The Season of Falling Flowers Meets You Again, Part 2

Mu Hanyuan’s sudden appearance startled more than just Yun Yao.

Beside her, Chen Jianxue hurriedly stepped forward. “My lord, she’s likely still disoriented from her long slumber and spoke carelessly. You…”

“Leave.”
Mu Hanyuan’s voice was cold, his gaze never straying from Yun Yao.
“Without my permission, no one is to approach this courtyard.”

“…Yes.”
Chen Jianxue glanced hesitantly at Yun Yao but didn’t dare disobey. She bowed and left the room.

The door closed softly before Yun Yao.
The room fell silent.

“Mu… Han… Yuan.”

Staring at the snow-haired man in black robes, Yun Yao felt a chill creep up her spine. “If you truly are the one from a thousand years ago, I’m long past being your master.”

“Are you?” Mu Hanyuan’s smile was faint. He raised his sleeve as if to pull the red-robed woman before him into an embrace, but she dodged with a swift step back.
He didn’t seem to mind, lowering his hand and standing still, his dark eyes gazing at her like a deep sea. “When Master calls this name, who do you think of? Me, or that naive, ignorant, foolish disciple of yours from this life—so foolish as to harbor laughable compassion for the world’s beings?”

“…”

Meeting the tangled madness in his eyes beneath the bronze mask, Yun Yao felt her immortal seal throb with pain.
She closed her eyes briefly.

“Whatever happened in our past life was my mistake, time and again. But I thought giving my life for you would have resolved your obsession. Why do you still hate me so?”

“Because you don’t understand—!”
Mu Hanyuan surged forward with sudden ferocity, gripping her shoulders tightly, his eyes locked on hers. “Even in this life, you *still* don’t understand! I never hated you for wanting to kill me. I only hated that you abandoned me.”

His voice, hoarse and trembling, carried an almost imperceptible quiver.

It was as if two souls’ voices overlapped.

Yun Yao winced in pain, looking up in shock.
In his eyes, she saw black and white swirling like yin-yang fish, chasing each other’s tails.

So, was this what he wanted to say to her?

“Mu Hanyuan, can you hear me?” Yun Yao softened her voice. “This time, I never truly abandoned you. You should know—I tried everything. It was the only way to save you from those in the immortal realm who wanted you dead, to protect you. If I truly wanted to give up on you, why would I come to the demon realm?”

“—”
The fingers gripping her shoulders trembled, loosening slightly.
Beneath the bronze mask, he shut his eyes in anguish, his clenched fist dropping to the table behind her. The veins on his hand bulged with suppressed violence, as if wrestling with a tearing struggle deep within his soul.

Mu Hanyuan’s figure seemed bowed by immense pain, slowly slumping forward.
Yun Yao didn’t dare move, watching as he gradually leaned onto her shoulder.
Resting against her neck, he remained motionless.

Yun Yao lightened her breathing, testing, “Mu Hanyuan?”

“…”

“…Hanyuan?”

“…”

The man on her shoulder seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. Yun Yao raised her hand, reaching for the mask about to slip from his face.
But before her fingers touched the cold metal, her wrist was suddenly seized.

“Master, you really are biased.”

The low, menacing voice sank Yun Yao’s heart in an instant.
She instinctively tried to pull away.

But Mu Hanyuan, gripping her wrist, slowly straightened from her shoulder. The bronze mask fell, clattering by her feet.

She saw the blood-red demonic mark tracing his sharp brows, like cold jade stained with blood, lending his ethereal, immortal-like face a vivid, demonic allure.

“What a pity. Your dear, obedient disciple probably won’t be coming out.”

As he spoke, Mu Hanyuan raised his slender hand.
A seed of annihilation fire, woven with blood-red threads, bloomed slowly in his palm like a blood-colored manjushaka.
Faint golden light shimmered within, its stamen holding the illusion of a golden lotus.

“The Seed of Annihilation…” Yun Yao gritted her teeth, glaring with fury and hatred. “It was you who killed Little Golden Lotus.”

“So what if it was?”
Mu Hanyuan laughed softly. “Your naive disciple truly knows nothing… He thought he could suppress me with his soul in the immortal realm, and that it’d work in the demon realm too. Laughable.”

Yun Yao’s eyes trembled faintly. “What do you mean?”

“It means that with every death in Qianmen, the Seed of Annihilation grows stronger. He fights desperately to seal it within his spiritual core, while I can wield it freely. Those ten thousand soul fires weren’t just buried in Tianyun Abyss… As he weakens and I grow stronger, what can he possibly use to resist me?”

Mu Hanyuan toyed with the sentient flame, letting it dance and coil between his fingers.
Its dark red glow was sinister, otherworldly.

“Oh, and my dear Master is just as naive,” he continued, his gaze shifting from the flame to Yun Yao’s face. He chuckled hoarsely. “Did you know? To remove these threads…”

Yun Yao’s pupils constricted.
The answer hung unspoken, like a prey desperately fleeing yet always pursued.
Her lashes trembled. “Don’t…”

“It’s the soul fires of the world.”

Mu Hanyuan’s voice was cold, cruel, shattering her last shred of hope with a smile.

He leaned close to her ear. “Every thread it weaves means someone, somewhere in this world, dies.”
“My existence, my breath, my very being is destruction itself. I *am* annihilation.”
“—And so is he.”

Yun Yao’s eyes shook uncontrollably. “Impossible…”

“I told you long ago, this is the fate destined for him and me.”
Mu Hanyuan laughed softly.
“I know the end of it all, so I’ll never be as naive or stubbornly defiant as him.”

The suppressed dread in Yun Yao’s heart surged like a dark tide. She took a deep breath, steadying her trembling to meet his gaze. “Why did you return to Qianmen? What are you really after?”

“Didn’t you hear it before the divine retribution struck you?”

Mu Hanyuan lifted his hand, gently pinching her chin.
He leaned closer, his scorching breath enveloping her, as if about to press a kiss to her lips.

“I came to kill a divine lord, but They’re hidden too well. So I’ll slaughter every human and demon in Qianmen, destroy every artifact, bring about collapse and ruin, let all paths decay, until Qianmen itself is reduced to ash, consigned to eternal annihilation!”

Demonic flames surged through his robes, amplifying the violent cruelty in his eyes to an extreme, far darker than in their past life.

As if watching Mu Hanyuan drag the world’s beings into an abyss, Yun Yao felt an overwhelming powerlessness. “Why must you do this—”

“Because I want to save you.”

His fingers, gripping her chin, slid down, pressing her neck to pull her tightly into his embrace.
Yun Yao could no longer see his expression.

She only heard, from the chest pressed against her, words trembling with fear and dread. “…That ending—I’ll never allow it.”

“What?”

Yun Yao couldn’t understand, but she sensed it was tied to the memories she’d lost.
Yet he said no more.

After a long silence, Mu Hanyuan seemed to calm, his voice low and husky as he kissed her ear. “Master, you wouldn’t want the Phoenix Clan leader to die a guest in foreign lands, the first sacrifice of the immortal realm, would you?”

Yun Yao snapped back, pushing him away. “You’re threatening me?”

“How could I bear to? At most, it’s a small condition for an exchange.”
Mu Hanyuan stood, his fingers brushing ambiguously along her neck.
He gazed down at her. “If Master stays to witness the ceremony, I’ll release the Phoenix Clan leader from the demon realm after tomorrow’s wedding. How’s that?”

Yun Yao gritted her teeth. “Don’t think I don’t know—you’re using the amnesiac Chen Jianxue as bait to force Qianmen into another war with the demon realm.”

“With Master here, how could that happen? If Master officiates our ceremony, it’ll be as if Qianmen’s ancestral master herself approves. Isn’t that secure?”

“…You really only want to marry Chen Jianxue, nothing else?”
Yun Yao looked up suspiciously, trying to read something in his eyes.

Mu Hanyuan chuckled softly. “Why is Master so certain I don’t?”

Yun Yao faltered.

Before she could find words, he hooked her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“Because Master knows best—I love only you.”

“—!”

Caught off guard, a flood of emotions—anger, embarrassment—surged, rattling her consciousness. “You…”

“Yun Yao, no matter how many lifetimes pass, you’re always like this.”
Mu Hanyuan smiled, his words cruelly cold yet his fingers lingering tenderly over her brow, eyes, nose, lips.
Finally, he gazed into her eyes with a mix of dissatisfaction and resignation.
“You’re so generous and loving to the world, yet so cold and sparing with me.”

Yun Yao felt nearly drowned in the depths of his gaze.

Until he gave a faint, mocking laugh and stepped back.
His figure faded like a dreamlike illusion.

In that moment, a panic of losing him forever gripped her reason, and she instinctively stepped forward.

“Before tomorrow’s wedding ceremony begins, don’t try to leave this room.”

His figure vanished, but his voice lingered around her.
Yun Yao snapped back, halting.

His final words brushed her ear, like an intimate whisper between lovers.

“Otherwise, I’ll dye a wedding dress with phoenix true blood and present it to you, Master.”