The copper mirror didn't shatter.
It sang.
A low, resonant hum, like a temple bell struck deep underground. Chen Ye felt it in his molars. In the fracture of his right eye. In the hollow behind his ribs where his heart used to be.
He didn't think. Didn't hesitate.
He pressed his palm flat against the steaming surface.
Cold. Not hot. Cold as well water, as mountain stone, as the space between stars.
Then—
Snap.
Not sound. Sensation.
The world didn't twist. It unfurled.
Rain-slicked Wutong Street dissolved like smoke. The red darkroom light bled into gold—sunlight, thick with dust and槐 (huái) blossom pollen. The scent of chrysanthemum tea vanished, replaced by woodsmoke, roasting meat, and the sharp, green tang of crushed leaves.
He stood in an alley.
Not his alley.
Hers.
Tang Chang'an. Dusk.
Torches flared along the朱雀大街 (Zhuque Street), painting the faces of merchants and scholars in flickering gold. Camels laden with silk clattered past. A flute played somewhere, high and sweet as a bird's cry. Life. Real, roaring, beautiful life.
And at the alley's mouth—
Yun Heng.
She stood exactly as in the photo: robes the color of faded ink, hair pinned simply, hands clasped around the copper mirror now hanging at her waist. But her face—oh, her face—was turned toward him. Calm. Certain. As if she'd been standing there for hours. For centuries. Waiting.
"You came," she said. Not a question. A simple, sun-warmed truth.
His voice was gone. His throat raw with the smoke of a city he didn't know, the dust of a time he'd never lived. He could only nod.
She stepped forward. Not fast. Not slow. The way a healer approaches a wound—with respect for its depth.
"Your eye," she murmured, her gaze locking on his right eye. The blue light within the crack pulsed, weak but steady. "It does not lie. It remembers."
She reached out. Not to touch the eye. To touch the air an inch from his temple. Her fingers trembled—not with fear, but with the sheer weight of what she was about to say.
"Chang'an falls tonight," she whispered.
No horror in her voice. Only sorrow. And resolve.
"The Anxi Army turns. The gates will not hold. By dawn…" She swallowed, her throat working. "There will be no Chang'an."
The words didn't land like stones. They settled, deep in his bones. A truth his fractured sight had always known, just buried under years of running.
He found his voice. Rough. Raw. "Why tell me?"
Yun Heng's hand dropped. She turned, gesturing down the alley—to a small, unassuming door set into the city wall. The sign above it read: Great Ci'en Temple: Herbal Repository.
"Because you carry the fracture," she said, leading him inside. "And fractures… let light in."
The temple storeroom was cool, shadowed, smelling of dried roots and aged paper. Shelves lined the walls, laden with jars of herbs, scrolls, and—on a low table in the center—dozens of copper mirrors. Small. Large. Polished. Tarnished. All humming with the same quiet energy.
Yun Heng lit a single oil lamp. Its light caught the concentric rings on every mirror's surface—a thousand fractured eyes, all staring back.
"We are healers," she said, her voice low, urgent. "Not warriors. When the fire comes… we will not fight. We will bear witness."
She picked up a mirror, smaller than her palm. Its surface swirled with faint, internal light.
"This is for you," she said, pressing it into his hands. "It holds a truth Chang'an must not lose."
He looked down. The mirror showed not his face, but hers—younger, fierce, standing before a bonfire, tossing scrolls into the flames. Not books of medicine. Books of star-charts. Maps of the eye. Records of the Silent Aurora.
"You're burning it all," he breathed.
"Saving it," she corrected gently. "Fire purifies. Ash preserves. The knowledge is not in the paper. It is in the memory of those who lived it." Her gaze lifted to his. "In you."
A tremor ran through him. Not fear. Recognition.
The fracture in his eye flared—not with pain, but with a sudden, searing clarity.
→ Not a curse.
→ A vessel.
→ A bridge across time, built of sacrifice and starlight.
Outside, a horn sounded. Distant. Dreadful. The Anxi Army.
Yun Heng didn't flinch. She turned to a shelf, took down a small clay jar, and pressed it into his free hand. It held a paste the color of dried blood. "For the fracture," she said. "It won't seal it. But it will let you see… without breaking."
Then she did something that stopped his breath.
She stepped close. So close he felt the warmth of her skin, smelled the herbs in her hair. Her fingers—calloused, steady—touched his right temple, just above the fracture. Not to heal. To bless.
"You will go," she said, her voice barely a whisper against the rising wind. "You will carry Chang'an in your eyes. And when the world forgets…"
Her thumb brushed the crack. A single tear traced her cheek—not for herself. For him.
"…you will remember for us."
The horn sounded again. Closer. Louder. Firelight bloomed on the storeroom wall.
Yun Heng pulled away. She didn't run. Didn't hide. She turned toward the door, toward the coming storm, her back straight as a scholar's brush.
"Go," she said, without looking back. "Chang'an falls. But the star-river… the star-river still shines."
He didn't move. Couldn't. His feet were rooted to the earth, his heart shattered in his chest.
"Yun Heng—"
She paused at the threshold. Firelight caught the edge of her profile—a silhouette against the coming dawn of smoke and ruin.
"Tell me," she said softly. "Does Chang'an still exist?"
The question wasn't for her. It was for him. A lifeline thrown across time. A plea wrapped in trust.
He looked down at the copper mirror in his hand. At the blood-paste jar. At the storeroom full of burning knowledge.
He thought of Su Li's hand on his wrist.
Of the Pupillium in his veins.
Of the star-river light in his eye.
He lifted his head. Met her gaze across the smoke-filled room. And for the first time—not as a fugitive, not as a monster, but as a man—he spoke the truth:
"Yes."
"Chang'an still exists."
"Because I see it."
Yun Heng smiled. Just once. A flash of light in the gathering dark.
Then she stepped into the fire.
He didn't watch her burn.
He turned.
He ran.
Not away from the flames.
Through them.
The copper mirror in his hand grew warm. Then hot. Then scorching. He didn't drop it. He clutched it tighter, the metal biting into his palm, the heat searing his skin—a brand, a promise, a memory.
He burst from the temple storeroom into the street.
Chang'an was an inferno.
Roofs collapsed in showers of sparks. People ran, screamed, fell. And above it all—the copper mirror in his hand—
—shattered.
Not from heat. From truth.
A single, blood-red shard fell into his palm. Warm. Pulsing. Like a heart torn from a chest.
Memory Amber.
He closed his fist around it.
The heat didn't burn. It sang.
And in the song, he heard her voice—not lost, not gone:
"Chang'an, though fallen…"
He looked up. Past the smoke. Past the stars.
To the quiet, waiting dark.
"…the star-river still shines."
Author's Note
This chapter is a wound. A promise. A brand. I didn't write Yun Heng's sacrifice—I felt it: the heat of the mirror, the weight of her hand on his temple, the searing truth in her question: "Does Chang'an still exist?"
If your throat closed when he answered "Yes"—
If the blood-red shard in his palm felt real enough to hold—
Tell me.
These moments aren't mine. They're ours.
Forged in the fire of shared truth.
Walked in the quiet space between breaths.
What line carved itself into your bones?
I'm here. Listening. Waiting.
— KHChing