#Chapter 2
When Jiang Buyu woke up, the first thing he felt was pain.
Not the sharp, stabbing kind, but a dull ache seeping out from the marrow of his bones—as if he had been taken apart and put back together, every joint protesting. He tried to move a finger, only to find he didn't even have that much strength.
The second thing he noticed was white.
White as far as his eyes could see—white bed curtains, white walls. The air carried a faint scent of medicinal herbs mixed with sandalwood. Sunlight streamed through carved wooden windows, falling on the blue-grey brick floor where dust motes drifted lazily in the light beams.
Not the temple anymore.
He turned his neck with difficulty and took in his surroundings. A simple, tidy room. Not much furniture, but every piece was spotlessly clean. On the table stood a bowl of medicine still steaming, beside it a plate of pastries. Outside the window, birds sang, mingled with the distant shouts of people practicing swordsmanship.
Muffled voices came from outside the door, then footsteps receding.
The door opened.
In walked a young woman in a blue robe, a long sword at her waist. Her features were cool and refined, but not sharp. She looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six. Her steps were steady, her footfalls almost silent—the habit of a martial artist.
"You're awake." She stopped by the bed, looking down at Jiang Buyu. Her tone was as flat as if she were commenting on the fine weather.
Jiang Buyu looked at her and opened his mouth, but his throat was so parched that no sound came out.
The woman seemed to have anticipated this. She turned, poured a cup of water, lifted his head, and helped him drink a few sips. The lukewarm water slid down his throat like rain falling on cracked earth. He couldn't help but cough twice.
"Where is this place?" His voice was so hoarse it was barely audible.
"Qingyin Pavilion." The woman set the cup back on the table. "I am Shen Qingci, the Pavilion Lord. Three days ago, my people found you in that derelict temple."
Three days.
Jiang Buyu closed his eyes. He remembered the rain, the bald man, the blade, the sound of something shattering and reforming inside him—and then darkness.
"Why… save me?"
Shen Qingci looked at him. Her gaze held scrutiny, curiosity, and something else—something he couldn't quite name.
"Because you are 'Buyu,'" she said. "Wangchuan Tower's top assassin. For three years, everyone in the martial world has been looking for you."
Jiang Buyu fell silent.
*Buyu.* He had heard that name once before, in the temple, from the bald man's lips. It wasn't his name—at least, it shouldn't be. Who would name their child *Buyu*—"The Silent One"?
"I don't remember," he said.
"Don't remember what?"
"Anything." Jiang Buyu looked at his own hands. They were well-proportioned, the knuckles distinct, but now so thin that the veins stood out like cords. "Who I am. Where I came from. Why I was in that temple. Nothing."
Shen Qingci didn't answer immediately. She walked to the window, turning her back to him, and was silent for a long time.
"Do you know that memory loss is connected to the Wangchuan Gu?" she asked suddenly.
Jiang Buyu shook his head.
"It's how Wangchuan Tower controls its assassins. Once ingested, it gradually erases memories, eventually turning the victim into a puppet that knows only how to kill." Shen Qingci turned around, her gaze fixed directly on him. "But you're different. The Wangchuan Gu inside you has gone dormant—or rather, it's being suppressed by your Sword Seal. You don't remember the past not because the poison has taken effect, but because you chose to seal your own memories when you fled Wangchuan Tower."
"Why?"
"To protect someone."
Jiang Buyu's heartbeat suddenly quickened. That image surfaced again in his mind—a woman in white, standing beneath a sky full of snow, turning her head to smile at him.
"Who?"
Shen Qingci took a scroll from her sleeve, unrolled it, and placed it before him.
The painting showed a woman in white. Her features were as delicate as an ink sketch, with a faint smile on her lips. Her eyes were clear as a mountain spring, gentle as a spring breeze.
Jiang Buyu's pupils contracted sharply.
*It was her.*
The one who haunted his mind. The one who said "Wait for me" in his dreams. The one carved into his very bones—the one even the Wangchuan Gu couldn't erase.
"Her name is Lin Xiyin." Shen Qingci's voice softened. "She was your fiancée."
*Fiancée.*
The word struck Jiang Buyu's chest like a blade. He couldn't describe the feeling—even though he remembered nothing, his heart ached with a real, physical pain that made it hard to breathe.
"Where is she?"
Shen Qingci didn't answer.
She simply rolled up the painting in silence, her movements slow and gentle, as if afraid to disturb something.
"Three years ago," she finally said, her voice somewhat rough, "on the night of the Blood Moon, Wangchuan Tower joined forces with three of the Seven Sects to ambush you and Lin Xiyin. You escaped, gravely wounded. But she…"
Shen Qingci paused.
"She died."
The room fell so quiet that the crackle of the candle wick was audible.
Jiang Buyu stared at Shen Qingci's face, searching for any trace that she was joking. But there was none. Her gaze was earnest—earnest, heavy, carrying the weariness of someone who had seen too much life and death.
"I don't believe you," he said.
"I know."
"If she were really dead, why do I have the words 'Wait for me' in my head?" Jiang Buyu's voice suddenly rose, straining his wounds and draining the color from his face, but he didn't care. "Dead people don't ask you to wait!"
Shen Qingci didn't argue.
Instead, she took something from her sleeve and placed it on the small table by the bed.
It was a jade pendant, pure white, carved with an unknown flower. A crack ran along its edge, as if it had been struck by a sharp blade, but it was otherwise intact.
"This was found on you," Shen Qingci said. "It was clenched in your hand the whole time. In the three days you were unconscious, you never let go."
Jiang Buyu reached out and picked up the pendant with trembling fingers.
The moment his fingertips touched the jade, a warm current surged into his body, as if something had been awakened. A flash of an image crossed his mind—very brief, less than a second—
A hand pressed this pendant into his palm. The fingers were cold and covered in blood.
*"Take it… wait for me…"*
A woman's voice, as weak as a candle flickering in the wind.
Jiang Buyu clenched the pendant so hard his knuckles went white.
"She's alive." He lifted his head, and there was light in his eyes—an almost obsessive light. "She has to be alive. If she were dead, I wouldn't hear 'Wait for me.' I wouldn't still be holding this pendant."
Shen Qingci looked at him and was silent for a long time.
"Maybe you're right," she finally said, a hint of concession in her voice. "But even if she is alive, in your current state, you can't save her."
The words fell like a bucket of cold water.
Jiang Buyu looked down at his body. Skin and bones. Damaged meridians. No internal energy left. He couldn't even be called a killer anymore—even an ordinary street thug could finish him off.
"My martial arts…" he said hoarsely.
"Gone." Shen Qingci didn't soften the blow. "The Sword Seal inside you has shattered. Most of its power has been sealed away or lost. The fact that you're alive at all is a miracle."
Jiang Buyu closed his eyes.
Silence.
A long, heavy silence.
The birdsong outside suddenly seemed unbearably loud.
Then he opened his eyes.
"The Sword Seal fragments," he said. "Where are they?"
Shen Qingci raised an eyebrow slightly, apparently surprised by his reaction. She had expected him to break down—to rage, to throw things. That was how most people reacted when told their martial arts were gone.
But Jiang Buyu didn't.
He had skipped straight past "accepting reality" and moved on to "what's the next step."
"You're calmer than I expected," Shen Qingci said.
"I don't feel calm." Jiang Buyu's voice was flat—too flat for someone who had just been told his fiancée was dead. "I just don't have time to waste on falling apart."
Shen Qingci looked at him for a few seconds. The corner of her mouth curved upward almost imperceptibly—the first hint of something like a smile she had shown all day.
"The fragments are scattered across the martial world. Their exact locations are unknown. But I do have one lead." She walked to the desk, took out a letter, and handed it to Jiang Buyu. "Three months ago, someone saw something in the Southern Borderlands that might be a Sword Seal fragment. The holder is a renegade assassin of Wangchuan Tower—one of the 'Seven Killers,' code name 'Blood Eagle.'"
Jiang Buyu took the letter and opened it.
Only one line was written on it:
*"The Blood Eagle is at Luofeng Slope in the Southern Borderlands, in possession of a glowing bone fragment suspected to be a Sword Seal shard."*
"Why are you helping me?" Jiang Buyu set down the letter and looked at Shen Qingci.
"Because Lin Xiyin was my junior apprentice-sister." Shen Qingci's voice finally wavered. "Because I couldn't save her three years ago. Because…"
She paused, as if weighing her words.
"Because you're the man she was willing to die for. If she really is still alive, then helping her find you—helping you regain your strength—is the only thing I can do."
Jiang Buyu folded the letter carefully and tucked it into his robe.
He tried to sit up in bed. Every muscle screamed in protest, but he gritted his teeth and pushed himself up, inch by inch.
"Give me three days," he said. "Three days from now, I leave for the Southern Borderlands."
Shen Qingci watched him sway as he stood, but she didn't stop him or offer help.
"You can't even hold a sword steady right now," she said.
"Then I'll practice until I can." Jiang Buyu walked to the table, picked up the plate of pastries, and began eating ravenously. His movements were crude, even messy, but every bite was hard and determined.
He needed strength.
Strength enough to make it to the Southern Borderlands.
Shen Qingci turned and walked to the door. When she reached the threshold, she paused and glanced back.
"Qingyin Pavilion's training ground is open to you. If you need anything, just ask."
"Thank you."
The door closed.
Jiang Buyu was alone in the room.
He put down the pastry, looked down at the cracked jade pendant in his hand, and whispered:
"*Wait for me.*"
He repeated the two words softly—as if speaking to himself, as if speaking to someone far away whose whereabouts were unknown.
"I'm coming."
Outside the window, the sun shone brightly.
From the distant training ground came the crisp, powerful sounds of disciples practicing their sword forms.
Jiang Buyu clenched his fist.
---
**The Main Hall of Qingyin Pavilion.**
Shen Qingci sat in the main seat, holding a cup of tea that had long gone cold.
"Pavilion Lord," a young disciple in blue robes entered and bowed. "As you instructed, the information about the Southern Borderlands has been passed on to him."
"Mm."
"Disciple has one question." The disciple looked up, confused. "Is the bone fragment in the Blood Eagle's possession truly a Sword Seal shard?"
Shen Qingci didn't answer.
She raised the teacup to her lips and took a small sip, her gaze fixed on the tea inside the cup—deep, unfathomable.
"Whether it's real or not doesn't matter," she said. "What matters is that he needs a direction."
"What does the Pavilion Lord mean…"
"A person who doesn't know why they're living is already dead." Shen Qingci set down the teacup. "I've given him a reason. Now, it's up to him whether he lives long enough to reach the Southern Borderlands."
The disciple nodded, only half-understanding, and withdrew.
Shen Qingci sat alone in the empty hall. After a long time, she let out a soft sigh.
"Xiyin," she murmured. "This is all I can do."