Once Upon a Time, There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain · Conversa

The sky split open. Feng Yin stood atop Spirit Sword Peak, robes snapping in the night wind. He gazed at the sea of stars, the lingering warmth of his divination still in his fingertips—he had long since memorized the omen: a meteor firestorm, the Nine Provinces overthrown, all living things reduced to scorched earth. Beside him, Wang Wu leaned against the Sword Monument, wine gourd tipping in her hand. Half-drunk, she lifted an eyelid. “Senior Brother, you've been standing there for three days.” “In three days, fire will fall from the sky.” Wang Wu didn't answer, only held out the gourd. Feng Yin took it, tipped his head back, and took a long swallow. Then he smiled. “You're not afraid.” “Afraid of what?” Wang Wu patted the name carved on the Sword Monument. “If everyone's dead, that just means I get to go keep him company.” Feng Yin's hand froze. Three characters were carved into the stone—Ouyang Shang. Over a hundred years had passed, and her tongue had never once softened, yet she came to drink before this monument every day, and no matter how drunk she got, she had never once mistaken the path. At that moment, a faint hum came from the depths of the heavens, as if the entire starry sky were trembling. Feng Yin jerked his head up, pupils contracting—countless meteors were plunging from the dome trailing crimson fire, only to vanish in an instant, as if wiped away by an invisible hand. All that remained was a single comet, its cyan-white light spanning east and west, cutting clean through the rain of fire. It hung alone in the sky, blazing so bright it hurt to look at. In the same instant, the cry of a newborn baby rang out from a ramshackle house in Wang Family Village, Cangxi Prefecture. The midwife was in a fluster. Beyond the door, an old tree rustled though no wind stirred, its roots quietly pushing up through the soil and curling gently toward the little house, as if the earth itself were stooping to listen. Wang Wu's hand suddenly tightened around the gourd. “Senior Brother,” she said, her voice low, “that star...” Feng Yin stared at the horizon as the comet's tail slowly faded. He let out a long breath. The divination board slipped from his sleeve and cracked in two against the stone. “Let's go,” he said, turning—his pace far quicker than when he had come. “To Wang Family Village.” Wang Wu didn't move. She tilted her head and looked up at the sky once more. The comet had vanished, the stars had returned to their places, as if the catastrophe had never come at all. Yet she could feel it clearly—Spirit Sword Mountain beneath her feet was trembling faintly, as if answering some distant call. “Ouyang Shang,” she mouthed silently into the night sky, “is it you?” The mountain wind swept through the forest of monuments. No one answered. Only the spirit stones across the mountain lit up one after another, from the foot to the peak, like a river of light flowing upstream.