People say children don't remember much when they're young.
They say memories blur at the edges, soften with time, lose their color like old fabric left too long beneath the sun.
But I remember.
I remember the night everything inside me shattered as clearly as the shape of my own hands.
Some memories do not fade. They carve themselves into bone, into heartbeat, into the spaces between breaths. They wait...patient, sharp...until you inhale the wrong way.
Then they cut you open from the inside.
Before that night, my world was small.
A tiny village beside a slow river.A tiny house shared with Grandpa.A narrow bed that creaked every time I shifted or coughed.And a fishing rod carved from simple wood...my most treasured thing in the world.
Grandpa said fishing would help my weak heart.
"Quiet, gentle things suit you, Jin,"he always said, tapping my forehead with a calloused finger.
He meant it as comfort.
I took it as truth.
My body was fragile...too easily winded, too easily hurt. Running made my chest burn. Excitement made my pulse misstep. So I gravitated toward things that did not demand strength.
I liked quiet things.
I liked sitting at the riverbank with my feet sunk into cool mud.I liked watching insects skim across the water like tiny dancers.I liked the soft tug of the fishing line, the patience of waiting, the sense that time itself slowed if the river did not rush.
The river never judged me.
It did not care if my heart fluttered wrong, if my breaths came too shallow, if I could never run as fast as other children. It accepted me without question.
It waited for me on mornings when Grandpa carried me there on his back because my legs refused to move.
It was the only place I belonged.
The only place where breathing did not feel like borrowed time.
But rivers change.
Villages change.
Even memories erode.
The river of my childhood is gone now...burned, drowned, swallowed by years I no longer measure. Whether it still flows or has cracked into dust no longer matters.
It exists only as something my heart remembers when nights grow too quiet.
The boy who hid behind Grandpa's robes is gone too.
He did not know the world could be cruel.That people killed for silver.That storms erased homes.That oceans swallowed screams.That blood stained even gentle hands.
That boy walked through storms.Crossed oceans.Bled beneath foreign suns.
He learned how to survive in places where quiet things were devoured first.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I wonder if that small boy ever truly existed…or if he drowned in the river along with the memories I pretend not to miss.
And now...
That same quiet boy, grown taller, colder, sharper, stands before the most guarded gates in the Empire.
The Imperial Palace.
Its shadow blankets the district like a slumbering beast. The air itself feels heavier here, laden with centuries of authority and blood. Even the sky seems lower...close enough to touch, yet impossibly distant.
These walls are nothing like the wooden planks of my childhood home.
They are carved from stone that has witnessed wars, coronations, assassinations, and triumphs. Spiritual formations hum faintly beneath the surface, pressing against my lungs until every breath reminds me:
You do not belong here.
Guards stand in formation before the gates, armor polished to a blinding sheen. Their expressions are unreadable. Their hands rest casually on their weapons...but nothing about them is relaxed.
I keep my hood low.
Not out of fear.
Out of habit.
A heart learns to hide long before a body does.
One of the guards glances at me as I approach. His gaze lingers on my clothes...plain, travel-worn...then shifts to the fishing rod at my back.
"…You're one of them?" he asks, tone flat.
I stop at a respectful distance.
"Yes."
The word is quiet, but clear.
The second guard snorts softly. "Doesn't look like much."
The first guard elbows him lightly. "Tournament seal checks out."
He studies me again, this time more carefully. My posture. My stillness. The way I don't fidget or bristle beneath scrutiny.
"Hm," he mutters. "Guess the quiet ones are the dangerous type now."
I do not respond.
After a moment, the gate mechanisms begin to shift. Metal groans against stone. The sound is deep, ancient...eerily similar to the creak of my old bed when I turned in my sleep as a child.
The gates open.
Beyond them rise palace towers like mountains forged from jade and gold. Red pillars gleam beneath the sun. Dragons coil across rooftops in frozen vigilance.
Even the wind seems disciplined here.
And in the heart of all this splendor lies the place I have dreamed of since the night I learned that knowledge could be power… escape… salvation.
The Imperial Heavenly Library.
A sanctuary said to hold every scroll the Empire has ever collected or erased. Where forgotten truths lie between unassuming pages. Where histories twist into prophecy.
For half my life, I imagined it.
Shelves reaching the heavens.Ink that never fades.Cultivation paths long lost.Forbidden techniques.Maps to places wiped clean from the world.
And perhaps...
An explanation for the strange Pulse within me.A hint of what I am.Why I was taken.Why I survived.
Dreams are fragile things.
But this one endured storms, chains, hunger, and nights where cold sank so deep into my bones I thought I would never stand again.
Now it stands before me.
Real.
Close enough to touch.
"The library's straight ahead," one guard says, voice echoing faintly. "Don't wander."
I incline my head in thanks and step forward.
Stone beneath my boots is cool, polished smooth by centuries of passage. My fingers curl unconsciously around the fishing rod at my back...the same motion I have made since childhood.
Grandpa's voice drifts through memory.
"Quiet, gentle things suit you, Jin."
Maybe that boy still exists somewhere beneath the scars.
Maybe the river never truly left me.
Maybe the path that led me through blood and moonlight was always meant to bring me here...
To the doorstep of the Empire's greatest secret.
To the place where everything might finally make sense.
And as I cross the threshold, the silence around me feels different.
Not empty.
Not heavy.