"The Dao says 'flow with the current,' but the current drags you through filth and pain—and when you drown, it doesn't pause to mourn. It just rushes on, indifferent as always."
- Old Man
"Heh… still alive, are ya?"
The voice rasped in the silence like rusty chains on wet stone. From the tightly coiled ring on the boy's finger, a plum of smoke crept up, slow and sinuous, like ink flowing into water that would never forget.
A shadow condensed.
What emerged wasn't a man. It was just a posthumous suggestion of one.
The shadow smiled. Saints above, he smiled.
Grinned like a devil who'd outlived judgment. Grinned like the corpse of laughter had returned to taunt the living.
White hair slicked back with what looked to be demon axle grease. His robe was half off, draped around one shoulder as if it had tried to flee but was too embarrassed to stay.
His chest was a museum of blasphemy — old tattoos full of forgotten alphabets, some of which caused cockroaches around him to shudder and die the moment they saw them. Gold rings jingled on his hand. His eyebrows looked like they'd been pulled from the heads of angry caterpillars.
And that smile.
That grin was a war crime against propriety.
It was the sort of smile that caused philosophers to give up free will and monks to involuntarily explode in doubt. He appeared to be a gangster pope who had mugged a lost emperor down some back alley.
And yet—his eyes. They glowed with something older than cruelty, something holy in its corruption.
Eyes as black as dried blood.
Then, he hesitated. Took a deliberate, self-indulgent step into the light of the cavern.
And posed.
Yes, he posed.
Like an emperor returning from exile. Like a man absolutely convinced the laws of physics were privileges he allowed to exist.
"Well...well fuckin' well," he growled. "Look at me."
He half-turned, executed a slow spin — robe blowing behind him like a salacious rumor. The tattoos on his chest shone as if in protest of the movement.
"Hnnngh...Observe this symmetry. I'm almost a holy paradox."
He wagged his ringed, blackened fingers like a peacock on payday.
"Hair greased with demonic oil. Tattoos in tongues no longer appropriate for lips. And these cheekbones? Sharp enough to accidentally exorcise a nun."
He grinned wider.
"Gods once knelt for looks such as these. Then I gave 'em the finger and stole their mirrors. Take notes, kid."
He finished up his strut with a finger snap and a spin that was close to blowing his robe off his shoulder again — something, from the expression on his face, that was quite literally the intention.
And then he looked at the boy.
Expectantly.
Like applause was due.
Like the universe should've started clapping.
But the boy never moved.
Didn't twitch.
Did not even give a blink of approval.
He simply looked at him, eyes lost in the sort of hollows that only sorrow appears to carve when it comes laden with its own instruments.
And yet, in the silence…
There was something.
Not a word. Not even a catch in breath. But something in the set of his glare — the infinitesimal clenching of his jaw — hinted at a barely contained, searing thought.
'This is the spirit I'm stuck with?'
The old man blinked, and then growled, loudly and dramatically.
"Hmph. Tough crowd. You really gonna sit there lookin' like a half-digested sermon and not even give me a nod? No 'wow, Grandfather Wuming, you're a divine heresy carved out of molten sex appeal'? No cheers for survivin' death and still servin' face like a sacrilegious runway model?!
The boy blinked once.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Judgmental.
If his soul hadn't been hollowed out, he would have rolled its eyes. The old man threw up his hand in feigned indignation.
"What? Too much for ya? You're looking for some stale sage with a bird on his shoulder spouting about 'Dao' in riddles and constipation metaphors?! Pah!"
He gestured to himself with both arms, chest bulging like a mad peacock.
"I'm truth, kiddo. Uncensored. Unholy. You think wisdom's gotta be ladylike and quiet? No way. Wisdom's a backstreet brawler with a few missing teeth and a boot full of blood like me."
Still, nothing.
No response.
Just that look. Heavy. Hollow. Perhaps… perhaps a bit weary of being alive.
The smile on old man's face wavered for a moment.
He stepped forward again, voice decelerating.
"Tch. Thought you'd fold."
His voice dropped, feigned concern mixed with cruel pleasure.
"Four days you sat there. Not a crumb. Not a breath worth counting. Crying like a gutter rat who just discovered momma's not coming home. To be honest, I was prepared to write you off. Figured you'd die like the others."
He tilted his head, lips twisted in that wolfish, blasphemous grin.
"But check you out. You are still kickin'. Or at least twitchin'. That's somethin' in my book."
The boy didn't reply.
Didn't breathe loudly enough to be blamed for living.
He simply gazed. His face ashen, lips parched and eyes like black wells that had forgotten how to reflect light.
He was beyond exhaustion.
Beyond grief.
Whatever was in him was not to be discussed in polite conversation.
The old man groaned, stepped forward, gave him a long, sidelong look.
"Still mourning, are we? Or are you brooding because you read somewhere it makes you mysterious under moonlight? Like some bitch-ass ghost prince from a cheap tragedy scroll? You pathetic little shit."
But no response.
The stillness clung to the cave like mildew.
A vein in his temple throbbed, but nothing else stirred.
The old man sighed dramatically, sacrilegiously and shook out his hand.
"Good then. Time to cut the act. Pull your pants up and show Grandfather Wuming what sort of rot you've been fermenting in that sorry little soul of yours."
His fingers twitched.
Not gracefully but like a corpse playing a piano underwater.
But the air shuddered all the same.
Reality peeled back.
Just for a breath.
Just enough to glimpse the thing underneath the skin.
And what he witnessed froze the old man.
Yes. Dead. Fucking. Still.
His body locked like a dying engine.
His pupils shrank like the universe had just farted in his face.
"BY THE SHIT-STAINED THRONE OF THE VOID-EMPRESS!!"
He burst backwards in mid-air, flailing his arms wildly like a tipsy holy man caught in a firecracker sermon.
"What in the twelve circumcised fucks did you DO to yourself, brat?!"
He twirled once, nearly plunged into his own smoke, and caught himself on the ring's edge.
"Your soul—your actual soul—seems to have been used as napkins in a karmic gangbang involving schizophrenic gods and amateur poets! I've seen devils with neater histories and less self-hatred!"
The boy blinked.
Slowly.
Then, almost inaudible.
"She's dead."
A pause.
A protracted, moist and cringe-worthy silence.
The old man snorted like a mule with strong opinions.
"No shit she's dead. You think I missed the four-day pity opera? I could smell your heartbreak behind the veil."
He squinted again.
"But I'm not talkin' about her."
He stuck his finger into the boy's chest, between the ribs, as if he were blaming the heart for murder.
"I'm referring to that branding. That mark. That cosmic psychotic stamp that's practically shoutin' ''Hi, Heaven! Please destroy me at your earliest convenience!'"
He stopped, his eyes constricting, his voice falling just below a whisper.
"Do you even know what has happened to you?"
The boy said nothing.
"Ohhh, sweet summer fuck. You lucky bastard. You're a walking paradox. Come here, child. Papa Wuming will tell you what your soul is like."
"Stand still. Don't flinch. This'll tickle your soul's nuts."
He raised two fingers and jabbed them into the air. Not at the boy, but through him. The gesture didn't break skin, but it sank through space like water folding in reverse.
The world peeled.
No light. Just depth. A spiraling web of ink and memory, hanging in the air like a suspended shrine. And in the heart of it, four shining lights appeared.
His fingers trembled over each floating Sin Brand. His expression altered — no longer derisive, but looking like awe, or heartbreak in the eyes of a drunk prophet.
"Kid." he breathed, soft, awed, half-strangled.
He pressed a shaking hand against his own chest, as though to balance his nonbeating heart.
"You absolute divine disaster. Four fuckin' Brands, fresh, and not one of 'em half-assed."
"You got 'em by crying and screaming and hiccuping in a cave like some discount tragic immortal and boom! Cosmic heresy! Karmic transgression! Spiritual felony! Like the fuckin' Heavens were just waiting for you to have a sadboy moment so they could give you these Sin Brands."
He jabbed a finger at the boy's chest, trembling with rage.
"Nullbirth Spiral. That's what it is, isn't it? That cheat-code tattoo carved into your soul like the universe decided to giftwrap nihilism and hand it to a baby!"
His voice cracked.
"You lucky little god-accident."
He walked haltingly. The Sin Brands revolved around the boy's soul like evil stars, each throbbing with its own cacophonic hymn.
And the old man began his litany.
He followed the first shining light with a crooked finger. It was a blood-petaled lotus that flowered out of the chest of the boy, petals glistening with memory.
"Ahh… this one…The Bloom of Betrayal. The softest cut's always the one done with trust."
He leaned in, eyes tightening.
"She gazed at you like you were salvation in a mud pit. She trusted you, even when you didn't. And you? You cut hope straight out of her chest and fed it to the ground."
He smiled. Not cruelly. Proudly.
"That's not murder, boy. That's apostasy of the heart. A betrayal close enough to make even narrative law blush."
Then, feigning a sniffle, he brushed away imagined tears with the corner of his own sleeve.
"I'm so damn proud, I might start lactatin'."
Second one. The serpent curled up the boy's spine — glassy-eyed, grieving.
"Ohohoho. And this greasy bastard here. This happened because you desecrated your yearning and self. "
"This is when you didn't just kill her. You killed the part of you that loved her. The part of you that still had mornings. Softness. Clean hands and a better life."
He chuckled — low, broken.
"Most people bury their pasts. You ritualistically killed your future. You flayed the dreamer in you and wore his skin like armor."
A pause. A gentle click of his tongue.
"I've gotta say — that's romantic as shit. Real Byronic-despair-meets-garbage-fire energy."
He turned the boy's hand over, examining the cut inscribed on the palm.
"Betrayal of Mercy…" he panted.
"You had it. You knew you had it. Could've walked. Could've left her alone."
"But you didn't. You used violence. Not out of anger. Not out of desperation. In reflection."
He exhaled, slow.
"That wasn't a killing. That was a decision. And decisions, kid… decisions are what cut the soul deeper than any sword."
The cracked halo hissed above the boy's brow, shedding embers like heresies.
The old man gazed at it, frozen.
"...Well, fuck me sideways with a doctrine. You earned a Cataclysmic Brand in first try. You inverted your faith. Unholy shit."
He retreated half a step.
"You didn't abandon faith. You flipped it. Took all the rules, all the holy code, and turned it inside out like a saint in a slaughterhouse."
He half-laughed. "You faced Truth and told her 'Nah, I'd rather bleed pretty lies in my own script.'"
"Kid...you wrote your own religion in ruin."