The Forbidden Capital was not merely a city.
It was a creature, vast and coiled, built atop ancient bones and fed by silence. Its streets were straight, but its rules were twisted. Every building was symmetrical—but every shadow knew a different history.
Shenhai stood before the South Gate, cloaked in dusty robes, his sword bound in linen.
"I thought it would be louder," he whispered.
Baimu gave a grim nod. "That's because the real capital sleeps beneath this one."
⬖⬖⬖
Within the outer walls, the city moved like a mirage—merchants cried out in voices too rehearsed, guards moved in perfect rotations, and the people smiled without meeting eyes.
Meiyan muttered, "Every tenth person here is a spy. Every fifth person is a record."
"A record?"
Baimu explained, "The capital's Bureau of Silence writes down the thoughts of potential traitors. Before they even act."
Shenhai blinked. "How?"
"They don't need to read minds. They just read patterns. You hesitate too long in front of a portrait of the emperor? You don't bow fast enough? They notice."
Meiyan handed Shenhai a small slip of paper.
On it: a glyph woven from fate-thread.
"A false pattern," she said. "For tonight, you're just another wandering scholar."
"But if you speak your true name," Baimu warned, "the pattern will burn."
They passed through the Ivory Ring, a district built around the Imperial Academy. There, Shenhai saw children chanting the laws of destiny, memorizing the Emperor's 36 Names. At the center stood a tower without windows—The Archive of Unborn Laws.
"Inside are the edicts the emperor hasn't written yet," Meiyan said softly. "Pre-written by oracles. Stored. Then released… as if they were divine revelations."
"Even the future is imperial property," Baimu added.
Shenhai's hand twitched over his scroll. He had thought it merely a memory. But now… perhaps it was a weapon.
That night, they descended.
Beneath the academy, through catacombs built before the First Dynasty, they reached a sealed gate marked by symbols long banned—the Ten Curses of Fate.
A whisper came from the darkness:
"If your thread burns… do you still walk?"
Meiyan stepped forward. "We come bearing a broken sword and a sealed name."
The stone parted.
And they entered the Nameless Hall.
Inside, hundreds gathered—exiles, fallen nobles, beggars with strange eyes, monks with shattered bells. All bore marks of fate's defiance.
In the center stood a woman in red-black robes, her left eye a socket of flame.
She turned—and knew Shenhai instantly.
"You've awakened the first memory," she said. "Then it has begun."
Shenhai hesitated. "Who are you?"
She smiled.
"I am Jinhai of the Burning Book. Once the Imperial Fatekeeper. Now… its enemy."
She gestured to the map etched into the floor.
Lines spread from the capital like veins. And at the heart of them, bound beneath the palace, a symbol pulsed:
A cocoon of thread.
A name no one dared speak.
Jinhai looked at Shenhai. "The Unweaver sleeps beneath the Throne of Heaven. The empire feeds him dreams of control… and in return, he protects their power."
Shenhai felt the air shift.
"But now," Jinhai continued, "you carry the last unsnipped memory. Your father stole it before they fed it to the Loom."
Meiyan stepped beside her. "The scroll isn't a weapon."
"No," Jinhai agreed. "It's a name."
Baimu muttered, "A name with the power to wake the Unweaver… or seal him forever."
Silence fell.
Shenhai looked around. At rebels. At orphans of the empire. At fate-defiers waiting for a thread to follow.
And for the first time, he felt it:
Not fear. Not rage.
Command.
"I won't let the empire control fate," he said.
"I won't be their pattern."
Jinhai smiled, like a page turning.
"Then let's write a new one."