The Blackwater Bazaar thrived in the corpse of a dead god.
Its ribs arched overhead like fossilized bridges, strung with lanterns made from preserved saints' lungs. Vendors hawked relics in the calcified arteries: a warlord's severed conscience floating in formaldehyde, a poet's stolen muse pickled in star-wine, the last breath of a murdered galaxy trapped in a music box. But tonight, the auction house at the bazaar's rotten heart dealt in darker currencies.
Chu Feng adjusted his plague-doctor mask, the Bloodvine Seed pulsing beneath his robes like a second heart. Ling'er stood beside him, her phoenix core cloaked in shadows that clung too tightly, as if afraid to reveal how thin she'd become since resurrecting Xia. Her left hand kept vanishing—a finger here, a knuckle there—only to reappear seconds later, glitching like a broken hologram.
"Remember the rules," she murmured, her voice fraying at the edges. "Bid only with what you're willing to lose twice."
The auctioneer's gavel struck a skull-shaped podium.
"Lot 91: A sliver of innocence, extracted from the Third Host's childhood. Bidding starts at one unresolved regret."
Chu Feng's gaze drifted to the item glowing inside a cryo-sphere—a shard of translucent amber containing a boy's laughter. His laughter. The System had carved it out centuries ago, a "necessary sacrifice" to harden him into a weapon. Now, some collector wanted to wear it as a pendant.
Ling'er's fading hand gripped his arm. "Don't."
But the Sundial Shard at his belt hummed, its fractured edges whispering: You could rewrite this. You could steal back what was taken.
The crowd erupted in offers:
A widow's phantom pregnancy
The taste of a first kiss, distilled into venom
Seven years of painless sleep
Chu Feng's fingers brushed the Sundial. Just one reversal. Just to see what I forgot.
"Sold!" The gavel fell. A faceless entity in a mourning veil claimed the laughter with a vial of its own tears.
Ling'er's nails dug into his wrist. "Focus. The天平 isn't here yet."
They'd come for the Scales of Mercy, Jiang Yue's most blasphemous creation. Legend claimed it could weigh a soul's capacity for redemption—and sever the weight of its sins. But the auction house was a labyrinth of illusions. Every relic, every bidder, every breath was a test.
"Lot 137: A love letter never sent, inscribed on the rib of a fallen star."
The gavel struck again.
"Lot 202: The right to forget."
A hush fell. The cryo-sphere here held nothing but a shadow—an absence so profound it devoured the light around it. Chu Feng's Bloodvine Seed recoiled. He knew this shadow.
His mother's face.
The memory loss from overusing the Sundial had been gradual—a stolen birthday here, a monsoon embrace there—but this… this was the wound laid bare. Jiang Yue's features, once etched into his bones, now existed only as negative space.
Ling'er stepped forward, her voice sharp. "We bid three unbroken promises."
The auctioneer tilted its featureless head. "Authenticity?"
She unclasped a locket. Inside, threads of golden light pulsed—the vows Chu Feng had made to her in the ashes of the Conservatory.
"I will remember you, even if the stars forget their names."
"I will choose you, even when the choice unmakes me."
"I will…"
The third promise dissolved into static. Ling'er's glitching fingers couldn't fully materialize it.
Chu Feng's chest tightened. The Sundial's price was eating her alive.
"Bid accepted."
The shadow was theirs.
When the Scales of Mercy finally appeared, suspended between two crucified angels, the auction house stilled. The Scales weren't an object but a creature—a hybrid of jeweled gears and raw nerve endings, its twin platforms shaped like cupped hands. One dripped starlight. The other oozed black honey.
"Lot 666: The divine right to judge and be judged. Bidding requires a sacrifice in situ."
A bidder stepped forward—Li Zichen, his surgeon's coat stained with phantom blood. Without hesitation, he sliced open his chest and extracted a glowing orb: his capacity for mercy, crystallized by years of triage horrors.
The Scales shuddered, rejecting it.
Another bidder offered a child's untainted dreams. Another, a soldier's PTSD-riddled nightmares. The Scales devoured them all, hungrier with each failure.
Chu Feng's Sundial Shard vibrated. Now.
He stepped into the light.
"I bid a memory," he said, removing his mask. "The first time I realized she was more than a mission."
The auctioneer leaned close, its void-like face reflecting fragments of Chu Feng's past. "Specificity?"
He looked at Ling'er—really looked—past the glitching limbs and borrowed time. Saw the girl who'd laughed as she burned her own wings to keep him warm.
"The monsoon storm. The abandoned temple. Her hair smelled like lightning and lemongrass."
The Scales stirred.
Ling'er's eyes widened. "You swore you'd never trade that!"
"And you swore you'd stop sacrificing yourself," he said softly. "We're both liars."
The Scales' gears whirled. Nerve endings lashed out, embedding into Chu Feng's temples.
Memories flooded the auction house:
Ling'er teaching him to dance on a floor of cracking ice
Her scream as the System overwrote her first death
The way she'd kissed him—not like a savior, but like a man worth damning
The Scales' verdict rang out:
"Humanity quotient: 51.3%. Marginally unfit for divinity. Marginally worthy of grace."
The auction house erupted. Bidders lunged, but Chu Feng was already moving. He seized the Scales, its nerve endings fusing with his Bloodvine Seed. Agony carved new psalms into his bones.
Then he saw it—the auctioneer's true face beneath the void.
Host 005.
Not the original, but a clone. Its eyes were twin abysses, reflecting the Harvesters' insignia.
"You'll regret this," it hissed.
Chu Feng smiled. "I've made an art of regret."
The Sundial Shard activated. Time rewound—just enough to trap Host 005's clone in a loop of its final threat.
But as the auction house collapsed, Ling'er's scream pierced the chaos.
Her right leg had vanished entirely.
In the aftermath, beneath a sky of dying stars, Chu Feng cradled the Scales. It whispered truths he wasn't ready to hear:
"To weigh a soul, you must first hold its fractures."
"To forgive a sin, you must first taste its nectar."
"To love her, you must first let her go."
Ling'er sat beside him, half there, half not.
"How much longer?" he asked.
She lifted her disintegrating hand, letting starlight pass through. "Long enough."
The Sundial Shard hummed.
Always, always, the choice.