The Matchmaker God fights with desperate fury — golden threads slicing like qi blades, love-charms detonating in blinding bursts of light.

Ling Suyin sees the opening — the jade tablet anchoring the god's power. She moves.

Ling Suyin strikes the jade tablet. It shatters.

The god screams as its anchor breaks. Qing He seizes the opening.

The god comes apart — like a puppet with cut strings.

The god begs. It offers everything.

Ling Suyin raises her sword. Silence.

The killing blow.

The god dies. Silence falls on the ruined sanctum.

In the silence that follows, every love-charm in the empire begins to crack.

The mass shattering — ten thousand charms, ten thousand ribbons, all at once.

The Wandering Matchmaker watches her last love-charm turn to dust.

She sits down slowly on the cobblestones.

Dawn light falls through the shattered roof of the ruined temple.

Qing He sits against a broken pillar, wounded and still.

Ling Suyin stands across the room, wounded and still.

They look at each other across the space of the room. Nothing between them now.

Ling Suyin speaks first.

Qing He responds.

Ling Suyin turns and walks toward the eastern gate.

Qing He rises and walks toward the western road.

The broken tablet in the morning light. Their names fading.

They walk. Opposite directions. The dawn is real.