Before dawn. The ice surface bore no frost.
Chu Hongying opened her eyes. She was not sure how long she had slept---not that her memory was blurred. The act of opening her eyes came half a beat before the decision to open them.
She rose. The column was still there. She glanced over the number of people. Twelve. But she remembered thirteen breaths around the campfire last night. Not that she remembered wrong. Here, the concept of "number of people" was beginning to superimpose.
She did not count. The number you cannot count is the rule.
"Move out," she said.
No one asked, "Which way?"
The column moved. Breaths began to show anomalies---not collective disorder. Each person's empty space began to grow into a different shape.
Someone's breath became: inhale---0.1 empty space---0.1 empty space---exhale. Two extremely short pauses, not his decision.
Someone's empty space was compressed by 0.01 breaths. The depth was still there, but the shape was wrong.
Someone's empty space lengthened to 0.43, but there was no direction inside.
Three anomalies, the same field.
No one spoke.
Gu Changfeng rode in the middle of the column. His empty space was still stable---0.41, normal depth, clear direction. But his crack trembled. Not instability. The crack was sensing something new: not pull, not direction.
A field---uniform, everywhere, pointing in no particular direction.
The gap between his two empty spaces was no longer being stretched by "north." It was being pressed by the entire space, like the water pressure on a diver's chest.
He did not say it aloud.
After walking about half a shichen, a crack appeared on the ice plain---not a crack in the terrain. A crack in the "field."
At its edge, an extremely faint blue light---identical to the fragment's blue light in the Astrology Tower, but colder, heavier. Not light shining. Existence being seen there.
Chu Hongying stood at the edge, looking down. No bottom visible. But her breath was in phase with the pulse deep within the crack.
"Go down."
Chu Hongying, Gu Changfeng, Lu Wanning, and three soldiers. A Sheng stayed above---not excluded. The field would not let him down. His breathing was too stable, so stable that the field had no need to test him.
Rope descent. The rope began to "tremble" in mid-air---not wind. The field deep in the crack pressed everything. The rope fibers existed simultaneously in "taut" and "slack" states. No one spoke of it. But everyone's hands knew.
They descended for a long time. So long that the concept of "long" began to lose meaning.
Then---the ice wall appeared.
Not a stone wall, not an ice layer. Frozen runes. "Grown" out of the ice. The edges of each arc were extremely sharp, like blades. But they did not cut. They were just---there.
Gu Changfeng reached out to touch.
The ice wall did not reject him, nor did it respond particularly. But at the moment of his touch, his crack trembled. Not instability. The crack was "recognizing" something---the curvature of these runes was the same thing as the curvature of his crack.
The runes' characteristics:
Arc---Gap---Overlap
The curvature of the arc was identical to the sigil on Shen Yuzhu's arm.
The shape of the gap was the same geometry as the positions of the three shifted stones at the Object Mound.
The way they overlapped was the same depth as the superimposed breath waveform of over six hundred people in the Northern frontier.
Gu Changfeng crouched down. Took paper and brush from his robe.
First day.
He recorded the runes' shapes, spacing, repetition frequency. Thirty-seven runes, drawing each one, marking position, angle, depth.
But he noticed something: the same rune, appearing in different positions, had a shape offset by half a degree. Not carved wrong. The rune was "adapting" to its position---the same arc was slightly more curved in the upper part of the ice wall than in the lower part.
He wrote in his notebook: "Not static symbols. Position functions."
The way he drew lines was exactly the same as the observers in the Nightcrow Division's analysis room. Not that he had learned from them. He had always been one of them.
Second day.
He discovered a pattern in the arrangement of the runes. Certain shapes always appeared in certain positions. Certain intervals always repeated. The curvature of the arcs, the depth of the gaps, the number of overlapping layers---there was a relationship between them that he could "feel" but not yet describe.
He drew a grammar tree on the paper: curvature of arc---depth of gap---number of overlapping layers---length of interval. Line by line, connecting the relationships between runes.
He felt he was about to understand.
That "about to understand" feeling was stronger than ever. Not knowledge. The body---his breath began to unconsciously follow the rhythm of the runes. Inhale---arc rising---empty space---gap---exhale---overlap.
His empty space, in that moment, briefly aligned with the pulse of the runes.
Third day.
He decided to do one thing.
He breathed according to the grammar he had "solved." Not imitation. Alignment---shaping his own empty space into the same form as the runes.
First time: inhale---0.2 empty space---exhale. The empty space remained, depth normal. The runes flickered.
Second time: inhale---0.2 empty space---0.2 empty space---exhale.
In the instant before he split---an extremely short, almost non-existent instant---he saw it.
Not understanding the content. Seeing the shape. Those runes were not isolated. They were a single arc cut into many segments, scattered across the ice wall. Each segment pointed to the same thing: "There was once a complete shape here."
Not the fragments speaking. The ice wall was saying: "I remember it."
His breath, in that instant, fully coincided with the pulse of the runes. A certain segment of the ice wall---the longest arc---became clear. Not that its brightness changed. The attribute of "blur" was temporarily removed.
He saw the original nature of that arc: the same curvature as the sigil on Shen Yuzhu's arm, the same curvature as the arc formed by the seven stones at the Object Mound, the same curvature as the edge of the ice crystal flower's seventh petal.
He saw it.
And then---
In the instant he "prepared to fix it"---the moment he was about to turn that shape into a rule, into a description, into something that could be written down---
His empty space split.
Not disappeared. Not shallowed. Split into two.
His breathing became: inhale---empty space---empty space---exhale.
But the two empty spaces:
Asynchronous (one 0.19, one 0.21)
Unequal in length
Not belonging to the same rhythm (one followed the Northern frontier's rhythm, one followed the ice wall's pulse)
He could still breathe. But his empty space was no longer "one place." It had become "the crack between two places."
He looked down at his hand. The hand was there. But he did not feel "hand here." What he felt was his hand between two positions---one 0.19 breaths ago, one 0.21 breaths later.
He tried to lift his foot. His foot lifted. But he was not sure if he had decided, or if the foot had moved on its own. Between decision and action, a crack had appeared---as wide as his empty space.
He swallowed. His Adam's apple moved, but the sensation of "swallowing" arrived 0.2 breaths later.
He spoke. His voice came out. But when he heard his own voice, it was no longer "now." It came from 0.2 breaths ago.
Lu Wanning walked over and pressed his wrist. He felt it---but that "felt" came 0.2 breaths after her fingers touched him.
"How do you feel?"
He waited---waited for his voice to travel from 0.2 breaths ago to now.
"I feel... I'm not inside my body."
Not fear. A statement.
His left hand pressed his chest. There, the crack between the two empty spaces was like an invisible wound. Not painful. But with every breath, it felt like wind passing through.
That wind did not come from outside. It blew from inside the crack---from the extremely short gap between the two empty spaces---on its own.
The ice wall responded to him.
Not revenge. Not punishment. When a person's empty space split into two asynchronous depths, the runes on the ice wall changed as well.
The originally complete arc developed an extremely fine crack line. Not cracking open. An additional version---the same arc now had two readings. One leaning left by 0.19, one leaning right by 0.21.
Those gaps---originally pointing in a single direction---began to tremble. Pointing in two directions simultaneously. One 0.19 breaths ago, one 0.21 breaths later.
Those overlaps---originally layered structures---began to stratify. Each layer gained an extra "shadow layer," extremely faint, extremely fine, differing from the original layer by 0.2 breaths.
The ice wall was not damaged. It had been introduced to multiple readings.
Gu Changfeng looked at that crack line. He suddenly understood: it was not that he had "read wrong." It was that his way of reading correctly was wrong. He had aligned, so he split. Because the rule of the fragment's language is not "to be understood." It is "to be passed through."
He crouched there. Did not try again.
His hand was still pressed to his chest. The crack still trembled.
But he did not regret it. Because he knew---that crack was not a mistake. It was the price of his "successful understanding." And he had succeeded.
The crack was not isolated. Here, the field was uniform. Any structural change would be carried by the field.
The surrounding soldiers began to show anomalies.
First kind: Some---their breathing became inhale---empty space---empty space---exhale. Two empty spaces, asynchronous, unequal in length. Not that they had learned from Gu Changfeng. The field had pressed the crack into their empty spaces.
Second kind: Some---their breathing looked normal: inhale---0.41 empty space---exhale. Depth correct, length correct. But when Lu Wanning checked, she found: those empty spaces were "empty." No north inside, no direction, no pull. Not disappeared. A "false empty space" had taken the position.
Third kind: Very few. Three or four. Including Chu Hongying---her empty space depth was stable, direction clear. But at the bottom of her empty space, an extremely faint "shadow crack" had appeared. Not hers. Gu Changfeng's. But she was bearing it.
Lu Wanning took her notebook from her sleeve and wrote:
"Not infection. Resonance."
She set down the brush. The brush tip paused on the paper for half a beat. That half beat was exactly the same width as Gu Changfeng's crack.
Chu Hongying stood before the ice wall, looking at that crack line.
She did not ask Gu Changfeng, "What did you do?" She knew---he had done what he had to do. The price was just greater than he had expected.
She turned to face the column. The three soldiers whose empty spaces had been split were still breathing. The two whose empty spaces had been filled with false ones were still breathing. But she knew something was different---not that they had changed. The concept of "they" was beginning to become unstable.
She spoke. Her voice was soft, but everyone heard.
"Do not speak it."
Not a prohibition. Protection. Speaking it would fix it. Fixed, it would be pressed by the field as a "rule." And the rule here did not allow cracks to be named.
She paused. Then added, even softer:
"Do not align."
Not giving up on understanding. Acknowledging---here, the price of alignment is splitting.
Gu Changfeng crouched before the ice wall and heard her. He did not answer. But he closed his notebook---not giving up on recording. Knowing that now was not the time for recording. Recording requires "now," and his "now" had already split into two.
He tucked the notebook into his robe. Against his heart. There, the crack still trembled.
As they ascended, the runes on the ice wall did not disappear. But they had changed. Beside every arc, an extremely fine crack line had appeared. Not damage. Multiple readings.
Gu Changfeng walked in the middle of the column. His breathing still had two empty spaces. One 0.19 breaths, one 0.21 breaths, with an extremely short gap between them.
He did not correct it. Did not collapse. Did not regret.
He just---kept walking, carrying that crack.
Chu Hongying walked at the very front, not looking back. Her right hand pressed the old object at her side---left by her father. There, it was half a degree warmer than elsewhere. Not temperature. The fragment's light had left its trace in her empty space.
But she knew, at the bottom of her empty space, that "shadow crack" was still there. Not hers. Gu Changfeng's. But she was bearing it.
At the edge of the ice crack, A Sheng still sat. His breathing was stable, 0.41, unwavering.
He did not ask, "What happened down there?" He just kept breathing.
Inhale---empty space---exhale.
In that empty space, a crack had appeared. Not his. Gu Changfeng's.
But he was listening.
Underground, Astrology Tower. Shen Yuzhu opened his eyes.
The three shallow layers in his empty space---Chu Hongying's straight road, Gu Changfeng's crack, Lu Wanning's depth---trembled simultaneously. But Gu Changfeng's layer had changed from "one" to "two with a crack between them."
He looked down at his left arm. The transparent segment, in that moment, trembled ever so slightly.
Not fading. Being pulled by another person's crack.
The fragment still pulsed. Bright---dark---bright---dark. No hurry.
But it remembered Gu Changfeng's crack. Remembered that 0.2-breath gap. Remembered the price of alignment.
From the shadows, footsteps. Extremely light. Like snow falling on snow.
Helian Sha's voice came from the darkness, fainter than ever:
"He tried to understand the language of the runes."
Shen Yuzhu: "What will happen to him?"
Silence. Long.
"He will live with that crack. From now on, wherever he passes, the air will tremble ever so slightly---as if something has passed through."
Footsteps. One step. One step. One step. Disappearing into the shadows.
Shen Yuzhu did not answer.
He only breathed.
Inhale---empty space---exhale.
In that empty space, there were those who were splitting. There were those who were waiting. There was a person growing fainter.
And a crack.
Trembling.
Breathing continued.
[CHAPTER 212 · END]