The third night after Helian Sha left.
Moonlight seeped through the same skylight, falling on the transparent skin of Shen Yuzhu's left arm---the transparency had extended from his shoulder to his chest. He did not look down.
The fragment pulsed in the darkness: bright---dark---bright---dark. Same as every day. Same as when it had first been sensed.
But he knew it was different.
Because he had begun to think: I heard it. Now what?
He unconsciously pressed his left arm. The skin there was half a degree cooler than elsewhere---not cold from the outside. Inside, something, before it could be "spoken," had already retreated half a step.
He closed his eyes.
The empty space was open. The cold of the far north passed through him---not the cold of winter, the cold of being forgotten. As if something lay at the very bottom of time, no one remembered it, no one knew it was still there. It did not call for help, did not struggle. Only occasionally pulsed.
He tried to speak that cold.
"It is very cold there."
The moment he spoke, the cold became ordinary cold. The real thing retreated a layer. As if seen through a layer of ice.
He froze. Tried again.
This time, he chose a different word.
"Forgotten."
It retreated another layer. Farther this time. As if seen through two layers of ice.
The third time. He did not speak. Only let the cold stay in his empty space. Cold, just let it be cold.
Then he noticed---that cold was half a degree deeper than moments ago. Because he had stopped trying to speak it.
"It is not disappearing. I am saying it wrong."
His left arm, in the moment he spoke those words, trembled ever so slightly. As if burned by his own voice.
From the shadows, footsteps. Extremely light. Like snow falling on snow.
Shen Yuzhu did not turn. He recognized those footsteps.
"You are not understanding it." Helian Sha's voice came from the darkness, fainter than before. "You are reducing it to only the part you can speak."
Shen Yuzhu did not answer.
Silence. A long silence. So long he thought Helian Sha had gone.
Then a second sentence, even softer:
"The Door is not something that cannot be understood. It is something that cannot be understood ahead of time."
Footsteps. One step. One step. One step. Disappearing into the shadows.
The final step was half a beat slower than the others---exactly the same as every time he left.
Shen Yuzhu's breath, in that half beat, paused. Not deliberate. He had been tripped by those words.
He did not ask, "Then what should I do?" Because he knew Helian Sha would not answer. The answer was not here. The answer lay in the following days, growing bit by bit within his own body.
The same night. Nightcrow Division, Records Hall.
On the ice mirror, a new trace had appeared at the bottom of the Northern frontier's waveform. Not a spirit-trace. An empty space---a position, no name, no data.
The Recording Officer tried to enter "Unknown." The position would not accept it.
Tried "Pending Discussion." Not accepted.
He set down his brush.
The position hung empty.
The pivot instruments did not alert.
There was simply nowhere to place it.
At the edge of the ice mirror, an extremely faint point of blue light lit up half a beat later than usual. Then went out.
Under the same night sky. Northern frontier camp. Beside the Object Mound.
Someone asked Qian Wu: "What is that position waiting for?"
Qian Wu did not answer. He crouched down, looking at the tip of that blade of grass.
The grass was not pointing in any direction. It was trembling slightly---as if hesitating whether to speak.
"Don't ask." Qian Wu's voice was very low. "Some things, once spoken, become different."
The trembling of the grass stopped for an instant.
Not steadying.
As if it had nearly pointed somewhere.
The person did not ask again.
The tip of the grass, in the silence, slowly turned due north.
Not because it had been spoken correctly. Because it was no longer being pressed.
On the leaf's surface, an extremely tiny droplet of water had condensed. Not dew. It had seeped out on its own.
Underground, Astrology Tower. Moonlight seeped through the skylight, falling on the fragment's surface. The rhythm of the runes did not change.
Shen Yuzhu did not speak again.
He closed his eyes. Let the cold of the far north pass through his empty space. This time, he did not try to describe it.
Cold, just let it be cold.
The fragment pulsed in the darkness: bright---dark---bright---dark. No change.
But he knew he had already begun to change it.
Inhale---empty---exhale.
In that empty space, the cold of the far north was half a degree shallower than at sunrise today.
Not that it had changed.
In the moment he spoke it, it had become only that.
The fragment trembled ever so slightly. Not a response. Remembering. It remembered that he had tried to speak it.
His left hand unconsciously clenched. The character "North" in his palm did not grow warm. But it was there. Together with that compressed cold.
He did not get an answer.
But he began to stop believing in questions.
Breathing continued.
Inhale---empty---exhale.
In that empty space, there was the cold of the far north. There was the damp of overseas. There was the chaos of the southwest.
And himself---the fading person, the one learning not to speak.
Outside the window, a sliver of moonlight leaked through a rift in the clouds. Fell on his shoulder. Then moved away. Like taking a look. Then continuing on.
He continued sitting.
The fragment continued pulsing.
No hurry.
[CHAPTER 203 · END]