Chapter Text
Shen Ju burned his anger and hatred, and then his despair. His heart burned to ashes, leaving only emptiness. Now he is simply gone, less than a ghost but more than nothing. No one sees him, no one hears him; he can only watch.
What a terrible thing... To watch your life being stolen. To see those who hated and despised you smile and wish you well, to see the students you taught and protected love someone else even more, to see all your hard work taken for granted, your trials, blood, and sleepless nights are considered less important, just because you are colder and don't smile at everyone, that the actions and mistakes you did and did not commit, but for which you were condemned and slandered, are nevertheless forgiven to another — simply because he could smile, flatter, and lie.
How painful it is to be forgotten by those traitors, those hypocrites, for whom he sacrificed so much.
Abandoned as a child, Shen Ju had to understand that his life was one of constant suffering.
He hated Shen Yuan. The impostor, the body snatcher.
He hated Liu Qingge. A hypocrite who was taken in by a pretty face.
He hated Qi Qingqing. A harpy who couldn't hold her tongue. A gossip, a hypocrite. A defender of women? What a joke, if you don't have noble blood, she wouldn't spit on you even if you were on fire. The Queen of Spades, Ai Mingshi, in heaven must be falling into Qi deviation, seeing how her teachings have been distorted by her student.
He hated Ming Fan, Ning Yinyin, Qing Qing's students. He defended them, taught them, and they didn't even pretend that something was wrong, but immediately warmed up to the impostor. Min Fan, the fifth son of a middle-ranking official's third concubine. Unloved, forgotten by his father, with no purpose in life, he took him to his peak, taught him, and made him his senior disciple, a traitor. Ning Yinyin, his adopted daughter, the daughter of his Dze Dze from Red Pavilion, Ning Baihe, one of the slaves that Qiu Jianluo sold on the side. One of the poor sisters he lost over time. An adopted daughter whom he taught and pampered, but who quickly forgot him. A daughter who betrayed him. Qing Qin's disciples, whom he chose, but who immediately ran to the teacher who smiles brightly, whose words do not sting with the harsh truth of the world. Traitors.
He hated the Lords of the Peak, he hated them all. Traitors and hypocrites, all of them.
He hated Yue Qi, Yue Qinyuan. An oathbreaker, a liar, a traitor, a brother who had failed. In any conflict, you choose any side but your brother's, who had long ago sworn an oath of allegiance and had never broken it. Liar, liar, liar. Stupid and deceitful Qi Ge.
He didn't know why he stayed. Why the power that had put the impostor Shen Yuan into his body wouldn't let him go. Shen Ju could guess. Xiu Ya, his faithful companion, felt a tug at his soul the moment he was thrown out of his body. They were probably trying to take him too. Choke on it. Xu Ya, an ancient sword with a will of its own, accepted the qi, but not the soul.
After the rejection of the soul, after the stranger's consciousness had settled into the body that had once been his, Shen Ju should have dissolved — like morning fog, like a dream at dawn. But he remained.
And watched.
And watched.
And watched.
And watched.
Without a voice.
Without a body.
Without rights.
He watched.
He watched as Shen Yuan easily, as if by accident, saved Liu Qingge with a single choice. As he rebuilt the bonds of brotherhood and friendship that Shen Ju had destroyed, like parchment in flames. How the disciples smiled, how the peak lords laughed, how the people bowed with respect that Shen Ju had never received.
He watched as his own golden core — torn, full of cracks and demons tormenting his heart, but it was his, earned by him, his blood and hard work — was destroyed. For the sake of the body. For the sake of a new shell. It was that simple.
Shen Ju did not scream.
He did not cry.
He just stood and watched as his life's work, his pride, turned to dust. And Shen Yuan did not even know what he was destroying. He thought it was just dirty, weak, distorted cultivation — he didn't know that it was someone's pain, and the time spent on harsh training until his muscles cramped and his fingers were rubbed raw, spent on creating something that would make him worthy.
And again, everything comes back to him.
Why?
Why?
Yue Qinyuan...
He told everything — to him. Not to Shen Ju. Not to the one who was waiting. But to him. Accidentally, in passing. Like, sorry, I couldn't come back then. Something got in the way. Why, why did you tell Suansu, the body snatcher, and not Shen Ju? Why, after so many years of waiting for explanations, did you tell and explain everything to the impostor with your brother's face, and not to Shen Ju, who had to choke on empty apologies and equally empty promises for years?
Too late.
And now—the wedding. With the disciple. Between the impostor with his body and face and his Disciple. If only the Master were here. Everyone here, all the guests and disciples, the lords would turn to ashes in the wind. Shen Minghui would not allow such a farce. Laughter. Joy. Light. All the top lords, disciples, friends.
And he — Shen Ju — stood there, invisible, inaudible, imperceptible. Like a shadow lost in the midday sun.
He thought he would be able to find at least a flash of his former anger within himself. But no. All that remained was fatigue.
And deep indifference.
And then... Something let go.
He felt it — as if the invisible chains that bound him to the Impostor had been released. They disappeared. As if he could take his first free breath in a long time, even though he no longer needed to breathe.
He could leave.
He could leave.
He could leave.
Finally.
Shen Ju turned away from this celebration of life, which he no longer needed to watch and no one was forcing him to watch. He didn't know where he was going, only the joy of no longer being tied down. Not to this world. Not to his body. Not to pain.
And then he felt a tug.
Not a voice. Not a call.
Xu Ya.
My faithful Xu Ya.
The same prisoner I was. The same as Shen Ju.
Where his heart once beat, something stirred and pulled.
He turned around and saw.
Shen Yuan stood on the steps, smiling confusedly, and looked bewilderedly at the flickering sword. At the last glimmer of light from Xiu Ya in this world.
Xiu Ya.
The sword that Shen Ju had once chosen, despite all its cracks, his broken soul, and his desperate struggle.
The sword shone.
It pulled and
stretched
And at that moment, Shen Ju suddenly realized:
This world was no longer his,
This peak was no longer his,
The connection had weakened.
The shackles had broken.
He could leave.
Let them slander him, forget him, replace him — but he still subconsciously clung to the chains that bound him to the little liar.
Xu Ya flickered.
The shackles broke.
They could leave.
And he let go.
The warmth of Xiu Ya's radiance next to Shen Ju's soul. The joy of a long-awaited reunion with a dear friend.
And then darkness.
In the banquet hall of Peak Qiong Ding. The wedding of Lord Peak Qingqing Shen Qingqiu and the Demon Emperor Luo Binhe of the Heavenly Demons clan.
Everyone present felt that something was wrong. The disciples and invited guests began to murmur and look at each other nervously. The Peak Lords looked around, saw the cause of the commotion, and found it shining on the hands of their brother-in-arms standing on the pedestal. Everyone froze in shock, which turned to surprise, then horror, and finally realization.
Shen Yuan held the shining, gradually flickering sword and felt something crumbling. It was as if at that moment and after that, nothing would be the same, as if something was irrevocably changing. His stay in this world and in the body of a villain had not passed without a trace. Although it had a weak core, the spiritual perception of the real owner of the body was no joke and remained even after Shen Yuan had taken possession of it. When he used the sword, he could feel some kind of distant rejection, flashes of strange discontent. This always happened when he immersed Qi in the sword or commanded it from a distance. Xiu was always difficult and complicated to control. Shen Yuan believed that Shen Ju was as bad at handling the sword as he was, because almost all skills and knowledge had been transferred to him without any problems, except for creating new musical compositions, works of art, and combat tactics. Shen Yuan was able to completely settle into the role of Shen Qingqiu, become him, surpass him, and excel him. Therefore, when he looked at the sword he was holding in his hands and from a close distance, or for some other reason, Shen Yuan could clearly feel something leaving the blade from within.
It was slipping away.
It was breaking.
Xu Ya broke free — not in body, not in metal.
His essence — the one that had become his soul — followed Shen Ju.
He couldn't stay.
He didn't belong to anyone else.
He was Shen Ju's sword.
The chosen one.
The cultivator whose loyalty shone so brightly in his soul that it called to him louder than anyone else.
And in the place where the beautiful sword once was...
Only the shell remained.
The sword, once shining with a soft light, no longer breathed.
The blade faded.
The sound of a blow against a stone — fragile, like the ringing of a broken porcelain bowl —
and Xiu Ya split.
Inside — emptiness.
A beautiful corpse.
Shen Yuan understood.
Not immediately. But he understood.
He did not possess Xiu Ya.
He had only ever borrowed her.
And on that day, when the soul departed, Xiu Ya followed him.
In the shadows
In the emptiness
Westeros. Driftmark. Dawn. 124 years after the Long War. The chambers of the Crown Princess.
The baby took its first breath in the arms of its weary mother.