5.The Physician of Xunyue Hut
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Lianyu Pavilion was silent that night but it was a suffocating kind of silence.
Not the calm, soothing quiet, but a stillness so deep it felt like even sound itself was afraid to cross the wooden window frames.
Zhenyu sat beside the couch, eyes fixed on Rongxu Jing, lying on the low table before her.
The mirror looked ordinary, but its reflection...
always moved a second slower than she did.
As if she was never truly alone in this room.
A soft knock tapped the wooden door.
"Physician Xun," Meilan's voice called from outside. "He's here."
Zhenyu rose.
Her white robe swept over the cold floor as she walked slowly to the door.
Physician Xun Chengyan stood there as usual quiet, unreadable, like a shadow made flesh. But tonight, his eyes were different. They held no questions.
But no answers, either.
Only silence.
"Come out," the physician said calmly.
Zhenyu frowned. "Come out?"
"We're going to Xunyue Hut. Tonight."
"Now?" Zhenyu glanced at the dark sky, where mist hung like cobwebs across the stars.
"Now," he replied. "Before the palace's eyes and ears realize… you've changed."
Zhenyu asked no more.
She picked up Rongxu Jing, wrapped it in old silk, and followed Physician Xun through the hidden corridors of the palace.
They passed through unguarded bamboo paths, down shadowed hallways that connected to the back of Tianxu Palace.
The mist became their companion. And the half moon cast a pale glow on the stone floor.
No guards.
No voices.
As if the entire world had closed its eyes while one story rose quietly from the ashes.
---
Xunyue Hut stood at the foot of Ningshen Forest.
Its roof was blanketed in moss.
Its wooden walls were aged, yet solid.
No lanterns lit the space, yet the faint moonlight gave it the air of something not quite belonging to this world.
Zhenyu stepped inside.
It was warm.
But not from fire.
Warm from a breath… that didn't belong to any living being.
Physician Xun pointed to a rattan mat at the center of the room. "Sit."
Zhenyu obeyed, placing Rongxu Jing before her and gently unwrapping the silk.
"Is this... truly just a mirror?" she finally asked.
"No," said Physician Xun. He sat cross-legged in front of her, only an arm's length away.
"It is the eye of the Yuanxu Realm."
Zhenyu's brows furrowed. "Yuanxu Realm?"
He nodded.
"The space between life and death.
Where spirits with unfinished journeys linger.
A realm where bodies hold no shape, but memories still burn."
Zhenyu swallowed hard.
She stared at Rongxu Jing. The mirror began to hum faintly, as if in response.
"I don't know how I came into this body," she murmured.
"But I know... I should be dead."
"That's why you can gaze into Rongxu Jing and see more than just your reflection."
Zhenyu looked up. "You know who I am?"
"I know who you are now," he said. "And that is all that matters."
---
The ritual that night was simple, yet it felt like prying open an ancient wound long buried beneath the skin.
Physician Xun lit white incense made from qingmiao leaves, a plant that only grew in the Guixian Valley.
Its fragrance was sweet but as Zhenyu inhaled it, her body grew light... and her thoughts felt like they were being pulled backward.
She didn't fall asleep.
But she wasn't awake either.
She simply… fell. Slowly. Into herself.
---
In that realm, Lianyu Pavilion stood in the middle of an endless plain.
No walls, no sky.
Only cold wind and an eternal rain of plum blossoms.
Zhenyu stood alone and before her, stood Helian Qingyin.
But this was not the pale and silent Qingyin she knew.
This one was torn and broken.
Her body bore marks of silver needles, and her hands clutched her bleeding stomach.
"I don't know why you came," Qingyin said softly. "But if you want this body, you must carry everything that comes with it."
Zhenyu stepped closer. "I don't want to steal it. I want to become one with it."
Qingyin looked at her. For a long time.
"Why?"
"Because I too… have lost everything. And I don't want to lose again."
A violet light surrounded them.
And from the boundless sky, a symbol appeared a circle with two points at its center. Rongxu Jing.
---
Zhenyu awoke.
Her breathing was heavy. Her body drenched in sweat.
Physician Xun still sat where she'd left him.
"You met her?" he asked.
Zhenyu nodded.
"She didn't kill you."
"No. But she hasn't accepted me yet."
"She will. As long as you keep standing."
He pulled out a small vial from his robe.
"The antidote to the fifth poison.
Not a cure but a shield.
Drink this, and your body will withstand the next strike."
Zhenyu took it.
As she drank, she swallowed more than just the liquid.
She swallowed resolve.
The will to live.
The will to endure.
And the will to end all the pain that still haunted this body.
---
That night, Zhenyu slept in Xunyue Hut.
And for the first time
Rongxu Jing didn't just show shadows.
It showed... a door.
A door carved with the eye of a dragon, pulsing faintly
as if waiting...
to be opened.
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