Su Yan drained the cup. The taste was familiar — bitter, sweet, then nothing at all.
Mengpo's soup.
The dream had been real. Three thousand years ago, he had lived in this city. He had married Feng Xue'er. He had lost everything when the people vanished, and then he had drunk this same tea to forget.
Beichenzi watched from across the room, his face pale. *He remembers,* the old man thought. *The seal is cracking.*
"Elder Beichen," Su Yan said quietly. "Tell me about Heaven-Man Resonance."
The old man's hand trembled around his chess piece. "Ancient history. No one knows for certain."
"You were there."
Beichenzi laughed, too loud. "I am but a humble nuo master who has lived a few centuries too many. How would I know —"
"You lie!" Zhu Chanchan punched his shoulder. The artifacts hidden in his inner realm rattled dangerously. "You're a cultivator. Why pretend to be nuo?"
Beichenzi's cultivation flared — nine grotto-heavens behind him, rooted in purple mist. "See? Nuo master."
Zhu Chanchan scratched her head, confused.
Su Yan's gaze remained steady. "I thought Zhou Qiyun was the first to walk both paths. You were doing it long before him."
The old man's smile tightened. "I dabble. Now — what did you want to know?"
"The Great Han dynasty. The mages performed Heaven-Man Resonance in Diqiu. They contacted something. The city disappeared." Su Yan leaned forward. "What did they touch?"
Beichenzi's forehead glistened with sweat. "Rumors only. They say... the resonance went too deep. They touched not the gods of heaven, but something from another void. A place called Weixu, hidden in the abyss."
*Weixu.* The word settled into Su Yan's bones like ice.
"The cultivators couldn't ascend," Beichenzi continued, his voice dropping. "So they deepened their senses, reaching further and further. They found beings in Weixu that taught them stronger resonance techniques. Techniques that let them touch that world directly. Some said entering Weixu was the true path to immortality."
Su Yan thought of his own experiences — the whispers in the dark when he entered dao too deeply, the feeling of being pulled toward something vast and hungry in the abyss.
"Then the nuo arts appeared," Su Yan said. "And cultivation died out."
Beichenzi spread his hands. "The connection was broken. Or perhaps... something came through."
They traveled in silence. Yuan Qi carried them south toward Mount Song, his serpentine body cutting through clouds. The land had changed — new mountains rose from chasms, rivers flowed where none had existed before. The world was still being born.
By evening they reached the sacred peak. Sunlight caught the waterfall cascading from its cliffs, painting the sky in gold and crimson.
"There," Beichenzi said, pointing to the highest summit. "The best view for miles. We can spot any phoenix-roosting trees from there."
Su Yan nodded. "Elder Qi, if you please."
Yuan Qi grinned. "Time to show off."
He gathered his sword-qi and leaped into the air, his massive form riding wind and thunder toward the peak. Beichenzi's eyes widened — the serpent was cultivating both paths too.
They made camp in a palace near the summit. Zhu Chanchan couldn't sit still. She kept glancing at the darkness beyond the firelight.
"It's coming tonight," she whispered. "The Heavenly Demon."
Su Yan fed another log into the flames. "Then we'll be ready."
Far below, in the Sima Grotto-Heaven, excavators from the Li family made a discovery. Their torches illuminated something that should not have existed — a corpse clad in feather and gold, its face serene, its body untouched by time.
A immortal's body.
And something else stirred within it, awakened by the light.
Something hungry.