On the seventh night of Spring Equinox, the fireflies beside the Ruin Abyss Well finally scattered, and Bridge Shadow sank into the veins of the earth like a rain of stars. Heaven and earth returned to silence.
Xiao Li still stood beside the well, but her figure had turned translucent, like morning mist about to disperse. She lowered her head and gazed at A Man's empty lamp in her hands. Its body was faintly warm, as though it still held the lingering breath of countless souls on their homeward journeys. As the wind brushed past, her fingertips began dissolving into specks of light, one by one, as weightless as fireflies, drifting upward on the breeze.
She felt neither sorrow nor fear, and merely smiled softly.
"I had no home, yet built a bridge for others; I had no name, yet lit lamps for departed souls," she whispered. "Now the bridge is complete, and the lamp must be passed on."
As her words faded, her body slowly dissolved like a sand painting caught in rain. Her sleeves became light, her hair became flame, and her flesh gathered into flecks of starlight that floated toward the heavens. Only a heart remained suspended above the well, crimson as fire, beating without pause—that was her Heart Flame, the whole essence of her seventy years as a Guardian Lamp, the final lamp she had lit for the souls of the Nine Provinces.
The Heart Flame never dies, and the lamp souls never disperse.
Suddenly, that heart shuddered violently and transformed into an entirely new lamp—transparent throughout, as though carved from crystal. Its wick was a dancing crimson flame, and deep within that flame, Xiao Li's outline could faintly be seen, seemingly smiling, seemingly whispering.
**This lamp had no name, yet it was called—the "Lamp Guarder's