The Immortal Realm did not accuse openly.
It circled.
Ling Yue felt it the moment she stepped back into the open skyways — the subtle shift in how immortals looked at her, the careful pauses in conversation, the way her presence seemed to weigh more than it should have.
Not hostility.
Assessment.
She walked with her chin lifted, smile gentle but distant, the lotus bud resting warm against her side.
---
"You shouldn't have gone to the Hall of Records."
The voice came from behind her.
Ling Yue turned to see an elderly immortal leaning against the balustrade, eyes sharp despite his relaxed posture.
"I was invited," she replied lightly.
"That makes it worse," he said.
She studied him. "Why?"
"Because once records are questioned," he said quietly, "so is the authority that wrote them."
Ling Yue's smile softened. "Then maybe they should be."
The immortal exhaled slowly. "You sound like him."
Her heart stuttered.
"…Like who?" she asked, though she already knew.
The immortal met her gaze. "The one Heaven exiled."
---
They walked together in silence for a while.
"Ye's exile," the immortal said eventually, "was presented as final."
Ling Yue's fingers tightened around the lotus bud.
"Presented?" she echoed.
The immortal glanced at the bud briefly, then away. "Exile is not erasure. And it is not death."
Her breath caught.
"But?" she whispered.
"But it was meant to be indefinite," he continued. "Until certain… conditions were met."
"What conditions?"
The immortal stopped.
"Balance," he said. "And forgetting."
Ling Yue felt cold.
"So long as I forget," she murmured, "he stays gone."
The immortal did not contradict her.
---
Later, alone, Ling Yue stood at the edge of a high terrace where fate threads shimmered faintly below — distant, blurred, like stars seen through water.
She had not been assigned here.
That alone was suspicious.
She knelt slowly, lotus bud cradled in both hands.
"I don't remember you," she whispered. "But my body does. My heart does."
The bud warmed — brighter this time.
A single petal trembled.
Ling Yue's breath shook.
"You weren't meant to end," she said softly. "Were you?"
The air pressed close.
Not a voice.
A certainty.
---
Far away — beyond Heaven's reach — Ye stood at the edge of a broken realm.
Shadow clung to him like a familiar wound.
He lifted his head suddenly, golden eyes narrowing as something brushed against his awareness.
A pull.
Faint.
Impossible.
"…Ling Yue," he murmured.
The name tasted like memory.
And for the first time since exile, something within him stirred — not hope, not yet…
But recognition.
---
Above them all, unseen threads shifted.
Not severed.
Not restored.
Waiting.