Yao Capital · Zhaoyi Terrace
Drums thundered. Bells and chimes rang in unison.
On this day, the Yao Palace blazed with celebration, countless crimson banners snapping in the wind. Upon the heavenly altar, amid waves of astonished murmurs, Si Moheng and Youqing slowly ascended the golden steps that symbolized the highest honor in the realm.
On the high dais sat Prince Chengyao, Si Chengxun, upright and solemn, though there was unmistakable relief in his eyes. Beside him were the former Realm Emperor, Si Chengjing, and Yaohou Muyao.
The fierceness that once lived in Si Chengjing's gaze was gone. In its place remained only a distant gentleness, as though he were forever half-immersed in the years that had already passed. His hand clutched Muyao's tightly. To the two of them, power had long since become no more than smoke on the wind. Only the person beside them, and the completeness before their eyes, still felt real.
"Bow to your elders—!" the officiant's voice rang clear across the terrace.
Si Moheng and Youqing knelt side by side and bowed deeply to those seated above them. It was a bow for the grace of birth and upbringing, for the bloodline that had continued unbroken upon this land.
When the rites were complete, Si Chengxun rose. His sharp gaze swept across the countless subjects below. He lifted one hand, and attendants brought forth a decree scroll suffused with golden light, along with a seal engraved with the twin totems of the two realms.
"Today, the marriage of the Third Prince is not merely a joy for the royal house," Si Chengxun declared, his voice amplified by spiritual force, vast and commanding as thunder rolling through the valley. "It is also the milestone of reconciliation between the Yao Realm and the Underrealm."
He unfolded the decree in his hand. On its cover was the unmistakable seal of the Crown Prince.
"This decree," he said, glancing at Si Chengjing beside him, whose mind had already drifted far away again, "was drafted personally by Crown Prince Si Moyan. During his regency, he has been moved by the devotion of the Underrealm's warriors and pained by the suffering caused by the divide between the two realms. As the future Realm Emperor, this is the greatest wedding gift he could offer his brother, his future sister-in-law, and the whole of this land."
Si Moheng and Youqing exchanged a look, emotion stirring plainly in their eyes. Though this elder brother had not come in person—occupied instead with affairs of state and the pacification of competing factions—he had chosen this way to uphold their future.
The decree was read aloud, every word and phrase filled with the Crown Prince's foresight and benevolence:
"Since time immemorial, light and shadow have moved together; the two realms were once one. By decree of Crown Prince Si Moyan: from this day forth, the fertile southeastern territory of the Yao Realm known as Dawn Valley shall be granted to the Underrealm as a permanent domain. There, the veins of the earth are gentle, and sunlight never fails. Let the people of the Underrealm settle there, dwell beside the people of the Yao Realm, cultivate and weave together, and exchange what each lacks. From this day onward, the Underrealm shall no longer be prisoners of eternal night, but children of the sun as well."
For a heartbeat, the entire place fell silent.
Then an uproar broke over the terrace like the sea crashing ashore.
Among the Underrealm's three generals, even the hardest of them had red-rimmed eyes. Lianyu clenched his fists, his voice trembling.
"Sunlight… We'll truly be able to live beneath sunlight now?"
Si Moheng lifted Youqing's hand and looked into her eyes, now once more full of living light. His heart was heavy with too many emotions to name. He knew this gift from his brother was not only a blessing for their marriage, but also the answer to Youqing's deepest wish.
Youqing tilted her head back and looked at the crimson banners dancing overhead, the warm sun spilling over the distant sky. Once, she had been a lonely soul wandering between worlds. Now she had not only found her own roots—she had also won a piece of brightness for those whom the world had abandoned to darkness.
"Moheng," she whispered softly, "do you hear it? That is the sound of life."
He bent close and murmured beside her ear,
"From now on, wherever there is light, there will be you. And there will be me."
The roar of the crowd seemed to stir something in Si Chengjing. He turned slightly, looking at the bridal pair before him, then at Muyao.
And in that moment, amid the ruins of his fractured mind, a brief clarity seemed to pass through him—a joy tied to inheritance, to continuity, to the life that would outlast him.
He said nothing. He only lifted his hand slowly and patted Muyao's hand, smiling with the pure simplicity of a child.
Red banners filled the city. Golden brilliance spread across the sky.
This marriage, and the land grant planned by the future Realm Emperor himself, swept away the final shadow of war.
Yao Capital
On the day Crown Prince Si Moyan ascended the throne, all the people looked upward.
At the most solemn moment of the great ceremony, he stood in the heart of Wanlin Hall and let a drop of true dragon blood fall upon the hovering Heart of Yao Spirit.
In an instant, golden radiance erupted.
The very earth of Yao Capital resonated in answer—the call of a realm recognizing its destined sovereign.
Then the treasure, which had guarded the world through countless ages, dissolved into a stream of light and returned to the depths of the Gate of Yao Source.
There it would sleep in silence, waiting for the day a new Holy Maiden and a new generation of the Five Yao awakened it once more.
And the figures who had once ridden beside the Holy Maiden in war each went on to write their own new chapters beneath the sun.
Reborn Xiling: The Ling Family's Vigil
On the day the reconstruction of Xiling City was completed, flowers bloomed across what had once been ruins.
Ling Shuo formally took up the title of Lord of Xiling and restored the dignity of his house. And after a grand wedding in Xiling, Lingdang, blushing furiously, returned with Luo Ye to Yao Capital.
The wrongful charges against General Luo Ting were overturned, and Si Moyan personally granted Luo Ye the hereditary title of General, along with a general's estate.
The once-volatile Fire Yao had now become a great general guarding one region of the realm, while Lingdang became his most devoted assistant and recorder. Within the warm bustle of the general's residence dining hall, one could often see her bent earnestly over her records.
If peace could be given a shape, it might look something like that.
Iron and Tenderness: The Princess and the Shield
In the end, Princess Si Yirou chose the man who was as steady and immovable as a mountain.
She moved into Li Yan's general's residence, and the two built a life that was busy, practical, and quietly full.
Each morning they attended court together. Li Yan trained soldiers in the drill grounds, his commands shaking the air. Si Yirou oversaw the Bureau of Weaving and the Women Healers' Hall, spreading compassion and gentleness among the women of the realm.
A Healer's Match: Happiness in the Scent of Herbs
Li Furong married Sang Qi.
The former daughter of the Li household became the sharpest and most capable wife a Medical Chancellor could ask for.
Every day, she helped at Sang Qi's herb hall, sorting prescriptions and arranging dried medicines. Sang Qi remained as sharp-tongued as ever, but whenever he looked at Li Furong working beside him, his eyes brimmed with a smile that never quite faded.
Legends of the Ministry of Works: Genius and Mechanisms
Ding Yuxuan married Lin Lie, just as she had always hoped, becoming the wife of the Minister of Works.
But marriage did not send her into seclusion. On the contrary, she formally took office as a female official in the Ministry.
Together, husband and wife became the leading minds of Yao Realm innovation. Day after day they pored over drafts and diagrams in the office, and from their hands came improved Yaobo vehicles, irrigation systems, weapons, and armor mechanisms without end.
Wandering Free: Rivers, Clouds, and Roads
Across the great mountains and rivers of the Yao Realm, one could often spot a specially modified Yaobo speeding along impossible paths.
That was Cangyuan and Xie Wenyun.
Officially, they were inspecting waterways and canals. In practice, they were taking full advantage of their duties to roam mountains and streams at leisure.
Cangyuan drove. Xie Wenyun sat beside him, admiring the scenery. Their laughter startled birds from the forest branches, and they lived as if they were immortals loosed into the world.
As for Si Moheng and Youqing, far away at the boundary between the Underrealm and Dawn Valley, they watched over this reborn land and remained connected to all of their dear friends, however great the distance between them.
The eternal night had passed.
From then on, every day was touched by warmth.
Epilogue: The End of Eternal Night
This is the gentlest ending imaginable for a legend that crossed two realms and survived life and death.
With it, the first generation's story reaches its close—while leaving behind an echo for all that is yet to come.
Yao Mark: Eternal Night Finale — Afterword
Time flowed swiftly on, and the bells atop Yao Capital's heavenly altar still rang with the same long, lingering note.
It had already been many seasons since the shocking Trial of Truth, and the grand wedding that followed.
When the people of the Yao Realm spoke of those years now, they did so as though recounting a myth of heroes too distant to be real: the tale of an imperial daughter who had come bearing a soul from another world; of how she joined hands with a war god colder than steel; of how, together with the Five Yao and the Three Generals, she lit the first dawn upon a field of ruins.
Now no wall stood between the Yao Realm and the Underrealm.
Only the sea of grain in Dawn Valley, swaying beneath the wind.
The Crown Prince—no, the Realm Emperor now, Si Moyan—ruled a peaceful and prosperous realm. From time to time, he stood atop the high terrace of the Holy Hall and looked out toward the distant Underrealm or Xiling City.
There, the companions he trusted most were each living out lives that were ordinary, precious, and hard-won.
From Luo Ye's general's residence came the crisp click of Lingdang's abacus and the chiming of wind bells in the breeze.
Outside Sang Qi's herb hall, Li Furong dried medicinal herbs in the sun, her smile bright as summer.
Li Yan and Si Yirou moved between the military grounds and the weaving bureau, embodying the strength to protect.
Lin Lie and Ding Yuxuan's blueprints stacked ever higher, sketching the outline of the Yao Realm's future.
And somewhere beside some nameless stream, Cangyuan and Xie Wenyun were probably once again laughing through the mountains in their custom Yaobo.
Most cherished of all, however, were the imperial daughter and the war god, far away where Dawn Valley met the Underrealm.
Now and then, Youqing would take out that bronze pocket watch—another one had been crafted for her by Yan Yi, so that she could still visit her adoptive parents in the modern world. She would watch its hands move under the sunlight.
She knew her parents in that other time and place were well.
She also knew that the broad chest behind her—the man who always stood at her back—was the safest resting place she would ever know.
Si Moheng was no longer the lonely, unyielding blade he once had been.
All of his tenderness had been given to this land—and to the one person who had taught him how to love.
The Heart of Yao Spirit slept now in the depths of the Holy Hall, waiting quietly for the day when heaven and earth shook once more, and a new cycle would begin.
The gears of fate never truly stopped turning.
Though the first generation's legend had come to an end, the stories of courage, sacrifice, and redemption had already become starlight, engraved forever into the souls of the people of the Yao Realm.
And when the first rays of morning touched the faces of the children in Dawn Valley, they might never know that the simple warmth of their days had once been bought with the lives of countless others.
But it was.
And that was why it would endure.
[End of Part One]
Author's Note: On Memory, and on Yao Mark
Why did I want to write Yao Mark?
Have you ever read so many stories that, by the end, you couldn't even remember the protagonist's name? Or watched something drift into boredom until you had no choice but to give up on it?
I never wanted Yao Mark to become just another passing visitor in your life.
What I hoped for most was this:
That after finishing the story, the names of the Five Yao would remain in your mind.
If they are remembered, then everything I created here will have had meaning.
And next—
There will still be side stories.