The wind had no voice.
It passed through the withered trees in silence, threading between pale branches that twisted toward a sky drained of hue. No birds perched. No insects stirred. Even decay had become still.
Shen Wuqing stood at the forest's edge, his gaze resting on the path ahead — though to call it a path was generous. It was a wound in the earth, narrow and black, flanked by dying flora that recoiled from his presence.
He walked.
Each step was not soundless, but unheard. The world refused to acknowledge his movement, like a painting pretending it was not being burned. Leaves withered where he passed, not from heat, but from despair.
Eventually, he reached a clearing.
At its center stood a tree.
It was not the tallest, nor the thickest. But something about it rooted deeper than bark or branch. It pulsed, barely perceptible, like a heart on the brink of remembering why it beat.
Wuqing approached.
The tree had no leaves. Its bark was white as bone, streaked with dark veins that pulsed like ink in water. From one of its gnarled limbs, a single strand of resin hung — thick, amber, and trembling.
It fell.
And the tree began to cry.
The bark split without sound. Thick, golden tears seeped from its trunk, oozing down in slow, sticky trails. They did not fall. They clung, like sorrow.
Wuqing said nothing.
He sat at the base of the tree, resting his back against its weeping bark. It did not resist him. It welcomed his weight like a grave welcomes the soil.
There, beneath the crying tree, he closed his eyes.
And he saw.
Not a vision. Not a dream. A memory — one that wasn't his.
A field of stars, far above a world that once thrummed with color. A woman kneeling beneath this very tree, hands pressed to its roots, whispering prayers. Not of love, nor mercy. But of silence. Of stillness. Of the peace that comes when sound finally dies.
She spoke a name.
He couldn't hear it.
But he knew it wasn't his.
Yet the tree remembered.
That was its curse.
It remembered everyone.
Even the forgotten.
Especially them.
Wuqing opened his eyes.
The air around him shimmered.
He looked down and found a root curled near his foot, cradling something. A fragment of stone, half-buried. He brushed away the dirt.
A carving.
Faint, eroded — but still visible.
A character.
He recognized it. Old tongue. Ancient Daoist script.
It meant "quietude."
The irony was not lost on him.
This was not a sacred place.
It was a scar.
A remnant of a time when the world had dared to pray for stillness.
And the stillness had answered.
He picked up the stone fragment. It was warm. Not from sunlight — there was none. But from resonance. Something inside it hummed, faint and broken.
A piece of scripture.
Not written.
Remembered.
He closed his fingers around it.
And the tree wept harder.
Its tears darkened, turning crimson at the core.
Wuqing stood.
His fingers uncurled.
The stone was gone.
Dissolved into him.
A memory added to a memory.
A sin swallowed by silence.
The wind began to move again.
Slow.
Trembling.
Carrying no words.
Only fear.
Wuqing looked up at the tree one last time.
It still cried.
But now, its weeping was quieter.
As if relieved.
Or resigned.
He turned and walked away.
The resin dripped slower.
The clearing exhaled.
And somewhere beyond sight, a god trembled.
---
He traveled without direction.
The world did not bend for him.
It broke around him.
Rocks split without impact. Shadows recoiled before they formed. Even gravity hesitated, uncertain whether it should bind him.
In the distance, a whisper.
Not a voice.
A pressure.
He followed it.
The trees thinned. The sky deepened.
He arrived at a place that was not a place — a grove without color, where all sound had already fled.
At its center stood a figure.
Cloaked.
Bent.
Old beyond age.
It held no weapon, wore no crest, and carried no presence.
Yet Wuqing stopped.
Because this being was not part of the world.
It was part of its forgetting.
"You carry a piece," the figure said, its voice barely a ripple.
Wuqing did not answer.
"The fragment of the Soundless Scripture."
Still, he said nothing.
The figure turned.
Its face was a mask. Not of porcelain, nor flesh. But of memory — constantly shifting, eroding.
"You wish to know what lies at the end of silence?"
"No," Wuqing replied.
"Then why take the scripture?"
"Because it remembers me."
A pause.
Then laughter.
Soft.
Dry.
Like bones cracking in snow.
"You are further along than most. But still a child."
"I am not here to be measured."
"Then why walk this path?"
Wuqing's gaze sharpened. "Because the world remembers too much."
"And you intend to devour it?"
"I intend to remove what should never have been."
The figure stepped closer.
Its mask shifted — momentarily resembling Wuqing's own face before dissolving again.
"You are not the first. Others have tried. All have failed."
"They remembered."
"Yes." The figure nodded. "Memory is the greatest enemy."
"And silence is the answer."
The figure tilted its head.
"Not silence," it whispered. "Unworship."
The ground cracked.
Roots surged from the earth, writhing.
Wuqing did not flinch.
He reached into his sleeve.
Pulled forth a single black thread — the third seal unraveling.
It burned silently.
And vanished.
The roots halted.
The figure staggered.
"You… should not have reached that far so soon…"
"I do not follow your pacing," Wuqing said.
He stepped forward.
The figure fell to its knees.
Not in pain.
In remembrance.
"I see now… you are not one of us…"
"No."
"You are not of them either…"
"No."
"Then what are you?"
Wuqing looked at the sky.
"I am what remains when belief dies."
---
He left the grove behind.
No path followed him.
No memory remained.
Only silence.
The sky flickered again.
Not light.
Not dark.
Just absence.
As if something had been erased from the heavens.
And perhaps it had.