The sun rose slowly in the mountains — not bright, but patient. Its light touched the Temple's outer courtyards like a cautious messenger, gilding the paper lanterns and calligraphy-laced tiles in amber hues.
Rei had not slept.
The glyph on his forearm — once dormant — had pulsed through the night. Not in pain, but with presence. It was not a wound. It was a whisper. And though it said nothing, it meant everything.
He sat still beneath the ink-willow tree in the courtyard, watching how the wind stirred its leaves in looping rhythms — as if even nature here followed a script.
Footsteps approached.
Not Shān-Luò. Lighter. Less measured.
The ink-fingered girl — Wèi — crouched beside him without a word. She held a brush in one hand and a folded cloth in the other. When she unwrapped it, three flat stones emerged, each one etched with a different character.
Rei recognized none of them. But each gave off a faint hum.
> "Today, we begin the Three Forms," she said. "Speech. Stroke. Silence."
He didn't answer. She didn't need him to.
> "You already know the first. You've spoken a Word that should not answer."
She picked up the first stone — marked with the character 言 (yán) — and placed it on his palm. It felt warm.
> "To speak is to command. But most who speak do not listen first. That's where they fail."
Then the second — the character 文 (wén) — for written form. This one felt cold, smooth, like still water.
> "To write is to bind. A written Word holds longer than breath. But once written, it watches you back."
Lastly, she placed the third — 無 (wú). No sound. No weight.
> "Silence. The most dangerous form."
Rei looked at her. "Dangerous? How?"
> "Because silence is not nothing. It's a place where everything waits."
She stood, brushing dirt from her robes.
> "You'll train with each of us. I'm the second circle — Writing. Mìng, the blind one, teaches Silence. Jié handles the Spoken Form. If he doesn't try to kill you first."
Rei raised a brow.
> "Not a metaphor," she added with a thin smile.
---
The Voice of Stone – Jié
Later that day, Rei was brought to the outer grounds where flat stone platforms jutted from the mountainside like open scrolls.
Jié stood shirtless in the center of one, steam rising from his bare shoulders. Tattoos of broken words trailed down his spine — not glyphs, but incomplete characters, cracked and burned. A long iron rod rested across his shoulders like a staff.
He did not look up as Rei approached.
> "Say your Word."
Rei frowned. "Now?"
> "Now."
Rei hesitated. The last time he spoke Xuān, the world shuddered. The earth bent. His body nearly collapsed.
> "It's not that simple—"
Jié struck the ground with the rod. A loud, echoing clang rippled through the platform.
> "Nothing in the world is simple. Say it."
Rei narrowed his eyes. Then, softly:
> "Xuān."
The glyphs beneath his skin stirred. The wind stilled.
But this time, the world did not fall apart. It folded. Around the sound. It felt like pulling the air inward — as if silence had become heavy.
Jié's stance shifted slightly. The rod vibrated in his grip.
> "Again. But mean it."
Rei clenched his jaw. He drew a breath, deeper than before.
> "⟪ Xuān. ⟫"
The Word burst from him like the hollow of a bell. Jié's rod shot out instinctively, forming a warding arc. The energy passed harmlessly around him — but the stone beneath Rei cracked. A hairline fracture, wide as a thought.
Jié grinned.
> "Good. You're still holding back, though. And that'll get you killed."
> "It's not control I lack," Rei said. "It's understanding."
Jié lowered his rod, voice softer.
> "Control is understanding. Speak without meaning, and you speak nothing."
---
The Ink That Listens – Wèi
Rei's second lesson came at dusk, under Wèi's supervision. She led him into the Scriptorium, a chamber filled with scrolls suspended in midair — hundreds of them, floating and rotating slowly, untouched by hand.
> "The Word you carry is too old for speech," she explained. "But it might remember how to write."
She handed him a brush carved from a phoenix feather, its tip dyed with black ink that shimmered blue in torchlight.
> "Write its name."
Rei sat before a blank scroll.
He paused. Then dipped the brush.
But the moment he wrote the first stroke, the scroll shivered — not in fear, but in anticipation.
He finished the character: 虛 (xū) — the glyph for emptiness, void, absence.
The scroll burst into flame.
Not fire. Not heat.
Absence.
It didn't burn. It ceased to exist.
Rei blinked. The scroll, the desk, part of the inkstone — gone. Vanished without smoke or sound.
Wèi laughed — sharp and amused.
> "You really shouldn't have written it in full."
He looked at her, unsettled. "You knew that would happen."
> "Of course. That's why I only gave you one scroll."
---
The Breath Between Words – Mìng
The final training brought Rei into the Chamber of Stillness, carved into the mountain's heart. Mìng — the blind boy — sat on a slab of obsidian, unmoving.
There were no words exchanged.
Rei sat across from him.
Minutes passed. Then an hour.
Nothing happened.
But Rei began to feel it — the weight of silence, the rhythm of breath, the echo of thoughts before they became language.
Finally, Mìng spoke. His voice was like sand sliding over glass.
> "Words are not born. They are heard."
Rei nodded slightly.
> "You do not command the void by speaking," Mìng said. "You allow it to reside in you. That is what the first circle demands."
> "And the second?" Rei asked.
> "To let it speak through you."
---
The Temple Stirs
That night, as Rei lay in his cell, the glyphs on his arms began to glow again — but not alone. Other glyphs answered, from other chambers.
He sat up.
Across the Temple, candles lit themselves.
Scrolls opened. Bells rang without touch.
And far above, in the Hall of the Sealed Word, a lock cracked for the first time in a hundred years.
Rei stood, heart pounding.
Wèi appeared in the hallway, eyes wide. Jié burst from the training yard. Mìng stepped into the light, head tilted.
Shān-Luò stood at the top of the stairs, robes billowing as if caught in a storm only he could feel.
> "The Temple has awakened."
He looked directly at Rei.
> "And it's calling you."
---
End of Chapter 3