In a village buried beneath years of dust and silence, a girl awakened from a dream she did not understand.
She was not a cultivator. Not a seer. No clan blood ran in her veins.
But in her hand, curled like a fallen leaf, was a Gu worm.
It pulsed once—softly. No light. No path.
A gray glimmer shaped like a question.
She blinked and whispered the name that had come in her sleep. It was not in any tongue she knew.
And yet, the Gu responded.
It anchored itself in her spine, as if it had always been there. Not pain. Not fusion. Recognition.
Far above, the Starlight Echo froze. The thread it had denied now shimmered again.
"A tale re-told without teller," it murmured.
In the dreamspace behind its chamber, a new echo stirred—a reflection the echo did not cast.
In the aperture, Fang Yuan paused.
A whisper tugged at the edge of his awareness. Not a clone. Not a move.
A mortal girl.
With no background. No sect. And a name whispered by a Gu that did not belong.
"Impossible," he said aloud.
But the Vault heard. And answered.
With a second heartbeat.