They found him three days later, where the map said nothing should be.
A crooked pagoda stood half-sunken into the hillside, cloaked in moss and silence. The villagers called it the Earless Mountain, because sound seemed to die before reaching the stone.
No birds.
No wind.
Just stillness.
Shi Yan climbed the final steps alone. Xiao Lan remained below, watching the pagoda as if it might speak a word she couldn't.
Inside, the man sat cross-legged before a cold brazier, facing the wrong direction.
He wore tattered scholar's robes, threadbare and ancient, and a string of prayer beads hung loose around one wrist like forgotten penance.
His eyes were gone. Not gouged—just absent, as if they had never been part of him.
"Sit, monk," the blind man said, before Shi Yan could introduce himself.
Shi Yan obeyed. Silence stretched between them.
"You've walked with ghosts," the sage finally murmured. "You carry one still. The little one… she remembers too much."
"You know of me?"
"I know of your scent." The sage smiled faintly. "Like charcoal and regret."
"I need answers," Shi Yan said. "About the night of the massacre."
"You need the right question," the sage corrected.
A pause.
"Start with this: what made you forget?"
Shi Yan looked down. "Poison."
"More than that." The sage's fingers moved as if sketching invisible sigils. "The Soul-Severing Elixir. Known only to four sects. Used to erase pain… or implant truth."
Shi Yan's blood ran cold. "You're saying what I saw—what I remember—wasn't real?"
"Parts were. But your hands may have been moved by another's will. That night, you were a blade wielded by an invisible master."
Shi Yan steadied his breath. "They stole a scripture that night."
"The Three-Fold Gate of the Inner Mind," the sage whispered. "Forbidden by the first Shaolin patriarch. Said to contain the Heart Technique of Absolute Submission. You strike once—and the mind of the victim bends, obeys, forgets."
"Mind control," Shi Yan said, jaw tight.
"Not control. Replacement. They become what the technique commands."
He leaned forward.
"If the Black Lotus Society has that scroll, they can turn masters into puppets. Armies into zealots. Even monks… into murderers."
Before Shi Yan could speak, a bell rang outside. A small, brittle sound.
Then a scream.
He bolted from the pagoda.
Smoke. Movement. Xiao Lan was gone. Her charcoal drawings lay scattered in the dirt—trampled.
On the edge of the trees, a figure in a black robe stood holding a bundle.
The child.
The kidnapper turned—and in the flash of sunlight, Shi Yan saw it.
Not a face.
A porcelain mask, cracked across the cheek.
Then they vanished into the trees like a breath on glass.