharp. Like a blade returned to its sheath a moment too soon.
"I'm going to the archives."
---
The Xu family's private archives were buried in the west wing of the estate, behind heavy iron doors and layers of dust. Only family heads and heirs had access. Wenyan had visited once, when he was younger, but the scrolls had bored him then.
This time, he came with purpose.
He lit a lantern and descended the narrow stairs, the air growing cooler as he went. The smell of old parchment and cedar filled his nose. Rows of scrolls lined the shelves—family history, regional maps, military treaties. But what he sought wasn't written in ink.
He was looking for absence. For erasure.
He combed through the scrolls for hours, reading names, tracing family trees. Everything before the age of ten was… too clean. Too vague. No childhood drawings. No scribbled notes. Just a small pile of formal reports—doctors' logs, travel permits, a single receipt for medicine bought in the capital.
But one scroll stood out.
It was older, nearly crumbling at the edges. The seal was broken. Inside was a letter, written in his father's hand.
"To whomever may find this,
If he ever asks, tell him the truth. But only if he's ready. Only if the winds have changed and the stars have shifted.
We named him Xu Wenyan because he came to us without memory, like ink upon clean parchment. But sometimes, late at night, I see him staring at the moon like it owes him something. And I wonder if he remembers what he lost."
Wenyan's fingers trembled.
Without memory?
He staggered back from the shelf. His thoughts spun wildly.
Why did they lie?
Why did they name him?
Why did he feel like something inside him wasn't his at all?
He dropped the scroll and ran.
---
That night, the peach tree was in bloom again.
Wenyan stood beneath it once more, but this time he wasn't alone.
His sister had followed him, barefoot and sleepy-eyed, clutching a peach blossom in her hands.
"Gege," she said softly, "are you sad?"
He didn't answer.
She tiptoed closer and placed the flower behind his ear, then smiled up at him.
"You look like the gods in the temple paintings now."
Wenyan laughed—hollow and thin.
"Do you think the gods remember who they were?" he asked quietly.
Yuelin tilted her head. "I think they forget so they can love the world again."
Then, with the innocence only a child could have, she kissed his cheek and skipped away, leaving him alone beneath the blossoms.
---
Far away, in the capital, Crown Princess Qin Yelan stood in the imperial garden, gazing at a mural carved into white jade.
It depicted a man with long dark hair, dressed in robes embroidered with stars, standing beside a peach tree that bled petals like rain. His face had been worn down by time, but the shape of his eyes—sharp, sorrowful, defiant—remained.
She reached out and traced the line of his jaw.
"Xu... Xuanming," she said, tasting the name again.
Her head ached.
Her hand trembled.
Behind her, her chief attendant, Lian'er, stepped forward. "Your Highness, the Grand Astrologer has arrived. He says the northern stars have shifted."
Yelan turned slowly.
"Good," she said. "It's time we visited the temple of forgotten names."