Chapter 3. Some Star Fragments

It was past midnight, somewhere in between three or two in the morning, she estimated. She had slept long, Wei Zhiruo thought while yawning and stretching her limbs —at least she felt refreshed now.

Wei Zhiruo first rubbed her numb face to get a feel of them back, her fingertips traced her hollow under eyes. A thrilling sensation lurched within her mind like a sweetness formed inexplicably. By the time this tide of pleasure waned completely, Wei Zhiruo felt slightly more sobered up, yet this sobriety came dragging with it a daunting realization with waves upon waves of an epiphany; it stole away the shivers, the pleasures and in its place left a cold, hard touch of reality. Awake now, her eyes cold, she peered into the night sky while her mind recounted the day's events.

After she had woken up, she was immediately brought under care of a maid in her courtyard who carefully tended to her needs. Arrangements for water, medicines and the rest had been performed perfectly fine in her hands, yet food remained glaringly absent. There wasn't even a mention of it, not once she heard the maid ask her if she wanted to eat something. Wei Zhiruo had had water to quench her thirst and had felt her teeth hurt as she did that. Her jaw had been hurting too, and as if she was forcing her mandibles too jammed to work to move, she had to put in great effort to even say an audible word. Tongue rolled in her mouth while swelling achingly; even saliva had been difficult to form— all this had been a clear giveaway that even that little bit of water she was provided with had been missing for some while.

An aching hunger bloated in her stomach as if her body had been kept hungry, or rather, starved knowingly for more than a week. The maid, however, didn't show any hint she was aware of the random sounds her empty stomach had been making, while she’d busied herself in the small chamber to arrange for her other necessities. Soon a wooden tub was filled with bath water, cold and icy, and she was told to freshen up with it.

"It... cannot it be...warmed?" Although her words had sounded akin to a faint whisper, her shivering and gestures should have sufficed to convey what she meant or wanted, yet, the maid had kept doing whatever she was busy with as naturally as before, as if she couldn't hear or see her. This hint in itself was enough to put a stop to all or any question Wei Zhiruo had wanted to ask.

By the time she had freshened up, those shards of broken jar had vanished from around the bedside. Then she was subjected to another round of grooming as layers upon layers of complicatedly arranged fabrics were put on her tiny frame, and a brocaded shoe was shoved under her feet as she was made to sit upon a wooden stool.

"Ninth miss, I hope the night was spent well." Then that maid smiled and finally talked. She had a natural sweet voice. "You should take good care of yourself, now. It's getting colder as winter approaches. Tou'er will start putting thick cloaks out for you, like the one you're wearing right now. But you shouldn't go outside, not even near your swing if you can, Miss. Even if you do, which Tou'er believes you will not do as a good child, you shouldn't take off these shoes like you always do, walking over grass and never minding whether your feet are soaked in dew—sometimes you behave so alike a barbarian in the Woodlands that I'm forced to question how had such a noble person as you learnt of such bad habits and from whom! That's not how ladies behave. Have you seen your elder sister? Don't you want to be like her —? Don't tell me, I know you do, so let Tou'er teach you a few secret ways. Don't be angry over me chastising you miss, okay? Your servant, I am not restricting you at all but teaching you the ways to be a virtuous noble lady; a person of your stature shall always behave nicely like I teach you to. And for that you'll listen to Tou'er in everything, won't you?"

That maid had kept stealing glances at her face, Wei Zhiruo recalled, as she rubbed a thick paste of white grease of some kind over Wei Zhiruo's hands. In that moment, she had smelled a scent too familiar to her coming from that white paste, so she had sniffed it covertly and ascertained that her senses hadn't led her astray —that that the ingredient mixed within that grease wasn't anything else but berries of Rueberry tree, a highly toxic tree with fruits which smelled like sage yet had the most volatile reactions upon being consumed; yes, that much was made plenty clear by just sniffing. Remembering that long time contamination too and not just orally taking one of these fruits was lethal, with side effects ranging from nausea, fever, and muddle-headedness, and on more serious side even long-term mental frailty — despite being ignorant of everything around her, Wei Zhiruo had confirmed there were several hidden murderous intentions like knives flying around. Later, she'd picked no less than three other dubious medicinal scents mixing in the chamber —some herbs had been added to the incense burner, the coal in the brazier pushed next to her feet smelled medicinal, and finally, the water which she had chugged with desperation contained a trace of floating herb stem. None of them had been familiar looking nor known by smell to her. All this was clearly too much.

"Hmm," she'd hummed. It was all she remembered voicing out to show she was listening and even that single syllable had caused her to be jittery for a long time after that.

Since it was slightly dark in her chambers, a few candles burning in a silver candelabra gave off a warm cover to everything, while the rest of the area shadowed in depths created by shelves and parting latticed screens contrasted visually and she, the maid had stood long in that darkened area observing her.

Wei Zhiruo remembered she had felt increasingly irritated by the musty smell lingering under her nose, when she was brought in front of a wooden dressing table and made to sit over a stool again and watch a reflection of herself in depth of burning bronze that was illuminated by a candlelight.

Pale skin, good enough features on face which had been reduced to just flesh sticking on to bones, supporting a haunting blue eyes looking too engorged for that small handful of a face like two round sapphire orbs—in that lavishly forged and exquisitely decorated round bronze mirror, where she had also found copper details of leaves and flowers and vines motifs swirling around beautifully to frame it all around—such a face starkly contrasted it and had spoken of horror of hunger, sickness and...of rot.

Again, that maid had kept watching her wordlessly, as Wei Zhiruo observed herself. She'd then knelt down beside her tiny figure and had started combing her long thick hair that fell on the ground.

"Ninth miss, you must stay in your room today, alright? Please don't go out on your own, it won't be good if the Second Mistress finds out about it. It is the eldest master's crowning ceremony and many families from around the county have come to pay a visit. Everyone's been quite busy, you see. It is crowded and you usually don't like these kinds of occasions, do you? You're such a quiet child; may god bless you for that! You never give Tou'er any worries. Be obedient, miss, our second Missus said she will ask you out when it's time for dinner. Then you can gift the young master with those embroidered kerchief you have made for so long! I must say, how happy he would be with you after that! It's your Eldest brother's most important moment in life! You wouldn't want to ruin it, right? Is miss happy? If not, I could go ask mistress for permission-?" An inscrutable flavor of schadenfreude had laced that maid’s seemingly well-intentioned words.

'A spy.' Wei Zhiruo, had summed up the role of that woman immediately after this. A few seconds later, despite feeling nothing herself, Wei Zhiruo had started becoming increasingly sad, as if those words from that maid had contained a glimmer of some sign which her latent memories recognized but she herself failed to understand. That, and when a tide of latent memories of the body surfaced and washed her mind triggering a storm within, causing her to cough for a long time in front of the mirror— that had succinctly confirmed that this event she was being asked to not go to might have been very dear to the Original Owner. Thankfully, there was no transmission of a large number of personal memories, just some names of places and things that looked odious to her personally had gained their attributes and functions.

Moreover, she had also gathered a few very concerning details. She was this family’s Ninth miss, as in the ninth daughter in the line of birth order, with eight older siblings in front. That had definitely made her situation even weirder still - no one came to ask her out, no one had even sent anything remotely akin to an invitation or a reminder for her, no announcement to come and join, nothing…On such an occasion as the Heirs coming of Age ceremony, Wei Zhiruo had been ignored and remained confined in her chambers.

'Unfavored or orphaned? Perhaps, an illegitimate child? No, that hardly explains so many traps.'

Wei Zhiruo had thought of many reasons for such undisguised ostracization and even tentatively asked–

"Will others be there? My sister…,"

"Eldest miss, you ask? She? Yes…of course she has to go! No other way about it. A while ago the royal edict came– all of us were so afraid, you mightn't have an idea how much, Ninth Miss! Aunt Jiang was so close to fainting – for a long time she refused to get back to the kitchen at her post, but I think she was pretending for the most part. Never mind her! But we, we had no inkling of what was to come, and everyone just thought about what kind of trouble the Master had put us into this time again, but fortunately! It was an edict of engagement! Your eldest sister, Miss, is going to marry a prince! She has been promised to the second prince of our Great kingdom of Dajin, and their coming marriage is going to be nothing short of a fairy tale! Tou'er knows Miss and the prince will become a Heavenly couple in everyone's eyes —you see, although the royal family is so far away in the capital, far away from Jinghai, his highness had heard of our eldest miss’s reputation. They had met by chance –how lovely–and then fell in love, were engaged and are going to marry! The prince might come to meet our Young master today and also to meet the Old Master. Tou'er still cannot believe her ears...! That's a prince, must you know! Such an honor has been earned by eldest miss for the family, how could she not be present there on such an occasion?! Of course she will be there tonight!" The maid had started sounding genuinely happy, almost gushing out with joy in her description of that upcoming joyful event.

"Oh well…then, will my other...siblings go too? Will you go there?"

"…Oh, they…Tou'er has to go. Second mistress has asked Tou'er to be in charge of guest rooms. I might not come back tonight miss…if Miss doesn't like it, I can ask your mother again. Should I do that for you, miss?"

“No.”

Since then, no further conversation followed, no reply was sought. That maid had just gone on to continue twisting her long hair, twice her body size into an unfamiliar coiffure, adorning it with a few stringed strands of jeweled ruby pieces casted within a thin chain of silver, its end had danged down her earlobes touching her small narrow neck with a slightly colder touch. Her hands had deftly stuck a few carved jewel pieces over Wei Zhiruo's forehead. Wei Zhiruo had noticed that a few of the trinkets formed a ruby flower affixed on one end of a single silver-piece shaped like a two-pronged long needle, which was inserted to hold the bun in place tightly with the flower placed on top. All those pieces looked too huge to be worn on her body though—she could clearly tell that none of them were her own.

On the other hand, the silence had stretched for so long that it had worn away all traces of cordiality from that maid’s face. Not even the pretense of obedience could ease it and with a slightly stiffened and annoyed smile on her lips and dulled light in her eyes, that maid had slipped away as soon as she found a chance, not forgetting to remind Wei Zhiruo one more time -

“Ninth miss – don't forget, alright? You cannot come out to the banquet tonight!”

If only this event had happened with no traces of Rueberry found, it wouldn't have mattered much to Wei Zhiruo herself. An abandoned child, uncared for by everyone would have been personally a great news to her. She could spend time at her own discretion, leisurely finding things without any worry of being discovered or treated as an alien, or much worse, like a pariah – a straight-out body snatcher. Or keep fearing discovery by others' given away by her wayward emotions or streams of thought that phased like the moon; Wei Zhiruo knew for a fact it wouldn’t remain unnoticed if she was under the gaze of others all day long. Being a closed off bastard in comparison, was a great chance, an invisible role with little to no consequences. That was a possibility if the things on the surface were to be taken as the whole truth—her hands still smelled faintly of sage constantly reminding her what she had discovered inadvertently.

Even after that the day would have ended like that —with her worrying about how many more medicinal herbs, toxic and dangerous, were hiding around her—if not for another incident. A strange sight had fallen on her back as she sat alone in her new room. It…had kept staring at her for too long; the stare was cold, gloomy, unfamiliar and unkind, sticky like those of a hiding predator judging its next meal, and no, she hadn’t misjudged such an obviously malicious gaze by any means. Soon, malice filled thoughts -unfamiliar, rootless and especially malevolent and so chaotic, that if they manifested in reality, they would look like an unscrupulous, unresolvable piece of jumbled up wool— had started filling her mind.

At first, she just sat and waited. When she knew it was stealing closer and closer to her, Wei Zhiruo hadn't wasted time pondering what a Malformed was doing here, she started tracking it down instead. The whole courtyard, its sheds, and rooms filled with dust left uncleaned for too long - she searched through all that to finally found its lair hidden inside an old, abandoned well. But because she wasn’t careful enough, particularly because she didn't want to make too much noise and alert everyone in the mansion, she alerted the monster instead, and it escaped. Since then, all morning and afternoon Wei Zhiruo had tried finding it again and again to no end. To worsen the already bad situation that Malformed shadow, as she had found out from its various traces, seemed to have already evolved into a physical Malformed Beast. That could explain why it perfectly evaded her tracking through Spiritual Consciousness each time, but that had also spelled endless trouble for her.

Having an impressionable mind like her own, the danger posed by such psychic creatures was naturally multiplied. If Wei Zhiruo got infected by their malice, instantly her thoughts will begin to malform and if she was to remain untreated in such an 'infected' condition for long, all her thoughts would end up having no ‘meaning’ nor a trace of ‘sense’ to them, floating like debris, junks in a senseless vessel. The spell's duration was limited, however. But as these creatures evolved better, they also gained better control abilities and were infamously good at hiding! Although it targeted weaker opponents as a rule, once targeted by them it meant being harassed frequently. Wei Zhiruo would never have imagined them to be a threat to her personally in her past life, but here, right now with her weak human state - attracting its attention to herself was a definite death sentence.

Wei Zhiruo decided to check again.

Waves after waves of soul energy emerged from the depth of her soul. It rolled in small ripples, encompassing all that came in its way like a misty cloud swallowing down hilltops and trees, herds of sheep and cattle asleep, inconspicuous housetops and rolling meadows and twisting valleys. It submerged everything, intangible and tangible in its midst and rolled. Mightier and mightier the waves grew and followed. In a minute, it travelled all the way to the Mysterious Mountains peaks. Frothing on from a small inconspicuous pond of Wei manor it had successfully trembled past its majestic courtyards, past its grooves, orchards and bamboo yards, all rustling in the mellow wind and past the small stream that ran along its boundary walls which joined a river a few miles down, to reach great distance and cover miles within. It rose up like smoke and fume, and dark rolling tides of oceans– it brimmed over and bubbled, frothed and shattered its own loosening edges, rolling inwards and surging forward, finally merging into the wind itself. Once again, however –she was snatched back by an aching soul at the most exhilarating moment of letting herself go unfettered.

"Over-exerted...have I?" She grumbled. "But why is there no trace of other magical creatures around here? These Malformed must have evolved eating something, right? So where is its natural prey?”

Tiredness soon overwhelmed her. It was to be expected; with no less than seven deep wounds marking her soul, she knew the area she could cover in the near future was going to be just within this limit. After all, Spiritual Senses themselves were actually just a force-field coming directly out of the soul, a form of soul energy. When this force spanned out over an area it could directly send information about where other souls and objects coming under its path stood. For tracking, mapping and finally, as a basic investigative tool, it was one of the most versatile skills for Arcane Spellcasters.

Even then, it was considered one of the easiest Arts to gain for a reason; it had several drawbacks like being conspicuous to other practitioners of magic, easily thwarted by using another spell used to hide one's breath or the like. Right now, she suspected that the Malformed Beast might have shielded itself from her encroachment by hiding behind a magical shield, or maybe, teleported away from here altogether.

"Crackle!" Something surged.

Wei Zhiruo's stray spiritual sense felt a strange attraction coming from the place they had inadvertently stolen closer to. When she carefully examined the pattern, she found a strange stone with Runes etched over it...embedded into the floor of one of the abandoned buildings.

"Rune?" And not just one of them. She found the pattern had six identical rune-stones, forming a complex looking hexagon.

“A Rune chain? Not really, these are similar to Rune but...not one...likely…some foreign objects which are Rune-like,” Wei Zhiruo observed. She studied the pattern closely and felt something pulsing within those stones itself, like a rising force was imprisoned within them. When she was prodding it a little, she suddenly felt a gnawing hunger rooting from her soul becoming so overwhelming in a minute that even those stones appeared delicious.

'What is this? There is a law in it, a strange rhythm of sounds as well. Are there really native Rune-forgers in this world who use divergent methods? Possible.'

As her consciousness further looked into those agate-like pieces of stones she realized them to be [Gate] Runes imitation of kind, an 'opening' to another dimension.

Wei Zhiruo decided to take some risks. She thought for a minute, then immediately touched some invisible laws, nudged her Spiritual Consciousness to seek a path and then finding it, breached into it. But the next development left her confused completely, as she didn’t enter any 'door' at all but was stopped, snatched and thrown into a completely different space interface in the middle of the transit itself!

Her body and mind whirled like she had fallen down a cliff. Then she smelled the ocean.

'This…'

"This-this isn't what I think it is, right?" Wei Zhiruo jerked awake, stood up shakingly and then looked struck around in wonder. "It is - it really is that place -! It does exist! An infant realm...how come? Shouldn't that be a—"

'A fairy tale?'

Her eyes took in a new sky, the water was no longer that of a small pond – no, it was much more unfathomable, more ancient and majestic—what she stared downwards was the dark and gaping mouth of a behemoth! Above, the sky was full of swirling majestic Runes and clouds of vibrant hues looking chaotically similar to the swirling nebula she had chanced upon in space. It was really, equally vibrant and bursting with energy, so horrifyingly raw and potent, that she felt its strain reaching her, pressing her downwards!

The Ocean on which she was stranded —all horizons surrounding it were dark and merged directly within the seamless skies. However, she noticed she was approaching a much brighter place —a few minutes of waiting and the waves really did successfully push her into a place that left her awestruck.

Imagine, the void being of water and stars revolving and pulsing therein, not huge orbs hanging but just white fragments and balls of similar energy but swimming afloat —this was exactly what she sawt!

As her boat drew closer within that floating 'garden' of stars, another sound, an ancient rhythm, mysterious, unspoiled, seemed to emerge out of thin air and then seized over everything! This, however, could really be never translated into words or better, never framed within limited senses of a sentient creature not already having a mechanism to grasp it. A human wasn't such a lucky being, so Wei Zhiruo found conveyed to her faithfully, a somber tune unable to be remembered for long.

One might have heard its soft edges, its trebles and falls, its gratified risings and twisted maneuverings of passion, or encapsulated its emotions and its headiness, yet, for unknown reasons, when tracing it back to its origin or from whence it frothed, one would have immediately found its rhythm fading away and appearing hollow like a carved flute. Emerging from the deepest, darkest corners of soul, yet so shallow and so brittle were its enthralling woes, it felt as if it were made of a whim, or dream woven. So intangible that it seemed worthless to ponder over them.

Wei Zhiruo had regained much of her previous bearing by now, as she sat silently, enjoying every bit of this unexpected journey. Here in this newly formed realm, she luckily heard a piece of newborn world singing, as was written in that strange travel journal of a person named Zai, and which for the majority of her life she had taken as pre-magic eras dross.

「" There is a fond tale amongst travelers of the void – that when it is the right time, when the wheels of fate have just attuned to rhythm of the sky, when two realms overlap – in between them they synergize, they marvel and open up a space of its own, a space so volatile, so turbulent that no one dreams of staying longer than needed. Taixu, or the Great Void, births Qi, Qi births the world, and that infant cries and sings. This space formed is a marvelous invention of true nature, a play of rules and heaven's grace. If luck accords you a chance to travel therein, you must beware of its enchantments, it’s ensnaring – but also, stop a while, settle down and glimpse. Here the marvels of nature collude in a mystery, and here it sings a melody of order, primeval order and of life itself. If you capture those – you will be born anew." 」

"...Song of Order."

As she remembered these words, her eyes took in blankly, the lingering black trail her boat left behind as if what the boat was wading through was just a huge black ocean full of broken fragments of icebergs floating above, and a sailor sailed through while parting those milk-white fragments on both sides.

Wei Zhiruo bent down to touch the ocean water itself but found that the water couldn't be held in hands. They would just slip right through her fingers, leaving a trailing cold sensation but no wetness. She didn't dare touch any of the star fragments though —whenever the boat approached one of them, they hardly felt warm, but as her distance to it increased, she would feel pulsing heat growing from them. Not too intolerable, but it was enough to warn her against touching those white and yellow floating fragments and orbs.

Soon she felt the song swell up in her mind, replacing her thoughts and fear of the unknown; her lips urged her to follow but unconsciously, she restrained them as well as herself. She mumbled, hummed along that thrumming throbbing pulse in her red-blood and fed it back to heaven in an act of self-abandon, completely inhaling the experience of it as if she was being drowned underwater, but she didn't dare make a sound —fearing as if such an act would be impious, a violation of such pristine purity.

Unknown to her, some strange runes had stolen into her eyes and started flickering in her blue orbs, the color of which lightened a degree, becoming an icy blue. Lulled, Wei Zhiruo fell into a stupor of reminiscing.

Sounds surfaced.

Past unfolded, scene by scene.

She was four, meditating in a gigantic hall with several other children of clansmen. They were then given a vial of Mana liquid each, led to a circle and the chanting began. A few seconds in, everyone had fainted but her. That was how Wei Zhiruo Awakened her bloodline, becoming a Bloodkin or one of the kin of the Lord of Blood through descent.

Awakening her full bloodline had caused her to cease to be the little bit of human she was before. In parts she did retain a little trace of her childhood self, in learning she inherited her clan's mantle which was heavily influenced by human civilization, and in habits she saw much of her human mother and father, half-blood aunts and uncles. Despite all these 'loans' from another race, she knew, her family knew and everyone else in her clan knew they weren't humans at all.

Next it was a scene from her fifth birthday...and she heard the first thought. It was the spirit of an Elcore Tree, with lilac blooms and soft, cheerful disposition. Grandma Elcore liked it the best when she sat underneath her as a young Wei Zhiruo read her own books or did her other tasks.

From that meeting...it became usual for her to hear things no one heard, increasingly involving realms she had always heard others tell to be impervious and voiceless. What was the bird feeling today, and what did the westerly wind convey? Did the blade of grass like the warm sunlight, or the cloud humming a strange tune sounded full of life, or particularly sated today? She was full of their wandering ‘thoughts’. They said 'happy' and happy the word gained a new dimension unknown to her. Or randomly a description inserted from their side, maybe of an old stone would lead her to watch the shifts in nature from his mind; suddenly a stationery life which should be barren of all charm was full of life and lessons she couldn't grasp yet. That was how she grew up, muddling along rivers of views alien and completely different from things taught at Clan schools.

In the early days when she knew nothing about self-control, what was often left of her own musings was how to chase a decent ‘stream of thought’ and stick to it to appear normally in front of others. It was hard. But exhilarating adventure; to have secrets that no adult could ever know, this thought alone had given her so much happiness. With so much surveillance and constant disregard of her own opinions, that was to be expected, Wei Zhiruo thought.

Things changed as she grew older as did the danger in her surroundings. She was ten when the first frontier fell in the north, three cities were razed to dust. Twelve of her direct family died, uncountable clansmen lost their lives. Humanoid Shadows crept encroaching forward, but no one knew who these forces were or how they'd managed to grow so powerful so silently – there was rumor of course, that a Priest had successfully pleased a Goddess and received her blessings, but then it was taken as a rumor. But this incident destabilized the court successfully; at least Ruze clan interference on King's order increased tremendously, turning into a legitimate third camp inside the Imperial Halls.

She was twelve when the Great Magical Barrier collapsed, fortresses were catapulted and the kingdom besieged, and the wars began. Her father was still lingering on his deathbed when the news came, Fifteen Scions including those of Yimir, Gulem, Arrem, Areme, Erwek, and Shemm were massacred with no remnant left. Border cities Mighty Walls fell and then came the night of terror. Anything breathing wasn't to be spared, nothing seen walking on two feet could escape. A year later, the same fate fell over those of the capital city Finsmeave. But now, the Ruze Priestess, the Oracle herself, rallied humans from around Cuiping to come and lay siege on heathens — invaders from a different world– upon the goddess’s order.

She never forgot that night; she’d walked over a piece of earth washed red, with her soles drenched in innocent blood as she screamed and begged an unknown god for help. She could never forget the shame, forget the pain and innocuous laughter of her enemies – those burning fortresses and those wailing of her infant cousins, the wailing of that infant's mother and the lamenting silence of that aftermath – her demon, her nightmare. Men fell in battle outside the fortress, women inside the city walls. Children shrieked, buildings collapsed and like shooting stars, once famed floating islands seen as the symbols of Bloodclan’s Magical feat, caved into the ground beneath —in three months’ time every trace of the Sangtchi clan was removed from the face of the Cuiping realm. And then she fled.

When she came back from Middle World, in just five years Cuiping had changed drastically, she found— the merkins had been hunted near down to extinction in the Emeralda Oceans, the deserts of Rothema no longer had Snake-clans nor lizard kind for that matter, and even the Firebird clan with their homes inside volcanoes of Euthrys Mountains had been 'thinned' to a few hundreds. Many clans hid or sealed their lands and themselves away. It was the era of humans now.

Then floated the nostalgic tune of that song - the oath breaking song.

Her death wasn’t actually a matter of surprise; she had headed into everything knowing full well there was a chance of that happening. But what took her by surprise was how mysterious and puzzling the real cause of death had been – one moment she was singing the Oath breaking song to set free her clansmen who were bound by their first contract with the Cuiping world and to allow them to once again return to the Bloodclan’s Land of dead– then suddenly the next moment, she’d felt life being sucked away from her body. That hadn’t been an expected result at all, nor that she would take over someone else’s body here and be revived back to life.

Waking up today, the first thing she felt was guilt; she had stolen someone else's fate here, this life was not a life of her own keeping. Most definitely, someone else's life was disrupted, broken and left unfulfilled to accommodate her. She wasn't Wei Zhiruo who should have lived. But she was the one who did survive, and all that was a fateful event. It wasn’t as if she had intentionally replaced the owner of this body and took over her life. So guilt was soon left behind; she felt bad for a loss of life, but not guilty anymore. Some doubts still came trickling down later, a few more times with greater intensity. She had seen the workings of her own mind in this strange situation–a foggy Rune of some kind had sealed some things inside her soul. She was missing bits and pieces of her own memories, never mind the substantial void in the memories of the Original Owner of this body.

For one she was sure, only she could have written that piece of Rune but if she did, what would have been the reason for doing that? And when did she do it? If she really occupied this body just the previous night or in the morning –then what could explain its presence here right now? What would make her use Rune and then also force her to erase all memories related to it…it couldn't be because of guilt, right? Did she really not willingly take over this body or was that done with her own volition? Wei Zhiruo smote the tingling doubts in her mind. No, she would never do such a thing. She had no reason to choose such a method to keep living.

The song came upon a turn, suddenly, leading Wei Zhiruo to follow aimlessly chasing its inexplicable origin. It swelled like in the breast of a swallow, awakened at dawns-break; it was ready to prance, to emerge and spring forth the most luscious of bushes and amongst the greenest of boughs. Suddenly the canoe jerked to a stop pulling her out of remembrance.

Slightly bewildered, she looked all around herself. Wherever her eyes could reach, she saw an expanse of black surface covered in more and more fragments of shining stars floating. The purple firmament in her blue eyes was now swirling full of Rules and primitive laws incomprehensible right now, but if she was to become a little more powerful later, all of these would help her progress leaps and bounds into newer realms of cultivating mystery. Her Spiritual Consciousness winded, swelling like a wind spell into the gaps between the ocean and the sky and from above gave her a glimpse of how those star fragments were arranged. She traced some profound patterns in those constellations. The clouds of auburn dust, grey, blue and magnificent lilac mist entangling above her head were moving in a rhythm but in their movement too she traced a pattern of Runes.

Wei Zhiruo started to act more assuredly soon. She couldn't do much in her current state with human limitations, but her mind and soul were still a slightly better vessel than most —she was positive that some of these Runes and Rules would be memorized successfully, etched inside her 'River of thoughts' like many other previous mysteries had been swallowed underneath its riverbed. All she had to do was...seal and keep memorizing what she saw.

She sealed a lot; images of patterns in clouds, patterns in constellations and random Natural Rune —or rather the first words of an infant world. She had hardly taken out her mind from such a mesmerizing scene of the stars floating, when unbeknownst to her something shifted inside her. While her roaming Spiritual Senses mapped out her surroundings, then sealed the birds-eye view of the star fragments and their patterns, a seed emerged and sat over her soul. As she repeatedly sealed and memorized with growing feeling of fulfillment in her heart replacing all the uncertainties of her new future, her loneliness in a new, and foreign world and that…faint loss of having left behind everything she had ever known, that seed within her sprouted becoming a young sapling with two tiny red buds.

It shook as she took in another of those runes, or engraved another of the laws, and then grew bigger and bigger into a small sapling and started extending its roots everywhere! In a few moments, a young seedling shivered and surged, swayed and then millions of thin, invisible threads extended invading Wei Zhiruo’s inner spiritual platform. It began to frantically absorb Runes, locking them away in red leaves and burning all that it could find in the patterns in the sky, in the waters and the clouds like a material memory inside itself. It was faster than her, quicker at perceiving than her and more far reaching than her. While Wei Zhiruo had seen and captured but a small encirclement of those rules, her blood-seeds tentacles were already touching the edges of the ocean, the horizons where the purple firmament and the black sea merged into one and had even extended downwards below, lurching and plunging deeper and deeper towards the ocean-bed!

As it rooted with more strength, it didn’t even leave the sound untouched – as if those red droplets condensed on its leaf could seal everything in themselves, a trace of that sound was also engraved within! Red threads frantically seized everything, pacing its steps as one with the ancient rhythm, it captured traces of mysteries of time and space, rules of dawn of time and completely unleashed the latent powers of bloodline–!

Wei Zhiruo felt her heart throbbing hard.

But before she could examine its source, she heard the heavenly song erupt once more, swelling sweeter and sweeter, with a heady effect almost leading to euphoria. Its rhythm got mixed up in the waves, in the lolling of the canoe adrift a behemoth ocean, and those unknown fragments emanating light. The star light from her surroundings reached her strikingly, pouring and filling her body with warmth and cherishment and a fulfilling sensation. She comfortably smelled of home, of belongingness in the mellow whiteness. If she spent the rest of her time wandering in space, would it be as blissful as this moment? So, fulfilling? What had she given up for revenge? Would she have been free, unfettered like never before, accompanied by just her blood-seed and no one else as they traversed unknown lands if she had just chosen to give up?

"Plop!"

Another sound jolted Wei Zhiruo into wakefulness. Something else had fallen into the pond – the actual pond. She was back into reality before she could understand what was happening. Now she stood up blowing in the cold wind. Not knowing how much time she had spent wandering in that space. She took in a frustrated breath.

That ancient song had died down abruptly with no sign of arising again. Wei Zhiruo couldn't help growing more disappointed at finding this. Then she felt it, a trickle of warmth inside herself.

‘It is still here!’

"What…" She felt a strange connection between herself on the earth, and the stars above in the sky. As if she was drawing their light into her body, melting them into herself!

Her connection with the outside heaven, the stars...

She jerked back with complete attention. 'Yes,' clear headed now, Wei Zhiruo stiffly closed her eyes, as if the mountain had descended over her shoulders, pushing her downwards.

'My affinity with the stars…is still there. The bloodline!'