Northwest of Yuan City, in a temporary outpost belonging to the Lingyuan Division, two men spoke in low voices. One wore a faded outer robe of the Jing Sect. The cuff bore the weave of the Inner Reflection Branch, but no official seal hung from his belt. He looked about forty. Calm. Sharp-eyed. But he never met the other man's gaze directly. Every word curved like a knife held flat. The other—a minor officer of the Lingyuan Division's record hall. Not powerful. But in charge of registry channels, local authorizations, and the approval of traveling writs.
The sect emissary spoke first.
"The matter of the 'unreturned mirror soul'
has stirred concern within the sect."
"If Qinghan carries a mirror spirit
not born of proper blood,
the Council may
revoke her lineage rights."
The Lingyuan man didn't reply. He only watched. After a pause—
"Luo Qinghan was assigned
to accompany the keybearer.
She is no longer formally under sect rule—
but registered
under our written authority."
"There's no breach of conduct."
A smile. Thin. Meaningful.
"No breach in law."
"But not in sentiment."
"If the mirror fractures…
the soul it holds
will die."
He stood. Bowed. Left.
And before the door closed, he said—
"If she dares
to write again
with the dream-script seal."
"She will no longer be one of us."
—
That night, on his way back from the corridor, Shen Jin saw light flicker in the inner courtyard. He didn't step closer. Just paused, hidden in the moon's shadow.
Luo Qinghan stood in the courtyard. A paper mirror unfolded before her. The surface rippled in the wind—light shifting in waves across her face. She wasn't casting a spell. Her fingers moved gently across the surface, as if feeling for something lost. Then—the mirror stirred. And from its center, a faint image rose.
A silhouette. Her own. But not quite. The figure stood turned away. Then shifted—just slightly. Its lips moved, as if trying to speak. No sound. Only the echo of a breath.
Luo Qinghan's lips moved, too. Not in shock. In rhythm. A silent reply.
Shen Jin couldn't hear the words. But as the mirror dimmed—as the image faded—he heard her whisper:
"I'm not
who you were
anymore."
—
By morning, a quiet change occurred. The Jing Sect withdrew its official notice from the Lingyuan archives. No reason given. No public statement. Only whispers from those who saw the outer envoy leave in silence.
"The mirror soul has sensed
a foreign memory.
It may not be of our blood."
A quiet sentence. But enough to ripple through the depths.
Inside the sect, a murmur spread. Some elders had begun to suspect:
Luo Qinghan's mirror spirit came not from the mainline. But from the old vein of Yaoyuan.
It wasn't the first time such rumors stirred. But this time, they had evidence. The Seal's dream resonance.
After that day, Luo Qinghan stopped responding to any summons from the sect. She continued to write in the courtyard each day. But no longer in secret. No longer hidden. She said nothing. Didn't protest. Didn't explain. But Shen Jin knew. She had begun to choose. Not to abandon. But to remove herself from the mirror.
—
Dusk had just settled when Luo Qinghan knocked on Shen Jin's door. He opened it to the quiet moonlight. She wasn't wearing sect robes. Just a pale gray garment, simple at the sleeves. In her hands, a folded paper mirror.
"I want to try
a shared writing."
Shen Jin paused. Then nodded. He didn't ask why. She didn't explain. They didn't go to the hall. Instead, they set a small table under the side pavilion. No lanterns. Only the soft light of the moon—and the faint hum of the Seal at Shen Jin's side.
The paper mirror unfolded. They sat shoulder to shoulder. They had shared dreams before. But never writing. Tonight would be the first.
Shen Jin hesitated. Then summoned the Seal—but didn't let it touch the paper. It floated between them. Barely glowing. Luo Qinghan reached out, her spirit energy brushing the mirror's surface. It rippled. No image formed—just a gentle shimmer.
"You first," she said softly.
Shen Jin lowered his brush. He didn't write the dream itself. He traced the space it had left behind. A gap. An absence. The mirror pulsed once—a ring of light appearing in its center. Not a crack. Not a pattern. Something is trying to take shape. And then—her brush moved too.
The faint glow clung to the paper-mirror, refusing to fade, curling like fragments of light beneath still water. Every ripple whispered of something unfinished—something waiting.
Luo Qinghan moved.
Her pen—pale as frost—slid across the mirror without a drop of ink, yet a silver trace bloomed in its wake, delicate as starlight etched into glass. Spirit energy flowed from her fingertips, threading into the paper-mirror, shaping a dream that pulsed with quiet authority.
"Continue," she said softly, her gaze locked on the shifting glow.
Shen Jin did not hesitate. He lowered his brush. The mirror trembled faintly as the Seal's imprint stirred along his wrist. Ink darkened the bristles—not spirit energy, not any refined technique, only pigment dragged by mortal habit. Yet when the stroke touched the glass, the dream responded—lines bending as if to meet Luo Qinghan's arc, the two streams converging in silence.
The second stroke landed, and the air seemed to still.
The paper-mirror shivered.
From the narrow gap between their lines, something else began to surface: a third dream.
It rose unbidden, belonging to neither hand—a form born not of intent, but of resonance. Its contours glimmered like broken sigils from an older tongue, symbols that had never been spoken yet thrummed with recognition.
Shen Jin's breath faltered. This was not new—not entirely. The sight struck him like an ache, a pull from somewhere deeper than memory. He could not name it, only knew he had felt this before—in the hush that followed a woman's insect hymns, in nights when darkness curled around him like a living shell.
The mirror pulsed with a tone too low for sound, a hum threading through marrow. It reminded him of lying still, listening without ears, speaking without words.
Beside him, Luo Qinghan froze mid-motion. Her lashes dipped; her voice slipped out like a splinter of glass:
"You feel it too."
Not a question.
He said nothing, but silence was answer enough.
This was no accident.
This was resonance—an echo born of the same root.
At the center, the hybrid dream began to turn. Lines spiraled inward, circling a core that refused to close. The last curve ended in a split tongue of fire—veins of ember-red crawling along its edges, mirroring the scorch-marks Shen Jin had once seen burned across a torn fragment.
Luo Qinghan's pupils tightened. Not Jing Sect script. Not anything her training could name—yet the cadence throbbed with something buried in her own fractured recollections.
"It's… answering," she whispered, almost to herself.
The dream stilled, one incomplete line short of becoming whole.
Waiting.
Shen Jin stared at that missing stroke, pressure gathering behind his ribs. Truth coiled there like a sealed mouth—something of the Seal, of the ashfire night, of her—
the woman who raised him, wrapped him in riddles, who once pressed her palm to his brow as if planting stars beneath his skin.
Lady Tongyuan.
His brush hovered, but did not move.
The paper-mirror glimmered faintly, as if holding its breath.
And within that glow, the third dream waited like an unopened eye.