Su Shi'er could not be certain whether Senior Sister Shen Miaoyin had recovered her memories of the past. But she had recognized him, which at least meant she remembered their last meeting.
As long as her consciousness from this life remained, there was still room to turn things around.
"Over a thousand years have passed since we parted in the Star River. You've only grown more cautious."
Shen Miaoyin's voice continued in his mind. Her gaze swept over Su Shi'er, and the faintest hint of a smile flickered across her lips before vanishing.
"Your face, your build, even the aura you show the world—they're all completely different from that day.
"If you hadn't called me Senior Sister Shen, and said what you did just now, I wouldn't have dared say it was you."
"Please don't tease me, Senior Sister. Circumstances forced my hand."
Su Shi'er spoke through transmission, shaking his head with a rueful smile.
He had barely finished when Shen Miaoyin's face suddenly paled. The black-and-gold chains wrapped around the three afterimages blazed with dazzling light.
The three figures wavered, then turned into streaks of light and shot toward the point between Shen Miaoyin's brows.
"Watch out!"
Su Shi'er shouted a warning.
The change had come without warning. If those three afterimages entered Shen Miaoyin's Sea of Consciousness, nothing good could come of it.
Even as Su Shi'er called out, a sharp light flashed in Shen Miaoyin's eyes. The Wangshu Sword flew back at once.
It hovered above her head, shedding countless streams of icy sword energy that enclosed her in protection.
But the three afterimages came from the same source as she did. They held the power of her past that she had never managed to reclaim or control, along with fragments of her former memories.
The descending