Chapter 16: The Face That Was Never Mine

Jiàn Lian staggered back.

His pulse pounded in his skull.

The man standing at the altar—**the real Jiàn Lian—**turned fully.

And Jiàn Lian saw it.

His own face.

But not quite.

The features were wrong. Twisted. Blurred, like a reflection in rippling water. His skin was too smooth, too stretched, as if it had been placed over a body that wasn’t meant to wear it.

Jiàn Lian’s stomach churned.

His breath came ragged.

"No."

The younger version of himself—**the boy who had been guiding him through this nightmare—**sighed.

"You pulled the thread," the boy murmured.

Jiàn Lian’s hands shook.

The temple around them flickered. The lanterns overhead dimmed, casting shifting shadows across the walls. The air was thick with incense, but beneath it—

The scent of rot.

Jiàn Lian clenched his teeth. "This is a trick."

The other Jiàn Lian at the altar smiled.

His lips split too wide.

Like his skin didn’t fit his face properly.

Jiàn Lian’s breath hitched.

"You still don’t see it?" the boy beside him whispered. "You weren’t supposed to exist."

Jiàn Lian’s chest tightened.

The mist swirled.

The shadows lengthened.

And then—

Something moved.

Jiàn Lian’s fingers twitched toward his blade. His heart slammed against his ribs.

Because the altar—the one the real Jiàn Lian had been kneeling before—

Was not a shrine at all.

It was a body.

No—a corpse.

And not just any corpse.

Mei Rin.

Jiàn Lian’s vision blurred.

She lay on the altar, motionless. Her silk robes were soaked through with blackened blood.

Her face was serene. Like she had died peacefully.

But her hands—

Her fingers were curled into fists.

Like she had tried to hold on.

Jiàn Lian’s knees nearly buckled.

"What… is this?" His voice cracked.

The boy beside him tilted his head.

"This was the real fate," the boy said softly.

Jiàn Lian’s body went cold.

"This is what was supposed to happen," the boy continued. "She was supposed to die. And the real Jiàn Lian—"

He gestured toward the thing standing at the altar.

"—was supposed to live."

Jiàn Lian’s head spun.

This wasn’t right.

This wasn’t possible.

Because Mei Rin was alive.

He had saved her.

Jiàn Lian’s throat tightened. "No."

The boy sighed. "Then tell me—"

His voice lowered, nearly a whisper.

"—where is she now?"

Jiàn Lian froze.

A sickening chill crawled up his spine.

Where was she?

Where had she gone?

His hands clenched at his sides. His mind raced.

When the mist swallowed her—where had it taken her?

If fate had tried to erase her… then what had he truly brought back?

The other Jiàn Lian took a step forward.

Jiàn Lian’s stomach churned.

The way he moved—it wasn’t human.

The skin on his arms shifted, stretching like something was trying to press through.

And then—

The corpse on the altar moved.

Jiàn Lian’s blood ran cold.

A breath—**soft and rattling—**escaped Mei Rin’s lips.

And slowly, her fingers unclenched.

Something crawled out.

Something small. Black. Moving.

Jiàn Lian staggered back.

Not just one thing.

A dozen. A hundred.

Tiny, writhing centipedes.

Spilling from between her fingers. From her lips. From the hollow space behind her eyes.

Jiàn Lian’s stomach lurched.

The corpse shouldn’t be moving.

It should be dead.

But then—

It smiled.

And in Mei Rin’s voice—but layered with something else, something ancient, something that should never have spoken—

It whispered.

"I never left."

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