ro5

Many thanks...

If I may ask, what did we just see inside the memorial hall...?

What did you see?

I think I saw... strange... I can't put it into words...

Zuo Le is stuck in a daze. The scene from earlier seemed like a dream: fleeting fragments impossible to piece together into a complete memory.

Should I escort you down the mountain?

No need. Please excuse us.

Zuo Le turns around to look at the memorial hall with its open doors.

He looks past the Sui proxy fiddling with a jade rule from his sleeve, and seems to spot the inkstick received from the visitors, now placed on an altar.

Above the altar appears to be a indistinct portrait.

'Who knew... they'd actually find her.'

After the guests are far gone, Yi lets out an almost inaudible sigh, tapping a jade rule on his palm.

They were the first in a century to walk past those doors.

A remarkable and rare event...

The inkstick has been found, but if we don't find a way to write it down, all will have been for naught.

Liang, shut the doors.

As the visitors ascend into the sky and enter the Tomb of Sui, they seem to have forgotten something while rejoicing in their unprecedented achievement—

One can enter the depths of the Garden of Grotesqueries by substituting heaven and earth with material objects to scale the mountain and conduct the Placation.

But the visitors cannot answer why the mausoleum is opened with a giant weiqi board and painted blocks of type.

Perhaps it is this recklessness and ignorance that angers the Sui proxy.

And so, through every carefully calculated sword strike and thunderclap by the visitors, the proxy known for strategy nonetheless shakes up this false realm.

Weiqi stones fall from the sky as type blocks rise from the ground, as if to sandwich all beings in-between to fine dust.

The moment heaven and earth coalesce, a cyan scroll whisks the visitors away.

Liang gently places the frightened and confused crowd in the open space before the memorial hall.

After calming them and handing over the seal, Liang gestures to Yi then escorts the group down the mountain, answering their incessant questions as they go.

Yi waits for the all-too curious visitors to vanish from his sight before he looks towards the memorial hall.

The guests have just left, but a rare guest has arrived.

Inside, another Sui proxy stands alone.

Is that him in the flesh? Or one of his clones? It doesn't even matter anymore...

Wang needs a little time to process this reunion after a hundred and twenty years.

Her name has faded from her portrait, but her expression remains serene as ever.

Be it the face in his memories, or the presence felt inside the Tomb of Sui, they impart the same hope—

Educate and expound, her life's work to last for a millennium.

She has always been brimming with expectations for this great land.

This is Wang's first visit to the memorial hall.

In the past hundred and twenty years, he has been repeatedly chewing on his guilt, regret, and rancor...

He hates everything that buried her here, himself included.

He never dared to enter this place.

Until today, when that group of hot-headed visitors spread out the weiqi pieces and the characters before him...

You believed they could bring her back, so why drive them away?

I should have left them there to rot for their reckless behavior.

...But?

Wang does not speak, and there is no need for him to. This is the first time in all these years someone has brought back that ink stick from their boundless history.

All he needs is to find that trace of ink within the Feranmut's memories...

With ink, words can form, and they can restore her.

Can he hope for that? Should he believe in it?

Yi extends his hand in an asking gesture. He smiles with optimism under his elder brother's stern gaze.

Wang falls silent again for a long time...

The past drifts in like clouds, and he finally decides.

The weiqi board and character blocks merge into a wordless scroll in his hands, and he turns around sharply—

The empty scroll floats onto Wang's back, like a pair of open arms.

Within the painting remains a gentle smile.

Wang hands the scroll over to Yi.

...I'll leave it to you.

I'll do all I can.

Paper carries ink, ink turns into words.

After years apart, perhaps... they can meet again?

Above, a vermilion sky. Below, earth stained crimson. To the sides, mountains dyed scarlet.

The brutality of this battle is beyond the power of language to describe.

The bestial Ju's body lies scattered to the four winds. This Feranmut who fought to stop the fighting, ultimately became a sacrifice to it.

The bestial Hou lies prone, the great forest upon Its back withered away. Its final act of resistance is birthed from Its body: a band of light shaped like a chain of butterflies flies off into the distance after piercing the stunned Sui, before fading from all of recorded history.

As for the one who started it all, the 'victor' of this desperate, bloody struggle, It too falls to the ground, Its body covered in gashes and lacerations.

Lin Qingyan and Zuo Le charge to the forefront, leaving Yun Qingping in the rear, alone.

He records everything that happens here in minute detail. Despite the fact that, once this is all over, both the paper and their memories shall be as blank as the writings in Jianzi Shrine, he records.

This is his duty.

As for what comes next, it is as the annals of history have always said: Yan ennobles the gods, the bestial Sui falls into slumber, Baizao is constructed, and an age of peace and prosperity begins.

Not long after, the True Lung leaves his encampment, accompanied by the Imperial Guard, walking towards Sui's head. Yun Qingping arrives at the front, and finds Lin Qingyan and Zuo Le.

Through this scroll, they view the memories in the depths of Sui's consciousness. Perhaps the entire meaning of the ceremony had changed the moment they stepped into Its tomb.

But even now, humanity is unsure how that scroll could alter their current predicament.

The True Lung stands before Sui, his eyes trained upon the colossus.

Where he stands, he needs not look up towards It as a god, nor does he need to look down upon It as the quelled loser of the war. He chooses equality as he faces his 'ally'.

After some thinking, the True Lung opens his mouth to proclaim the end of the gods, and then—

The scroll is rolled up, and placed back into its box.

The Candleholders and the Tianshis who took part in the ceremony hand the scroll over to the Sui Regulator, while the Tianshis in charge of the Tomb of Sui send their data back to Baizao.

The awakening of Sui is still unavoidable, but Its ability to transcend cause and effect seems to have changed a little.

The alterations to history humanity made as they stepped into Sui's memories have branded themselves deep into Its mind, thanks to the creation of the Sui proxy.

Perhaps now, Yan has a new way to settle the question of the bestial Sui.

Within the treasure room of the Garden of Grotesqueries, Yi slowly unfurls a scroll.

In both size and shape, it is a perfect copy of the one in the custody of the Sui Regulator.

But as it unfurls, the space that should be blank is instead a recreation of the end of the great wild hunt.

The Feranmut who once forded the land with ease retains Its lofty stature in drawn form, but lacks Its former unapproachable grandiosity. Under the encirclement of humanity, It could not escape Its fated extermination.

Then comes the transformation of Hou into butterflies and the fall of Sui. All as according to history, but then—

At the point where the gods should have been ennobled, the True Lung instead promised to grant Sui the guise of man.

Yan once feared the gods, feared the reality-warping power They wielded.

And so, by the will of the emperor, they slaughtered Them, drove Them away, and barred Them from these lands.

But now, by bestowing unto the past millennia worth of knowledge and emotion through the power of the scroll, Great Yan has a new choice.

From fear came the desire for eradication, but if man were proven to have long been the master of nature, then could there not be pardons and tolerance instead?

Yi continues to unfurl the scroll.

Where there should have been a drawing of Sui, there is now only a single, smudged drop of ink.

But this drop is on the scroll in reality, unlike the many illusions before it.

No matter if it represents Sui's memories, doubts, or Its incomplete humanity, there is one thing Yi is sure of—

With this dot, this one dot, words can be written, books can be scribed, fields of study can be established, and men can be made.

Thus, Yi ponders for a moment, before taking the scroll to Jianzi Shrine.

Before the door of the memorial hall, he wets his finger with cloud and rain, and dabs at the spot of ink on the scroll. He tentatively presses his finger against a plaque.

And so, for the first time in a hundred and twenty years, words are written upon this hall.

How long has Wang been rubbing this weiqi stone between his fingers?

From summit to tomb, from brilliant play to orthodox, proper move.

With the rite-takers as pieces, Black strives for victory in the games parlor that is devoid of linearity.

Stretching out to piece together layers of time, tying together unmet cause and effect.

The Placation in the Garden, the seeking of memories past, the descent into the Tomb, the blot of ink on the open scroll—