The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

The ancient city is named "Kyōhara" because the water in the bay is so still that it resembles a bronze mirror, reflecting the rising and setting of the white moon every night.

The pagoda is named "Kongsheng" (Empty Sound). It has seven stories, but the top is empty except for a round hole that allows moonlight to pass through and fall on the stone wall at the center of the pagoda.

Like a silver nail.

It nails the night down, and it also nails down the shadows of those who look up.

The young monk Tanmo stopped by the river, bent down, scooped up a handful of clear, cool water, and tried to wash away the dust of his long journey.

The water ripples, and the reflection breaks and then reforms.

In that brief moment of clarity, he saw a figure—a girl wearing a kimono with maple leaves and butterfly flowers, walking along the stone path on the riverbank.

The sound of his wooden clogs, "drip-drip-drip," was crisp yet lonely, echoing the sound of water dripping through his fingers.

He raised his head.

The girl's back was slender, and her long hair cascaded down like a waterfall. In the afternoon sunlight, it flowed with an almost ominous, captivating crimson, like the sunset dyeing the finest silk.

She had a red wooden folding fan tucked into her waistband, which swayed gently with her steps.

Tanmo was stunned. He had seen the golden sunrise on the snow-capped peaks and the green ribbons of light dancing in the polar night, but he had never seen a color that could make his heart beat inexplicably out of control.

The pagoda's shadow, stretched long by the setting sun, lay between the two, like a silent boundary.

He didn't call her, and she didn't turn around.

But that touch of crimson, like a speck of cinnabar, fell upon the pristine white canvas of his heart, a canvas called "Seeking the Way."

The "light" that they had been searching for seemed to have taken on a concrete and tangible form at this moment.

The nights in the ancient city are short.

The night was so short that by the time the first watch of the night was finished, the petals on the cherry blossom path hadn't even had time to be soaked with dew.

But Tanmo felt the night was very long.

It's long enough for him to relive his entire life.

……

Dharma stayed in the monks' quarters behind the stupa.

Every day, they chanted scriptures, swept and cleaned, and studied alchemy.

Study the doctrines and laws issued by the White Emperor.

The prophetic books engraved on the bronze pillars outline the trajectory of the growth of dragons, humans, and even all living beings, placing each individual in the "most suitable" position and ensuring the orderly functioning of the world.

Humans are raised in the fields, and dragons soar in the sky.

Everything exists independently, like a tightly wound musical box.

He would always steal glances out the window during the breaks—

At the end of the cherry blossom path, a girl sat by the well, using the well water as a mirror, making her long hair even more vibrant.

When the fan is unfolded, it reveals a hand-painted "Moon Viewing Cherry Blossom," with the flower's center dotted with vermilion to form a pupil, as if it were peeking at the boy who was secretly watching her.

One day, Dharma finally mustered up his courage and stepped forward with the scriptures.

"Esteemed benefactor, this humble monk, Tanmo, has come from the far west, the Snowy Plain, and wishes to study at the Empty Sound Pagoda for three months. May I ask—"

Before she could finish speaking, the girl turned around.

It was a face that had been kissed by the moonlight beforehand.

Her eyebrows resembled distant mountains, and her lips were like fallen cherry blossoms.

What is most captivating is the color of his eyes—his left pupil is the silver of an icy lake, while his right pupil is the red of a blood moon, the two pupils reflecting each other like day and night that never merge.

The girl closed her fan, her voice like the tinkling of a wind chime: "I know."

She laughed, "You've been peeking at me from the shadow of the tower at least thirty times a day."

Tanmo's face flushed instantly, and he was speechless.

“Don’t be afraid,” she turned around, her wooden clogs tapping tiny sparks on the stone slabs. “My name is Maple Butterfly, a courtesan, not among the ranks of the Lawful Pillars. If you want to see me, then look at me openly.”

"What does the scripture in your hand say?"

“Tell me about the ‘Ladder to the Moon’,” Dharma replied in a low voice. “Tell me how all beings climb the ladder to reach the white moon and attain immortality.”

Maple Butterfly suddenly smiled, her eyes curving into crescent moons.

"Immortality...how wonderful. But perhaps you can't tell me first how to preserve this moment?"

She stretched out her fingertip and gently touched the well water.

The moon's shadow shatters into a thousand pieces, then returns to its full glory.

It seems as if nothing has happened, yet it also seems as if everything has changed.

……

After that day, Tanmo often met her at the end of the cherry blossom path.

She listened to him talk about the mythical beasts in the snow caves, and the mammoths frozen under the ice; he listened to her talk about the singing seashells in the sound of the tides on Hachisei Island, and how the Tsukimi cherry blossoms only bloom when the white moon is at its fullest.

The damp air mingled with the chanting of Buddhist hymns as they sat side by side beneath the Empty Sound Tower, watching the moonlight stream through the round hole at the top of the tower, pinning their shadows together like a silver talisman.

Maple Butterfly never sets foot inside the pagoda.

She said, "I'm afraid that when the bell rings, it will startle me back to my dream."

Tanmo laughed at her folly, but he remembered it in his heart—dreams were a forbidden zone she could not touch.

……

After that, the mornings and evenings in Kagamihara began to become out of sync.

During the day, Dharma copied scriptures in the stupa, cherry blossoms falling on the scrolls; at night, he climbed to the top of the cliff, looking up at the ladder to heaven, the moonlight casting long, thin shadows, like a cable leading to the sky.

Maple butterflies often come, sometimes carrying wine, sometimes holding a zither, and sometimes just covered in fallen petals.

She sat beside him, swinging her wooden clogs over the edge of the cliff, her insteps kicking up stardust as if to kick away the entire night.

"Little monk, why do you always look at the sky?"

"I'm looking for a way to climb up."

"Isn't a ladder to heaven a road?"

"The ladder to heaven is the path of dragons, not the path of men."

"Wouldn't it be pitiful to be a human being then?"

"So I need to learn how to be a dragon first."

"But if you become a dragon, will you still remember a human's heartbeat?"

Tanmo could not answer.

The sound of the wind passing by was like weeping and lamenting.

……

Time wears away youth into middle age, and monk's robes into armor.

The cherry blossoms in Kagamihara bloom and fade, fade and bloom again.

When the bronze bell on the seventh floor of the Empty Sound Tower struck its seventieth time, fine lines had already appeared at the corners of Dharma's eyes.

He is no longer a boy.

The day the first gray hair appeared on his forehead, he stood in front of the bronze mirror for a long time, then suddenly pushed the razor away—"Troubles can be cut off, but how can the passage of time that makes us grow old be cut off?"

So he began to grow his hair out, letting it grow freely, and loosely tied it behind his head with a plain silver ring, like a flickering phosphorescent flame.

Finally, Dhamma succumbed to the deep-seated fear within him—the fear of the relentless passage of time and the inevitable decay of the body.

If one cannot transcend the limitations of this physical body, all knowledge and spiritual practice are nothing more than building a tower on sand, which will eventually collapse.

"I do not wish to be forever mired in this filthy world, only able to humbly gaze at the bright moon in the sky and its shattered reflection in the water." He murmured to the void:

“I must go up there and set foot on that pure land with my own body. Even if it means… pledging my soul to the abyss, having my bones and skin peeled off and forged into steps to climb, I must see it and touch it.”

The scriptures and texts of the Order repeatedly use beautiful language to describe the infinite beauty and purity of the "White Moon" as God's Pure Land, shaping it into the ultimate ideal land for the saints after their ascension.

But Tanmo had long ago glimpsed the cold truth beneath the magnificent descriptions: even on that seemingly equal "white moon," humanity had never truly been promised "eternity."

That door to immortality remains open only to dragons.

The prophetic book on the bronze pillar outlines everything.

But it doesn't plan for "transcendence" itself. It allows people to grow, but it doesn't allow people to become gods.

But he still wanted to go to the moon and ascend to that high heaven.

……

Dharma began to live a secluded life. The windows of the monks' quarters emitted a faint blue light day and night, illuminating the cherry blossom path as if it were underwater. He no longer copied scriptures, no longer rang the bell, and no longer even looked up at the moon.

His world shrank to an alchemy table.

The table was filled with distillation flasks, centrifuges, and reaction vessels.

He began to frequently venture into the depths of the underground palace of Mirror Plains City.

There was an alchemy workshop there, set up by the religious order.

Steam pipes coiled like giant pythons, while mercury boiled in glass vessels, emitting a muffled roar.

Tanmo's alchemy skills improved day by day, and he was able to turn stone into gold, water into silver, and even glimpse some of the laws governing the creation of life.

Maple Butterfly was still waiting for him at the end of the cherry blossom path, but he kept his appointments less and less, and the intervals between them became longer and longer.

She stopped asking about the ladder to heaven and the moon, and simply watched his increasingly deep-set eyes, the indelible metallic and bloody smell clinging to him, and the ever-burning eerie fire in his eyes called "ambition."

"Tanmo," she asked softly during a full moon, "have you found the path?"

Tanmo didn't turn around, focusing intently on adjusting the pressure valve: "Almost there. Just one last step..."

"A 'substrate' is needed that can withstand the tremors of the soul."

He suddenly turned around, his gaze fixed intently on Maple Butterfly, watching her heterochromatic eyes gleam slightly in the workshop's light: "Maple Butterfly, your eyes... why are they two colors?"

Maple Butterfly subconsciously touched her long hair, as if it had been burned: "It's how I was born."

“No,” Tanmo approached, his fingers almost touching the crimson hair, but then withdrew, as if it were a forbidden sacred object:

"I learned from ancient fragments that the pinnacle of alchemy is called 'bloodline imprint,' and special hair and eye colors are often the manifestation of a powerful bloodline or... special 'materials.'"

His eyes gleamed with the fervor of discovering truth: "Your very existence may be part of the key."

Maple Butterfly took a step back, her back pressed against the cold copper wall.

The red folding fan fell to the ground with a "thud".

Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar Tanmo before her, she felt as if he were a bronze statue being forged by his own desires.

"...I am not the key, Dhamma. I am Maple Butterfly."

Tanmo seemed not to hear, immersed in his own deductions: "If we can analyze your life chart and combine it with my latest concept of the triple 'neural fusion matrix'... perhaps we can create a 'stepping stone to godhood' that is truly applicable to mortals!"

At that moment, a certain light in Maple Butterfly's eyes went out. She bent down to pick up the folding fan, gently brushed away the dust, and said in a terrifyingly calm voice, "So, I became your 'experimental subject'?"

Tanmo was startled, as if awakened for a moment by these words. A trace of panic and struggle flashed in his eyes, but it was quickly suppressed by an even stronger obsession.

He reached out to grab her, but only grasped a handful of cold air. "No, Maple Butterfly, you've misunderstood! It's for our future! If we succeed, we can both..."

"What can happen?"

Maple Butterfly interrupted him, raising her eyes, "Can they all—achieve immortality? Can they all—become gods? Can they all—pin this moment to eternity like a specimen?"

“But you have already killed him ‘at this moment,’ Tanmo.”

She turned, the sound of her wooden clogs breaking in the dark steam, like a string of extinguished sparks. Cherry blossoms were swept into the workshop by the wind, landing on the scorching reactor, hissing and turning into a wisp of crimson smoke, carrying a faint, almost nonexistent bitterness.

Tanmo's outstretched hand hovered in mid-air. He suddenly remembered many years ago, the sun that never set during the polar day—it had already fallen, but it had fallen into her turning back view.

He couldn't stop.

Like an arrow shot, there's no turning back.

……

After that unpleasant parting, Maple Butterfly disappeared.

Like a drop of water merging into the ocean, leaving no trace.

The cherry blossoms in Kagamihara still bloom every year, and the bells of the Sky Tower still ring on time, but the girl with the vermilion folding fan, waiting for him on the cherry blossom path, is no longer there.

Dhamma searched frantically, drawing upon his growing influence within the order—he was no longer an unknown itinerant monk, thanks to his several remarkable alchemical achievements.

He sent men to search the entire island of Osaka and questioned everyone who might have seen her.

The answers obtained were surprisingly consistent:
For decades, there has never been a girl with heterochromia in Mirror Plain City or even the entire Kisei Island. Such a striking feature, if it really exists, could never be easily forgotten.

It was as if Maple Butterfly, along with the time they spent together, was merely a dream that was too real and beautiful to be true, so much so that it confused reality with his long cultivation journey.

Now, the dream has finally come to an end.

At this moment, Xiao Shi interjected, "'Word Spirit Saha World,' right?" Zhao Qing smiled slightly, already understanding the changes within.

"The two are each other's dream shadow and shadow dream. When the light arrives, the shadow dissipates; when the dream ends, the spirit vanishes. This is the state of mind, which dwells yet does not dwell," she commented.

"How so?" Xiao Shi pressed, but received an unimaginable answer: "The second story is more abstract and metaphorical than the first. In a sense, you can understand Tanmo and Fengdie as the same person, but in real history, they would never have been one."

This is not a romance novel. There must be a reason why an ambitious alchemist is so deeply in love.

"Do you know the meaning of the name 'Kongsheng' (空声) for the tower?" Zhao Qing asked at the opportune moment.

"Only when the tower is empty can the moon be contained; if the heart is full, light cannot enter. The tolling of the bell, each note changing, is essentially a yearning for inner resonance amidst emptiness. That silver nail may not only hold back the night, but also the gaze trying to break free from its cage." Xiao Shi seemed to understand.

A profound sense of loss and an even greater anxiety consumed Tanmo.

He devoted all his energy to research, working almost self-destructively, trying to numb himself with endless experiments.

He succeeded and failed.

He successfully perfected the prototype of the "Universal Neural Connection System" in theory and proposed the idea of ​​refining, preserving and transforming the memory fluid "Soul Glaze". His paper shocked the upper echelons of the cult and he was promoted exceptionally, allowing him to enter the outer nine rings of the "White Moon" for institutional training.

He failed too. He lost Maple Butterfly, and he also lost the last bit of tender color in his life.

Through repeated alchemy reactions, his heart gradually became as hard and cold as the alloy he had forged with his own hands.

He ascended the celestial ladder and entered the divine realm suspended above the heavenly orbit. Here, there was no day or night, only eternal, gentle light; exotic flowers and rare herbs never withered; dragons and scholars in white robes walked through crystal corridors, discussing the laws of the world.

Everything was in perfect order, in accordance with the plan of the prophecy.

Thanks to his exceptional talent, his name rose from "Tanmo" to "Tanmo the Great Craftsman" and then to "Tanmo the Minister" in the Order's bronze canon, placing him among the higher ranks and even allowing him to stand on equal footing with some high-ranking dragons.

Tanmo was granted a bloodline, gaining the recognition, resources, and even extended lifespan he had once longed for.

The once insurmountable sacred ladder has become a standard feature of his daily life, and he no longer needs to look up at it.

He got almost everything he had ever wanted.

But as he stood beneath the transparent sky of the "White Moon," looking down at the tiny Mirror Plains below, all he felt was desolation.

Like a leaf, drifting from the old season into the new, unable to find roots to settle on.

He obtained the ticket to "immortality," but lost the girl who asked him "how to hold onto this moment."

……

If it gets lost, it's lost!

Tanmo comforted himself.

Centuries passed, and he never glanced at the world again.

Until that day, Tanmo received the highest order to go to "Eden" to participate in a top-secret project - "Project Tree of Life".

He was summoned to the most secret sanctuary of the Order.

The heavy mithril door slid open silently.

A pure white waterfall of light cascaded down, illuminating the figures of those who came.

She wore a pure white sacrificial robe, magnificent and solemn, which contrasted with her increasingly radiant crimson hair, as if it had gathered the essence of all the sunsets in the world.

Her appearance remained unchanged, even more exquisitely sculpted like ice and snow, but her heterochromatic eyes—silver on the left and red on the right—held a deep, unfathomable sense of vicissitude and majesty, devoid of the playfulness she once displayed by the well.

The girl, who was undoubtedly a high-ranking angel, nodded slightly, her voice ethereal and untouched by worldly concerns: "Tanmoqing, it's been a long time."

"I am the project supervisor, 'Red Moon' Friga. By imperial decree of the White Emperor, I am here to work with you all to explore the mysteries of life."

She gently waved her hand, activating layers upon layers of holy light barriers.

Tanmo stood frozen in place, his mental state, cultivated for a thousand years, instantly shattering.

"haven't seen you for a long time."

...(End of chapter)