Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Flames Beneath the Silk

The mountain winds had shifted.

Above the sacred tomb, storm clouds churned like angry spirits. The very sky seemed to rebel as the Windblade awakened. Deep within the forest clearing near the Whispering Hollow, Lei Feng stood alone—his cloak tattered, his blade bloodied, and his eyes locked on the tomb's glowing mouth.

He had failed.

The Windblade had chosen Xiao Lian.

"I should have killed him when I had the chance," Lei Feng snarled. His fingers clenched, veins bulging with the pulse of corrupted qi.

"You still could," came a voice, sharp as a dagger and just as cold.

He turned.

From the mist emerged Yun Mei Lian—dressed in white robes, her silver sash fluttering like a banner of challenge. Her gaze burned with fury, her presence regal yet wrathful. No longer the poised actress from the royal courts, she stood now as a daughter of warriors, her blade unsheathed and gleaming with moonlight.

"Yun Mei Lian," Lei Feng said mockingly. "Come to mourn your lover?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she stepped forward slowly, her sword arm loose, her back straight. "You betrayed the sect. You betrayed me."

Lei Feng's smile twisted. "I gave you the world. You chose a dreamer with wind in his lungs."

"He has honor," she said. "You have nothing but poison in your soul."

He moved suddenly—his blade a blur—but she was faster. Sparks flew as their swords met with a thunderclap. Steel sang. The clash was not between disciples. It was between ideologies. Between past and future.

"You don't understand what I've seen," Lei Feng growled as their blades locked. "The Empire is rotting. If I control the Windblade, I can rebuild it. I can burn the weakness out of the world!"

"No," Yun Mei Lian said, pushing back hard. "You only want to remake the world in your own image. That's not strength. That's fear."

Her blade danced like snowfall—elegant, unpredictable, cutting deep. She moved with a precision honed not just from years of martial training, but from a life spent hiding her true strength behind the mask of performance.

He struck again—and this time, she let his blade graze her arm to get closer.

Too close.

With a spin and a cry, she knocked his weapon aside and drove her palm into his chest, releasing a burst of inner qi.

Lei Feng staggered back, stunned.

"I loved you once," she said, tears glimmering but never falling. "But I see you now, and I mourn not for us—but for the man you could have been."

Lei Feng knelt, coughing blood, his pride more wounded than his body.

"You'll regret this," he spat.

"I already do," she whispered.

And then she walked away—toward the tomb, toward the light, and toward the man the winds had chosen.

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