They reached Taiching by dusk.
Cloud sat low on the eaves; bells spoke in short, clipped notes, as if the mountain were saving breath.Word had run ahead of them. Disciples lined the walkways pretending not to stare.Elder Qinghe did not slow. "Inner Court. Now."
The Inner Council Hall burned bright.The crack across the black crystal slab was wider than before.
"The fragment," the white-haired elder said. "Give it here."
Xu Pingsheng stepped forward and set the shard on the slab.Blue veins crawled across the crystal like frost.
"Seal it," another elder ordered. "And seal him."
Qinghe's sleeve shifted. "He lived because he did not bow. Take his breath and you take the wheel that saved half a town."
"We take his voice," the elder said. "Not his breath."
A monk in plain linen stepped out from the shadows, carrying a box bound in seven copper clasps.He opened it. Inside lay a strip of black silk inscribed with characters that did not stay still."Seal of Silence," the monk said without pride. "It damps the threads a man can pull—and the words he can speak of them."
Li Yan whispered, "That's illegal. It has to be illegal."
"Only if Heaven disapproves," the white-haired elder said.
The monk approached. Pingsheng looked at Qinghe.
The old man did not look away. "If this keeps you on the mountain, bear it," he said softly. "Live long enough to break it from the inside."
Pingsheng lifted his chin. "Do it."
The silk was cool as river water. When it touched his throat, it drank.
The world narrowed to a single sound—the counting he had heard on the road, louder now, close enough to touch.
One… two… three…
The Soulwheel turned. The second ring flared, seeking air.The silk tightened. Light guttered. His ears filled with static.He tried to speak—nothing left his mouth but breath.
The monk stepped back, palms together. "It is done."
"Good," an elder said. "Now the fragment."
They formed a circle.Lines of light rose from the floor and wove a lattice around the shard.The slab hummed; the names upon it bent, as if watching.
For a moment, everything held.
Then the shard answered.
Blue fire surged up the lattice. The ceiling lanterns burned white, then inverted to black.The Councilors staggered. The monk cried out. The silk at Pingsheng's throat turned ice-cold and bit.
A wind with no direction moved through the hall and lifted every robe.
It carried a voice—no, an intention—older than the mountain:
You were written to die at twenty-nine.
Pingsheng could not speak. He formed the word no with his mouth and felt nothing.
You touched the Record. You unwrote a line. What you erase, you will pay for.
He pressed his hand to his chest. The wheel shuddered, three spokes bright, seven dark.
Bow and breathe, the intention said. Or burn and be free.
The silk tightened further. His eyes watered.Black crept in from the edges of vision.He felt the shard on the slab pulse in time with his heart.
Qinghe's voice cut through the pressure like a blade through cloth."Heaven's Will," he said, and for once there was iron in the mildness, "you do not speak to a name on your ledger. You speak to a man who watched his town die under your Lantern and lived anyway."
The wind paused. The counting paused.
Qinghe stepped into the circle. The light licked his robe and did not mark it."This seal is ours," he said. "The debt is ours. If you want kneeling, take my knees. If you want silence, take my voice."
The slab groaned. The crack widened another finger-width.
The intention shifted—irritation, like a storm deciding whether to stay.
Then carry him, old reed. But do not pretend he is not a weight.
The wind dropped. The lights steadied. The lattice dimmed.The silk loosened enough for breath to slip past, not words.
Pingsheng leaned on the edge of the slab, eyes burning.
The monk knelt, shaking. "The Seal… holds. Mostly."
"Mostly is enough," the white-haired elder said, though her knuckles were white on the arm of her chair.She looked at Pingsheng. "You are confined to the Outer Court for nine days. No errands. No shrines. If a Lantern so much as flickers, you will not see it."
Qinghe breathed out. "And the fragment?"
"It will be sealed to the Hall," another said. "It moves when he moves. Here it will not move far."
Li Yan edged in from the doorway, eyes too wide."Can we go now?" he asked no one in particular.
"No," the elder said. "Not yet."
She raised a hand. The slab brightened. Threads unfolded over its surface, a map of lines crossing the mountain, the towns, the plains beyond.
At the edge of that map, a knot pulsed—tight, ugly, growing.
"Three Rivers Prefecture," the elder said. "The Lantern there is drawing years faster than its tally. We have sent three teams. They have not returned."
Her gaze moved to Pingsheng, then away. "We will send another."
Qinghe bowed, slow. "And the boy?"
"Silent," she said. "Alive."A beat. "For now."
The Council dismissed them.
Outside, night had taken the courtyards.Crickets sang like a thousand small clocks.Qinghe walked with Pingsheng beneath the maples until the Hall's light was only a smear behind leaves.
"Can you breathe?" he asked.
Pingsheng nodded. He touched the silk; it stung and cooled and stung again.
"You won," Li Yan said. "In a losing sort of way."
Qinghe glanced at the stars. "We kept you here. That is winning enough to spend."
They reached Pine Court. The crooked tree hissed softly in the dark, as if remembering rain.
Qinghe stopped. "Listen. The Seal feeds on words spoken about the Record. The more you say, the tighter it draws."His gaze softened. "So say less. For nine days, let me shout at Heaven for you."
Pingsheng tried to smile. His throat burned. He swallowed it back.
Li Yan rubbed his arms. "What about me?"
"You," Qinghe said, "will learn to listen. It may save your friend."
They turned to go. Pingsheng paused.
On the flagstones near the garden's edge, a circle the size of a bowl glowed—faint, pulsing.He knelt. It wasn't paint or light; it was a scar, burned into stone by a thread that had brushed there and gone.
Not the Council's lattice. Not the shard.
He looked up. Across the roofs, at the mountain's far shoulder, a lantern flared and went dark—too fast, too clean.No bell rang. No messenger came running.
Li Yan followed his gaze. "Did you—"
Pingsheng put a finger to his lips. The silk tightened a warning.He said nothing.
If they blind me, he thought, I will learn to see with what they cannot name.
The wheel turned—quietly, this time, under the Seal.
— End of Chapter 8 —