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Chapter 34 - Chapter 33 – The Mask and the Memory

That night, Jin Mei found his friend seated atop the North Tower, staring at the horizon as if trying to read the stars.

"You're brooding again," Jin Mei announced, casually tossing an apple in the air. "That usually means something's terribly wrong… or someone's making you feel things."

Jin Xuan Yue didn't respond.

Jin Mei sat beside him anyway. "It's about that servant girl, isn't it?"

Xuan Yue's eyes flickered. "She's not who she says she is."

"Well, clearly," Jin Mei said, biting into the apple. "No ordinary maid stares down generals, vanishes in hallways, and moves like she's gliding on air."

"She even knew how to disarm a wind trap," Xuan Yue murmured, more to himself.

Jin Mei choked. "A wind trap? From the Hall of Ancient Techniques?"

"She disabled it like she'd set it herself."

Jin Mei swallowed the rest of his apple whole. "Okay. You need to tell me if you're harboring a hidden assassin, a runaway princess, or your dead ex in disguise. Because that's a lot of dramatic tension for one palace."

A ghost of a smile tugged at Xuan Yue's lips.

But it didn't last.

"She… looks like Qing Yue."

Jin Mei fell silent.

"Everything about her reminds me," Xuan Yue said lowly. "But her eyes — they carry pain. Not just grief… betrayal."

Jin Mei leaned back. "So what will you do?"

"I don't know."

"Want my advice?"

"No."

"I'll give it anyway."

Xuan Yue sighed.

Jin Mei's voice softened. "Don't push her away too fast. Truth finds a way to come out. But if you crush it before it does… you might lose it again."

---

Meanwhile, deep beneath the palace — in the archives no one dared to enter — Li Hua knelt before an ancient scroll.

A prophecy.

> "When the blood moon lights the sky,

and fox and god reunite,

the demon's heart shall rise anew—

unless love can seal what death could not."

Her breath caught.

She remembered the moment she died. Or rather… was supposed to die.

The betrayal. The blade. The blood.

But she also remembered his arms catching her as she fell — the way he'd cried out her name.

The name no one had uttered in a thousand years.

Qing Yue.

Her lips trembled.

If he truly was the one who saved her… then everything she believed… might be a lie.

But if not—

She clenched her fists.

She wouldn't forgive.

Not yet.

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