On the third day after the snow ceased, the sky hung a fragile, dull blue—the colour of convalescence.
Lu Wanning crouched in the deepest shade at the foot of the west wall, sleeves bound tight, her heterochromatic eyes fixed upon the stone fissure before her.
It was no wider than a finger, bottomless, flanked by the rough-hewn dark rocks from the camp's hasty founding. The stone was matted with moss frozen since last winter, with dregs of cold congee, charcoal grit, and the brown-congealed bloody phlegm some wounded soldier had retched up. This was the camp's filthiest corner—a place even vermin skirted.
Yet there, in the depths of that foul crevice, clinging to the rock, a single stalk of Serenity Grass had pushed through.
The grass stood but three inches, its stem fine as a hair, yet stubbornly upright. Two grey-green oval leaves curled at their edges from thirst, their surfaces sheened in a thin, almost translucent wax. And most unfathomably—at the stem's crown, a flower bloomed.
A pitifully small bloom. Pale blue. Five petals, each the size of a grain of rice. Here, in this lightless, barren fissure of filth and cold, it opened in silence—a mute, obstinate declaration.
Lu Wanning reached out, her fingertip halting half an inch from the petals, not touching. Deep within her heterochromatic eyes, her diagnostic meridians traced their silent paths, mapping the grass's form, its hue, the flow of its vitality, the subtle shimmer of spiritual resonance in its minute world.
She marked it in her mind:
「Chen hour, full. Third stone fissure, west wall base.」
「Specimen: Serenity Grass (Northern variant).」
「Anomaly of Vital Signs——」
Her notebook remained unpocketed when footsteps sounded behind.
Lu Wanning did not turn. She knew.
Shen Yuzhu halted three paces to her side, the hem of his dark robe dusted with morning patrol snow. He did not look at the grass, but at a spot not far off—where two soldiers were dividing the last three iron spades.
No quarrel. Only a silence thick with overcautiousness.
The younger spoke first, voice hushed: "Brother Zhang, you pick first. Your hand's hurt—take the new one."
The veteran called Brother Zhang shook his head, his throat working. "Yesterday… I already made Wang Wu's armour split. I'll take old."
Neither moved.
The standoff lasted ten breaths. In the end, they reached out as one, each gripping the handle of an old spade, leaving the untouched new one standing alone in the snow. As if neither dared claim the right to be "unbroken."
Shen Yuzhu withdrew his gaze.
Mirror Patterns flowed behind his eyes with faint deductions: [Pattern: Conflict-avoidant compromise｜Efficiency deficit: ~2 in 10｜Affective Dominant: Guilt].
He looked to the fissure before Lu Wanning.
"It lives because its roots found residual earth-warmth," Shen Yuzhu said, his voice flat as stating theorem. "A few inches below camp, the tail of a hot spring vein runs—half a li from its source, nearly cold, yet holding a breath more warmth than frozen ground."
Lu Wanning turned her face at last.
Her heterochromatic eyes swirled with patterns of pale gold and silver-grey in the dawn light—a precise diagnostic instrument calibrating.
"You see deduced numbers," she said, tone not accusing, merely stating. "I see choice."
She pointed to the grass stem: "It leans seven degrees southeast. Precisely avoiding the patrol's path at Si and Wei hours."
Then to the leaves: "The wax layer refracts scattered snow-light twice. Light-gain raised by near twenty percent."
Last, to the filth at its roots: "Cold congee dregs. Charcoal grit. Even bloody phlegm—it renders these wastes into sources of life."
Shen Yuzhu was silent.
Mirror Patterns auto-recorded: [Observation: Life in extremity manifests unforeseen forms].
But Lu Wanning's next words were:
"Tell me—does it know it is 'accomplishing the improbable'?"
Shen Yuzhu paused.
"It simply must live," Lu Wanning stood, drawing her Treatise on Meridian Syndromes from her robe, opening a new page. "No expectation of 'how it should be.' No standard of 'what it must become.' So it finds every possible crack."
She took up her brush, writing in script as neat as a prescription:
[Observation Record Jiazi Seventy-Three: Crevice Serenity Grass]
Vitality's Method, summarised:
Ⅰ. Light Transformed (Snow-light reflected, wax-aided)
Ⅱ. Earth-Warmth Captured (Roots target residual heat)
Ⅲ. Essence from Filth (Renders organic waste to nourishment)
Ⅳ. Harm Avoided Through Form (Growth path evades trampling)
Inference: This is not "heaven's favour," but proof of "exhausting all possible crevices within the myriad impossibilities."
She hesitated, brush-tip hovering, before adding a small line at the page's edge:
「Control: Mankind. Present Method: Forging the fear of 'harming comrades' into new shackles within.」
Shen Yuzhu saw the line.
He did not ask.
For then, a thread of mental communiqué flickered through his Mirror Patterns—from Chu Hongying's adjutant, stark in its brevity:
「The General requests your presence. The injury log shows anomaly.」
Chu Hongying was not seated in the command position.
She stood beside the desk, her figure cleaved into light and shadow by dawn seeping through tent-seams. Before her lay yesterday's supplemental injury log, ink dry, but the paper edges curled by her unconscious worrying.
When Shen Yuzhu lifted the flap, she did not look up.
"See for yourself," she said, her voice bearing a weariness pressed too long—its edge gone blunt.
Shen Yuzhu approached.
The death tally remained zero. But a few lines down—
「Deep Frostbite, Hands (New): 3 cases」
「Armour-Split Wound to Bone-Membrane (New): 5 cases」
「Mild Snow-Blindness (New): 2 cases」
「Muscle-Tear from Overstrain (New): 1 case」
Each entry bore brief notes in harried medical script:
「Wang Wu, necrosis of left index and middle finger-tips. Self-stated: Dug ice by hand too long at wall yesterday.」
「Li Shi, split at right thumb-webbing to bone. Self-stated: Self-punishment after dispute, gripped spade too fierce.」
「Zhao Shun, Chen Ping, snow-blind. Self-stated: Miscalculated wind on shift, faced reflected sun too long.」
Shen Yuzhu's gaze lingered on "Wang Wu."
Yesterday at the west wall, he'd seen that veteran silently clawing frozen earth with bare hands—nails tearing, blood seeping into snow, not a sound. A younger soldier moved to help; Wang Wu glared him back: "I'll do it. Yesterday… I already held you back."
Then, Shen Yuzhu thought it "awakening responsibility."
Now, seeing "necrosis," he understood: That was not responsibility. It was penance.
Chu Hongying finally raised her head.
Her eyes held no anger—only a depth of near-vacant calm.
"Yesterday," she began, each word spoken slowly, as if weighing its burden, "I gave no orders. Intervened in no disputes."
She pointed to the ledger.
"Yet these wounds… originate from me."
Shen Yuzhu stayed silent.
"No," Chu Hongying shook her head herself, her lips twisting in a faint, humourless curve. "I misspoke. Not 'originate from me,' but—"
She halted, seeming to seek the precise term.
What she found was:
"I transmuted 'the right to decide' into 'unknown hazard,' and placed it in their hands."
"And hazard," her fingertip brushed the word "necrosis," light as fearing to wake something, "always claims its due."
Silence filled the tent.
From afar, soldiers' drilling shouts sounded blurred, distant—echoes from another world.
Shen Yuzhu watched her. Mirror Patterns charted the fluctuations of the Blood Lock patterns on her arm—steady, but too steady, like sea-surface forcibly stilled before storm.
"General," he spoke, voice softer than usual, "had you intervened yesterday, three lines of injury might be absent from this ledger today."
He paused, meeting her eyes.
"Yet perhaps one line would be added—'Death from refusal to accept mediation, brawl: 1 case.'"
Chu Hongying held his gaze.
Long moments passed before she let out a low, dry sound—not quite laughter, more a twig's snap.
"Shen Yuzhu. Is that consolation, or justification for your own 'non-correction'?"
Shen Yuzhu did not look away.
"A fact, merely," he said. "All choice carries cost. The distinction lies only in—who pays, and in what form."
He gestured to the ledger. "These wounds are the tuition they elected to pay, learning 'how to coexist without command.'"
"Tuition…" Chu Hongying repeated the word, as if tasting bitter herb. "So. I am making them… pay tuition."
She closed the ledger, turning to the tent-wall.
Shen Yuzhu knew to leave.
He turned, hand on the flap, when her voice came—so low it was almost soliloquy:
"Father. You said to make them learn to march forward in your silence."
"But you never said… the first lesson would be to march bearing their wounds."
Shen Yuzhu's step hitched.
Then he lifted the flap, and was gone.
The first case was at the southeast watchtower.
Two young soldiers had tried to replicate Shen Yuzhu's "wind-direction post matching" from the prior day, but misjudged the seasonal wind offset—leaving the relief squad facing snow-reflected glare the full shift. Now one had red, weeping eyes; the other refused to stand down, insisting, "The fault is mine. I bear it."
When Shen Yuzhu arrived, the stubborn soldier stood rigid at his post, eyelids trembling, tears cutting through snowmelt on his cheeks, teeth locked silent.
"Stand down," Shen Yuzhu said.
The soldier shook his head, voice rough: "Sir, I should—"
"Stand down." Shen Yuzhu repeated, tone unchanged, but stepping close, a hand on the man's shoulder.
The soldier sagged, caught by his comrade. Shen Yuzhu drew his medicine pouch, offered two mint-soaked cloths. "Eyes closed. Apply. Change in half a ke."
The soldier took them, hands shaking badly.
Shen Yuzhu turned to their calculation draft. The paper was dense with wind angles, terrain blockage, reflectivity estimates… But at the crucial "seasonal wind daily offset correction," they had used an old value.
"The error is here." Shen Yuzhu's fingertip rested on the paper, voice even. "From last winter till now, the valley mouth shifted from avalanche. Wind offset increased zero point seven degrees. You used the former value."
The two soldiers peered close, faces flushing.
"Our apologies, Sir, we—"
"No need." Shen Yuzhu cut in. "Remember this error. Next time, measure wind on site before calculating."
He turned to leave. Mirror Patterns noted: [Case One resolved. Error type: Parameter滞后. Teaching: Field measure precedes theory].
Ten paces out, a prompt flickered:
[Recognition: Failed]
[Note: This individual is involved in "Case One: Wind-Calculation Error." Name: Chen Ping.]
Shen Yuzhu halted.
Not forgotten. Never registered.
Yesterday, he had treated this man's snow-blindness, instructed on medicine, adjusted his duty roster. Yet "Chen Ping" had slipped through memory's sieve like sand—leaving no imprint.
People in his consciousness were quietly fading into symptom entries.
He closed his eyes.
Deep within Mirror Patterns, his Self-Identification Degree glimmered: [~22%].
Slightly lower than yesterday.
He moved towards the second location.
The second case was in the infirmary.
The trouble lay with the "volunteer care rotation." Three veterans began this well-meant effort, but inadvertently forged a hidden rule: those receiving care must not cry out in pain, nor ask for extra resources—lest they seem "ungrateful."
Lu Wanning was already inside, applying needles to a fevered young soldier, her heterochromatic eyes cold as frost.
"He endured alone all night," she said to Shen Yuzhu, silver needles steady in their points, "because 'Brother Li delayed the wall for me yesterday—I must not burden them again.'"
The soldier burned with fever, mumbling: "Sorry… I couldn't hold…"
Shen Yuzhu looked at the others in the tent. All heads were bowed, none meeting his gaze. The air hung thick with stifled medicine-smell and shame.
"A contest," Lu Wanning withdrew her needles, voice not loud but each word blade-clear, "to see who can endure more pain. This is not fortitude. It is folly."
One veteran stammered: "Physician Lu, we only wished not to—"
"Not to be a burden." Lu Wanning finished for him, her heterochromatic eyes turning. "But know this: concealing injury caused this fever, which now requires three extra doses of fever-breaker—medicine that could have saved another."
The veteran's face paled to nothing.
Shen Yuzhu stepped in then.
He blamed no one. Instead, he went to the tent's notice board, took charcoal, drew a simple table.
Left column: The wounded's names.
Middle: Their injuries.
Right column: "Acceptable Frequency of Aid."
In the final column, he wrote:
「Daily bandage change: Acceptable」
「Calling night-watch when pain prevents sleep: Acceptable」
「Concealing fever to avoid trouble: Unacceptable. Wastes resources.」
He turned to the silent tent.
"Mutual aid is not debt," he said, his voice peculiarly clear in the hush. "To receive aid is not to incur obligation. If every extended hand is seen as 'owing favour,' then in the end, none will dare extend a hand—nor dare accept."
He paused, looking at the fevered youth.
"And you," he said. "The medicine you consume now is three portions. One for your original wound. Two for the illness your silence worsened. That is the true 'burden.'"
The young soldier stared, tears welling—not from pain, but from a more complex, exposed shame.
Lu Wanning murmured beside Shen Yuzhu, for their ears alone:
"You teach them accounting."
"Yes," Shen Yuzhu replied. "For they torment themselves with flawed arithmetic."
Leaving the infirmary, Mirror Patterns flashed again:
[Recognition: Failed]
[Note: Severe case from "Case Two: Shame-Induced Self-Suppression." Name: Zhang San.]
Shen Yuzhu did not stop.
He walked to the third location, his mind touching on the grass at the west wall—unburdened by expectation, it lived freely, even "selfishly." These people, bound by "must not be a burden," were slowly strangling themselves.
The third case was at the cookhouse.
Old Wang the Lame had set a new rule: the wounded could eat first, but must "prove injury sufficiently severe." The intent was to prevent abuse; the result was the lightly wounded daring not take their full share, choosing hunger.
Gu Changfeng was already there, gripping a thin auxiliary soldier by the collar, face dark.
"Only half a bowl of congee yesterday?" Gu Changfeng's voice pressed down anger. "Why?"
The auxiliary shrank, voice tiny: "I… just scrapes. Don't count as wounded…"
"Horseshit!" Gu Changfeng dragged him to the pot, pointing at the thick congee. "Fill it. Now."
The auxiliary trembled, filling a bowl only halfway.
Gu Changfeng snatched the ladle, heaped a full scoop, pressed it in—congee overflowing, burning his hand unheeded.
"Eat!" he roared. "All of it! Leave one bite, I'll feed you myself!"
Shen Yuzhu watched, silent.
When the auxiliary retreated to a corner, swallowing in small mouthfuls, he approached.
"You use fear to fight fear," Shen Yuzhu said.
Gu Changfeng wiped his face, hand smeared with congee. "What then? Watch them starve themselves?"
"You are his 'new authority' now," Shen Yuzhu said. "He obeys not from agreement, but from fear."
"So what?" Gu Changfeng turned, the veins in his neck standing taut. "At least it's real. You can see the food go down. Lu Wanning says they're 'swallowing the pain back'—fine! Then I'll make them swallow the food back too!"
Shen Yuzhu was silent.
He looked at Old Wang the Lame. The old man hunched, staring blankly at his own posted rule, eyes void.
"Uncle Wang," Shen Yuzhu spoke. "Your rule—what was its original intent?"
Old Wang froze for a long moment, then rasped: "Afraid… afraid someone would fake injury, take food from the truly wounded."
"And now?"
Old Wang looked to the corner—where the auxiliary was secretly picking a bit of meat from his bowl, trying to hide it in his robe, likely for someone needier.
The old man suddenly raised a hand and slapped his own face hard.
A sharp crack.
The whole tent stilled.
"Useless…" Old Wang mumbled, tears falling. "This useless old man… what damn rule did I make…"
He shuffled to the auxiliary, crouched, pulled a saved piece of flatbread from his robe, shoved it into the other's hand.
"Eat," he choked. "All eat… from now, whoever's hungry, come serve… This old man won't look at wounds. Only if the bowl is empty!"
Gu Changfeng looked away.
Shen Yuzhu knew—in that moment, Old Wang shattered the shackles he himself had forged.
But the next shackle? Someone would always raise another.
For when order dissolves, people seek new rules—even those that wound.
At dusk, Shen Yuzhu returned to his tent.
Three cases resolved. Mirror Patterns summarised consumption: [Mental focus cumulative decrease: ~13%].
He knelt on the felt mat, today's error records spread before him. Mirror Patterns offered the standard suggestion: [Correct all. Archive. Mark "resolved."]
His fingers brushed the first page—Chen Ping's snow-blindness, detailing error parameter, symptom progression, the soldier's self-blame: "I miscalculated… sorry, Brother Liu…"
Shen Yuzhu took up his brush.
He corrected nothing.
Only at the page's end, in meticulous script, wrote:
「This error was not corrected in time.」
「Consequence: Two mild snow-blindness. Patrol delay ~half a ke.」
「——Record retained. Not overridden.」
He turned the page.
Next, Zhang San's fever.
Again, no correction. Only annotation:
「This error exacerbated by 'shame-induced self-suppression.'」
「Consequence: Three extra fever-doses consumed.」
「——Record retained.」
Another page.
Old Wang's meal rule.
Annotation:
「This error born from 'resource-allocation anxiety.'」
「Consequence: Lightly wounded under-nourished.」
「——Record retained.」
Page after page.
In the tent, only brush-scratch on paper, the occasional pop of the oil lamp.
Mirror Patterns projected warning:
[Decision Deviation: Optimal correction not executed]
[Risk: Similar error recurrence +~20%]
Shen Yuzhu dismissed it.
He whispered, as if to a teacher not present:
"If I erase all traces of error…"
"They will never learn—"
"Cost must ferment within memory before it distils to conscious knowing."
Night-watch clappers sounded outside.
Second watch already.
Shen Yuzhu blew out the lamp, sat in darkness a moment. The old command token in his robe pressed against his chest—holding a faint, residual warmth that was Chu Hongying's.
He gripped it, edges biting his palm.
Then he stood, and slipped silent from the tent.
West wall base, before the fissure.
Lu Wanning was still there. Crouched, her heterochromatic eyes swirling faint light under the moon.
Shen Yuzhu approached to see a small pile of campfire ash on the ground before her.
Evenly scattered around the grass roots—clearly placed with intent.
"The third," Lu Wanning said, not looking up, voice soft. "This afternoon, I saw a soldier come secretly to scatter ash. Not for fertiliser. An… offering."
Shen Yuzhu looked at the grass.
The pale blue bloom trembled in the night breeze, but its roots held fast to the stone, unmoving.
"It has become a symbol," Lu Wanning said. "Of 'survival within impossibility.' So they come in secret, scatter ash, as if praying—'Keep living. Prove we can, too.'"
She stood, drew a small porcelain vial from her robe, tipped silvery powder into the ash.
"The last Silver-Root powder," she said. "For its pain. And for them… a thread of hope."
Shen Yuzhu watched in silence.
Then—very light footsteps.
Both retreated into shadow.
A thin figure crept close—the auxiliary who dared only half a bowl at noon. He clutched something, glanced round, then crouched before the fissure.
What he drew from his robe was half a piece of saved flatbread.
He broke it, scattered the pieces near the grass, muttering low, incoherent:
"Little grass… you live so hard, yet you bloom…"
"I… I'll try too…"
"Not afraid anymore… tomorrow I'll fill my bowl…"
Done, he hurried off.
Lu Wanning emerged from shadow, heterochromatic eyes fixed on the bread crumbs.
She recorded in her Treatise:
「Day Seven. Anonymous tenders now three. This grass has become vessel for collective subconscious.」
「Deduction: A symbol's power lies in allowing people to uphold a 'possibility of goodness' without explicit word.」
She closed the book, looked at Shen Yuzhu.
In moonlight, his profile was pale, the faint azure of Mirror Patterns in his eyes dimmer than usual.
"You are fading," Lu Wanning said suddenly, tone a physician's calm diagnosis. "Not the body. The sense of 'Shen Yuzhu' as an existence."
Shen Yuzhu did not deny.
"Today I handled three errors," he said. "But I cannot remember any involved name."
"Do you know why?"
Shen Yuzhu looked at her.
Lu Wanning's heterochromatic eyes in the dark were two small, merciless lamps.
"Because you are refining yourself into a 'mirror,'" she said. "A mirror reflects all things. But the mirror itself—has no name. No memory. No 'I.'"
Shen Yuzhu tightened his grip on the token.
Its edges bit deep.
"But a mirror must exist," he whispered. "Else, the reflected things scatter too."
Lu Wanning watched him a long while.
Finally, she let out a breath so soft it nearly vanished in the wind.
"I will add a chapter for you in the Syndrome Treatise."
"What title?"
""Dissociative Disorder of Self-Dilution: Chronic Self-Destruction with Reason as the Blade"."
Shen Yuzhu smiled faintly.
"Fitting."
He turned, walking towards his tent.
Lu Wanning remained, watching his back melt into night, then looked down at the grass.
The grass swayed in the wind.
Ash, silver powder, bread crumbs—mingled into a small, ragged, yet tender ring of protection around its roots.
At the same moment, three distant perspectives:
Night Crow Division Observation Hub, data-streams flowed soundless over azure stone.
[Sample: Northern Tundra Zone · Day Seven]
Conflict Events: Down 62% ✅
Spontaneous Cooperation: Up 38% ✅
New Metric: Collective Guilt Index
Current Value: 47 (3.1x standard garrison baseline)
Assessment: Sample entered "self-suppression" phase. Internal tensions turned latent. In this state, system can endure higher-grade external stimuli without collapse.
Recommendation: Initiate second-stage test: "Resource Precipice." Observe博弈 threshold between "mutual-aid logic" and "self-preservation instinct" under starvation stress.
Report submitted. Three breaths later, orders dispatched.
Blackstone Valley depths, Helian Sha stood before the ice mirror.
The mirror showed no image, but a chart of energy flow. Around the light-cluster marking the camp, threads of fine pressure webbed—manifest spiritual resonance of guilt, self-blame, overcautiousness.
The shaman hunched nearby, rasping: "My King. Their 'pain' changes nature. From bleeding, to… silence."
A glint of cruel, fascinated interest passed through Helian Sha's ice-blue pupils.
"Good," he murmured. "Bleeding scars over. Silence accumulates—like snow-layers, pressing down one upon another, till one day, it smothers all living breath within."
His fingertip touched the ice mirror.
Ripples spread. Focus locked on an extremely faint blue point—the spiritual signal of the crevice Serenity Grass.
"The second marker," Helian Sha said. "Place it there."
The shaman looked up. "That grass? It is useless…"
"Precisely because it is useless," Helian Sha cut him off, a cold curve at his lips, "it intrigues."
He turned, his wolf-king cloak flaring a sharp arc in the windless ice-chamber.
"Let us observe—"
"When famine arrives, will they shield this useless grass, or uproot it to brew into a pot of soup."
East wall of the camp, Chu Hongying stood at the highest point.
She did not look at the injury ledger in her tent, nor the patrol columns. She only gazed far towards the west wall base—where Lu Wanning had just left, the ragged protective ring beside the fissure glowing faint, silvery-grey under the moon.
Chu Hongying's hand pressed against the battlement.
Stone-cold, chill seeping into her palm.
She suddenly remembered years past—her father on border inspection, pointing to moss stubborn in a rock crevice:
"Hongying, see. The lowliest life often understands best how to live."
She had asked then: "If the crevice crumbles?"
Her father was silent a long moment before answering:
"Then it learns to take root again upon the rubble."
Wind rose. The Chixin Banner snapped loud behind her.
Its dark-red patterns did not glow, hanging heavy and low, gathering newly fallen snow-sand.
Like a silent, healing wound.
That night, no one in the camp died.
Only one stalk of grass bloomed in a stone crevice.
Three soldiers secretly scattered ash for it, gifted medicine, fed it crumbs.
One general kept vigil atop the wall through the dark hours.
One strategist preserved a record of all errors in his tent.
And the world's measuring ruler, in depths unseen by any, turned its calibration slightly—aligning with this tundra just learning to "swallow pain."
—For silence, in the eyes of order, is merely another form of convertible currency.