Whispers of the Jade Saber

"To rewrite a page, you must tear it from the book."

---

The Temple of the Vanishing Sky crumbled behind them.

As Lin Feng stepped into the folds of reality again, the scroll in his hand pulsed—not with heat, but absence. A void where destiny should be. The fusion of the Ashen Saber's power and Ren Qixu's Reversal Sutra had birthed a new anomaly:

> The Archive of the Unmade.

It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't a scroll.

It was a concept.

A power that let Lin Feng choose one event in existence—past, present, or future—and unname it. Not erase it. Not destroy it. But remove its permission to exist.

Shi Qian stared at the black scroll. "This is what Heaven fears."

Tian Mian fell to one knee. "You… you hold a heretical axis."

Jun Feilan just scoffed. "Can it stab people? Then good enough."

But Liang Yue—

She trembled.

Not with fear. But with memory.

"Feng," she whispered, "I… I remember something that didn't happen."

He turned to her, heart suddenly heavy.

"What?"

Liang Yue closed her eyes.

> "I remember dying."

---

That night, around a fading campfire, the group rested within a spirit-shelled grove. The trees whispered fragments of the past—echoes harmless unless you listened too long.

Lin Feng and Liang Yue sat beside each other, neither speaking for a time.

Finally, she said:

"I saw myself in the Mirror, too. But I didn't see a village, or peace."

"What did you see?"

"A battlefield of snow," she said softly. "I was alone. And I was dying. But I wasn't afraid. I… welcomed it."

"Lianhua?" he asked gently.

She shook her head. "No. Not just her. It felt like all of me. The parts that never got to live."

Lin Feng looked at the scroll again.

"If this can unmake… can it restore too?"

"No," came a voice.

Shi Qian stood at the edge of the grove.

"It can only take. Not give."

"Then what good is it?" Lin Feng asked, frustrated.

"To break the hold of Heaven," she said. "And to make a choice no Recordbearer has ever made."

---

The next morning, the sky cracked.

It didn't thunder or storm—it simply split open like a scroll being torn.

And from it descended three figures, cloaked in silver and fire, faces masked with mirrored plates.

The central figure held a banner made of spirit-silk and divine law.

> "By the order of the Heavenly Scriptorium," the figure said, "Lin Feng, wielder of the Ashen Flame, is hereby summoned to stand trial for cosmic deviation and unauthorized memory alteration."

Tian went pale. "The Flame Tribunal."

Shi Qian pulled Liang Yue back. "They don't speak lies. But they don't speak mercy, either."

Lin Feng stepped forward.

"I'm not running."

"You should," Jun muttered, cracking her knuckles.

The Tribunal leader spoke again.

> "You hold what should not exist. You bear flame against time. You will answer—or be removed."

"I'll answer," Lin Feng said. "But not here. I want to face Heaven in the Archive itself."

The Tribunal paused.

Then nodded.

> "So be it. But know this—when you stand within the Archive, your truths will speak back."

The sky split again—

And swallowed them whole.

"Judgment does not come when you're guilty. It comes when you defy the script."

---

The sky reformed slowly after the Tribunal vanished with Lin Feng in tow—folding shut like the last page of a sacred book.

But the forest didn't fall silent.

It mourned.

Birds stopped flying. The wind stilled. Even the whispers of the trees seemed hesitant—afraid to speak his name.

Liang Yue stared at the fading glow where Lin Feng had stood just moments ago.

She clenched her fist so tightly that blood ran down her palm.

"I should've gone with him," she muttered.

Shi Qian stepped closer. "If you had, the Archive would've split you apart."

"I've already been split," she said, her voice flat. "I'm made of fragments. Rewritten pages from a life I didn't choose."

Shi Qian looked toward the sky. "Which is exactly why they fear you. You're proof that their edits don't hold."

Jun Feilan grunted from her perch in the trees. "So what now? Wait around for Feng to pass Heaven's little quiz and hope he doesn't get paper-cut out of existence?"

"No," Tian Mian said, voice trembling. "We prepare."

Liang Yue turned to him. "For what?"

He looked directly at her.

> "For what happens if he fails."

---

Meanwhile—

Lin Feng awoke standing on a glass floor suspended above an endless sea of ink.

Below him, millions of pages drifted through the void—each a memory, a soul, a story discarded or rewritten.

The Tribunal hovered across from him—three faceless judges, voices unified.

> "This is the Archive's Heart."

> "Here, truth burns slower."

> "Here, we read your flame."

The air shimmered.

Lin Feng saw the Ashen Saber hovering in the air behind him, its edge inscribed with shifting runes. The black scroll floated beside it—the Archive of the Unmade.

Suddenly—

A mirror appeared before him.

But unlike the Void Mirror, this one reflected only his flame.

Inside it, he saw:

A child crying alone in snow.

A teenager digging graves for people no one remembered.

A young man lifting a blade he didn't understand.

The Tribunal spoke:

> "You have unraveled causality. You have broken temporal oath. You have burned memory."

> "Why?"

Lin Feng stepped forward.

His voice was calm.

> "Because memory isn't sacred if it was rewritten to hide truth."

---

One of the Tribunal figures raised a finger.

The mirror shattered.

From the shards rose a being made of fire and script: a copy of Lin Feng, built from every action he had taken since awakening the Saber.

It moved like him. Spoke like him. But its eyes burned with rigid law.

> "This is who you were—before you began to burn fate."

> "Defeat him. Or be judged as false."

The doppelgänger attacked.

And Lin Feng met himself.

Blade against blade. Step for step. But something was off.

The copy hesitated.

It followed the old Lin Feng's path—protective, cautious, uncertain.

Lin Feng had changed.

Mid-duel, Lin Feng stepped past the blade and whispered:

> "You're not me anymore."

He stabbed through the clone.

The flame scattered into ink.

The Tribunal fell silent.

Then one spoke.

> "He has separated from his origin."

> "He chooses the flame of change."

> "But the Archive demands balance."

> "The Saber must pay memory for memory."

---

A final altar appeared.

On it lay a page, blank and pulsing.

> "You may unwrite one thing," they said.

> "But in exchange—one truth about you will be unmade."

Lin Feng paused.

Then slowly, he took the scroll.

And pressed it to the page.

He whispered a name—

> "Lianhua."

---

Outside, back at the grove, Liang Yue staggered.

Her breath caught. Her eyes widened.

Tian rushed to her side. "What is it?"

She fell to her knees, clutching her chest.

> "I remember everything."

Jun raised a brow. "That sounds good?"

Liang Yue looked up, eyes burning with silver-blue fire.

> "No. It means the heavens didn't take her."

> "They just buried her—inside me."

---

End of Chapter 34