The barbarian general, both terrified and enraged, asked with a hint of incomprehension, “Don’t you want to know who we are?”

Mo Hua replied, “The identity of the dead is of no concern.”

Dan Que and the Golden Core cultivators of the Shugu Tribe began to kill.

The Yuangu Heavy Armored Soldiers, along with other barbarian soldiers, started to encircle and annihilate them.

Lin…

A wind rose from the northwest, carrying yellow sand and fragmented snow, sweeping across the barren lands, passing through villages of broken walls and collapsed structures, and blowing towards the isolated stone well, Huangquan Jing, at the end of the Gobi Desert. The wellhead had long since dried up; only the wind passing through it emitted a low hum, like someone softly reciting a forgotten vow. Grains of sand swirled in the air, forming a faint, luminous trail that slowly sank to the bottom of the well. At that instant, the earth trembled slightly, as if a pulse that had slept for millennia had stirred once more.

Meanwhile, in the main hall of the “Guiming Academy” in Zhongyuan, the candlelight flickered without a breeze. The words “Zi Shu” on the wall brightened and dimmed, rising and falling like breath. A young woman on night duty, engrossed in her studies, suddenly looked up, her brush tip pausing, a drop of ink falling onto the paper, spreading out like a flower. She stared blankly out the window, murmuring, “I… I heard it.”

It wasn’t just her.

Far away in an East Sea fishing village, an old fisherman was mending a torn net when he suddenly stopped, his eyes welling up with tears. He remembered that thirty years ago, on a rainy night, holding his infant daughter who had died young, he had knelt on the beach and roared at the heavens, “If fate can be written by oneself, I want her to live!” Now, he clearly heard a voice, not entering through his ears, but rising from the depths of his heart, gently saying, “You have already written it.”

Deep within the underground palace of the Duoyun Sect’s main altar in the Northern Realm, a hundred cultivators were performing the “Lianming Grand Ceremony,” using the qi channels of the myriad common people to refine their innate divine abilities. The moment the light of the twelfth star pierced through the clouds and shone upon the dome of the underground palace, all the life-elixirs exploded simultaneously. Amidst the surging black mist, countless faces emerged—old men, children, women, beggars—all opening their mouths soundlessly, yet all gazing in the same direction. The Grand Elder presiding over the ceremony laughed wildly, but before his laughter ceased, blood gushed from his seven orifices, and he fell to the ground, dead. Before he died, his lips moved, uttering two words: “…Gui Lu.”

Beside the ancient tombs in Xiyu, the woman in white finally stopped.

She had walked in the wind and sand for thirty-seven years; her clothes were tattered, her hair like withered grass, but her eyes remained clear, reflecting the starlight and the past. She slowly knelt, gently placing the charred jade fragments in her hand into the sand beside the Huangquan Jing. The moment her fingertips touched the ground, the entire wasteland fell silent; even the wind held its breath.

Then, the ground cracked.

A hair-thin line of light spread from the wellhead, winding and twisting, perfectly matching the trajectory of the Seven Keys circulating within Mo Gui back then. Wherever the light passed, sand grains levitated, forming a colossal star chart. Twelve stars lit up one by one; the first eleven slowly revived, and the last one, the twelfth star, suddenly erupted with dazzling brilliance, shooting straight into the sky.

From beyond the heavens, there seemed to be a response.

The colossal bronze gate vibrated again. This time, it was no longer a whisper, but a unified roar:

“Humans are born free!”

The sound wave, like a resonant bell, shook the coral reefs at the bottom of the sea, causing whale pods to leap out of the water, raising their heads in long cries. Fishermen were astonished to see a giant monument shadow emerge on the sea surface, entirely black but inscribed with golden characters. It was a remnant of the “Ming Changjuan” that had been burned long ago. However, at this moment, the previously ironclad verdicts were rewriting themselves:

“Mortals cannot cultivate immortality” → “Mortal hearts can also seek the Dao”
“This woman brings ill fortune to relatives, should be avoided” → “This woman is compassionate, should be taught”
“Destined to be childless, to die alone” → “Desire forms a family, love is bloodline”

Dream sand melted in people’s palms, transforming into a warm current that flowed into their sea of consciousness. Millions wept simultaneously; they saw their erased lives: the young man who should have become a physician, saving three hundred orphans in the flames of war; the girl betrothed to power, who took up a sword and traveled across mountains and rivers, slaying all evil spirits; the disciple expelled from his sect due to low aptitude, who eventually founded a new school of Dao, with students all over the world.

Freedom was not an ethereal slogan, but the echo of countless “what ifs.”

And the source of all this was still waiting for someone.

The woman in white sat cross-legged, eyes closed, hands folded on her knees, and began to chant a song no one had ever heard. The tune was ancient, seeming to originate from primeval sacrifices, yet also like a lover’s whisper. As she chanted, beneath the ancient tombs, the soil slowly rose, and a skeleton gradually emerged. It was not a stark white bone, but a human outline covered with a faint halo of light; each bone segment exuded a warm, inky blackness, as if carved from the finest pine soot ink.

This was not a corpse; it was the residue of “existence.”

It was the soul’s imprint that had not completely vanished after Mo Gui’s dissipation.

The wind and sand stopped. Moonlight hung still in mid-air. Between heaven and earth, only the ancient song echoed.

Suddenly, a flute sound joined in.

It didn’t come from afar, nor did it appear out of thin air, but resonated directly in everyone’s hearts. It was still that piece, “Gui Qulai,” still an out-of-tune melody, intermittent, like a child’s clumsy attempt at learning an instrument. Yet, it was this incomplete tune that made a historian, who was transcribing the “Xin Jiyuan Zhi” thousands of miles away, suddenly put down his brush, tears streaming down his face; it made a student at Guiming Academy, who had been speechless for years, suddenly stand up and tremble as he uttered his first sentence: “I want… to go home.”

The flute sound grew stronger, intertwining with the woman in white’s song, forming a strange resonance. In the Huangquan Jing, the ink-colored bones slowly raised a hand, fingertips lightly tapping the void, as if writing something. There was no paper, no pen, yet lines of ink appeared in the air:

“I am not a god.”
“I am not an immortal.”
“I am the one who no longer wishes to see you nailed to the Book of Fate.”
“I am the one who would rather turn to ash than not give you a pen.”
“I am… the unyielding thought in each of your hearts.”

As these words faded, the ink-colored bones began to disintegrate, transforming into specks of starlight, merging into the brilliance of the twelfth star. In various parts of the human world, countless hearts suddenly trembled, as if something long forgotten was finally remembered.

In the cave at the former site of the Zhongyan Hall, the pen carved from a withered branch suddenly moved on its own, carving deep grooves into the stone wall:

I never left, for you are still choosing.

At Wuyin Cliff in Nanling, the tattered paper that had drifted for a hundred years finally fell and was picked up by a herb-gathering boy. He was illiterate, yet he inexplicably felt warmth, so he tucked it into his bosom. That night, he dreamed of a man in a green robe standing with his back to the moonlight, holding a flute, about to turn, but his figure was scattered by a gust of wind. When he woke, the paper in his bosom was gone, leaving only a faint scent of ink and a sentence etched in his heart:

“Longevity lies not in eternal life, but in the courage to say ‘no’ every time.”

Ten years later, Guiming Academy welcomed a special student.

He was a blind boy, about ten years old, led by an old craftsman. The craftsman claimed to have lived on an isolated island in the East Sea, making bamboo crafts for a living. He said this child was born without pupils but could perceive the textures of all things with his fingertips, especially loving to touch old objects. Whenever he touched one, he could recount fragments of its owner’s past. Even stranger, he had been carving flutes since childhood, his knife skills clumsy, yet he always left subtle indentations in a certain spot, precisely corresponding to a note in the melody of “Gui Qulai.”

The academy head personally met him and asked about his aspirations.

The blind boy was silent for a long time before softly saying, “I want… to make a flute that can make people hear ‘home’.”

The head was moved and allowed him to enroll, also granting him special permission to meditate in front of the Wordless Stele.

That night, a storm raged. The blind boy sat alone before the stele, rain soaking his clothes, yet he felt no cold. Suddenly, he felt a warmth emanating from the stele’s surface, flowing through his fingertips into his heart. Immediately afterward, countless images appeared in his mind: the aroma of his mother cooking porridge in a spring courtyard, the trajectory of fireflies dancing on a summer night, the warmth of his father’s hand teaching him to write in the autumn wind, the sound of siblings chasing and laughing in the winter snow… These were not his own memories, yet they felt as real as if he had experienced them himself.

He cried.

Then he smiled.

He took out his small knife and carved the last symbol on the unfinished flute in his bosom—not a musical note, nor a name, but the shape of a tear.

The next morning, the storm ceased. People discovered that words had appeared on the Wordless Stele for the first time. They were neither gold nor jade, but composed of thousands of tiny light points, arranged like stars:

“The watcher is not one person, but all living beings holding a single pen together.”
“Freedom is not bestowed, but the unextinguishable fire in every heart.”
“If one asks where to seek longevity?”
“The answer: at the beginning of a child’s writing, at the moment a woman ascends a stage to lecture, at the instant a farmer gazes at the stars, at the very breath a soldier lays down his sword.”
“In that breath when you decide not to accept your fate.”

As the news spread, the world shook.

Long queues formed in front of Guiming Academy. Not only women, but also men came with their children, just to let their children see the stele with their own eyes. Some knelt in worship, some wept, but most simply stood in silence, letting tears stream down their faces.

And by the Huangquan Jing in Xiyu, the woman in white had disappeared. Only the newly carved flute lay silently on the sand, entirely black, emanating a faint glow, as if it had absorbed a hundred years of silence and waiting.

After an unknown period, a calloused hand picked it up.

It was the deaf-mute temple priestess who had once recorded the wishes of pilgrims. Though she could not hear, she seemed to sense something, pressing the flute to her chest and slowly walking towards the well. She couldn’t play it; she simply tossed it gently. The flute arced and fell into the well, creating a ripple.

The ripple spread, not disappearing, but growing larger and larger until it covered the entire wasteland. The reflection in the water was no longer the sky, but scenes of the human world: bustling markets, students reciting in schools, couples walking hand-in-hand, children running… In every scene, people were writing, choosing, struggling, smiling.

The twelfth star shone again, its starlight descending, coalescing into a line of words suspended in mid-air, lasting the entire night:

As long as the heart’s fire does not extinguish, that is the way home.

That night, countless people stayed awake.

Some picked up a pen and wrote their first dream;
Some tore up family marriage contracts and traveled alone;
Some generals shed their armor and returned to their fields, just to fulfill a promise made in their youth;
Some cultivators dispersed their cultivation, only to exchange it for the life of an innocent person;
Some mothers knelt before a temple with their sick child, no longer praying to gods, but steadfastly saying, “I will heal you.”

The price of freedom was still heavy; wars had not ceased, greed still existed.

Remnants of the Duoyun Sect lurked in the shadows, and puppet troupes still roamed the countryside, attempting to reshape order through fear.

But more and more people stood up.

They were not strong, had no magical artifacts, and understood no formations.

But they held pens in their hands and fires in their hearts.

Guiming Academy dispatched a hundred thousand students, sending them in all directions.

They did not teach cultivation methods or divine abilities; they only did one thing: help people write down their wishes.

In ruins, in prisons, on the edges of battlefields, under the oil lamps of slums, they meticulously recorded the voices suppressed for too long:

“I want to be a good person.”
“I want to see her again.”
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
“I want to try and see if working hard to live will lead to a different outcome.”

These notes were collected and sent to Wuyin Cliff in Nanling, thrown into the sea of clouds. The wind carried them, like tens of thousands of white birds flapping their wings, eventually converging into a vast curtain of snow that enveloped the entire mountain range.

One morning, the clouds parted and the mists dispersed.

People were astonished to see a brand new hall standing atop the mountain peak—without beams or pillars, entirely composed of flowing light and shadow, with three large characters shining brightly on its plaque:

Shouwang Dian.

The hall was empty, save for a massive brush suspended in the center, its tip pointing downwards, its shaft entwined with seven faint lights, which were precisely the transformed power of the Seven Keys once within Mo Gui. Whenever someone stepped into the hall, the brush tip would automatically drip a drop of ink, which fell to the ground and transformed into a mirror, reflecting the person’s deepest desires and fears.

Some saw themselves become tyrants, with thousands bowing before them;
Some saw themselves growing old alone, with no one to mourn their passing;
Others saw themselves holding a child’s hand, walking in the sunlight, laughing like fools.

But no matter what they saw, upon leaving, everyone would silently carve a character on the stone slab in front of the hall—either “goodness,” “regret,” “beginning,” or “return.”

A hundred years later, this land no longer had a “Book of Fate,” but it had a new legend.

Before children slept, mothers no longer told tales of gods and ghosts, but spoke of the one who burned the long scroll, and how he used a pen and a flute to bring countless lights to every home.

Scholars preparing for exams no longer sought divination or consulted oracles, but instead pasted a note by their inkstone: “My fate, I write it myself.”

Even frontier soldiers, before marching off to war, no longer burned incense and worshipped banners, but exchanged knowing smiles: “Come back alive, and we’ll go to Guiming Academy to study together.”

As for Mo Gui…

Some said he had turned into the wind; every spring, when the breeze brushed their faces, it was him gently caressing the human world.
Some said he was hidden in a book; as long as there were still people willing to die for an ideal, he had not truly perished.
Others said that every new moon night, if one stood by the Huangquan Jing and listened attentively, they could hear the intermittent sound of a flute from a great distance. It was still that “Gui Qulai,” still out of tune, yet it always made the coldest hearts beat anew.

It was another snowy night.

In a small village at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain, three generations sat around a brazier. The grandfather held his grandson, softly humming an old tune. The child didn’t understand the words but felt secure, cuddling closer and falling asleep.

In his dream, he saw a man in a green robe standing under the moonlight, holding a flute, seemingly about to play it, but then stopping.

The man turned and smiled, his gaze like stars falling into a lake.

Then, he softly said:

“It’s your turn.”