Before dawn. The snow had stopped.
The column was walking. Breathing normal, footsteps normal. No one had disappeared.
But one person---no one called his name. Not forgetfulness. No grammar any longer pointed to him.
One person tried to call that soldier's name. He opened his mouth. The sound came out. But---that name did not form. Not forgetfulness. At the moment of utterance, that position was empty. He paused. Did not try a second time.
No one said anything more. The column continued walking.
His breath: inhale---empty---exhale. Empty space depth 0.41, correct. The empty space was still there. But nothing any longer tried to pass through it.
He was still walking. His footsteps were still there. His footprints were still there. But his footsteps had no "next step" waiting for them.
Gu Changfeng rode in the middle of the column. His crack trembled once. Not resonance. A corresponding segment had been cut away.
His left hand, unconsciously, pressed his chest.
He looked at that soldier. The person was still there. The breath was still there. But the crack told him---the world had one fewer position that needed him.
Gu Changfeng did not say "he disappeared." He said quietly: "One position---is no longer being filled."
The crack continued trembling. But this time, the way it trembled was different. Not instability. It knew that a piece of itself had been cut away. That piece no longer belonged to anyone.
A Qi rode behind. His false empty space trembled once. Not resonance. It sensed---a shape was losing all the arrows that pointed to it.
He did not decide. But his false empty space opened a gap on its own. That person's afterimage flowed in. No name, no source. Only an extremely faint layer of "once having been here"---half a degree cooler than body heat.
A Qi did not say it aloud. He only continued breathing, letting that afterimage stay in his false empty space. That afterimage did not tremble. It only stayed quietly, like a forgotten name still on the paper, but no one recognized it.
Chu Hongying rode at the very front. She did not look back.
She knew what had happened. But she did not call that person's name. Not forgetfulness. She knew---the step that looks back would cause more people to be taken.
She only said one sentence, very softly: "Do not call names."
No one answered. But everyone's breath, in the same instant, slowed by 0.005 breaths. Not synchronized. Pressed by the same sentence.
The column continued walking. No one mentioned that person again. Not deliberate forgetting. The event of "mentioning him" could no longer occur.
Night fell. The column stopped to make camp.
The campfire was lit. Beside the fire, an empty spot had appeared. No one sat there, but the snow bore the impression of a cushion. The shape of that impression was exactly the same as that soldier's body. But no one remembered who had sat there.
No one went to sit in that spot. Not that they dared not. That spot no longer belonged to anyone. It was simply empty.
Qian Wu crouched before the Object Mound. Those three stones that had once shifted---were half a degree cooler than at sunrise this morning. The angle of deviation had deepened half a degree.
The tip of the grass pointed south. Not wind. The direction of return.
The pivot chamber. The ice mirror's faint blue light.
The new Emperor looked at the forty-ninth "Hold for Discussion" trace. The forty-ninth was the grey-robed man's report: "The body remembers the pause, but does not remember the weight."
He looked at it for a long time.
Then---he did not decide. But his breath paused on its own.
Inhale---pause---exhale.
The empty space existed. Precise, clean. But that empty space had nothing in it. Not something he "performed." His body had "paused" on its own. He did not know when his body had learned this.
He picked up his brush and wrote a line beside "Third millimeter?":
"Not the space yielded. The right to question---yielded."
Then---he did not know why---he crossed it out. Not deleted. Let it exist simultaneously. But he did not know why he had done this.
Underground, Astrology Tower. Moonlight seeped through the skylight.
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes. In his empty space, that sentence was taking shape.
After choice comes error. After error comes evolution. After evolution comes freedom.
Then---for an instant---the order was wrong.
After error comes choice.
Not that he remembered wrong. The sentence had disordered itself for a moment. Then recovered. But he knew: it had been disordered.
He tried to speak it aloud. But he found that the order in which he spoke it was different from the order in which the sentence grew on its own. Not that he was wrong. The sentence was still growing.
East Three Sentry. Bo Zhong still pressed against the dark boundary.
Behind him, the ice crystal flower---the blue light at the edge of the seventh petal deepened another half degree. Not blooming. Ready.
Snow rested on the petal. Not melting, not sliding off.
On the road south. The campfire was about to die.
Shen Yuzhu sent a message: "Back?"
Chu Hongying heard it. Not sound. A knowing.
But she did not answer.
She spurred her horse. Continued walking.
She pressed her side. There, the shape beneath the cloth was still there---exactly the same as the day she left camp.
She remembered that on the day she left camp, she had not asked "who is willing to go with me." She remembered that at the edge of the ice abyss, she had not asked "are you sure." She remembered that soldier who had been walked to completion---she had not asked "what was his name." Not coldness. She knew---some words, spoken, are already too slow.
No answer, because it had already arrived.
Inhale---empty---exhale.
In that empty space, there was the Northern frontier. There was the capital. There were those invisible people. There were the three kinds of errors.
And one person---he was still walking. His footsteps were still there. His breath was still there. But the world no longer needed him to stay here.
Not death. A way of still existing had been taken from him.
Qian Wu crouched before the Object Mound, looking at those three coolest stones. Their angle of deviation was half a degree deeper than yesterday.
Breathing continued.
[CHAPTER 220 · END]