You Touched My Old Dreams

Someone else saw the child’s lips move, and in the end he could only force out one sentence.

“Qi Kou, don’t go.”

The child’s shoulders gave a slight flinch; that voice had him tethered by the heart.

The Robed One inside the door said nothing more, standing with the young Qi Kou in the snow, watching the well.

Thanks to the Robed One’s warning, Chen Guan knew the true danger lay in the act of turning back.

The old man stared hard at the child. “Qi Kou, turn around and look.”

“Look at the room you stayed in, look at the old woman who gave you meat.”

“Can you really leave them behind?”

Guan Jinyue strode forward, sweeping her sword across the sand, placing herself between the old man and the child.

“Say one more word, and I’ll cut out your tongue.”

The child’s neck made the faintest motion.

Chen Guan reached out and covered his eyes; the boy’s lashes brushed lightly across his palm.

“Teacher.”

“Don’t look.”

Chen Guan’s hand was perfectly steady.

“When they wanted your life, they never asked if you were afraid.”

“Now that you want to live, you don’t need to ask if they’re in pain.”

The child grabbed at Chen Guan’s sleeve with ragged breath, searching for some final anchor.

“But if I go, what about you, Teacher?”

Chen Guan glanced at the snowfield at the bottom of the well, then at the coffin beside him, and for a moment his expression softened.

“I already have a home of my own. Wherever he is, that is my home.”

When Guan Jinyue heard these words, her gaze fell upon the coffin.

The lid was open a crack, silent within, yet that pressure held the entire old city frozen in dread.

This answer was very much in Chen Guan’s style, and it worked extraordinarily well.

Chen Guan hoisted the child up and handed him to Guan Jinyue.

“Take him through the door.”

Guan Jinyue caught the child, brow furrowed as she asked.

“What about you?”

“I’ll complete the name.”

Hearing those two words, the old man clawed at the ground, scrambling toward the Bone Well.

“You can’t complete it!”

“If you write the full name, the Returning Home Gate won’t eat the bones anymore!”

“Without a gate, who will guard against the wind calamity? How will the city survive until the Central City sends grain and water?”

Chen Guan picked out a rusted broken blade crusted with old blood from a pile of junk, and with the last stub of a charcoal stick, he began writing on the blade’s surface.

The child turned back in Guan Jinyue’s arms to look at him, but Chen Guan let him see only his hand, not the city.

“Didn’t you want to learn to write?”

The child nodded, and Chen Guan set down the first stroke on the broken blade.

“Watch closely.”

As the stroke landed, the shadow of the gate within the Bone Well trembled, crimson light receded, and snowlight rolled outward across the ground.

The old man lunged at Chen Guan’s feet, reaching for the blade, but Chen Guan kicked him away.

He wrote slowly, for the character had many strokes and was extremely rare.

The child watched the blade and whispered the character aloud.

“Lu. Road.”

Chen Guan threw the broken blade into the well, letting it cross the crimson light to land upon the threshold. Rust flaked away in layers, revealing the dark iron beneath.

A long resonance rang from the well’s depths, and the ring of human bones around its outer wall began to peel off in circles, tumbling down from the well’s mouth into the sand, unable to rise again.

The gate’s name was completed: Returning Home Road.

The child looked at the gate. Three characters — Greeting Home Road — blazed in a linked line along the well wall. Crimson light was crushed entirely, and the snowfield raced outward into the old city.

The Robed One inside the door raised a hand, waiting in silence.

Guan Jinyue carried the child and stepped onto the well’s rim. She couldn’t use her spatial abilities, but her body remained light. Her longsword carved a path through wind and snow as she descended into the inner gate.

At that moment, the gaunt, tall man burst out from beneath the stone platform, clutching a shard of bone tablet, his face twisted with fury.

“No one is leaving!”

His whole body split open with red threads, and every door panel in the old city shook at once. From behind them came cries and pleas.

“Qi Kou!”

“Come back!”

“Qi Kou, don’t abandon us!”

The child tried to turn his head, but Guan Jinyue held him with one arm and her sword in the other, unable to cover his eyes.

Chen Guan raised his hand and hurled the last few bits of junk from his storage ring — iron scraps, broken stones, a battered pot, and half a lamp stand — smashing them all into the gaunt man.

The broken pot crashed over the man’s head with a deafening clang.

The gaunt man staggered backward, but the red threads across his chest remained unbroken. He lunged at Guan Jinyue’s feet and caught the hem of the child’s cloak with bone-formed fingers.

“You were born in this city, so you will die in this city!”

The child’s face drained white in the wind, but Guan Jinyue swung her sword and severed the corner of the cloak.

The gaunt man fell back to the well’s edge clutching the scrap of cloth, still trying to rise.

Chen Guan was already before him; the scythe slid into his palm.

The gaunt man looked up at him.

“Sir, I was only trying to live.”

Chen Guan’s expression did not change. “Want to live? Fine.”

The scythe came down in one stroke, blood splattering.

“But don’t use others as your stepping stone.”

The blade severed every red thread across the man’s chest. He collapsed into the sand, his hand still clutching the scrap of cloth.

One by one, the door panels of the old city slammed shut, and no more red threads surged from beyond.

The old man knelt on the ground, letting the wind and snow whip through his hair. He watched the bones peeling endlessly from the well, and let out a shattered laugh.

“It’s over.”

“All over.”

“Without the gate, the wind calamity will destroy this city.”

Chen Guan sheathed his scythe.

“Then build walls, dig wells, plant crops, or even move away.”

The old man raised his head, stunned.

“We don’t know how.”

“Then learn.”

The old man’s mouth hung open, unable to speak.

The people of the city looked at the one at the well’s edge, saying nothing. They had become used to pushing children into the well as city law. Now that the gate no longer ate bones, they didn’t know how to survive.

Chen Guan did not look at them again. He walked up to the coffin, and with a lift of his hand, sealed the lid shut.

Just before the aura withdrew, the Robed One inside the well raised his gaze. The wind and snow parted for a moment, letting Chen Guan make out a silhouette.

A frame like his own, though the face still veiled in wind and snow.

Beside the Robed One, the First Qikou raised a hand and beckoned to the child by the well.

Guan Jinyue stood on the snowfield, holding the child. The boy didn’t look back at the city. He only watched Chen Guan, as if sensing what was coming.

“Teacher, aren’t you coming?”

Chen Guan did up the coffin knot and said, “Go on ahead.”

The child shook his head at once. After a long moment of looking at him, Chen Guan spoke.

“Teacher, will we still eat bread at night?”

The child’s eyes turned red at the rims — after all, the bread had long since fallen into the well.

Chen Guan pulled a piece of hardtack from his storage ring and tossed it through the gate, where Guan Jinyue caught it.

“Keep walking.”

“Don’t look back.”

The child gripped the hardtack and turned to walk into the snowfield. The First Qikou walked over and took his hand. Their shadows slowly merged in the snow, then parted again.

The Robed One inside the gate waited until they had wandered far, then turned to face Chen Guan.

“The road is completed.”

His voice carried through the wind and snow.

“But where, then, is home?”

Chen Guan’s hand rested on the coffin’s shoulder strap, and Guan Jinyue’s gaze lifted as well.

Deep in the snowfield, seven points of starlight rose in a dipper’s shape, and all of it poured into the seven dark buckles on the child’s chest.

Before the child could turn, Guan Jinyue pressed a hand to his shoulder, stopping him.

The starlight pierced wind and snow, casting across Chen Guan’s face.

Beside his ear, a laugh spanning long years rang out.

“Black Tortoise.”

“You touched my old dream.”

At the edge of the snowfield, the child’s figure stretched upward, and with half-turned face still haloed in suspended starlight, all childishness fell away.

Chen Guan saw a pair of eyes that had beheld all sentient beings.

Beidou.