The moon hung low over Qingyang City, pale and watchful.
Ye Chen sat alone in the family library, the quiet only broken by the rustle of pages and the occasional distant bark of a hound.
The duel with Hu Jian had ended hours ago, yet his mind was not at rest. Something in the Book Realm had shifted during the fight—an echo, faint and persistent, calling him toward an unknown truth.
---
He closed his eyes, and immediately his consciousness entered the Book Realm.
The shelves stretched endlessly, glowing in faint golden light. Countless books floated around, yet a single tome drew his attention. Its cover was worn, black with threads of silver. No title appeared—only an emblem of an ancient seal.
> "Hidden Sect Scroll"…
The whisper returned, softer this time, like wind through bamboo:
> "The Scroll carries knowledge of those who wrote worlds.
Ye Chen… seeker, do you dare turn the page?"
Ye Chen's pulse quickened.
> "Dare? I have no choice."
He reached for the tome. As his fingers brushed the cover, a surge of light filled the realm.
---
Visions flashed before him:
A mountain floating in the sky, surrounded by golden clouds.
Scholars writing in the air itself, the ink forming rivers of qi.
Battles waged with words, not fists, where understanding reshaped reality.
A shadowed figure, cloaked in black, leaving fragments of books scattered across time.
> "These… these are memories of the Hidden Sect?" Ye Chen murmured.
The whisper responded:
> "They were the first Readers. They wrote scriptures that shaped realms… until the final page was lost. The Fallen Page—found in your world—was part of that scripture. You were chosen to continue what they could not."
---
A sensation unlike any before ran through Ye Chen's body: power, yes, but also pressure.
He could feel knowledge trying to pour into him, yet some of it resisted, as if locked behind layers of time and space.
A faint line of script appeared before his eyes:
> "To read is to live; to comprehend is to conquer.
But beware… every page has a guardian, every truth a trial."
Ye Chen exhaled slowly, a smile forming.
> "Guardians, trials… then let them come. I will read, and I will surpass them all."
He opened the first page. Words etched themselves into his mind, revealing techniques lost to centuries:
Methods to enhance qi flow through thought and intention.
Ways to bind spirit beasts through resonant understanding rather than force.
A glimpse of a martial path where scholar, poet, and warrior merge into one.
Ye Chen's eyes glowed faintly.
> "So the world is not conquered by strength alone… it is rewritten by those who read, who understand, who act with insight."
---
Back in the mortal world, the first rays of dawn filtered through the library. Ye Chen opened his eyes.
The Hidden Sect Scroll had vanished—but its knowledge remained in his mind, alive and pulsing.
He rose slowly, voice calm yet resolute:
> "If the Fallen Page chose me, then I will not falter.
The Jianghu is a book, and I… its reader."
A new chapter of his journey had begun, one that promised not just battles, but revelations capable of shaking the foundations of the martial world itself.