89: Chapter 89 When the name is called, I'm there.

The moment Chen Fan's fingertip touched the stele's surface, Su Shuang's fingernails dug into the back of his hand.

"The ancient method of Qingqiu..." Her voice was like snow crushed by the wind, "It requires injecting vital energy with the 'Name of Remembrance' to activate it."

Only then did he notice that her temples were covered in cold sweat, and the phantom of her fox tail flickered behind her; she was clearly forcing herself to hold on.

"Does it hurt?" he blurted out, then immediately felt foolish—this woman could smile and brew tea even when her clansmen were massacred, so how could she cry out in pain?

Su Shuang, however, smiled, her eyes turning red at the corners: "It's lighter than being struck by lightning."

Chen Fan said no more.

When he bit his palm open, the scent of blood exploded in his mouth, like the blood that young Ma coughed onto his neck when he dragged him out of the rubble before the construction site collapse that year.

The instant he pressed against the indentation, the name he silently recited surged into the stele along with his vital energy: "Xiao Ma, Qing Jin, Yan Li."

The surface of the stele suddenly lit up with a faint blue glow.

Three light projections floated out from the stone patterns, like paper figures moved by the wind—the first was a youth in torn work clothes, his eyes shining like stars; the second was a swordsman who always kept a stern face, his scabbard still stained with uncleaned blood; the third was a man whose face was half burned away, yet he was smiling.

"Xiao Ma..." Chen Fan's throat tightened.

The system notification exploded simultaneously, but he paid no mind—those three names were crawling upward along the stele's surface, as if someone were carving them into the stone anew with gold paint.

"Crack."

A fissure split the stele body, and the door to the Star Gazing Platform finally opened.

Just as Chen Fan was about to help Su Shuang inside, she stumbled and crashed against the wall.

The wind inside the tower was colder than outside, drilling into people's lungs with the smell of rust.

He illuminated the wall with the residual light of the kindling stele—it was covered in scratch marks, deep enough to reveal stone debris, and the blood had dried into black scabs, as if someone had desperately tried to claw a path to life before death.

"This... is not the Star Gazing Platform," Su Shuang leaned against the wall, her fox tail phantom completely dissipated. "It's a tomb."

Before her words faded, a shadow drifted down from the stairwell.

It was a man wearing a star-patterned robe, the hem torn into strips, his eyes empty like two wells filled with millennia of accumulated snow.

"To see Luo Yan, you must first pass the Three Questions," the Tombstone Guardian's voice sounded like two stones colliding. "Why are you here? Whom do you remember? What price are you willing to pay?"

Chen Fan moved half a step to shield Su Shuang behind him.

He could hear his own heartbeat, pounding painfully against his eardrums—he had pondered these questions a hundred times in the snow, but now, they felt clear.

"I am here because someone told me to bring their names up," he stared into the Tombstone Guardian's empty eyes. "Someone burned their memorial tablets and tore up their book of fate, but I carved their names into my bones."

"Whom do you remember?"

Chen Fan closed his eyes.

When the first soul stele rose, he saw Xiao Ma again—the boy trapped under crushed stones, blood bubbling from his mouth, still smiling: "Brother Fan, I feel like I can't wake up... Can you look at the peach blossoms blooming at the construction site next year for me..."

"Xiao Ma is immortal," Chen Fan roared softly.

His fist suddenly grew hot; the system was resonating—the golden patterns brought by the critical hit crawled onto the back of his hand. He punched the soul stele.

As the stele body shattered into stardust, a drop of blood from his palm landed on the fragments, actually blooming into an extremely small peach blossom.

The second stele to appear was Crimson Nightmare.

That guy was engulfed in karmic fire, yet he shouted: "Chen Fan! See for me, did she smile?!" The face in the flames gradually overlapped with Yan Li in his memory. Chen Fan's Adam's apple bobbed: "He took the wrong path, but I cannot stop."

Frost Devour shot out from his fingertips, freezing the stele the instant before Flame Burst followed closely—ice and fire collided, and in the resulting explosion of light, he seemed to see Yan Li cupping his hands in salute.

The third stele was the cruelest.

Chen Fan saw himself—the name on the book of fate was scribbled over messily, and the system notification shrieked in his ear: [Character has been deregistered].

His shadow struggled within the stele, but the Chen Fan outside smiled.

He pulled out the fragment of the kindling stele from hisHuai, on which the character "Fan" carved by Qing Jin still remained.

"If you delete the names, I will write the names," he pressed the fragment onto the stele. "My life is supported by the people I remember!"

With three crisp sounds, all three steles shattered.

A light flashed in the Tombstone Guardian's empty eyes. He retreated to the wall, his star robe sweeping over the scattered stardust on the ground, as if clearing a path.

The secret room at the bottom of the tower was darker than outside.

Chen Fan saw a life plate suspended in mid-air, a blurred human figure locked in its center, like crumpled paper.

Stone Throat's voice sounded one last time, mixed with the wind: "Luo Yan's sealing words—'I wrote down their names ten thousand times, and they said... no one has ever heard them.'"

The moment Chen Fan reached out to touch the life plate, the critical hit system trembled violently as if gone mad.

The system notification sounded like a thunderclap: [High-dimensional consciousness fragment detected, triggering "Star Speaker Resonance Critical Hit": Experience x 1000%, Unlocking "Dual Source Prediction · Alternating Mode" (Can continuously switch between Flame/Frost attributes, 5-minute cooldown)]

The life plate cracked open, and a faint, breathy voice came from within: "...Another one... who remembers the names?"

"Luo Yan?" Chen Fan leaned closer. "I brought the names, Xiao Ma, Qing Jin, Yan Li, and..."

"Cough!"

Su Shuang's cough was like a needle, shattering all sound.

When Chen Fan turned, she had already slid to the ground, her face as white as snow, even her fox ears were so faint they were almost invisible.

"His blood... is the blood of a Star Speaker..." She gripped his wrist, her nails almost digging into the bone. "It can replenish the bloodline... but... the price is... you might also be sealed..."

Chen Fan looked at her trembling eyelashes and suddenly remembered the first time he saw her—she was brewing tea in the Teahouse, the aroma of tea mixed with the sweetness of her fox tail, her eyes shining as if filled with stars.

Now, those stars were about to go out.

He looked again at the shadow inside the life plate. Luo Yan's voice was weaker, as if about to be scattered by the wind.

Three seconds.

Chen Fan took a breath, his fists clenching with audible cracks.

He remembered Xiao Ma saying, "Look at the peach blossoms for me," Yan Li saying, "See if she smiles for me," and Qing Jin saying, "The names must not be broken"—what they wanted was never for him to sacrifice himself; they wanted him to walk on, lively and well, carrying their names.

"I don't do the sacrifice thing," he grinned, showing his white teeth. "I want all of you alive, your names ringing out, walking on, and smiling!"

The air current generated by his punch struck the life plate.

"Boom!"

The life plate shattered into millions of sparks.

The brightest cluster among them streaked across the sky and shot directly into Su Shuang's brow.

Chen Fan was thrown against the wall by the air blast, but he kept staring at her—her eyelashes moved slightly, as if a butterfly had landed on them.

Deep underground, the residual bloodstain in the Molten Eye suddenly burned bright.

A consciousness sealed for a thousand years stirred slightly and softly uttered a name in the darkness: "...Luo Yan."

And at the top of the Star Gazing Platform tower, a golden line had crawled into the 'Luo' character indentation that had been scraped off. That pattern snaked along, reconnecting the brushstrokes broken in the past, finally forming a complete name—in the wind and snow, in the galaxy, in the hearts of everyone remembered, it rang out clearly.