In hindsight, it hadn’t been that long since he and Wu Meiying had seen each other. Almost one year had passed, which wasn’t a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but so much had happened that, to Wu Jian, it felt like decades had gone by. And yet Wu Meiying looked no different now than she had when they last saw each other.

Her pale skin, shimmering in the light.

Her black hair like midnight.

Even her hesitant demeanor was the same as that night.

Wu Jian had so many thoughts racing through his head that he didn’t know what to do. Did he hug her? Should he? What about all the matters he had been considering? Was hugging her right now even appropriate after so much time had passed? Did he want to? He still hadn’t properly sorted out his feelings.

He shook his head. The least he could do was confront her honestly.

“Mei…”

He took a step forward.

She took one back.

“Mei…?”

“I…”

Wu Meiying bit her lower lip so hard he thought it might start bleeding, but then she lowered herself onto her knees, then her hands as she pressed her head into the ground. Wu Jian was so startled that he froze in place. What was she doing?

“I am so… so sorry, Jian… I can never apologize enough for what happened… to your family. Everything that happened is… it’s all my fault. I… I will understand if… if you never want anything to do with me again…”

Wu Jian stared down at the young woman kowtowing to him, her body shivering as she cried into the carpet. The raw emotions she exuded tugged at his heartstrings. Her voice had been filled with anguish as she spoke, face twisting into a grimace of self-loathing and sorrow. However, she also confirmed what he already knew. Those people had come to the Wu Clan for her, destroyed the Wu Clan because she was there. That much he had already figured out himself.

The question now was… what should he do?

It would be easy to forgive her. It would also be easy to loathe her. Neither option seemed quite right. He also didn’t know the full story. Several pieces to this puzzle were missing, and he wanted to know everything he could before coming to a decision. That said, it wasn’t like he could just leave this woman hanging after she had apologized so profusely.

“Did you order those people to come after us?” he asked at last.

“W-what?” Mei looked up, face agape with horror and anguish. “No! Of course not!”

“Did you want my parents to die? Did you wish for the death of my clan?”

“No! I would never! I loved your family! Auntie Ailian, Aunt Taohua, and Uncle Youshi were like family to me! I love them all so much! I would never wish harm on them! Never! I’d rather die!”

He heard the truth in her voice and saw the sincerity in her eyes. People skilled at acting and lying could hide what they were really thinking, and while he was sure Wu Meiying capable of such things, he didn’t think she could lie to him. Wu Jian wasn’t sure where he got the basis for this idea. He just knew. If there was one person in this entire universe Wu Meiying could not lie to, it would be him.

Wu Jian took a deep breath, held it in, then released it, and in doing so, all of the bottled up kernels of resentment he held went with it.

“I won’t lie and say a part of me didn’t blame you for what happened,” he admitted honestly. Telling a pretty lie would be easy, but it wouldn’t solve anything, so he spoke the truth. “I’ve thought about what happened this whole time. If you hadn’t been there, those people would have never come, and my family would still be alive.” Wu Meiying quivered at his words, eyes tearing up even more. “However, you never wished for this to happen. Blaming you for something you didn’t want to happen won’t make me feel any better, so I won’t blame you. Instead, I’d like to understand.”

Wu Meiying looked both hopeful and confused. “You mean…?”

Wu Jian plopped himself down on the bed and patted the spot beside him. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”

“M-mm. Okay.”

Wu Meiying slowly stood up, made her way over to the bed, and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat far enough away that they weren’t touching. Had this been before the destruction of his clan, she would have snuggled up to him without hesitation. That she didn’t do that spoke of the distance that now separated them.

“Why don’t you start by telling me who you really are,” suggested Wu Jian.

“I suppose that would be best.” Wu Meiying took a deep breath. “I cannot tell you my real name, which I will explain the reason for eventually. For now, let me tell you about my origins. I come from a place beyond this world called the Nine Heavens. It might be a little hard for you to believe, but the world we live on right now is a very small part of a greater whole. It exists on the fringe. We call worlds like this small worlds because they asre not truly part of the Nine Heavens.”

“I know about the Nine Heavens,” Wu Jian confessed.

Wu Meiying blinked in surprise. “You do?”

“Byakko told me about it.”

“Ah. So you had a chance meeting with Byakko’s avatar on this world. That makes sense. I thought I sensed the White Tiger on you… but I wondered if I was mistaking the little one sleeping in your shadow,” Wu Meiying said with a smile. That reminded him that Youmei hadn’t left his shadow in some time. He worried for a moment, but Wu Meiying continued speaking, forcing his attention back to her. “I was one of the most prominent figures in the Nine Heavens and belonged to the third most powerful group. Only the Heavenly Jade Emperor and the Asura Clan held more power than me. At one point, I left my home and traveled the Nine Heavens. I had grown bored of my solitude and longed to experience more life. I saw many things while traveling incognito and met many people. During my travels, I happened upon a young man and fell in love.”

“Was that young man me?” asked Wu Jian.

Wu Meiying smiled gently. “So you already figured it out?”

“It wasn’t hard.”

Wu Jian had never questioned Wu Meiying’s love for him when he was younger, but he now understood how abnormally strong her feelings for him were. No one should love a person so absolutely at that age. According to his mother, Wu Meiying had loved him so much that just separating them had caused her to break out in tears when they were babies. That wasn’t normal.

With a wistful smile, Wu Meiying spoke again. “You are… the reincarnation of the young man I met and fell in love with. I first met you on a world connected to the Nine Heavens. It was… love at first sight, though I did not realize it at the time. You were the most beautiful person I had ever seen.”

“I was? Me? Really?” Wu Jian was shocked.

“Tee-hee. I understand why you’re surprised, but let me explain,” Wu Meiying said with a giggle. “I can see into a person’s time. Their entire life history from past to future is visible to me. You can think of a person’s timeline like a tree. They all have one origin point, which makes up the trunk. As a person grows, branches form along the trunk, and the tree will grow depending on which branch, which future, they choose. Because most people do not have more than a handful of futures, there are only so many ways in which this tree can grow. You alone are different.”

She paused. Wu Meiying had been speaking so much that her throat was parched. Wu Jian recognized this and got her some water from a pitcher on his nightstand. She thanked him with a smile, took a drink, and sighed as she set the cup on the floor.

“Thank you. Now where was I?”

“You said I’m different from most people.”

“Right. Every person I had met up to that point only had a handful of futures. I once saw one person with over a dozen futures, but that was the largest possible number. Such was not the case with you.” Wu Meiying turned to face him, eyes shining like two stars brightening the nightsky. “Your tree was massive, filled with a multitude of branches, and every single second of your existence, that tree continued to grow more branches. You have an infinite number of possible futures, so many that even I cannot see them all. Your tree was the most beautiful one I have ever seen in my entire life.”

“And that’s why you fell in love with me?” asked Wu Jian.

“I know it seems weird,” Wu Meiying admitted.

“Well, yeah. It does. I can’t claim to understand it, but… everyone falls in love for different reasons, so I guess it’s fine.” Wu Jian paused. “So you fell in love with me… but something happened to us.”

Wu Meiying’s expression grew stormy. Shadows appeared along her beautiful face, casting harsh angles that made her look like a terrifying creature of the abyss. The anger and hatred radiating from her was unfathomable. Even though he knew this hate was not directed at him, Wu Jian still shivered as an aura of indelible rage permeated the room.

“Yes. I had… an apprentice. He did not approve of our relationship and tried many times to make me abandon you. I refused, so he took matters into his own hands.”

“He killed me,” Wu Jian said simply.

Wu Meiying stifled a sob. “Yes. It was my fault. I came home after seeing the Heavenly Jade Emperor to find your corpse lying in a puddle of blood. That man was standing over you. I can tell that you put up a fight. He was covered in wounds, but you were no match for him.”

He didn’t think what happened was her fault. If what she said about his infinite futures were true, then she would never be able to know which future was going to happen. She couldn’t have foreseen his death. That was an issue for another time, however.

“What happened after that?” asked Wu Jian.

“I bound my soul to yours and overloaded my dantian so we could reincarnate together.”

The answer was so simple, but it shook Wu Jian. How many people did he know who would go so far for another person? Not many people would sacrifice everything just to remain by someone’s side after death, and from the way she spoke, he could tell she had done so without hesitation. That sort of fearless disposition was frightening in and of itself.

“This isn’t the first time we have reincarnated, is it?” Wu Jian asked.

She shook her head. The bed shifted underneath their weight as she changed position, placing her right leg underneath her thigh as she let her other leg dangle off the bed.

“You are correct. We have reincarnated many times. However…”

“They all ended the same, haven’t they?”

“Not quite, but in a way, yes.” Wu Meiying’s lips trembled with suppressed emotion. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “We have lived a number of different lives. While we would always find each other, our lives would sometimes play out differently. There was one time when I didn’t meet you until I was an adult. You had already married and started a family. I… well, let’s just say I didn’t take that very well. Then there was a time when you and I lived as normal commoners in the same neighborhood. I’m sure we would have lived out our lives like normal people, gotten married, and had kids, but…”

“You became a cultivator,” Wu Jian concluded.

Wu Meiying nodded. “I have a unique constitution called Heavenly Time Embodiment. It is a Divine Constitution and known as one of the Seven Great Heavenly Embodiments. This constitution is so powerful that even if I never train a single day in my life, I will still become a cultivator.”

Wu Jian knew about unique constitutions. Hou Jingshu had one too. He had no idea that Wu Meiying also had one, but now everything about her made sense. A number of puzzle pieces clicked into place.

“That’s why you’re able to see visions of the future even though you can’t cultivate,” he concluded.

“You really are smart. Yes, my unique constitution grants me an innate understanding of the Dao of Time. This understanding manifests in children as visions even before they can cultivate. I couldn’t control what I saw as a child, however, so the visions were quite random.”

“Makes sense,” Wu Jian nodded.

“Anyway… that’s all the time I have right now. I… need to get going,” Wu Meiying said.

“You’re leaving already?” Wu Jian was startled.

The young woman smiled regretfully. “I have no choice. You haven’t noticed, but I have sealed our time right now to prevent anyone from noticing my absence. However, I cannot maintain this for long even with the aid of numerous artifacts. I’m almost out of chi.” She took a deep breath. “However, before I go… I have an offer for you. What happened to you in this life and every life before now is a direct result of my irresponsible behavior. I… I do not believe it is right to bind you to me like this. If you wish, I can sever the connection between us right here and now. If I do that… you can live out the remainder of your days free from worry…”

Wu Jian sucked in a deep breath as she offered him a choice. He felt like he was standing on a precipice and one wrong move would cause him to tip over.

What… should I do?