"No—!" Elder Kong shouted, reaching out.
Too late.
With one fluid motion, Elder Pu plunged her black dagger into her own abdomen, burying the blade to its hilt just beneath her ribs.
Blood gushed, vivid and cruel.
Chaos erupted. Shouts. Rushing feet. The heavy thud of people trying to reach her. But Elder Pu dropped to her knees, choking as blood spilled from her lips, her hands clenched tight around the handle.
The dagger pulsed once with a strange light — the unmistakable glint of poison.
"Elder Pu!" Liu Yu screamed.
Liu Yue dropped beside Elder Pu, catching her before she collapsed completely.
"Elder Pu…?" she whispered, as if trying the word for the first time.
Elder Pu's gaze shifted to the twins. Her tears spilled freely now, mingling with the blood staining her robes. Her voice cracked as she looked between them, each word a knife drawn through her soul.
"Both of you have been good girls… very good girls… I didn't want you to know this way…"
The room froze again, as if the very air knew something irreversible was coming.
"That night… the night of the massacre," Elder Pu rasped, her voice hoarse, "I… I drugged Dai Tianxiang with aphrodisiac, then gave him a sleeping draught."
The twins stiffened.
Elder Kong's eyes narrowed, dark with dawning horror.
"I was in love with him," she continued, her breath shallow. "I hated myself for it… hated him for it. But I also—" Her fingers twitched, reaching weakly toward the twins. "—I bore the consequences."
"No," Liu Yue whispered. "That's not true. It can't be…"
Liu Yu wasn't speaking. She was staring at Elder Pu as if she'd always known, some part of her heart screaming the truth she'd buried for years.
"You're lying—!"
"I wish I were," Elder Pu said, her eyes distant. "You were born in secret. I couldn't raise you… not with what I had done. A single woman, already suspicious for having no husband, suddenly with children? The questions… the judgment… it would have brought everything down."
She coughed again, flecks of red painting her lips.
"I knew Elder Kong would pass through the Windwept Ravine after completing a mission. I left you there, swaddled. He found you. Raised you."
Her voice was beginning to fade, but her gaze locked on them with the desperate intensity of a dying star.
"I watched from afar. Every time you grew, every time you smiled… I lived again. I thought… maybe that was enough. To just love you… even in silence."
The sisters collapsed into her, arms wrapping around her fragile, blood-slick form.
"You should have told us," one of them sobbed.
"I couldn't… until now."
Blood poured faster now. The poison was doing its work.
Her breathing slowed. Her eyes fluttered, then opened with one final burst of clarity.
"Old Kong… Sect Lord… please… take care of my daughters," she whispered, eyes glazed but soft. "They are innocent…"
Her smile was faint, yet it broke every heart in the room.
"I have no regrets… love and hate… should not have regrets…"
Her head tilted back, her body shuddered once more.
"Tianxiang… I am coming… see you soon…"
And then she was gone.
Her body slumped in her daughters' arms, lifeless but strangely serene — as if, for once, she had found peace.
The silence that followed was heavy. No one dared speak.
Not until Elder Kong stepped forward.
He looked down at her body, then to the Sect Lord beside him. His voice was rough, laced with sorrow and history.
"She's not just a villain," he murmured. "She's a woman who tore down a sect out of love twisted into hate."
Kai stood motionless, arms crossed. His eyes never left Elder Pu's form.
Finally, Elder Kong turned to him. "Sect Lord… penny for your thoughts?"
Kai didn't answer right away.
When he did, his voice was contemplative. Dry.
"I'm just thinking…"
A long pause.
"This Dai Tianxiang fellow…" he said slowly, "He wasn't much to look at, really. Just a regular guy. Yet two powerful women fell for him."
He looked at Elder Kong.
"Am I missing something?"
Elder Kong stared at him.
Then blinked.
Then sighed deeply. "Truly, the heavens have given us a leader of unparalleled emotional depth."
Kai shrugged. "I mean, come on. It's baffling."
Liu Yu sobbed louder at that, and Elder Kong shot Kai a look so sharp it could've sliced Qi.
"…Too soon?"
"Very."
Kai looked away, his gaze drawn toward the open window, where moonlight spilled like quiet water across the floor.
"She fought for something she believed in," Kai said. "Love made her a mother. Hate made her a blade. Regret… made her human again."
He glanced down at Elder Pu's lifeless form.
The old man nodded slowly.
The room remained still, the quiet humming with grief.
Kai took a breath and turned to the twins, who still cradled their mother. Liu Yue looked up, eyes red-rimmed but resolute.
"I will honor her," she said.
"So will I," Liu Yu whispered.
Kai nodded.
They stood, helping each other, faces streaked with tears but fierce with purpose.
Kai turned to Elder Kong. "Prepare the rites. She deserves more than an unmarked grave."
"You think the others will understand?" the elder asked.
"No," Kai said. "But they'll respect it."
And he walked away.