Chapter 33: Her Name was Rue xue

Some flames do not burn.

They freeze.

Because the pain they hold… is too heavy for fire alone.

---

Long Feng stood before the translucent figure — a woman suspended in chains of silver frostfire.

Her black hair fell like shadowed silk, and a delicate lotus seal glowed on her forehead, cracked like broken glass. Her presence was otherworldly — too perfect, too sad, too familiar.

> "You shouldn't have come," she whispered again.

"The seal is incomplete. And so are you."

Long Feng stepped forward, despite the pull of spiritual exhaustion.

> "Who are you to me?"

Her lips curled with the faintest smile.

> "You loved me.

And then… you left me."

---

The glade shook.

The frostfire chains curled tighter around her, as if resisting her very voice. Still, she raised her hand, and a soft glow spread from her palm.

> "My name was Ru Xue.

In the divine realm, they called me the Frost Flame Bride."

The air stilled.

The Soul Flame inside Long Feng shattered, memories bursting like broken lanterns.

A flash—

A wedding altar carved from moonstone.

Ru Xue in a flowing robe of black and frost blue, reaching for his hand.

Heaven shattering.

Lightning crashing down.

And a spear.

> Lei Wuxian's spear — piercing her back.

As she shielded Long Feng.

---

"You… died," Long Feng breathed. "You died for me."

Ru Xue nodded slowly, sorrow blooming in her ghostly gaze.

> "That's what flame bonds mean, Long Feng.

One burns…

The other chooses to burn with them."

He dropped to his knees.

All the strength he'd cultivated, the pride he'd regained, the love he was just beginning to understand with Mei Ling — it all crumbled in that moment.

Because now he remembered.

> "You were my first bride.

My first flame maiden."

---

Ru Xue's voice softened. "After I died, the Heavens erased me. From history. From prophecy. From you. They said I unbalanced fate."

> "The prophecy only allowed four.

But I… I made it five."

"And so… they bound my soul to the mortal realm. They sealed my name. And they cursed your memory to never recall me… unless you were willing to sacrifice what came after."

Long Feng's heart clenched.

> "You mean Mei Ling—?"

Ru Xue's lips trembled. "If I awaken… one bond must break."

---

The Soul Flame began to pulse violently in Long Feng's chest — torn between the present… and the forgotten past.

Ru Xue stepped closer. Though still half-faded, her hand touched his cheek.

Warm. Real. Devastating.

> "You came for me.

But now I ask you…

Will you destroy what you have now,

for what you lost before?"

---

Inside his dantian, the four existing flame petals flared — Mei Ling's glowed brightest.

But the fifth had begun to bloom.

And if it opened fully, it would rewrite the balance.

Long Feng fell to the forest floor, coughing blood.

Two visions pulsed in his soul:

Mei Ling, holding him in bed, whispering, "I chose you."

Ru Xue, dying in his arms, whispering, "I protected you."

His spirit sea cracked.

His body trembled.

His flame split.

---

Ru Xue raised her hand — a final seal appeared in the air, shaped like a frozen phoenix.

> "You have until the next full moon.

If you complete the ritual…

I will return, flesh and soul."

> "But if you hesitate…

I will fade.

And no memory of me will remain."

She stepped backward, her form retreating into mist.

> "Long Feng… you were my beginning.

You could be… my end."

---

And just like that…

She was gone.

And the Forbidden Forest fell silent once more.

Only the frostfire chains remained, crackling faintly, echoing the sound of a soul that once gave everything… and waited ten thousand years for someone to remember.

---

When Long Feng returned, his robes torn and bloodied, the sect stirred in worry.

Xue Yiran was the first to see him. "You found her, didn't you?"

He didn't answer.

Just walked past.

Straight to Mei Ling's courtyard.

---

She opened the door before he knocked.

She looked at him once — eyes scanning his soul. And then she asked:

> "Was she beautiful?"

He swallowed hard. "Yes."

> "Did you love her?"

"…I think I still do."

Silence.

Mei Ling turned away, voice trembling.

> "Will I lose you?"

Long Feng stepped forward.

Held her gently.

> "I don't want to lose either of you."

"But flame," she whispered, "was never meant to burn two ways."