Aphelia didn’t answer, though a hundred replies smoldered under her tongue like sparks under ash.

The woman had called Yi by name and laid out his past, arrows not loosed into darkness. It hit without warning, dragging her into memory like a rip current.

You don’t summon a True God with a snap, then shoo them like smoke from a brazier.

“Of course you’ll say nothing. You don’t need to. I’m the maniac who butchered your branch clan. In your Eastern phrasing…”

Shilwen pressed a finger to lips red as spilled blood. Her smile flared like lightning. Not some ‘celestial maiden’—but a siren that topples courts and stirs a nation.

“Call me a butcher of men, then. Kill one and it’s a crime; slaughter ten thousand, and they call you grand. Count it up—your vast Luoyang Clan’s branches? I culled more than half.”

She spoke cruelty like the weather. Aphelia’s body lunged, her will ripped away, then locked an inch before Shilwen. She roared, a caged beast gnashing at air, and couldn’t move.

Only then did she see “herself” shackled. Chains thick as a wrist bound hands and ankles. Even outside the scene, Aphelia felt Yi’s fury like hot iron and venom like night frost.

That hatred for his own weakness clawed at her, a wish to rip the woman apart with teeth and nails. She had tasted that same pain not long ago.

“My my, upset already?”

Shilwen’s teasing smile curved like a hook. Then she did the one thing no one expected.

She seized the back of Yi’s head and breathed orchid-sweet breath across his face. Blood-red lips crashed against the mouth of a green, stunned youth. Her hand clamped like a manacle so he couldn’t turn away.

A hot, spring-taut body pressed to his like a furnace against bare skin. Even through memory, Aphelia felt that wildfire heat pour through.

Shilwen still wasn’t satisfied. A warm tongue pried open his clenched teeth. His rage-spiked focus cracked like ice in thaw. He gave up struggling and shut his eyes.

She even caught Yi’s hand and pressed it to her fullness. Lips and tongue parted, a silvery thread clung at the corner of her mouth. She leaned to his ear and breathed like flowers in moonlight.

“If you want to go further, I won’t mind.”

That one line struck Yi like a lash. He bit his own tongue tip, copper flooding his mouth. Then he smashed a headbutt into Shilwen, staggered back, and retreated to his corner like a man facing a monster.

He panted against the cold stone. Blood on his split lower lip kept his mind from drowning.

“Tsk, tsk. What’s wrong? Don’t I taste good? Don’t you want more? I don’t turn down the Luoyang heir.”

Shilwen wiped the shine from her lip, laughing. The headbutt didn’t matter. Her eyes played over him like a cat savoring a trapped sparrow, all tease and flame.

“You want the zushi? You killed my brother. The fushi is already in your hand. If you’re going to do it, then do it!”

Yi’s voice was ice. Light stirred under the skin at his wrist like dawn through fog.

“Zushi?”

Shilwen laughed as if she’d heard the joke of the age. Tears nearly gathered in the corners of her eyes. Yi snapped to scold her, yet the sight before him froze his tongue.

“This thing? I’ve got one too. Two, actually.”

She raised both hands with a cold snort. On the backs of her hands, twin red glows flowered like embers.

“That’s—impossible! Forget you being an outsider. The Luoyang line bears twins every generation. One main, one support…”

“Right, right. One leads, one follows. The main bears the Divine Armament. The support is the furnace, blood and flesh to gestate the blade. Your family creed. I’ve worn it thin. Try it now. See if your bow’s still there.”

Cold crawled down Yi’s spine. He stared at the faint glow at his wrist, then at the twin zushi blazing on her hands. A bad omen flashed through his mind like thunder.

“You already killed him. How do you expect me to summon a Divine Armament…”

Memory showed his brother hacked apart before his eyes. Rage surged. Yet those two stones on her hands spoke louder than any scene.

“Try and see.”

Shilwen’s disdainful hum pressed like a millstone. Disappointment in her gaze made it hard to breathe. She shook her head.

“So the great Luoyang heir is only this much.”

“Divine Armament… manifest!”

The zushi at his wrist burst through skin with a wet sting. It unfurled like a mad vine, coiling his arm. Red light flared, shaping into a crimson longbow he knew like his own heartbeat.

The bow throbbed in his grip like a living pulse. That familiar power surged through him like a flood, and shock tangled with joy. He still didn’t wrench free.

“Ni, are you alive?!”

The mind-voice carried through the zushi and met silence. Only a faint heartbeat answered from within the bow. There was another way to know if his twin still lived.

Yi raised his head and watched Shilwen. She only smiled and motioned, be my guest.

He lifted the bow and drew, aiming at her brow. He wasn’t shooting. He clamped the string, sharp as a blade, and let blood drip down its curve.

The stone-woven bow drank his blood and lit up at once, a dawn that wouldn’t break.

“Ni… is dead? But… but…”

The dim glow on the bow hollowed him. His soul felt swept away like ash.

“Your brother’s dead. I killed him. With my own hands. Satisfied?”

Shilwen tossed the words like stones into a well. She sounded bored, as if she’d swatted a barnyard fowl. The cruelty stung Yi back to himself. He looked up at her with burning eyes.

“Liar! You didn’t kill him! You’re tricking me! What witchcraft did you use?!”

Blood veined his eyes. He drew the bow to full, arc bright as a cold moon. No arrow lay on the string, yet the sharpness bristled and made the air flinch.

“Ridiculous.”

Shilwen sneered and walked forward, calm as night water. She pressed her chest to the bowstring and spoke cold as iron.

“Killed is killed. Luoyang heir, can’t you see the truth?”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Shall I have Lie Lian bring the body? Oh, right. Hu Kui’s probably finished eating by now.”

Her blood-bright lips stabbed his heart like a thorn. His jaw loosened. He roared and loosed the string.

The string never moved. A heavy strike hurled him into stone. In a blink, her long leg whipped his bow arm like an iron lash. The limb cracked, and the longbow snapped with it.

“I hope you understand…”

Shilwen’s fingers locked his throat. She tore him from the wall and slammed him to the far side. Her shape vanished like a gust. The same whip-like leg lashed down as he hit the stone again.

This time the blow crushed his chest. Pain flared like a nest of knives. He curled up tight, a shriveled shrimp gasping on dry sand.

She planted a heel on his chest. With two fingers she wiped the blood at his mouth and painted it on her lips like rouge.

“I’ve no need to lie. Killed is killed. Luoyang lives aren’t even worth the boast.”

A black blade and a white blade bloomed into her hands with the glow from her hand-backs. She bent and laid both across his throat like twin winters.

“Since you don’t believe, look closely. Tell me if these are your Luoyang Divine Armaments. Feel them. Like living things. With a heartbeat.”

Yi couldn’t speak for the pain. He hacked and coughed like his lungs were trying to leave him, threads of blood seeping from his lips.

But his eyes locked on the black and white blades. The pulse against his throat beat like a second heart. The zushi felt known. The power felt known. No doubt remained. These blades were Luoyang’s Divine Armaments.

“Why… in the clan register… isn’t there… your name…”

He dragged air into a burning chest. The words came in pieces, like broken tiles.

Shilwen laughed, and the sound could have stirred a kingdom to riot.

“My dear Yi, it seems you really forgot everything. That’s fine. You’ll remember. It’s your fate and mine. You can never run.”

“If the register doesn’t hold my name, then I’ll go home and write it in myself.”