2.A Body That Rejects, A Soul That Watches

This body did not want her.

Zijiang Zhenyu knew the moment she opened her eyes that morning.

The first breath she took sliced through her lungs like shards of frostbitten glass. Painful, unfamiliar.

The Lianyu Pavilion was colder than she remembered—hollow, almost resentful. Even the sunlight seemed hesitant to touch the floor. Mist clung stubbornly to the cracked windows, and the scent of damp wood, untended floors, and forgotten memories sank into her skin like mildew.

Her hand, trembling, reached for the bamboo bedpost.

But her muscles refused her. Joints stiffened as if wrapped in invisible cords.

Her heartbeat stuttered—erratic, foreign—like a river trying to flow across fractured stones.

This body was resisting her.

This body was not hers.

This body… was a battlefield.

I know this was your body, she whispered inwardly, panic creeping behind her ribs. But I also died to get here.

And then a voice answered, soft and cold, curling like smoke in her thoughts.

"You occupy a space that was never empty."

Helian Qingyin.

The original soul.

Still here. Still lingering. Still unwilling to yield.

"I won't leave," Zhenyu murmured inwardly, gathering what little strength she had.

But her knees buckled as she tried to sit—her body collapsing like a marionette without strings.

"And I won't yield," Qingyin's voice whispered back, drifting like morning fog.

Zhenyu shut her eyes, her breath ragged.

But she could not stop now.

Not after clawing her way back from death. Not when she had been given this broken vessel, this second chance.

And then the world changed.

The air thickened.

The cold grew unbearable, seeping into her marrow.

Candlelight vanished—extinguished by no wind.

And from the shadowed corner of the room, the mirror cracked.

Not from the outside.

But from within.

A black-framed mirror, old and forgotten, now split with a slow, soundless fracture. Zhenyu turned toward it, her breath catching.

And then, everything shattered.

The pavilion dissolved—the floor, the walls, the very ceiling of her world crumbled into nothing.

She didn't fall. She drifted.

Into a void without shape. Without sky. Without time.

Only darkness. Only silence.

Only herself.

And within that endless dark… a figure emerged.

A girl in white.

Her hair fell like rivers of ink over bloodstained robes. Her skin, pale as a ghost moon. Her eyes… void. But familiar.

Her face.

Their face.

Helian Qingyin's.

"You truly won't leave?" Qingyin's voice was emotionless, yet edged with weary despair.

"No," Zhenyu replied. Her voice steady despite the tremble in her soul.

The girl in white trembled. She looked as though she had long since ceased belonging to the world of the living. But her presence was not fading.

"This body cannot bear two souls," she said. "One must give in."

"Then what shall we do?" Zhenyu asked quietly. "Fight until one vanishes? Erase each other until there's nothing left? Or try… something never done before?"

A silence.

And then—

The void shifted. Beneath them, the dark gave way to form: veins of stone spiraling outward, an altar rising at the center—etched with glowing red characters, pulsing like embers in ash.

Two souls. One body. One must merge. The other must surrender.

Qingyin stepped forward, her voice barely audible.

"I don't know how to merge."

"Neither do I," Zhenyu admitted. "But I won't disappear. Not again. Not for anyone."

They stood at the altar—opposing reflections.

And together, they placed their hands upon the stone.

The moment their palms touched its surface, the altar pulsed—once, twice—

Then a surge of violet light ripped skyward, piercing the darkness like a blade of fate.

And the void… blinked out.

Zhenyu jolted awake.

Gasping.

Her nightrobe clung to her skin, soaked with sweat. Her pulse thundered in her ears, but it no longer raged. Still heavy. Still not hers entirely.

But no longer foreign.

She glanced toward the mirror.

It was still there—unbroken, its surface gleaming black like still water.

And in its reflection… two silhouettes stood. Side by side.

Rongxu Jing.

A name etched across her mind like ink upon old parchment.

The mirror that binds two souls.

A bridge between spirit and vessel.

The wooden door creaked.

A man entered, steps silent, robes grey as mist.

He was old, but not fragile. His silver hair tied neatly behind. His features carved like weathered jade—stern, but not cruel.

"You've opened the first gate," he said.

Zhenyu's breath hitched. She remained seated on the floor, still disoriented.

"Who are you?"

"Xun Chengyan," he replied. "Healer of Xunyue Cottage. Once a servant of the heavens, before men stole the throne."

"You… can see us?" she asked.

He didn't answer. Instead, he knelt beside her and pressed two fingers to her wrist.

His brows furrowed in faint contemplation.

"I see two flames in one ember," he murmured. "But neither strong enough alone."

"What does that mean?"

"This body rejects you because it does not know you. But the old soul is not whole either. You are both fragments of the same wound."

He met her eyes.

"If you wish to survive, one must overcome their pride."

Zhenyu lowered her gaze.

So that was it.

He wasn't asking her to surrender.

He was asking her… to unite.

Later, she could do nothing but sit, her limbs still foreign.

A maid entered—a girl not older than sixteen, carrying a bowl of thin pumpkin porridge.

She set it down quietly. Her eyes never met Zhenyu's.

But just before she turned to leave, she whispered,

"My Lady Helian… you look different today."

Zhenyu said nothing.

But in her heart, she knew the truth.

She was different.

No longer just Zijiang Zhenyu.

No longer only Helian Qingyin.

But something else.

Something forged from pain—twice lived.

And soon, this world would know her...

As something never born before.

Night fell.

Not in stars, but in ash-grey silence.

And in the corner of the room, the mirror glowed—soft, faint.

Within it, the two shadows no longer stood apart.

They had begun to move… closer.

Outside the pavilion, beneath the old plum tree…

A woman in violet robes watched.

Her eyes cold. Her smile cruel.

"She's still alive," she murmured.

"Then it's time… for the fifth poison."