act49side

Sure.

Can I have the bamboo slips, if you don't need them anymore?

For the fire? I suppose...

The young proxy takes the bamboo slips from his sister and skillfully cuts them down the middle...

Into long, sharp sticks.

What are you making?

Meat skewers!

This stockbeast tenderloin is just the right mix of lean and fat, and the fat on its belly is nice and firm. It'll taste great roasted.

The fuel has to be charcoal. These bamboo slips don't burn for long.

I already have the charcoal. We can start roasting when I'm done cutting the slips and skewering the meat.

Hah... does grilling meat on bamboo slips make this a scholar's meal?

Let's call it 'scholar's barbecue'!

Well, I trust your cooking. I'm excited to try it.

Well, I'm done with the slips. You can take them.

You're both here.

Oh... back already?

Huh...?

Wang?

I got your letter. I thought you wouldn't be here for a few more days, at least.

Smooth trip?

Yes.

You two...

There's the idiom 'burning a guqin to cook a fowlbeast,' which means sacrilegious, wasteful behavior.

What are you doing with these bamboo slips?

I-I'm not...

Jie gave them to me...

The boy hides behind his sister, peeking his head out from her side.

Just giving some broken bamboo slips to Yu to make the most of them. Why so harsh?

You should be more grateful to Yu for making dinner.

It's not like I actually said anything...

Don't fight, don't fight!

I'll go make dinner! It's not every day my second-oldest brother comes back. We finally get to eat together!

You, just, er, sit down and chat!

*sigh*...

He's always been a little afraid of you. Can't you be more gentle?

Are things not going well?

No.

I see...

But we don't get together very often, and Yu misses you.

Anything you want to say can wait until after dinner.

So, unsettling things have been happening without my knowledge.

You don't look worried at all.

I'm worried... and I'm just surprised that you show so much concern for your siblings, brother.

Siblings in the sense that we were born from the same fragmented consciousness. Not true blood relations.

We each have our own interests and ambitions. Our fates are none of each other's concern... we walk different paths.

Do you truly think so?

My views are different.

See, it's been centuries since we came to the mortal world. Even if we are not truly part of it, most of the scenes and people that we see are lovely.

But the people we meet seem to become smoke in the wind in the blink of an eye.

In the end, it is only 'us' who remain, and it's only in each other that we can truly speak our hearts.

We may have differences and we may have conflicts, but we could never cut each other off completely... isn't that very much like human siblings?

I have no intention of arguing, if this is how you think.

*sigh*... I don't know why you always seem so aloof. We don't see each other very often. Are you not happy at all?

I wonder if you'd regret it, if one of us suddenly disappeared forever.

Speaking of which, I encountered something strange recently.

One night, I was about to go to bed when I heard a sound from the study.

From the garden, I saw through the window the silhouette of someone bending over the desk, writing something.

I hurried into the study to find no one, only the <i>Jijiuzhang</i> that I had been transcribing the past few days lying on the desk, with scribblings all over it...

Jie takes a scroll from the desk.

One word is written over every neatly written character on the page.

<color=#d70000>Sui</color>

Who do you think could have done it?

There is only one possibility.

It is awakening, and It is attempting to interfere with us in some way.

We thought Its consciousness had completely faded after Yu's birth.

But It is alive... still sleeping, but the stuff of our nightmares.

If It does wake, we will become Its fleeting dream...

What do you have in mind?

I don't know yet. But I'll think of a way...

I have an idea, if you'd care to listen.

I only recently thought about it... when I compiled the histories with the people of Yan, there were inevitably some mistakes, no matter how careful we were.

Unlike ordinary writing, it takes great effort to correct mistakes written in the histories.

Jie picks up a writing knife from the desk, used to scrape bamboo slips, then picks up a scroll, and gently scrapes the paper.

The ink that has seeped into the paper, even smearing the next page slightly, disappears without a trace when the writing knife touches it. The paper is blank, as though nothing has ever been written on it.

This knife...

I think my influence has changed it.

I have a faint feeling that the words it scrapes away—a history, or at least... a name—don't just disappear from the paper; they disappear from people's hearts and minds.

Perhaps there will come a day when we use it to scrape the word 'Sui' from all the texts of this world.

You can... do that?

Not yet. Right now, it's only a writing knife, albeit an unusual one.

But I can feel it. The more words written, the heavier my knife and pen become.

Perhaps we're all the same. We discovered the answer to who we are in that primordial void, then we understood the meaning of our existence in the mortal realm. This is what proves we are different from It.

Perhaps there will come a day when our strength exceeds Its. Then, we can truly break free of Its influence, and live as 'ourselves'.

As long as we don't forget who we are, of course.

What are you thinking on, brother?

Don't worry about it.

*sigh*... Sometimes I feel like you and I are the least compatible, amongst our siblings.

Plots and plans are things to be kept inside one's heart, but words and language are for expressing what lies in one's heart.

But sometimes I feel like you hide nothing from me, that I can see all that you think.

I...

Interesting, isn't it? We both found what we wanted to devote ourselves to, only to have it reshape our personalities in return.

Shu always says I'm obsessed with the past. And I remember the deathly white that she talked about, which lies at the end of the future.

She was right. One cannot pretend to be carefree, when there are things that one cannot let go of.

I know you're worried about the unknowable future... victory and defeat are what you're most obsessed about, but it would be such a miserable existence, if there was nothing but victory and defeat.

Besides that, what is it you care about the most?

I do not obsess about victory and defeat. I simply...

I simply do not like to accept that a game could not be won.

Hm...

By the way, are you reporting to the Sui Regulator tomorrow? Could you take these copied books with you? They'll need to review them before they can be archived in the Sky Mirror Pavilion.

Very well.