act49side

Its... heartbeat.

He went into the Tomb of Sui?!

When?

Two hours ago.

We can talk about the rule-breaking later. The court clearly wants to exclude us, and time is short. What's your plan?

I'm going to help Wang.

I'll go with you.

No.

Why?

He and I will take care of this.

Are you sure?

I'm sure.

He and I have been making plans to eliminate Sui. There is no time to explain the plan right now.

Your presence will not help; it will only increase the risk.

Besides, there's something that I must ask you to do.

Take care of this writing knife.

Your powers should be able to preserve it.

What are you planning? How bad have things gotten?

It will not awaken, not yet. I can promise you this. And so can Wang.

But you...

...Someone will come back.

Either you or him?

I'm coming with you.

No, Jun.

I truly mean no offense. I need to entrust this writing knife to the keeping of someone who is absolutely just and impartial.

If someone with ill intent gets their hands on it... it will do far more damage than the death of a single proxy.

I thought about destroying it. In the end, I felt that it was worth preserving.

The wrongs of the past should be righted, though I do not know at what price... perhaps the writing knife will be of help to you, or to Yan.

Until the day comes when no one can use it anymore.

Don't be like this, Jun.

Maybe I'll come back with Wang.

Then we'll go together to eat at Yu's, and listen to you sing...

And if I never return...

There's a long road ahead of you...

It is not so easy to not look back.

She looks at the innumerable lives and deaths recorded upon the shelves, many of which she had written with her own pen.

Would she become one of them?

How would those who come after depict this life, one that seems too long for others to comprehend, yet far too hurried for herself?

How would the other siblings react when they read those pages?

No. There will be no record of her. She knows it.

Of all the siblings, she is the one who has spent the most time with Wang.

She has given Wang ideas for his plans, helped him calculate the conditions and timing for Sui's elimination.

She can guess what is happening in the Tomb of Sui. The clear and distinct heartbeat has already told the full story.

There is no other way.

She must use her powers to erase the name—

She has spent much more time in the mortal realm than ordinary people.

Everyone dies. It is precisely the cycle of life and death that made possible the innumerable ways of life that have fascinated her, as well as her siblings.

But if death is such an unremarkable thing, like a wisp of smoke in the wind... what is living, truly?

Light from the setting sun pours into the room, upon the countless history tomes, as though relentlessly poring through traces of the past.

Every word in these scrolls was written with tears of blood, but the only thing written on the last page is the word 'regret'.

The sun's rays by the window...

...How warm.

But she does not walk towards the sunlight.

She leaves the room.

Into the darkness of the tomb.

No words need to be said. Wang knows it is a fragment It has retrieved from his own memory, an image that he has never forgotten for even a moment in the last hundred and twenty years.

He lies exhausted on the ground. A hundred white pieces on the board have turned into blades that impale his chest, and he is slowly inundated by the pure white.

Until the golden light surrounds him.

...I'm sorry.

Wait for me... wait for me to come back.

For you to come back.

It was the other side of the dream, a place that he should not have been able to touch.

But she seems to notice him and turns around to look at him.

There is a faint smile on Jie's face, and she nods lightly.

The light gushes from behind her, surrounding the figure, swallowing it, dissolving it...

Sweeping away the dream realm, and revealing the true face of this place.