They'd been walking for two days since leaving the reversed town, and the road had settled back into something familiar—pine trees, dusty paths, and the occasional bird singing overhead. Lin Chen had his blank book open in his lap as he walked, tracing the faint lines on its pages—each one a reminder of where he'd been, who he'd met, the zero he'd started as.
The core of it all was still there: the belief that every blank space held potential, that no one's story was fixed. Even now, with chapter 15 creeping closer, that truth didn't waver.
Gao Yang was walking ahead, kicking stones and humming the tune from the reversed town—now played in the right key. "Hey, Lin Chen!" he called back. "Remember when you couldn't even say your own name? Now you're fixing entire towns. Pretty wild, huh?"
Lin Chen smiled. He did remember—waking up as Boy 73, the proctor calling him worthless, the empty feeling of having no story at all. "Wilder than you stealing extra eggs from Old Ma's stall?" he asked.
"Hey, she offered!" Gao Yang laughed, turning around to walk backwards. "Besides, a growing Storyteller needs his protein. Can't rewrite the world on an empty stomach."
As he walked backwards, he tripped over a root and stumbled—but caught himself at the last second, his hand grabbing onto a low-hanging branch. The branch snapped off in his hand, and he held it up like a sword. "See? Even when I fall, I find a weapon. That's skill."
Lin Chen's eyes narrowed. The branch in Gao Yang's hand had a single, curved black line running through its bark—exactly like the line on the stone in his pocket, exactly like the faint line in his book. He felt a tightness in his chest, but said nothing.
Yu Qing walked beside him, her notebook open. She was writing about the reversed town, but her hand paused over the page. "You know," she said quietly, "I've been thinking about Master Lian's words. 'Someone you know'—who do you think it could be?"
Lin Chen closed his book. "Doesn't matter," he said. "We'll face it when it comes. That's what we've always done."
They stopped for the night at a small inn by a river. The innkeeper was an old woman who kept looking at Gao Yang, her eyes filled with a strange sadness. "You remind me of my son," she said, setting down bowls of soup. "He loved to walk backwards, too. Thought he was invincible. Then… he fell."
Gao Yang grinned. "Well, I'm not your son, and I don't fall that easy." He took a big sip of soup, then made a face. "Wow, this is salty. Did you pour the whole salt shaker in here?"
The old woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Salt preserves things," she said. "But even preserved things can't last forever. Some stories are meant to end before you're ready."
After dinner, Lin Chen walked down to the river alone, the stone from Yu Qing in his pocket. The water was dark, reflecting the stars—and there it was again, that flickering star, now so dim he could barely see it. He pulled out his blank book and flipped to the page with the faint line.
This time, he could make out more than just the word "last." Next to it, in tiny, almost invisible letters, was a shape that looked like a staff—the same kind Gao Yang used to carry, before it broke and mended itself in the tournament.
He closed the book hard, his hands shaking. The foreshadowing was everywhere now—hidden in branches and stones, in old women's words and flickering stars—but it was still soft, easy to miss if you weren't looking. He'd promised himself he'd protect his friends, but what if their story was already written to end?
Gao Yang walked down to join him, carrying two mugs of tea. "You okay?" he asked, sitting down next to him. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Just thinking," Lin Chen said, taking the tea. "About how far we've come. From the academy, to the tournament, to fixing that town."
"Yep," Gao Yang said, looking up at the stars. "Who knows where we'll be in three more chapters? Maybe we'll be fighting gods. Or eating the best noodles in the world. Or both—now that would be a story."
He paused, then added quietly, "Whatever happens, I'm glad I got to be part of your story, Lin Chen. The blank one who wrote his own way."
Lin Chen felt the tightness in his chest ease a little. Even if the line was there, even if the star was fading, this moment was real. Unwritten. His.
"Me too," he said. "Now come on—let's get some sleep. Tomorrow's another page."
As they walked back to the inn, Gao Yang tossed the broken branch into the river. It floated away, the black line still visible in the starlight, until it disappeared into the dark water.
The core of the story was still there—potential, choice, the power of the blank. But now, there was a soft snap in the thread, a hint of an ending that was coming too soon.