I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

The memory collector picked up a magnifying glass and aimed it at her temple. The lens flashed—not with light, but with a kind of suction. It was very light, like a baby sucking its thumb. A silver thread was drawn from her temple, very thin and bright, like spider silk, like silkworm silk, like the first thread pulled from a silkworm cocoon. One end of the thread was connected to that ordinary afternoon, while the other end, guided by the memory collector with the magnifying glass, was slowly sealed into a new cube. The cube was small, the same size as Qin Yuan's.

Lin Qing'er felt like something was missing from her mind. It wasn't pain, but an emptiness. Like licking the spot where a tooth has fallen out—you know what should be there, but it's gone. All you feel is your gums. Soft, empty, nothing at all.

Holding Qin Yuan's memory cube, she turned and walked towards the hall's exit. As she reached the door, she glanced back. The cube containing her memories glowed on the shelf. She remembered its location: the seventh from the left in the third row.

Deep within the chaos, on the way back, a dozen or so people emerged from the gray mist. They wore gray robes and blank masks, the masks devoid of expression, containing only two black holes. The eye and mouth areas were black. Their faces, ages, and genders were indistinguishable.

The Forgotten Sect.

The leader was a woman with two black tear streaks on her mask, running from her eyes down to her chin. Her voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against metal, like a rusty door being pushed open.

"Memories are the source of pain. If you take back his memories, he will relive the pain. You love him, so why make him suffer?"

Lin Qing'er gripped the bottle tightly. The bottle contained Qin Yuan's memories, and golden light shone through the bottle walls, illuminating her fingers and turning her nails amber.

"That's his memory. Not yours."

The Forgotten Sect did not yield. The leading woman raised her right hand, her index and middle fingers together, and pointed forward. The followers behind her spread out, forming a semi-circle. They didn't attack vital points, only the head. Palm strikes, finger strikes, and spiritual energy waves were all aimed at Lin Qing'er's temples. They didn't want to kill her, but to shatter the memories in her mind. The way to make them forget their pain was to make them forget everything.

Lin Qing'er couldn't withstand more than a dozen people by herself. She dodged three attacks, and the fourth struck her left shoulder, causing her body to sway and the bottle to nearly slip from her grasp. She gripped it tightly again with her right hand. The fifth attack grazed her right ear, and she felt her memory flicker, like a bookshelf being bumped, with several books almost falling over. She steadied herself and continued dodging.

Outnumbered, she was forced to the edge of the gray fog, with the fog behind her and the Forgotten Cult's encirclement in front of her. She still clutched the bottle in her hand. She didn't let go.

The encirclement was breached. A man burst out of the fog. He didn't walk out, he charged out. He had no sword, no magical weapon, only his own body. His clothes were covered in dust, his face was covered in dust, his hair was disheveled, and a few strands hung down his forehead. He pushed aside two cult members and stood in front of Lin Qing'er.

Qin Yuan. He didn't remember her face, but he remembered her scent. When the Forgotten Cult besieged them, her scent weakened, like a candle flickering in the wind. He felt it. Not a signal from his brain, but a signal from his body. His stomach clenched, his heart quickened, and his feet moved on their own. He followed the scent and found her.

The leader of the Forgotten Sect looked at him.

"You've almost forgotten who you are. Who do you still want to protect?"

Qin Yuan's eyes were unfocused; he couldn't see her face clearly, nor the tear stains on her mask. But his body stood in front of Lin Qing'er, blocking her way.

"I don't remember who she is. But I was standing here when I knew she was going to be beaten."

The leader of the Forgotten Sect did not retreat. She waved her hand, and her followers rushed forward.

Qin Yuan had no weapon. His sword hung on the wall behind the Xuan Yuan Sect; he'd forgotten to bring it. But he didn't need one. His body remembered how to fight. Muscle memory lasts longer than brain memory. He sidestepped, his right hand reaching out to grab his opponent's wrist. With a twist, the sound of dislocated bone was crisp, like snapping a dry twig. He looked down, and his opponent's other hand swept over his head. His knee slammed into his opponent's abdomen, and the man bent over, flying like a boiled shrimp, crashing into the gray mist, bouncing back, and landing face down on the ground.

He had forgotten what martial arts he had learned. He couldn't remember the names of the moves, the techniques for generating power, or whether the action was called "grappling" or "bone dislocation." But his hands knew where to grab, his feet knew where to stand, and his body knew when to bend, when to turn, when to exert force, and when to retract it. It wasn't him fighting; it was his body fighting.

One by one, the members of the Forgotten Cult fell. Not beaten to death, but driven back. He was measured in his approach—not killing, but rendering them unable to stand. Some had dislocated wrists, some dislocated knees, some had broken ribs. They lay on the ground, groaning, their masks askew, revealing their faces beneath. Some were young, some old, some men, some women. Different faces, the same expression. Pain. Not the pain of being beaten, but the pain of having their masks ripped off. They didn't want to remember who they were.

The last one was the woman with the tear-stained mask. Qin Yuan walked up to her, but she stood still.

Have you ever lost your memory?

"We are losing it."

Are you scared?

"I'm not afraid. What I'm afraid of is her."

He opened the bottle and brought it to his nose. There was no liquid, no gas, only a scent. The fragrance of old plum blossoms, the coolness of the stream, the smell of moss on the bluestone. Not one thing at a time, but all the memories flooded back simultaneously, like a burst dam, like a reservoir finally releasing its floodgates after being blocked for too long. The water didn't flow out; it surged forth.

He saw her. By the stream behind the Xuan Yuan Sect, she was squatting, washing medicinal herbs. The herbs floated in the water, and her fingers stirred them, creating ripples that spread outwards. He walked over, and she looked up. There was a light in her eyes, not the light of the sun, but her own light.

He saw it. Under the old plum tree of the Qingmu Sect, she handed him a brocade pouch, embroidered with a plum blossom, the stitches fine and dense, painstakingly done by her countless nights. She said, "When it blooms, I will come to find you." She waited.

He saw it. Under the starry sky at the pinnacle of all realms, he said, "Wherever you are, I am." She didn't say, "Me too," but he knew she said it in her heart. As she said it in her heart, her eyes blinked.

He saw it. That ordinary afternoon. An old plum blossom petal landed on the back of her hand, white, five petals, one with a slightly yellowed edge. She didn't pick it off because she was leaning on his shoulder, and he was asleep. She was afraid that moving would wake him. The petal was blown away by the wind, and she didn't catch it. But she remembered that at the moment the wind blew, his breathing didn't change. He remained asleep.