The room was dim, the only light coming from a single spirit lamp hanging above Tianya's resting body. She lay still on the straw mat, her skin pale, her breaths shallow, her fingers twitching every few seconds.
The cursed blade—Bloodthirst Cinderblade—had been sealed in a triple-warded containment array outside the hut. Even restrained, it whispered like a dying fire: incoherent, angry, grieving.
Luo Feng sat beside her, hands on his knees, unmoving.
A-Yan stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes locked on the girl who had tried to kill their master.
"Why are we helping her again?" she muttered.
"Because she never had a choice," Luo Feng said.
Bai Xueyin entered quietly and handed him a bowl of spiritual broth. He didn't take it.
"She's trapped," he added. "Not by the sword. Not entirely. The real damage is internal."
Kaelen, who had remained silent since the sealing, finally spoke. "She's soul-bound to the blade. But it wasn't a willing bond. Someone forced it onto her before she formed a core."
"A slave seal?" Bai asked.
Kaelen nodded. "Worse. A memory-inversion brand. It twists her mind until she doesn't know what she believes anymore."
Ding! Disciple "Tianya" suffering from Memory Collapse Syndrome.Symptoms: Unstable emotion fields, self-contradictory loyalty, weapon-sourced mental intrusion.Solution: Enter Memory Anchor Link to stabilize core self.Risk: High. Host may encounter spiritual feedback or memory bleed.Would you like to enter the disciple's inner mindscape?
Luo Feng didn't even hesitate.
"Yes."
The world shimmered.
And then disappeared.
He landed in snow.
But this wasn't Bai's frost—clean, sharp, alive.
This snow was dead.
Gray. Cold. Empty.
Luo Feng stood in the center of a ruined battlefield where broken spears and frozen corpses were half-buried beneath layers of ice and ash. The sky above was black—no stars, no moon. Just smoke and static.
At the center of the field stood a child.
Barefoot. Hair tangled. Eyes hollow.
She clutched a ragged sword with both hands, and blood ran down her arms.
Tianya.
But younger. Ten, maybe eleven.
Her voice cracked the silence.
"I don't want to forget again."
Luo Feng stepped forward.
"You're remembering this, aren't you?"
She nodded.
"They made me kill a city," she whispered. "And every time I cried, they erased it. So I stopped crying."
He came closer, slowly.
"And then?"
"They gave me a name. A sword. A mistress. A purpose."
"And did that help?"
She looked up at him.
"I don't remember."
The wind shrieked.
A second Tianya appeared—older, angry, her eyes blazing red, her mouth twisted in a sneer.
"You're soft," she spat at the child. "You begged for forgiveness. You thought the world owed you peace. That's why they broke us."
She raised her hand—and the child Tianya screamed, clutching her head.
Luo Feng moved instantly.
With a flick of his hand, he drew a glowing line in the air—a Memory Root Sigil—and planted it in the ground between them.
The older Tianya recoiled.
The child gasped.
Ding! Memory Link Stabilized.Emotional Thread Accessed: "The Day I Broke."
The world shifted again.
They now stood in a narrow prison cell—stone walls, bloodstains, shackles embedded in the floor.
The real Tianya, now aged as she appeared in the real world, knelt in the center.
She wasn't bound.
But she didn't move.
"You came," she said, voice ragged.
"I never left," Luo Feng answered.
She looked up at him, eyes tired. "I can't tell what's real anymore. Her voice… the sword… my past… they all sound the same."
"You're not here to remember everything," he said gently. "You're here to remember who you are."
She laughed bitterly. "Who I am? I'm a mistake with a sword and a corpse for a heart."
"No," Luo Feng said. "You're a girl who survived a hell not of her making. And that makes you stronger, not broken."
He raised his hand.
From the ground, a glowing lotus bloomed—half ice, half flame.
Tianya blinked. "That… that was the symbol from my first lesson…"
He nodded. "That means it's still in you. Buried under the noise. But intact."
She hesitated.
Then slowly reached out.
And touched the lotus.
The cell faded.
They returned to the snowfield, but now it was raining—not ash, but light.
Tianya stood taller now. Clearer. Her mismatched eyes no longer screamed confusion—they shimmered with awareness.
"You saw everything," she said. "My worst memories."
"I didn't come to judge them," Luo Feng replied. "Only to teach you how to carry them."
The wind settled.
The sword appeared again—Bloodthirst Cinderblade—but this time it stood upright in the snow, unmoving.
Waiting.
Tianya looked at it.
Then at him.
"Do I still get to choose?"
He smiled.
"You always did."
In the real world, Tianya's eyes fluttered open.
She sat up slowly, blinking away the dizziness.
"Where…?"
Luo Feng sat nearby, sipping tea like nothing had happened.
"Welcome back," he said.
She blinked. Then scowled.
"I still want to punch you."
"That's fine," he said. "You'll need better footwork first."
She snorted—and for the first time, it sounded like a real girl, not a wounded weapon.
Ding! Disciple Tianya has regained core identity.Mental resistance increased. Bloodline stabilized. Curse currently dormant.System Update: "Curse-Eater Bond" formed.Passive Skill unlocked: "Memory Guard" — Host may shield a disciple from spiritual dissonance.Disciples present morale boost: +15%.
That evening, as Tianya trained under Kaelen's supervision and A-Yan tried (again) to phase her apple through a rock, Luo Feng stood at the edge of the peak.
Bai Xueyin walked up beside him.
"She's stable—for now," she said.
Luo Feng nodded. "Now the real work begins."
"You think she'll stay?"
"I think…" he said, eyes distant, "she wants to believe in something. And if I don't give her that—someone worse will."
He didn't look at Bai when he spoke the next part.
"But I've already lost a disciple once."