Somewhere between dusk and waking,
in a half-burned monastery where no names were spoken aloud,
a boy dreamed.
He was no one important.
Just a third-generation disciple of a minor sect, tasked with cleaning stone floors and memorizing forms that no longer worked against real enemies.
But in his dream…
He stood before a man with no sword drawn,
and a second man who had already been forgotten.
The Severed One stood in the field of this boy's memory —
not injured, not dead, but… fractured.
Pieces of himself blinked in and out, like flickers on the surface of water.
And before him, Kaifeng moved again.
Not to strike.
But to erase the very rhythm of combat.
The boy watched.
And somehow, understood.
He could not mimic it — he didn't know how.
But he remembered it anyway.
Because the dream wouldn't let him forget.
The next morning, the boy awoke in a cold sweat.
He tried to draw the motion in the dirt behind the kitchens — but each time, the shape changed. His muscles refused to follow what his mind remembered.
Not a form. Not a technique, he thought.
It was a conversation between movement and memory.
That night, he didn't dream of Kaifeng again.
But when he practiced alone,
his stance tilted a little differently.
His teacher noticed.
"Where did you learn that?"
"I don't know," the boy lied.
Because he did know.
He just didn't understand it yet.
Far away, in a forest where only the exiled gathered, Kaifeng sat by a creek with Yun Shou and Zhui.
Zhui tossed stones across the water, his sleeves rolled up, face darker than usual.
"You didn't kill him," he said.
"You just… unmade him."
Kaifeng didn't respond.
Yun Shou sipped tea. Her expression unreadable.
"He'll return," she said.
"Fragments like that always do."
"Then let him," Kaifeng murmured.
"I didn't draw the blade for him."
"Then who?"
Kaifeng turned his gaze toward the trees.
"For the one who dreams what cannot be taught."
That night, he took a stick and drew a circle in the dirt.
Then erased it.
Then drew a line through the space it had once been.
No one saw.
But somewhere, a boy dreaming of a fight he never lived…
Stirred in his sleep.
End of Chapter 15