The wind brushed over his faded blue cloth band, one end sweeping across the back of her hand.
Chen Wuya's fingers still rested on that wooden sign. Three words—"Returnflow Camp"—had been carved deep, as though someone had chiseled them out stroke by stroke with a knife. He remembered this place—it was not a signpost, but a beginning. Back when he had been expelled from the academy, starving as he crouched beneath a bridge gnawing on a cold flatbread, Old Wu Tou had handed him a bowl of hot noodles and said, "Kid, your feet are your own. Which road you take is yours to decide."
Back then, he had not understood.
Later, he learned crooked doctrines and practiced Misaligned Force. To others, it was sheer nonsense, yet somehow he survived. Helian Da had knelt in the woods, his twin blades broken into four pieces, and said, "You just have nowhere left to go." In that moment, Chen Wuya suddenly understood: some people were not defeated by their enemies, but by a past they could never return to.
He let go, and the wooden sign swayed lightly as dust sifted down in a soft patter.
Bai Zhi said nothing. She merely slipped her hand into his palm. Her fingers were slightly cool, callused from gripping a sword year after year, yet not stiff. They stood shoulder to shoulder for a long while, the mountain path so still they could hear leaves turning over in the breeze.
He lowered his head and glanced at her. She was looking at him too.
"I've figured it out," he said.
She did not ask what he had figured out, only waited for him to continue.
"After every fight before, I always thought I'd rest for a few days, then leave. But while I rested, another