The girl stood still.
Moonlight coiled around her like fog, her presence calm but unnaturally silent — the kind of silence that made the wind nervous.
She didn't draw a weapon. Didn't even move. But Lin Feng felt it immediately — pressure, thin and layered, brushing against his soul.
> "You're not here to kill me."
> "No," she replied softly. "I'm here to see if you're already dead."
He narrowed his eyes. "Who sent you?"
> "A name you shouldn't hear yet," she said. "Call me Mei."
She raised her hand and the chamber shifted.
---
The walls melted away.
They now stood atop a frozen lake, stars spinning beneath the ice instead of above the sky. The air was weightless, like memory had replaced gravity.
> "This is an illusion realm," Lin Feng realized.
> "No," Mei said. "It's a reflection." She flicked her wrist. A blade of translucent frost arced toward him — slow, like drifting snow.
He dodged. Barely.
Where it touched, time seemed to freeze. The falling dust stopped mid-air.
> "She's not attacking," he thought. "She's revealing."
Another step. Mei's palm brushed the edge of his aura — and something inside Lin Feng flinched.
> "Your soul is layered," she murmured. "Not cracked… armored."
> "I don't know what you're talking about."
> "No. But part of you does."
---
Her next move wasn't physical.
She placed two fingers over her heart and whispered a single word in an ancient tongue.
A pulse surged outward — at intention.
And from Lin Feng's body, something responded. A low thrumm like distant thunder. His shadow twitched, separating for half a breath before merging again.
Mei recoiled a step.
Her eyes widened. Her expression — for the first time — cracked....> "You're not just carrying something," she said slowly.
> "You're being remembered by something." And her final attack came — a snowfall of blades shaped from memory, cutting through identity, scraping at truth.
Lin Feng didn't move. The sword at his side did, and It screamed.
And all the blades turned to mist.
---
Mei fell to one knee, trembling and terrified of what she saw.
> "It's not possible," she whispered. "Your soul isn't human."
> "Is that your report?" Lin Feng asked.
She looked up and for a moment… there was something close to pity in her eyes.
> "No," she said. "My report is: He's still asleep." And then she vanished.
No ripple. No flash. Only the faint sound of a bell far away.
---
Elsewhere – Lan Xueyin Reacts
The jade mirror cracked in her hand.
She stood alone atop the Cloud Sea Pagoda, robes fluttering as moonlight bled across the clouds.
> "They moved without my consent," she said coldly.
> "They tried to test him." She clenched her jaw.
> "Fools. He hasn't even awakened yet." And her eyes — for a moment — flickered with flame.
---