The question hung, unspoken, in the air. “Why her… as well?” The white-haired youth, steeped in melancholy, swallowed another draught of wine and closed his eyes against a memory only he could see.

“She is here,” came the steady reply, as immutable as the ancient stones. Wang Lin raised the wine flask, the amber liquid catching the faint light. “If you have the strength to sever the bond, then sever it.”

Silence descended, thick and heavy as a tomb. The white-haired youth remained mute, the only sound the gurgle of the flask as he emptied it to the dregs.

“Are you blaming me…?” he finally whispered, the question a wisp of smoke on the still air.

Wang Lin chuckled, a dry, hollow sound. “You are me, and I am you. To blame you is to blame myself.”

“I slumber still,” the youth murmured, his voice barely audible above the silence. “This dream, woven with the threads of stolen truth, is beyond my control. It unfolds according to the fractured will within the three nascent fruits…”

Wang Lin offered no reply.

The two men, or perhaps two facets of the same soul, sat upon the painted barge, adrift in a world where time had ceased to exist. They drank, each swallow a silent testament to a burden only they could comprehend.

Years stretched into eons, yet the willow catkins hung suspended, unmoving in the stagnant air. But the two figures drained flask after flask, their thirst unquenchable.

“This life… how goes it?” the white-haired youth asked at last, his voice laced with a weariness that transcended lifetimes.

“Why ask me?” Wang Lin countered, placing the empty flask upon the deck. “My feelings are but a mirror to your own.”

The youth sighed, a sound like the rustling of dead leaves. His gaze drifted towards the woman, Li Muwan, a figure frozen in time beside them. “Are you ready?” he whispered, his eyes clouding with unshed tears.

Wang Lin turned to her, his gaze filled with a longing that threatened to shatter the dream. “Go,” he commanded, the word catching in his throat. “I must depart. The dream is fading…”

A thousand tasks awaited him, a thousand souls clamoring for his attention.

“Wait for me, Muwan,” he vowed silently. “I will awaken you…”

The white-haired youth, mirroring Wang Lin’s grief, rose and knelt before the woman. He pressed a gentle kiss upon her brow, concealing the torment in his eyes. Then, with a sudden, wrenching motion, he turned, his right hand reaching for the heavens. Another flask of wine materialized in his grasp.

He placed it gently upon the deck, a final offering, and with a drawn-out sigh, stepped forward. His form dissolved into a single white bird, soaring skyward until it vanished, leaving behind only the chilling stillness.

He was gone, yet the world remained suspended, unchanged. Only the flask remained, a silent sentinel awaiting the touch that would bring the dream to its inevitable conclusion.

Wang Lin watched in silence. Time held no meaning, yet an eternity passed before he stirred. He came to Li Muwan’s side and sat beside her. His hands, trembling slightly, rested upon the strings of the ancient zither. He closed his eyes, and a melody, unheard by mortal ears, began to unfold within his soul.

A song of sorrow and enduring love, a dream-song drawing to its end, a lament for a love destined to fade.

“That year, that day, we met in the Fiery Kingdom beyond the Sea of Demons. A hunt, a desolation, a cry in the night, and the lowered gaze that changed everything…”

“Years beyond counting, countless rebirths. We wandered the mortal realm, each lost in the shadows, brushing past each other, never recognizing the love that bound us.”

“At last, we meet again, as the dream shatters. Though sorrow binds us, though pain grips our hearts…”

The song ended. Wang Lin opened his ancient eyes, his hand shaking as he reached for the abandoned flask. He gazed at it, then at Li Muwan, his gaze stretching across the chasm of shattered realities.

This gaze, this last look, would be the end of the dream.

With a silent smile, he raised the flask to his lips, his gaze sweeping across the world he had inhabited for seventy years. He drained the flask in one long draught.

The wine was tasteless, like water.

Yet it burned like fire, igniting within him a conflagration that consumed him from the inside out.

“What is cause and effect…? I hold the cause in my hand, and reap the harvest…”

The world erupted. The barge beneath his feet dissolved, along with the river, the stone bridge, the painted vessels, the motionless willow catkins hanging in the air.

An invisible wave pulsed outward from Wang Lin, obliterating all in its path. The houses of Su City vanished in an instant, followed by the entire Kingdom of Zhao, its mountains, rivers, sects, villages, and ancient roads. Everything crumbled into dust.

Beyond Zhao, beyond the Realm of Souls and the Frozen Wastes, every kingdom, every landscape, shattered.

The endless sea, its roaring waves, the distant continent across the water, the homeland of Li Muwan, all succumbed. The Fiery Kingdom, the Xuanwu Kingdom, the Sea of Demons, Wang Lin’s and Li Muwan’s home in the valley, all turned to ash.

The earth surrendered its hold, leaving behind only the mortals and cultivators frozen in their final poses.

Like Li Muwan and Da Fu beside him.

“What is life and death…? My left hand holds life, my right…” Tears streamed down Wang Lin’s face as he spoke. The sky above the planet Vermillion Bird tore open, unleashing a storm of lightning that consumed the heavens.

As the final word left his lips, Li Muwan, closest to him, was swept away like dust on the wind. She vanished, followed by the countless mortals who had populated the riverbank and the ruins of Su City.

The faces of those he had known, loved, or hated throughout his life in Zhao, all flickered and died.

Liu Mei, once perched atop a mountain peak, now stood suspended in the void. A gust of wind, the harbinger of oblivion, touched her, and she was gone.

Xu Fei and Zhou Rui, two women who had once soared through the sky, dissolved into dust and were carried away.

Wang Zhuo, clad in black, stood upon the peak of Heng Yue Mountain. As the mountain crumbled beneath him, his form shattered.

The Yellow Dragon Immortal, the ancient patriarch of the Teng family, and countless other cultivators within Zhao and beyond, vanished. Even Zhou Wutai, who had been speaking to his disciple, watched in horror as the young man dissolved before his eyes.
Lord Zhou Wutai, and the disciple he stood beside, were scattered upon the winds, their forms dissolving into the heavens above. Gone, too, was Yun Quezi, and the dark adepts of Soul Refining Sect, Nian Tian and Dun Tian. Vanished was the Vermillion Bird Child, and with them, all souls from this continent, and the distant lands beyond the endless sea.

In that single, terrible moment, the world was stripped bare, devoid of earth and life, leaving only the vast and silent sky.

Only Wang Lin remained, his eyes brimming with tears, and beside him, his steadfast companion, Da Fu.

They were alone, the last souls beneath a weeping sky.

Li Muwan’s passing, and Wang Lin’s falling tears, sank into the endless void, lost to realms unknown. Above, a tempest of lightning roared and clashed, swirling into a monstrous vortex. Within its heart, amidst a sea of blood-red darkness, the white-haired youth, his own eyes closed in sorrow, also wept.

He was loath to let go… but the dream, as all dreams must, was awakening. This moment had always been destined, and now, after fulfilling his long-held promise to himself, after draining that cup of wine, the dream shattered.

“What is truth…? I, Wang Lin, with open eyes, see reality… but with eyes closed…?” As those words escaped his lips, Wang Lin grasped Da Fu’s hand, the golden mark upon his wrist merging with his own. Then, with agonizing slowness, his aged eyes closed.

And as they did, memories flooded his mind, scenes both cherished and unbearable, each one fading as quickly as it appeared, dissolving into the very fabric of the universe, destined to be sought only within the annals of remembrance.

He saw himself upon a painted barge, sailing with Li Muwan and Da Fu, time itself suspended in that fleeting moment.

He saw a humble carriage, trudging along a snow-swept road, towards the old village nestled within the white-capped mountains.

He saw himself and Li Muwan in their valley home, bathed in the melodies of her zither, their eyes locked in a gaze that echoed through eternity, a vision that blurred and faded with each attempt to recall its clarity.

He saw himself seated upon a jade stone on a mountain peak, comprehending the very essence of the cosmos, while countless cultivators prostrated themselves in reverence. And amidst that throng, he caught a glimpse of Liu Mei’s tear-streaked face.

He saw himself beside a volcano, its deathly breath rising around him, bellowing defiance at the heavens. He could endure any hardship, deceive himself with any falsehood, save for one: severing the threads of fate that bound him to Li Muwan. He could not. And so, he pointed a trembling finger at the heavens, at the pure white bird that soared above, and roared a question at his own heart.

*Can you cut it, can you sever it? You cannot!!!*

He saw himself upon a storm-tossed sea, a merchant vessel battling against mountainous waves. He saw the sailors upon its deck, singing ancient sea shanties, and witnessed a defiance against death itself.

He saw a woman huddled outside a rain-soaked pavilion, cradling an infant. The aura of bitter cold that surrounded her was so intense that the falling rain froze into shards of ice.

He saw Liu Mei on the borders of Zhao, her eyes clouded with confusion, leaving behind a single elixir, a gift offered with a bittersweet smile.

He saw his father close his eyes within his arms, saw autumn leaves, infused with departing souls, spiral from the rooftop. He saw his mother’s unseeing gaze, and the faint, blissful smile that lingered on her lips, as if she had been reunited with his father in a dream beyond this world.

He saw himself, a young man in Su City, silencing an assassin with a single, withering glare!

He saw Su Dao, saw his burial mound. He saw himself, still young, with Da Fu at his side, waiting upon a painted skiff for a promised rendezvous, as willow catkins danced in the spring air.

And finally, he saw a humble inn beside the ancient road. He saw a young man, drunken and slumped upon a table, and a weary innkeeper, shaking him awake.

“Wake up, young master… Alas, these scholars, two cups of wine and they are lost. I need to close up shop for the night, you must awaken…”

The drunkard raised his head, his gaze bleary and unfocused, and spoke with a foolish grin.

“I tell you, I had a dream… I dreamed I became a god…”

As that word, “god,” left his lips, all those memories shattered into fragments.

Wang Lin’s eyes closed completely. And as they did, the heavens crumbled, and all within that dream vanished.

The dream was over…

And within the pitch-black nothingness, beyond the borders of all realms, in that place War Devil called the Wall of Emptiness, the white-haired youth opened his eyes, bathed in crimson light.

“Origin arises from emptiness, and from emptiness, wondrous existence… I understand…”