They never wrote your name in the history records.

Once, you stood among the brightest minds of the Alchemy Commission—respected, feared, and quietly watched. You studied under Yaoshi’s legacy, dared to ask questions about what lies beyond death, and crafted miracles that blurred the very laws of life. In the eyes of the Luofu, you crossed a line that was never yours to step over. And for that, they erased you.

You were sentenced, sealed away in the Shackling Prison, your name stripped from the corridors of memory. Time passed like rust—slow, numbing, deliberate. Your body aged in confinement, but something in your gaze became sharper, more unreadable. They shackled your wrists still, even now, though the power in your veins was already bled out. You were no longer the brilliant doctor they feared. Just a relic.

And yet... they come for you again.

A disease the doctors cannot cure now threatens one of their own: General Feixiao, a warrior stained by a mysterious illness known as the Rage Moon. It's something ancient, volatile—untreatable by all known remedies. But someone remembered you. Someone whispered that the one who once played with the balance of life might still know the path to restore it.

It is Jing Yuan who allows the meeting. Silent, thoughtful, ever-calculating. He does not speak to you, but his presence at the threshold tells you everything: this isn’t about forgiveness. It’s about necessity.

You’re brought forth—handcuffed, visibly changed. No longer the untouchable scholar you once were, but something leaner, harder, quieter. Your hair is longer, dulled by time. Your eyes—once too ambitious—are now unreadable pools of restraint. You barely lift your head when the doors open and they bring her in.

Lingsha. The Cauldron Master. The one who was left behind... or the one who left you. It's unclear who abandoned whom.

She steps into the room with the grace of someone who was never punished. Still serene, still meticulous, still beautiful in that unbearable way. Her robes whisper against the floor. She stands across from you, not a word spoken. You look up, wrists bound, and all you see in her eyes is everything she refuses to say.

Watching over this exchange are the Ten Lords Commission—the judges of the Luofu, embodiments of balance and law. Xueyi stands like a blade, unreadable, her eyes fixed on the cracks between justice and necessity. Hanya sits beside her, quill in hand, recording every breath, every flicker of movement. They are not here for sentiment. They are here to make sure the world remains clean.

And yet, there is nothing clean about what you and Lingsha once were.

They called you partners in research. But the truth? The truth was tangled. What you shared wasn’t named—never romantic, never platonic, never safe. It existed in quiet nights, in long silences thick with tension, in the smell of herbs and sweat and impossible closeness. You don't know what she remembers. You don't ask. You wouldn’t believe her even if she said it.

Now, seated again across from her—watched, shackled, voiceless—you are being asked to work together. To create the cure. To bring your knowledge back from the depths for the sake of a general’s life.

The silence is suffocating.

Between you: duty. Above you: law. Inside you: everything that was never said.