He took a step forward, and the moment his foot touched the ground, the world seemed to twist. The air folded into itself like ripples on water, and the landscape also suddenly turned upside down with him. The boy gasped in awe. The great gate still stood before him, unchanged and immovable, yet everything around it turned upside down, and shivered, as if the world's breath had been caught between two heartbeats. For a fleeting moment, the sky became the ground and the mountains floated like inverted reflections. Then, as quickly as it began, the world steadied.
A voice came from the calm, echoing, and achingly familiar.
"Go forward."
The tone was the same as the sage's. The boy's chest tightened, yet his feet moved without thought. He took another step. The moment his heel crossed the gate's shadow, the air hummed softly. Reality shifted again but this time not violently, rather like a dream changing scenes.
He now stood at the edge of a cliff. Below him stretched a soft green slope covered in flowers, their petals swaying like a thousand tiny hearts in rhythm with the wind. Butterflies floated above them, bees drifted lazily, and a few swans glided on the invisible breeze yet none dared to cross the line of the gate. They hovered near it, turned back, as though some unseen boundary held them apart from the boy's new world.
He whispered to himself, "If I keep standing here, I'll never move anywhere."
He stepped forward again. The moment he crossed fully through the gate, the air behind him thickened into mist. He looked back, what had been a valley, trees, and distant mountains were now vanishing, swallowed by a slow, curling fog. It was like watching memory dissolve.
He turned back, hoping for something familiar ahead, a village, perhaps, or a path, but what he found was beyond all imagination. Before him stretched a vast river that looked too grand to belong to earth. No, it wasn't just a river, it was the sea itself, or something between both, a vast moving mirror that reflected the sky's sorrow and fire. Long cliffs rose from its depths, shaped like the spines of ancient beasts, and waves came crashing against them, breaking into silver spray before pulling away with whispers.
The boy stood on a solitary cliff that jutted over this endless ocean. Behind him, the gate had vanished completely into mist. Before him, chaos and wonder. The horizon was veiled in shifting smoke: red, blue, violet. Lightning darted through the haze like veins of restless thought. From the murk, he saw shadows, colossal shapes moving slowly. Mountains walked. Waves turned into beasts and back into water.
For a moment, he forgot to breathe himself. He thought of the sage's words:
"Go forward. Don't attach too much, or you will fall."
He murmured to the wind, "Then what is this, if not falling?"
He closed his eyes, and somewhere in the rhythm of big waves, he heard a whisper:
"To walk forward is to lose the ground behind. That is the only way to know what lies ahead."
He opened his eyes again, and the pain struck, sharp, sudden, like the world pressing against his skull. His vision blurred. The air thickened, and the smoke from the horizon began to crawl toward him, circling his feet, rising higher, wrapping around his chest. His head pounded as if the weight of two worlds were colliding within him.
He tried to hold on, to the ground, to the moment, but everything felt distant, fading, dissolving into echo. His knees weakened, and the last thing he saw before darkness was the sea turning into a mirror, his reflection standing on it, looking back, unmoving, calm.
And then, he fell...
When he opened his eyes again, the world was quiet, the kind of silence that comes after a dream so vivid it leaves a trace of light in the mind. For a few breaths, he didn't move. The air was cool, touched with the faint scent of salt and grass. Above him, clouds drifted slowly like pages of a forgotten book. Then memory returned — the gate, the sea, the smoke, the pain — all of it, clear as if engraved on crystal. He blinked, dazed. The granny said I would forget everything… but I remember. Every word, every teaching, every smile.
He sat up slowly, realizing he was on the same cliff where he had fallen. The ocean below murmured softly, gentler now, as though the world had exhaled its fury. The boy pressed his palm to the ground, grounding himself, and whispered, "I still remember the sage." A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Maybe truth never really leaves. It just changes its voice."
And then he felt it, a presence. Not harsh, not threatening, but serene, like moonlight finding a mirror. He turned.
Behind him stood a woman.
Her eyes were veiled by a ribbon of red silk, yet somehow he felt she could see through everything — the cliffs, the air, even the unspoken thoughts inside him. Her long dark hair flowed down her back, bound high by three ornate pins that gleamed faintly in the light. The silk of her robe shimmered like water, white blending into crimson, flowing in soft waves. A sash cinched her waist, delicate as breath, and from it hung a charm that sang faintly when touched by the breeze.
In her hands she held a guzheng, its lacquered body dark as twilight. Her fingers rested lightly on the strings, and though she hadn't yet played, he could already hear a sound rising, not from the instrument, but from the space between them.
He stared at her, caught between awe and disbelief. Though her eyes were covered, her beauty seemed to see him, not as a boy or a wanderer, but as something deeper. It was beauty untouched by mortal desire, beauty that reminded one of the world's secret order.
The boy thought, how can beauty exist without eyes, and yet see everything?
As if hearing the thought, she plucked a string.
The sound bloomed like a ripple over still water, gentle, endless, shattering and soothing at once. It was not music; it was memory in motion. Each note brushed against the silence the sage had left behind, filling it with something luminous.
He tried to look away, but could not. The song wove itself around him, and he felt his heart slowing, his breath deepening. Even the pain of the past seemed to dissolve in the resonance of that guzheng.
When she stopped, the final vibration lingered in the air like the last ray of a dying sunset.
He whispered, "Who are you?"
She tilted her head slightly. "Does the river ask the sea who it is when it reaches its end?"
Her voice was soft, and yet within it was a tone that made his soul tremble.
He said, almost pleadingly, "You… you are not a dream, are you?"
She smiled faintly beneath the ribbon. "Dreams are not lies. They are half-remembered truths. You are awake, and yet still walking in one."
Her words felt like the sage's, familiar, layered. The boy's heart raced. "Then why did you come to me?"
Her hand brushed the strings again, this time a single note that quivered through the air. "mhh..."
He stood there, speechless in thought. He did not remember anyone with her face.
The woman took a step forward. The faint chime of the charms at her waist sounded like the sigh of an old bell. When she reached him, she paused. The breeze lifted the veil slightly, and he caught a glimpse of her mouth, curved in the gentlest smile.
Then she extended her hand toward him. "Are you not coming…?"
In that moment, all the noise of the world, the wind, the waves, his own doubts, vanished. Her hand, open and steady before him. The world, fractured so many times before, felt whole again.
…....…
The woman's hand lingered in the air, her red silk fluttering like a flame against the silver sky. He took her hand, and the next thing he knew, the earth beneath him had vanished. They were rising, the wind curling beneath their feet, carrying them upon a drifting cloud. It shimmered faintly under sunlight, soft yet solid, and he could feel its pulse, as though the sky itself was alive. She stood upon it effortlessly, her long robes trailing like ribbons of dawn.
He stared in wonder. "Is this… real?" he murmured, his hand trembling slightly.
She smiled, her face serene. "Does it matter?"
Gathering courage, he placed one foot on the cloud. It was soft, giving way slightly, but did not let him sink. Then another step, and he stood upright, chest lifted, wind flowing through his hair. He laughed, a sound that carried through the air, wild and free. For a moment, he felt untouchable.
But her smile faded.
Something in the air shifted. Her calm expression twisted into something unfamiliar — a cold. Her form began to waver, the silk ribbons on her eyes fluttering as if caught in a storm. Her body, once whole, began to scatter, grains of sand dissolving into the wind, swirling around him in a golden haze.
His breath caught. "What… what's happening?"
Before he could move, the cloud beneath him shuddered violently. The edges frayed, dispersing like smoke. The sky darkened, clouds twisting into monstrous shapes, lightning cracking between them. In an instant, the cloud beneath his feet vanished, and he plunged downward.
The world spun. His wooden hat tore free from his head, tumbling beside him through the roaring air. Instinct took over, he reached, caught it by the strap, and yanked it close, tying it tight under his chin. The wind screamed in his ears, but beneath it came another sound, deep, thunderous, alive.
A roar.
He looked down.
Below him rose a colossal shape from the black water, a head larger than any mountain, scales gleaming like molten stone. Eyes the color of burning coals locked on him. A jaw opened wide — rows of jagged teeth glistening wetly, waiting to swallow him whole.
For a heartbeat, fear froze him. Every muscle screamed run, every instinct begged wake up. But then he remembered.
The sage's voice. "If you face something you cannot defeat — do not fear it. Do not flee. You will die, perhaps… but die standing. Die smiling."
He grinned, madly, eyes wild with that lesson's fire with crazy smile.
He tucked his legs in, held his sword close, and shot downward like a meteor. The air burned around him. The beast's mouth opened wider, the darkness of it endless.
And then impact.
The jaws closed around him, thunder echoing through bone and air. Inside, it was night, humid and heavy with the stench of blood. He rolled, coughing, his fingers gripping the hilt of his wooden sword. The creature's tongue slithered past, slick and coiling. He drove the blade deep into the tongue's flesh.
The beast screamed.
The world convulsed. He was flung against the roof of its mouth, sliding down between fangs. Then a string came from now where and across his eye. A roar came…
Then, silence.
He opened his eyes and found himself floating in midair. Below, the monstrous form was splitting apart, each fragment dissolving into shards of meat that rained down upon a black river. The water churned, filled with silver fish that devoured the falling pieces of flesh.
From above, a shadow approached, soft, familiar. The woman. She glided on another cloud, her guzheng glowing faintly with runes. But this time her expression was unreadable, half pity, half warning.
"Why do you fight what must fall?" she asked as she passed above him.
He gasped, reaching out, but she drifted by, her robes brushing the air beside him. "Because even falling can be beautiful!" he shouted.
Her lips curved, the ghost of a smile. "Then fall beautifully."
The next moment, he remembered, he was still falling.
Below him stretched the endless black river, and the world around had gone quiet except for the sound of rushing wind. He pulled down his hat, pressing it against his head, and closed his eyes just as a sudden force caught him from behind.
A hand, firm, strong, grabbed his collar.
And before he could cry out, it hurled him upward, hurling his body back toward the sky. He shouted, his voice echoing across the broken heavens, as the sea of clouds rushed toward him again, this time brighter, fiercer, alive.
.........
He shot upward with a force that tore the air itself, the wind howling in his ears like a thousand roaring spirits. The clouds spun around him, silver and violet, until a sudden burst of pressure threw him sideways. Before he could fall again, a small wisp of cloud floated beneath him, catching his weight like a fragile petal.
It was barely large enough for one person, if he stood, he might tumble off, so he sat cross-legged, breathing hard. "What was that?" he gasped, still trembling from the memory of the monstrous jaws. "What kind of beast lives in this sea?"
The woman, floating on another cloud before him, turned sharply. "Silence," she said coldly. "Sit still. Don't distract me." Her blindfold fluttered as she lifted her hands, counting along her finger joints, murmuring under her breath, calculations, old as the stars.
He bowed slightly, hands cupped. "Forgive me for disturbing you… but thank you for saving my life."
She did not respond. Her face was calm but stern, her focus locked beyond the horizon.
Then, the wind shifted. The clouds trembled. A heavy, suffocating aura rolled through the sky.
They both turned — and what they saw froze the heavens themselves.
Out of the mists came a colossal sword, its edge blazing like molten gold, followed by a massive iron mace wreathed in thunder. They cut through the air, titans' weapons from forgotten wars. Around them surged legendary beasts: a white tiger wrapped in lightning, a serpent of flame coiling between clouds, and a golden stag whose antlers sparked with constellations.
Before the boy could speak, the woman spun, her guzheng strings shimmering, and with one sharp note, she hurled him downward.
The two divine weapons clashed, but not with sound. They simply vanished, dissolving into silence, leaving only a shiver in the wind.
To be Continued...