The bell tolled—a deep, gut-heavy summons that promised no comfort.
Half-past four. Darkness still pressed against the narrow windows. The children were already awake.
Chén Yè sat up. Not excitement—never that. Only a thin, cold curiosity gnawing behind his ribs.
Cursed concept.
He wanted a name for the thing that had overturned his life. A shape. Something he could look at instead of the formless uncertainty.
He stepped into the crowded hallway.
A thick voice, carefully lowered, carried above the shuffle of feet.
"Young master, I hope you rested well."
The deference in it was old. Worn smooth by years of repetition.
Chén Yè glanced over.
A bulky boy stood with head bowed, fist cupped in formal salute. Scars webbed his forearms; half-healed cuts split his knuckles. He smelled faintly of oil and iron. The kind of boy who disappeared in any marketplace crowd.
But he wasn't speaking to a commoner.
Before him stood his opposite. Smooth skin untouched by sun. Golden-brown hair falling in deliberate waves. Even half-awake, he carried himself like a banner—straight-backed, composed, certain of space bending around him.
"I am sure you will awaken a strong concept," the bulky boy continued. "Our family's glory will only grow."
The young master smiled—warm, measured.
"There is no need to bow," he said gently. "We are equals now."
He reached down as if to lift him. The attempt barely shifted the servant's weight, but that wasn't the point.
Around them, shoulders eased. A few commoners exchanged tentative looks.
Hope was a fragile, contagious thing.
Fools, Chén Yè thought.
A concept did not erase training etched into bone. The bulky boy had been shaped to serve. Power would not sand that down. It would only sharpen his usefulness.
And the young master understood that. A loyal divine existence was rare—rarer still when already conditioned. Worth a few graceful gestures. Worth the performance.
Chén Yè looked away.
He had no prayers to spare. The gods had never answered street orphans.
He noticed the other nobles watching—measured glances, calculating. Envy flickered like heat over stone.
Power was not merely what you awakened.
It was what you kept.
⸻
In the main hall, fear hung thicker.
Children clustered in uneasy knots—faces pale, smiles too wide. Forced excitement trembled at the edges.
No sign of Xīng Hé.
An officer entered. Orders were brief, stripped of warmth: proceed upstairs, wait outside the chamber, respond when called.
And so they waited.
Names were called one by one. Each child passed through a door and vanished.
Minutes later, they returned through another.
A noble girl emerged with trembling hands, tears drying in silver tracks down powdered cheeks. She would not meet anyone's eyes.
A commoner boy burst out grinning, words tumbling over themselves as he described something none of them could see.
Two siblings entered back-to-back. The first returned white as paper, lips bloodless.
The second did not return.
No one asked.
The officials moved with quiet efficiency. Guards stood at every exit—still as statues, hands resting lightly on hilts.
Five hours scraped past.
Then—
"Chén Yè."
⸻
He rose and walked to the door.
One knock.
"Enter."
He stepped through—
—and into nothing.
The darkness swallowed the last spill of hallway light as the door closed. Not dim. Not shadowed.
Absolute.
Yet not empty.
Millions of lights flickered in the void—winged motes of pale luminescence, darting too fast to follow. Each one flared for less than a blink before vanishing into the black, trailing thin streamers like torn silk.
They weren't sparks.
They weren't insects.
They moved with intention.
What unsettled him most was this: despite their number, the darkness did not thin. The lights slipped through it without piercing it. As if the dark was substance—not absence. Something light could not erode.
He reached out.
His fingers closed on nothing.
The motes curved around his hand, neither avoiding nor acknowledging him. He lunged. Swiped. Tried to trap one between his palms.
Empty.
They never slowed. Never faltered.
A thin heat coiled in his chest.
"What are you?" he asked.
The void did not answer.
Again he reached. Again he failed.
Eventually, breath shallow, he lowered himself—into what felt like sitting, though there was no floor to confirm it—and watched.
The lights shifted in patterns just beyond comprehension. At times they gathered, hinting at shapes that almost meant something before dissolving. At others they scattered violently, as though fleeing some invisible rupture.
Then they stilled.
Hovering.
Watching.
Watching me?
The thought lingered.
Frustration drained into something heavier. Awe. Confusion so deep it felt like submersion.
What is this?
He tried again—one careful, deliberate reach. The nearest mote veered aside without effort.
He waited.
Ten minutes passed in silence.
Then the world folded.
It felt like stepping through cool water—no pain, no force. Just a shift.
The next breath he drew tasted of dust and sweat.
He stood once more in the waiting hall.
Whispers crowded the air.
"…a desert made of glass," a girl murmured. "The sun was a mouth. It kept screaming."
"The gravity—" a boy rubbed his shoulders. "It was crushing. I couldn't move."
Chén Yè listened.
Each account was different.
Each room a separate world.
Not a test of strength.
A revelation.
A divination.