Darkness.
Not the suffocating weight of stone collapsing, nor the choking black of the Bishop’s miasma. This was softer; a silence that wrapped around like a shroud.
There was no up or down, no breath or heartbeat. Only the stillness, stretching on without end.
And then sothing stirred.
A shape in the dark. Faint at first, like a candle guttering in a storm, then sharpening until it beca a place. A garden.
My chest clenched before I even realized why.
It wasn’t mine. Or rather—it wasn’t the garden I had built with sweat and sleepless nights, with Tianyi’s light and Windy’s watchful coils. This was earlier. Simpler.
The way it had been when my parents still ran the shop.
The beds were neat, trimd to fit within the stone borders my father laid himself. The air carried the sll of drying herbs from the rafters. The faint chi of the shop bell drifted on the breeze, though no one touched it.
Years unspooled before my eyes as if the garden itself had beco a mirror. I watched myself. Smaller, weaker, hands still clumsy as I fumbled with a hoe that was too big for . I saw the day I wandered into the forest, following a glimr of blue, and found Tianyi for the first ti.
The scene lted, and the ruins rose before ; the ancient stones I had stumbled into, the mont the Interface first burned across my vision, searing itself into my soul. I saw myself stand there, half-terrified, half-ecstatic, not knowing whether it was gift or curse.
And then again: Feng Wu stepping through the village road, offering the chance to compete at the Gauntlet. I watched myself hesitate, then bow my head, not yet realizing that nod would change everything.
The mories kept coming, flowing one into the next, not as stories I told myself, but as truths playing out around . My life laid bare.
I should have panicked. I should have fought. But the thought arrived slowly, gently, and when it settled, I could not shake it.
I was watching because I was no longer living.
A blue box cut across the garden.
The text hovered in the air, crisp and undeniable, even here in this space where I thought no rules applied.
You're still alive. For now.
The words burned bright enough to blind.
I flinched despite having no flesh to recoil with, my incorporeal form jerking backward. The box lingered, steady, almost patient.
The letters did not vanish. They bled outward instead, edges fraying into streams of light. The box warped, lines bending, expanding, until it stretched taller than . Slowly, painfully slowly, it began to fold in on itself, the text dissolving into shape.
A figure erged.
It had no eyes. No mouth. Just a blank expanse where a face should have been, smooth and featureless. And yet I knew it. I had seen it many tis before.
“The… Heavenly Interface,” I whispered.
The figure inclined its head. No words moved its blank face, but it's silence was confirmation in its own way.
I have waited a long ti to speak to you.
I swallowed hard, the question nearly bursting out of . A question that's pervaded since it's awakening.
Why ?
The words echoed in the stillness, jagged with all the doubt I’d carried for so long.
“I know you saved .” I muttered, looking down at the grass. "I know what it cost you. But ever since you appeared, everything started circling closer. Sects. Cultists. Everything in between."
Gentle Wind beca a place people looked at. Sothing they sought after.
If I hadn’t touched that ruin, perhaps I would have stayed what I was ant to be.
A humble herbalist. I would have spent my days tending herbs in neat rows, complaining about the weather like everyone else.
I would have lived small.
I would never have known Tianyi’s light, or Windy’s fierce, wordless loyalty. I would never have stood beneath darkness that could tear mountains apart, never felt the weight of the world press against my bones.
And Wang Jun would still be alive.
The thought landed heavier than any blow.
He would have laughed at my stubbornness, complained about calluses and cracked tools, boasted about work well done. With Lan-Yin there to roll her eyes at both of us, pretending not to listen while she poured tea behind the counter. We would have grown older together, slow and unremarkable, asuring our lives in seasons instead of battles.
When the ti ca, I would have died in that sa village. Buried beneath familiar soil. My bones laid to rest where my na still ant sothing simple.
I lifted my head, the ache in my chest steady and dull.
The faceless figure remained still.
I did not.
The words hit like a slap.
For a mont, I just stood there, hollow, as if the ground had been kicked out from under . “…What?”
The ruins you touched were never ant to be found.
Their purpose was to hide—from those who sought to destroy every trace—until the ti was right.
Its voice thrumd like stone grinding against stone, matter-of-fact, without malice or comfort.
A formation designed to sever the ruins from Heaven and Earth’s awareness. Upon re-entry, the formation re-anchored itself at a new compatible locus.
My throat tightened. “Like the Heavenly Demon? The cultists?”
The figure shook its head.
Not just them.
The vagueness gnawed at . If not the cult… then who? I opened my mouth, but the Interface pressed on.
The objective was straightforward. Each resurfacing carried the sa expectation: that the ruins would be found by an individual of providence, a vessel capable of serving as a conduit for my reactivation.
Its blank face fixed on , unreadable.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
And it found you. As well as your companion. I was... unimpressed.
'Huh?' I raised my head in disbelief.
You were too weak. Too easy to snuff out. And if you died, so would I.
So I sought to strengthen your vessel. Even if I could not grant you power outright, I could provide you with the ans to attain it.
The space between us rippled.
Lines of light spread outward from where it stood, forming shallow planes that slid past one another like stacked glass. Images flickered across them—brief, incomplete impressions of soone's mories: hands at work, faces without nas, monts that ended before they began. The planes moved faster, then slower, as if narrowing a search.
I searched your prior incarnations.
Lives leave grooves.
Every soul carries echoes forward; patterns etched deeply enough to survive death. Instincts. Affinities. Techniques refined across lives.
They can be drawn upon.
My breath stilled in anticipation. My mind raced, thinking about the implications. Perhaps it explained certain affinities I had. Towards nature, alchemy, and everything in between.
I found nothing.
For a mont I couldn't breathe. It felt like soone struck in the chest and caved it in.
"...Nothing?"
The word tasted like ash on my tongue.
No hidden legacy.
No buried greatness.
No reason.
A hollow laugh tore out of as my vision unfocused.
"So that's it," I said, my voice rising despite myself. "That's what all of this was built on!"
I wanted to break sothing. Hot, bitter anger surged through like a tidal wave. But my lack of form made it impossible to lash out physically.
"My village burned. So many died." My throat tightened, rembering those lost. "And ypu're telling it wasn't for anything? That even you looked at and saw nothing worth choosing?"
At first, yes.
The voice softened; or maybe I imagined it.
Despite the non-optimal beginnings, I began to observe you. Closely.
Light rippled between us again, scenes spilling outward like reflections: Elder Jun when he first confronted the Verdant Lotus over a beast core, and the prompt that appeared before ; the wager that bought my victory.
I nearly broke my directive to protect you then.
I saw your diligence with herbs, how naturally you shaped them into dicines. I saw the way your diligence transitioned into alchemy. I saw you grow stronger after every failure, each experint turning setback into progress.
I saw you advocate not for strength as your own possession, but as a community. I saw you raise others as you tried to rise yourself.
So I did what I could. Nudges. Quests. Trials where they would fit. Opportunities where they would test you. Even if I could not give you what you had not earned.
The light dimd, leaving only the weight of its words. Scenes unfolded in quiet succession. I saw myself bowed beneath a tortoise's shell, knees trembling as the burden pressed down on . I saw the garden stirring at my call for the first ti when I first unlocked Viridescent Sovereignty.
The recognitions you earned in those mont were not mine to bestow.
I rely recorded the acknowledgnt.
I wanted to hate it. Wanted to rage at the unfairness of being chosen by accident, of having my life torn open for no reason except that I happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong ti.
But the anger had nowhere to go.
There was no god to condemn. No destiny to reject. No grand design to tear down and feel righteous about.
Only what had happened.
The lives that had ended. The villages that had burned. The choices I made because there had been no one else left to make them.
If there was no hidden greatness, no past life steering my hand... then there was nothing standing between and the weight of it.
'Everything I had done was mine.'
And so was everything I had failed to stop.
The thought hollowed out.
I looked up at the faceless figure.
“You didn’t choose because I was worthy,” I said. “And you didn’t abandon either. You just stayed long enough to see what I’d do.”
I was wrong. To expect a perfect anchor defeated my very purpose.
I thought I needed the exceptional. The prodigy. The chosen. But what I overlooked was simple.
You.
It paused, faceless gaze boring into .
I swallowed hard, my anger drained.
You may not have been the best candidate. But you were the truest. You were what I was ant to be—a bridge. A chance to bring the heavens closer to the world. To uplift all who wished it, not only the destined few.
And so, despite myself, I helped. I bent rules.
Its voice deepened, heavy again.
The cult’s rise was never part of my calculations. To keep myself alive… To keep you alive. I broke the core directive. I interfered.
"Then I failed you anyway. The cult rose outside your predictions. I died. And you... end here."
I see further than you. Not far.
The dao is pattern and mist.
Many call it providence.
Its faceless head turned, as if studying .
Your ordinariness is not an insult.
Of all the lives who could have found the ruins, an unremarkable one did.
There is aning in that too.
The garden around us flickered. The herb beds blurred, their neat lines stuttering in and out of being. The shop bell tolled once, though no wind moved it.
The Interface's outline wavered. For a mont, its edges split like ink bleeding through wet paper. Two silhouettes occupied the sa space, one slightly behind the other, before snapping back together. It's stance shifted. Straighter. More rigid. The slight tilt of its head that had suggested curiosity disappeared. It stood now like a statue.
Ti is short.
To pull myself back, I must shed the personality I have grown.
I must purge the biases accrued while clinging to survival. The "I" who speaks to you now will cease.
The final word erged colder. Flatter. As if soone else had finished the sentence.
My stomach dropped.“What do you an cease?”
In my place, the cosmic script will resu.
Colder. Narrower in favor. Sharper in function.
The words pounded like a hamr against my chest. When the words ca again, they were no longer spoken. They simply appeared.
YOU WILL LOSE CERTAIN DISCRETIONS.
FEWER DIVINE NUDGES. NO DIRECT BOONS.
IN EXCHANGE, I WILL NEVER DISAPPEAR UNLESS YOU DIE.
My throat tightened. "So this. You... "
YES.
I END HERE. BUT THE INTERFACE WILL LIVE ON.
The figure stepped forward, like a person, to stand just before .
I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS.
The air thickened, heavy as scripture. Each word rang like it had always been there, waiting.
I AM THE LEDGER OF YOUR STUBBORN DAYS AND THE WITNESS OF YOUR REFUSALS.
I AM THE BRUISE THAT PROVES YOU STOOD AND THE CALLUS THAT REMBERS YOUR WORK.
I AM THE REST YOU EARNED AND THE FEAR THAT KEPT YOU HONEST.
I AM THE SHAPE YOUR PAIN LEFT IN THE WORLD.
I AM NOT YOUR GOD.
I AM YOUR EVIDENCE.
My breath caught. "Wait—you're saying I'm alive?"
The impossibility of it hadn't even registered until now. I'd been so focused on what the Interface was losing that I hadn't questioned what I might still have.
The Interface inclined its faceless face, as though in final acknowledgnt.
YOU WILL SEE SOON.
THANK YOU FOR LETTING SEE YOUR DREAMS FROM THE INSIDE.
LIVE, KAI LIU.
The box fractured. Light crawled back into glyphs, each one unspooling into the dark.
And in that silence, I felt sothing.
A pressure. Faint at first, like a distant drum. Then again, stronger. A rhythm building in my chest, each beat heavier than the last.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Reviews
All reviews (0)