Hour of the Rabbit, third quarter. Underground, Astrology Tower.
The oil lamp had burned all night. The wick had formed a flower of ash---the flame half an inch lower than at the Hour of the Rat.
Shen Yuzhu walked down from the stairwell. Footsteps echoed on the stone steps: one, one, one. At the last step, he paused for half a beat---not hesitation. His body remembered that the air here was heavier than outside. Every time he descended, he needed that half-beat for his lungs to adjust.
He pressed his left arm. The Mirror-Sigil was not warm. But he knew, on Helian Xiang's ice mirror at this moment, the number should still be 0.39---same as last night, same as this morning, same as his own breath.
The mirror keeper was already standing before the fragment. Had been standing there who knows how long.
Shen Yuzhu walked to his side and stopped.
The fragment's runes flowed in the darkness. Not the fluctuations of previous days. A stable rhythm: bright---dark---bright. Dark---bright---dark. The same rhythm as breathing. Inhale---empty space---exhale. Inhale---empty space---exhale.
The mirror keeper did not turn. His voice seeped out like it came from the stone walls:
"It moved for seven days. Yesterday, it stopped."
Shen Yuzhu did not ask "what does stopped mean?" He only looked at the fragment. The rhythm of the runes, and his own breath, were the same rhythm. Inhale---empty space---exhale. Inhale---empty space---exhale.
"It's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"Don't know."
Three sentences. Then silence again.
At some moment, the flame of the oil lamp jumped. Not wind. Temperature. The air around the fragment had cooled half a degree. Or maybe not. He could not tell.
The two stood still. The fragment continued its rhythm. In the interval of that rhythm, an extremely faint echo seemed to have appeared---coming from very far away, from three breaths all in the same rhythm.
The same moment. The pivot chamber.
Helian Xiang sat alone before the ice mirror. Outside the window, no wind. The window paper was quietly white.
Today's Northern waveform had already been summoned. Depression value: 0.39.
Same as yesterday. Same as the day before. Same as the day before that.
He looked at that number for a long time. Not disappointed. Not relieved. Just---something he had expected to happen had not happened.
He reached out and pressed that position on the ice mirror. That spot, he had pressed too many times these past seven days. The mirror surface hardly held fingerprints. But this time, he pressed half a beat longer. When he withdrew, that spot was half a degree warmer than its surroundings---or perhaps just his hand warmth. He did not know.
When he wrote today's report, his brush tip paused half a beat. That pause was not so much a pause as a wait---waiting for the fragment to rhythm again. But then he realized: as an observer, one should not "wait." This waiting itself was a new kind of deviation.
He did not record this deviation in any dossier.
Before closing the Northern waveform, his gaze rested on the corner of the ice mirror for half a beat---that half-beat was the same length as the depression of that waveform.
There, that 0.12 waveform was still there. From the Hour of the Monkey until now, not archived, not deleted, classification column blank. The system did not report an error, because it had never been submitted.
0.12. The same length as his own breath.
He did not touch it. Only looked at it. The length of that look was also 0.12. Then he turned off the ice mirror.
The last line of the report, he wrote: Northern depression 0.39, fluctuation tending to stabilize over seven days. Fragment induction, no further increase.
He placed the report in the "Outgoing" basket. When the paper fell, its corner touched the basket's rim. An extremely light sound.
The same moment. The inn.
Inside the room. All seven were there. No one spoke.
Sunlight slanted through the window, cutting a straight line on the floor. That line was moving. From the window corner toward the threshold, inch by inch, like breathing.
Sun Jiu sat on the bed's edge, hand pressing his left knee. His breath was still half a beat slower than the others. Inhale---shallower by one degree. Exhale---shorter by one degree. That half-beat was no longer a deviation. It was part of him.
Chen Si glanced at him. He Sanshi also glanced. No one said "has your breath returned?"
No one needed to.
Shen Yuzhu sat leaning against the wall, eyes closed, hand pressing his left arm.
He was counting. Not counting breaths. Counting the layers within that empty space---
First layer: Sun Jiu's 0.1.
Second layer: The Northern Border.
Third layer: that "third person" he had never met but knew existed.
Fourth layer---had not appeared.
But the empty space had not shrunk. That third layer was half a degree deeper than yesterday. Not an increase in numbers. An increase in how many times it had been heard.
From last night to tonight, three more times.
One was yesterday at court, that instant when the civil official saw Helian Xiang's imbalance.
One was deep in the system, that instant left by the unclassifiable record.
One was now, this time he himself counted to here.
He did not open his eyes.
Outside the door, someone walked past. Footsteps. One. One. One. Among them, one step was half a beat slower than the others. That half-beat fell into his empty space.
The sunlight on the floor shifted another half inch. That line was already nearing the threshold.
The same moment. The City West Teahouse.
The corner. Coarse cloth robe. Old bundle. Tea long cold.
That middle-aged man still sat in his usual spot.
He opened the bundle. On the topmost of the twelve sheets, the character had already changed from "對" to "眾." On the second sheet, that "勢" character had fully formed. Beside it, an extremely faint line had appeared---
Not a character. A waveform. Exactly the same as that 0.39 on the ice mirror.
At the end of that line, there was an extremely tiny fork---half a beat long, curving inward half a degree. That was Sun Jiu's position.
Looking deeper, there was an even fainter line. A 0.12-breath depression, in the corner, unarchived.
The trunk of that waveform, the 0.39 depression, was exactly the same as the Northern Border's. And beneath the waveform, those three characters lay quietly: 對, 眾, 勢. Between the characters and the waveform, the thickness of a sheet of paper lay between them---the distance between two languages.
He looked at that line. At the end of that line, since this morning, another extremely faint ripple had appeared. Not drawn by human hand. The paper had grown it itself.
Outside the window, people passed by. One. Two. Three. He counted breaths: among them, two had holes in their breath. Half a beat. Quarter-beat. The positions of those two holes, and the waveform on the paper, were in the same phase.
The shop assistant walked by: "Sir, more hot water?"
He shook his head.
The assistant left.
He retied the bundle. His fingers paused on the knot half a beat longer than usual---that half-beat was the same thing as the Northern empty space, as the 0.39 on the ice mirror, as the frequency of the fragment's rhythm.
The surface of the tea in the bowl trembled. Extremely lightly.
No one saw it.
He did not stand. Just kept sitting.
Outside the window, another person walked past. Step half a beat slower than the others. That half-beat fell into the tea bowl. The surface trembled again.
He looked at that tremor. The frequency of that tremor was exactly the same as the ripple at the end of the line on the paper.
The same moment. Zhou Shu's residence.
He had already lain down. His wife was already asleep, breathing evenly, beside him.
He looked at the ceiling beam.
That beam was old. The paint mottled. He had looked at it for years, never noticed what it looked like. Tonight, he suddenly saw it---that crack, extending from the beam's center to the corner of the wall. Not wide. But deep.
He remembered today at court, the person he had seen.
That person's chest, when inhalation reached its end, did not transition into exhalation. Not a pause. Empty.
He had paused half a beat then. That half-beat, and this half-beat he was spending looking at the beam now, were the same length of time.
He did not know who that person was. Did not know that person's name. But he remembered that instant---the instant the chest did not move, like a sentence written halfway, suddenly stopping.
He did not know why he thought of this.
But he knew: that sentence was not finished.
He turned over. When sleep came, his breath was half a beat slower than before sleep.
He himself did not know. His wife did not know. No one knew.
But far away, in the corner of the ice mirror in the pivot chamber, that 0.12 waveform, at that same instant, trembled slightly.
The same moment. The North. East Three Sentry.
Moonlight. Snow. That wooden stump.
Bo Zhong pressed against the dark boundary. Right palm against that invisible line. From the night they left camp until now, that hand had not left. He ate with his left hand, rested leaning against the stump when tired, and when he woke, his right hand was still there.
The pulse beneath his palm: inhale---empty space---exhale. Inhale---empty space---exhale.
The same rhythm as seven days ago.
But tonight---different.
Not the pulse changing. Another layer had been added within the empty space.
He could not sense what it was. But he knew: that layer had come from the south. Not one person. Not a group of people. It was the weight of "being heard."
The ice crystal flower in the moonlight. Six petals fully formed. The seventh petal---
Had not opened.
But on the edge of that petal, on that arc echoing the bottom stroke of the southern character "眾," it was half a degree deeper than yesterday. Not growth. The trace left by being heard.
That was the half-beat when Helian Xiang pressed the ice mirror.
That was the pause when Shen Yuzhu counted to the third layer.
That was the fork at the end of the waveform on the teahouse paper.
That was the half-beat when the civil official Zhou Shu saw the imbalance and his breath slowed.
Snow rested on the petal's edge. Not melting. Not sliding off. Just staying there. Moonlight fell on the petal. That half-degree depth was almost invisible.
But he knew.
Tonight, that weight seemed to have added another strand. Was it the fourth layer? Or had the third layer simply deepened? He could not tell.
He did not look again. Just kept pressing.
The pulse beneath his palm: inhale---empty space---exhale.
That empty space was a little fuller than yesterday.
Midnight. The pivot chamber.
Helian Xiang sat alone. The ice mirror was dark.
The private journal lay open on the desk. Today, only one line was written:
Seventh day, 0.39 unchanged. Fragment induction, no further increase. Waiting itself has become a deviation.
He looked at that line. Outside the window, no wind. The window paper was quietly white.
He did not add annotations. Did not explain what "waiting" was. Did not write "how much deviation."
Just closed the journal. Tucked it into his robe. Against his heart.
That spot held the temperature of where Northerners kept their maps.
He pressed that spot. Under the fabric, the corner of the journal pressed against his heart. One heartbeat. Empty space. One heartbeat. Empty space.
The length of that empty space was exactly the same as that 0.39 on the ice mirror. Exactly the same as the interval of the fragment's rhythm.
Deep in the ice mirror, the record generated tonight---
Source: Nameless.
Times: Three.
---before disappearing, the ice mirror's temperature rose 0.01 degrees.
No one noticed.
But deep in the mirror, in a corner never looked at, from then on, there was one more unsolvable blank space.
Hour of the Ox. Underground.
The mirror keeper still stood before the fragment. Shen Yuzhu had already gone up. Only he remained.
The fragment was still in that rhythm: bright---dark---bright. Dark---bright---dark.
The same rhythm. The same empty space.
He watched it. One hour. Two hours.
The fragment did not change. Did not strengthen. Did not weaken.
But he knew---it was not stagnating. It was being remembered.
Remembered by whom? He did not know.
But it did not need to be remembered. It only needed to exist.
He turned and walked toward the stairs.
Footsteps. One. One. One. Echoing on the stone steps.
At the last step, he paused half a beat---not hesitation. His body remembered that after this step, he would return to a place with sunlight.
He did not look back.
The fragment was still in that rhythm. Bright---dark---bright. Dark---bright---dark.
On the stone wall beside the fragment, that crack which had not moved for three hundred years, tonight, seemed a hair's breadth wider---the same half-degree as the ice crystal flower, the same half-degree as the line on the teahouse paper.
Or perhaps not.
No one saw it.
End of Hour of the Ox.
Three hundred seventy thousand breaths in the capital.
Among them, three were in the same rhythm.
Inhale---empty space---exhale.
Inhale---empty space---exhale.
Within that empty space, there seemed to be four layers.
One layer was 0.12.
One layer was 0.1.
One layer was the Northern Border.
And one layer---
Like a depth left behind after being seen many times---
No one saw it.
But the fragment saw it.
The fragment saw it. It responded with its rhythm: bright---dark---bright. Dark---bright---dark.
The interval of that rhythm was exactly the same as the sum of the four layers of empty space.
It was waiting.
Waiting for what?
No one knows.
But it was waiting.
[CHAPTER 176 END]