Morning hadn't quite arrived. The room was quiet, like the world hadn't fully woken. Shen Jin sat at his desk, staring at the Seal hovering just above his palm. No glow. No sound. But it felt like an eye. Watching. The dream's final words echoed in his head:
"If the dream begins again…
will you dare to write its end?"
It wasn't a command. Not a prophecy. It felt more like a question with no right answer.
Shen Jin was used to thinking things through. But this time, his thoughts didn't quite fit. There was a gap between what he understood and what he could feel.
The Seal didn't pulse. But the sentence—unfinished—sat inside him like a second heartbeat. It was waiting. Not for spells. Not for silence. But for something written.
He looked at the table. Blank paper. Ink. Brush. Not for sigils. For words. His hand hesitated. It had never before. But this time, he wasn't writing something he knew. He was writing what the dream had left behind.
Quietly, he whispered:
"It didn't give me the dream."
"I'm the one who has to…
write it back."
He moved. Slowly. The brush touched paper. The first stroke wasn't a word. Just a line. Thin, uncertain. More memory than a message. He wasn't writing a sentence. Or a sigil. He was drawing what the dream had felt like. A curve. A bend. A fold like broken glass. Not elegant. But exact.
He drew another. Then another. Each line followed the shape of the one before it. He wasn't a calligrapher. Not this time. He was a recorder of a dream he didn't fully understand.
The ink was still drying when something changed. The Seal—shivered. Shen Jin froze. He pulled the brush back. No light. No sound. But—the air rippled. The Seal rose slightly. And a faint outline began to float above it. Not a glyph. Not yet. But a structure. Incomplete. Open. As if the Seal was trying to understand what he meant.
Shen Jin whispered:
"It's listening."
"And maybe…
it wants to write with me."
He tried again. This time, not a line. Not a shape. A word. In the dream, he had seen flashes of meaning—not sounds, but symbols. One of them had felt like gray. He dipped the brush and wrote the word:
灰
The Seal—shivered. Not in welcome. But in rejection. The ink bled outward. The shape blurred before it even dried. Frowning, he tried another:
印 — seal.
No response.
Then:
梦 — dream.
Still nothing. No light. No echo. Nothing.
He then realized. It wasn't that the Seal didn't recognize these words. It refused them. Not him. But his language. What he knew. What he'd learned. What the world used. The dream wasn't meant to be translated. It had to be rewritten—not copied, not interpreted—from within.
He whispered:
"So I'm not writing it down."
"I'm supposed to
write it out."
The Seal hovered. Still quiet. But somehow—closer.
—
He exhaled. Set the brush down. If words wouldn't work, he'd stop trying to use them. He closed his eyes. Let the memory come back. Not what he saw—but what he felt. A flash of heat. A crack in stone. The way the wind moved sideways in the dream.
He picked up the brush again. Not to write. To trace. He let the tip follow the sensation—the ghost of ashfire not yet gone. The Seal chimed. Not a glyph. Not a spell. Just a response. And then—light.
A faint scroll-like shape rose into the air. Gray-gold. Torn at the edges. Incomplete. But real. A page of something that hadn't existed a moment before. No text. No structure. Just one open space. Waiting for ink. He stared and whispered:
"Is this…
my first page?"
The Seal drifted closer. No words. But the message was clear. It accepted his way of writing. Not with magic. Not with glyphs. But with memory.
The first page had appeared.
—
The scroll fragment hovered in the air, unmoving. Unfading. The Seal circled it—not touching, but close like it was watching. Like it was waiting. Shen Jin lifted a finger. Slow. Careful. He reached for the edge of the page.
The moment his skin touched it—heat. Not pain. Not real. But something inside his mind lit up—like a match struck in a quiet room. He pulled back, not in fear—in awareness.
The center of the page was no longer empty. There, a single line—not ink, not glyph—flame. Faint. Curved. As if the page itself was reaching out. Asking who he was. Asking what he'd do.
The Seal didn't move. But something in him stirred. A message. Unspoken.
It's testing you.
Not your magic. Not your memory. Your will. Your voice. The voice that wants to write.
He breathed in. Spoke back.
"If you want to write…"
"Then let's write."
The flame shimmered.
The Seal sang.
And so—
language began.
—
The door to the Yuan City lodge knocked three times. Soft. Precise. Like a clock marking the end of silence.
Shen Jin stood. The Seal still hovered above the table, quiet. With a flick of his fingers, he drew it back into his palm. No glow. No trace.
The door wasn't opened by him but by the outer disciple assigned to stand watch. Shen Jin listened from behind the screen. The voice outside was low, almost a whisper:
"From the Internal Archives of the Lingyuan Division.
A field visitor, assigned to consult
the bearer of the Seal: Shen Jin."
His name was spoken with no flourish, no threat, just fact. Shen Jin stepped out. The man had already entered the hall. Gray robe. Loose sleeves. No sash. No crest. Hair tied with a dull cord. No markings. No badge. No aura. He didn't look like anyone. Didn't look like anything. And yet—Shen Jin knew he wasn't ordinary.
The man met his gaze. Calm. Measured. Then said quietly:
"I brought no name."
"No token."
"Only a document.
From the old cases."
"Its ink turned visible this morning."
"So now…
I'm here
to see you."