The threads in the air began to thicken. They twisted, wove, widened, until the light gathered itself into form—text. But not any written language. Not Celestial script. Not Hollow marks. Not scribe-glyph nor sigil-tongue. Something older. Rougher. Shaped like a broken song. Fragments of image. Fragments of breath. The lines jagged but not chaotic. A grammar without a name.
Luo Qinghan whispered:
"This isn't writing.
It's reflection."
Ling Wanzhou spoke without lifting his gaze:
"Dreamscript."
She turned sharply:
"The forbidden system?
I thought that the entire language system
was purged."
Ling nodded once:
"It was never meant
for human hands."
"Those glyphs were written
by the Seal."
"And meant to be
read by dreams."
The light deepened. The text expanded like a fan of living ink. Each line formed not to be read but to be remembered. Shen Jin saw the shapes and knew none of them. Yet something in them brushed his thoughts, as if the script had found a door in his mind already open.
Luo Qinghan turned to him.
"It's not teaching you."
"It's… calling back
something you already knew."
—
The script wasn't finished. But Shen Jin's mind opened. No pain. No pressure. A shift. Like a door inside him turning inward. He didn't resist. His thoughts slid into the light. And the Seal took him.
Luo Qinghan came too.
They stood on nothing. Balanced atop a bridge that wasn't stone. That wasn't there. All around them are pages, floating in the air, drifting like islands in a sea of dream.
Each page carried half-sentences. Marks in flux. Moving, twisting, searching for their ending.
Shen Jin looked down. A page beneath his feet unfolded. The symbols weren't formed. Only lines. Bent. Incomplete. Waiting. The Seal was not writing. It was waiting to be read. Not by eyes. By thought.
Luo Qinghan stood beside him. Her voice low:
"This is the Response Page."
"The script remains unfinished
because it needs
your will
to finish it."
"If you try to understand,
it will respond."
He stared at the line. And in the silence, a rhythm returned. Not words. Not yet. But a cadence. A voice. His mother's.
The Seal warmed in his hand. And the first stroke began to form. Not ink. Not light. A line of thought. Written by breath. By rhythm.
He spoke the words his mother used to hum:
"When the Seal does not ask—
the book will speak itself."
As the words left him, the dream ignited. Pages all around them shivered. That single sentence unlocked a chorus. Each half-written glyph began to complete, like a forest of voices rising from silence.
Luo Qinghan whispered:
"This language—
it isn't something you remember."
"It's something
that was written
into you."
"It's not teaching."
"It's… rewriting."
Shen Jin said nothing. He watched. The dream-pages spoke. And he listened. Then a new stroke. Tore through the light. Not a sentence. A question.
"If the book now speaks—
will you dare to answer?"
This voice was not his mother's. It came from the Seal. And it waited for him.
—
The question still echoed.
"Will you dare
to answer?"
Shen Jin did not. Not yet. The dream-pages waited. No pressure. Only pause. And then the seal exhaled. Soft. Slow. The light drew inward. Each page folded. Sentences broke. Words unthreaded themselves and faded back into silence.
Luo Qinghan watched. Not a collapse. Not rejection.
"It's choosing to rest."
The seal's glow faded into his palm. The ring of the Fourth Seal now bore a faint ash-colored scar. Thin. Barely visible. But warm.
Ling Wanzhou stepped forward. Voice low.
"What you spoke—
that was no ordinary sentence."
"It was a Verdict Line.
From the Hollow's Primary Seal."
"It only appears
when it believes
someone might answer."
Luo Qinghan turned to Shen Jin. But he didn't speak. He stared at where the glyph had vanished. And whispered:
"If the dream begins again…"
"…will you dare
to write the ending?"
—
The Seal's glow faded. So did the lattice of words. But Shen Jin didn't move. His eyes were open—unseeing. Sweat beaded on his brow. Not pain. But distance. He was somewhere else.
Luo Qinghan stepped forward.
"Shen Jin?"
No answer.
She reached for his arm—and was pushed back. No force. No heat. But something between skin and skin. A field of resonance. Silent. Automatic. Her face tightened.
"He's still dreaming."
Ling Wanzhou finally moved. Two steps closer. No urgency. Just focus.
"Don't touch him."
"The Seal is trying
to mend something inside."
Luo Qinghan turned to him.
"Mend?
What did he find in there?"
Ling's voice remained still:
"Not found."
"Remembered."
Even as he spoke, the Seal pulsed. A faint light rose from Shen Jin himself. Not cast by the Seal. Drawn by it. His thoughts—his fractures—were being written in reverse.
—
The Seal's glow rose from his palm. But this time it didn't cast outward. It centered itself on Shen Jin's chest. There, light shaped itself into a rotating ring. Thin. Almost invisible. But precise. Measured.
An ancient locking glyph.
Luo Qinghan stared.
"That's… a seal of recognition?"
Ling Wanzhou:
"More than that."
"It's the Seal's protection loop."
"What he touched in the dream
was too deep."
"The seal is afraid
his mind might break."
"So it's shielding the feedback."
Luo Qinghan murmured:
"This technique…
it hasn't been seen
in centuries."
"The seal can do this on its own?"
No one answered.
The ring spun slowly over his chest. Closing something. Healing. A wound in the shape of thought. And at its center—a fracture. Small. But not healed. Not yet. The seal began to hum. A quiet, faraway sound—like memory trying to sing.
Ling Wanzhou said:
"It's trying
to restore
something that was
erased."