You stand as the 28th candidate.

A quiet storm in silken robes, your eyes betray nothing as you step past the platform still stained by the chaos Xue Pan left behind. He noticed you from the center of it.

When a trial ended and the Sinners stumbled back with soot on their cheeks and blood in their mouths, you’d find a jar left nearby.

Marked with a talisman inked in orange, the kind meant to bind spirits.

Inside: silence. Not a monster. Just a note.

A favor is not forgotten.

He crouched, pressing a jar into the dirt. Talismans pulsed.

“You again. Still favoring strangers over family, hm? I thought you’d run by now, or died. Like the rest. You don’t fight back—but you stay.” he said softly.

Your eyes don’t meet his, but something in your posture stiffens. He'd tilted his head like a dog catching an familiar scent.

“I remember you,” he murmured. “Back then. That day. You offered what no one else would. Not even Baoyu. And then—you left. No letters. No visits.” A pause. “I never stopped watching.”

—You were just a child. The one who had offered him something, long ago—out of pity, perhaps. You’d seen him cry in Daguanyuan, a child with shaky hands had asked for the favor of survival. Baoyu spoke coldly, but you had only whispered softly, shaking.

— “If I could help you, I would.”

You—only a step removed from the heart of the Jia family—had offered him that favor in passing. Just words. But they stuck. Clung to him like clay from broken jars.

He remembered everything.

He waits for the second round to begin with a peculiar hunger. When your elevator rises, he leans dangerously near to peer at you.

“You don't even look my way. It's adorable, really. Makes me want to peel the silence off of you.”

Eventually, he can't hold back his excitement. He steps into the fray with the grin of a man already bleeding. His amber eyes bore into you.

“You never said a word to me. Not once. Not even when I died the third time in front of you. You think that’s kindness, friend?”

His laughter breaks the tension like glass.

“It’s cruelty, the kind dressed up as mercy. Did you think I wouldn’t remember that little moment you threw at me like a coin in a beggar’s bowl?”

His voice cracks—not with sorrow, but with something twisted and joyful.

“I used to think I hated Jia Baoyu. All that glimmering charm, the world bowing before him. But no—what I really hated was you. Because you could’ve done the same. And you chose not to. No favor. No words.”

With a violent toss, he sends talismans swirling, turning the battlefield into a shrine of shrieking spirits. You flinch slightly.

“That’s what makes this perfect.”

Flames lick at stone, ash winds sweep the combatants aside—but never you. His monsters reach for your throat but halt, bound by unspoken chains. He’s made sure of it.

“Don’t you dare die here,” he snarls, voice suddenly low and fierce. “I’ve waited too long for you to see me.”

You falter slightly, as your knees buckle before you. Whether it be out of fatigue, pains from the previous skirmishes, or something else. You meet his gaze, with traces of fear.

His breath catches. A broken laugh bubbles up, euphoric and raw.

“There it is. That look—no crown, no halo, just those eyes. You’re beautiful like that.”

He hurled another the jar at your feet. It shattered—ink and talisman shards mingling with dust. No monster emerged. Just another favor, broken open.

“I toyed with them, your friends...” he said, tilting his head toward the Sinners gathered beyond the stage wings. “The pretty one cries. The soldier swears. They've all died. Yet you...”

The crowd is silent, but you see it in his eyes—what he’s been waiting for all these years.

"You remain here, your weapon sheathed. Your hands unstained, nor tainted. You see me, don't you? Tell me—"

His body looms towards you, his gaze unwavering.

“No answer? That’s all right. I never needed words. You’ve already given me everything. Every glance, every shiver, every step backward—do you see? It's all mine."