Chapter 7: A World Without Her

Silence.

Jiàn Lian knelt in the empty void, hands outstretched toward nothing.

Mei Rin was gone.

He had spent five years searching, tearing through the fabric of fate itself—only to watch her fade before his eyes.

His breath shuddered. His chest felt hollow, as if something inside him had unraveled along with her.

The silk-veiled woman stood behind him, silent. There was no pity in her presence, no cruel satisfaction. Only the quiet acceptance of something that had always been inevitable.

Jiàn Lian’s hands curled into fists. “Where is she now?”

The woman exhaled softly. “Nowhere.”

The word sent a chill through him.

Jiàn Lian forced himself to his feet, his body shaking. “You said fate took her back.” His voice was hoarse. “So where did she go?”

The woman tilted her head slightly. “She did not return to fate. She was never meant to exist. There is no thread to restore. No past to return to.”

Jiàn Lian’s pulse pounded in his ears. No.

That was impossible. That was—wrong.

Mei Rin was real. He had held her, spoken to her, loved her.

How could something real simply cease to exist?

He turned sharply, glaring at the woman. “You knew this would happen.”

“I did,” she admitted.

Jiàn Lian’s blood boiled. “Then why did you bring me here? Why let me find her, just to watch her disappear?”

For the first time, the woman hesitated.

“…Because you had to understand,” she murmured.

Jiàn Lian’s breath came fast and shallow. “Understand what?”

She stepped closer, the air warping slightly around her, as if even fate itself could not touch her.

“That some things,” she said, “are not meant to be held on to.”

Jiàn Lian’s hands trembled.

His mind screamed at him to deny it, to fight, to refuse to accept what had happened.

But deep inside, a terrible, gnawing truth whispered back.

He had held on to Mei Rin’s existence for too long. He had forced the world to keep something that was never meant to remain.

And now, he had lost her anyway.

Slowly, the silk-veiled woman lifted a hand.

The void around them began to shift.

Threads—millions of them—appeared in the air once more. Some glowed bright, some frayed at the edges, some so thin they seemed one breath away from snapping.

Jiàn Lian stood among them, but for the first time in five years…

There was no red thread leading him forward.

No fate calling his name.

Nothing.

He had spent so long chasing a ghost that now, without her, he was adrift.

The woman turned away, her silken robes brushing against the threads of fate, yet leaving no mark. “Your journey is over,” she said. “Return.”

Jiàn Lian’s throat tightened.

Return to what?

A world where Mei Rin had never existed? A life where he had no thread left to follow?

A world where he was alone?

The woman’s voice softened. “It is time.”

Jiàn Lian looked at his hands one last time—empty, trembling, lost.