There was a boy, and there was a mountain.
The mountain wore no name anymore.
Once, it had been called the Pillar of Stars, when light crowned its broken peak.
Now, it was just another forgotten ruin.
A cracked tooth jutting out from the earth.
The boy had no name either, not one the world could remember.
They called him "Shuye" sometimes, when someone bothered to call him anything at all.
The night book. A scrap of a life written between dusk and dream.
Tomorrow, he would climb the broken stairs to the Mirror Hall.
Tomorrow, he would stand before the ancient mirror and show the world what, if anything, bloomed in him.
He sat alone on a shattered stone, wrapped in thin cloth against the chill winds.
His hands were small. His legs bruised from old beatings, old falls, old lessons learned at the end of the world's patience.
Above him, the stars flickered like dying seeds in a black garden.
He wondered if anyone ever caught one.
He wondered if anyone ever planted one back into the soil.
The wind whispered down the mountain slopes. Not words. Not warnings. Just breath, empty and ancient.
---
In the crumbling temple below, the elders spoke of Seeds.
A Seed born strong would bring prosperity to the sect.
A Seed born weak would bring shame.
No Seed at all would bring nothing, and nothingness was cheaper than mercy.
Lin Shuye did not dream of greatness.
He did not even dream of survival.
He only dreamed that perhaps, when he stood before the Mirror, the mountain might whisper back.
---
Morning was a thin orange streak across the horizon as he climbed.
The stairs were older than memory. Each step was cracked, overgrown with weads, freezing to the touch.
He counted them, because if he did not, he would count his own doubts instead.
Seventy steps.
Eighty-three.
A hundred and eleven.
At the top, an ancient and decrepit doorway.
Inside, a hall of mirrors, all blank, all blind.
At the far end, the Silver Mirror waited.
---
An old voice rasped behind him:
"Step forward, child. Let the world see you."
He obeyed.
No drums. No fanfare.
Just the click of bare feet on stone.
When he stood before the Mirror, he saw nothing.
Not himself, not a Seed. Just mist.
---
The old voice spoke again:
"Offer your heart. Offer your soul. The Mirror shows only truth."
He closed his eyes.
In the darkness, memory stirred:
- A cradle woven of weeds and cloth. -
- An empty hearth cold for seasons. -
- A song hummed by no one, in a voice he could not remember. -
Tears prickled the corners of his eyes.
He did not know what he was offering.
Only that he had nothing else.
The Mirror trembled.
---
A sound, like the cracking of ice across a deep lake.
A single bloom emerged.
It was not bright. It was not beautiful.
It was a small, dark bud, black and silver, pulsing faintly like a wounded star.
The old voice whispered, this time almost in awe:
"Dark Bud. Yin and Yang intertwined. The most fragile... and the most dangerous."
---
The mist in the hall thickened. For one terrible moment, Lin Shuye glimpsed visions beyond the mirror:
- A world devouring itself in sorrow. -
- A star bleeding rivers of silver flame. -
- A thousand petals falling into darkness... and blooming again. -
The vision struck him like thunder, tearing at the roots of his spirit.
He gasped, and the moment shattered.
---
He fell to one knee, breathing raggedly.
Around him, the mirrors remained silent.
Blind. But somehow, the hall felt heavier, older, more awake.
The old voice said nothing more. No praise. No condemnation.
Only silence, and the long, slow hum of something unseen growing deep within his soul.