The temple ruins were quiet as moonlight spilled across broken stone and wildflowers.
Yue Yun knelt before the statue of an old Celestial General, his sword laid across his lap. He
wasn't praying. He was remembering.
Wei Long approached from the side, holding an old jade pendant in his hand.
"You've seen this before, haven't you?"
Yue Yun took it carefully.
A dragon carved across the front — not Ao Xuan, but another. Older. Its eyes hollow.
"I saw it in the Dreaming Realm once," Yue Yun whispered. "On a woman's neck."
Wei Long sat beside him.
"That woman was your mother."
Yue Yun looked up sharply.
"What?"
Wei Long's face was calm, but his eyes held a thousand regrets.
-
"She was not mortal, Yue Yun. She was a High Immortal once… a healer from the Western
Celestial Range. She fell in love with someone she was forbidden to touch."
Yue Yun's voice was hoarse. "Who?"
Wei Long paused.
Then said the name:
> "Divine Lord Taihua."
The name rang in Yue Yun's chest like thunder.
"He's the one calling for your death now," Wei Long continued. "But once… he loved your
mother. Until she became pregnant. Until she bore a child whose soul could awaken the dragon
of the Primordial Seal."
Yue Yun couldn't breathe.
"That's why I was marked?" he asked. "Because I was born from someone forbidden?"
Wei Long nodded. "They didn't just send you to the mortal world to train. They sent you there to
hide you."
Yue Yun stood suddenly, the pendant clutched tightly in his fist.
"So all this time… the gods were never protecting me."
"They were protecting themselves." Wei Long's voice was calm, but firm.
Ao Xuan shifted behind them, the markings on his scales glowing faintly with rising emotion. He
had known.
He had always known.
Far away, in the Celestial Court, Divine Lord Taihua stared at a mirror pool, watching Yue Yun
from above.
His face remained cold.
But his hands… were shaking.