Chapter 1 — The Boy Who Died Without a Name
The rain had been falling since morning, a thin, needling rain that did not roar or lash like summer storms but simply fell and fell, quiet and relentless. It was the kind of rain that seeped into the bones, that dampened every breath, that blurred the edges of the world until everything seemed smeared in gray.
The dirt road had long since turned to mud, dark pools spreading wider with every drop. When Shi Yue lifted his foot, it came away with a sucking sound, toes coated in grime. The cold gnawed up through his soles and lodged in his calves, a dull ache he had grown used to in these past hours. His feet were bare—had always been bare—and the puddle where he now stood had grown deeper, wide enough that the edges shimmered crimson where the rain thinned the blood that dripped down.
He stared at it, dazed, as though the sight were not his. The water darkened, swirled, blurred into a memory. His wrists burned from the iron cuffs digging into skin, the chains dragging through the mud with a noise that sounded too loud in the hush of the rain. Somewhere behind him, a soldier shoved him forward. The chain pulled taut, and he stumbled, nearly falling to his knees.
The square ahead was not large, but in the rain, it felt endless. A crowd had gathered, umbrellas and straw hats forming a dark sea. Faces were indistinct, half-hidden by rain and distance, yet he could feel their eyes on him. The eyes were heavy—some curious, some pitiless, most indifferent. Their murmurs rose and fell like waves, but no voice stood out. It was as though the rain swallowed every word before it could reach him.
He had no name to them. No history. Just a boy bound in chains.
The thought should have hurt, but instead, it felt numb, like the rest of him. The world seemed muffled. His skin was cold, his throat dry, and every breath he dragged into his lungs tasted of rust. He wondered, distantly, if this was what it meant to approach death—not panic, not fire, but a dull quiet that pressed against every corner of his mind.
The official's voice cut through the rain, sharp and clipped. He did not understand all of it; the words blurred past him. He caught fragments—"guilty," "punishment," "traitor." Words that did not belong to him, yet were being nailed to his body.
"Step forward," a guard barked, and another shove drove him further into the square. The chains rattled, scraping against stone. The crowd shifted to give him space, though no one drew closer. He walked through the corridor they made for him, head bowed, hair plastered to his forehead by rain.
A memory surfaced unbidden: sitting at the edge of a hut once, years ago, watching a storm blow through. His mother—at least, the woman he had called mother—had told him that thunder was the voice of the heavens, scolding those who had sinned. He had believed her, then. Believed that the heavens watched, that justice was real, that goodness was rewarded.
But now, no thunder came. The heavens were silent. The only sound was the rain.
The execution block was set at the center of the square. A rough-hewn slab of wood, slick with water and something darker. He stared at it as though it were a stranger. In truth, he had seen such blocks before—on other days, for other men. He remembered once pressing into the crowd, trying to peer between shoulders, and feeling his stomach twist at the sight of blood spreading on stone. He had fled, then. He had thought himself too weak to stomach such cruelty.
Now, he was the one who would kneel there.
He almost laughed, but no sound came. Only a shallow breath.
The guards tightened their grip on his chains and dragged him the final steps. His knees struck the mud with a jolt that rattled his teeth. Pain shot up through his thighs, but he barely flinched. They forced him down until his cheek nearly brushed the wet wood. The smell hit him then—iron, thick and clinging even beneath the rain. He gagged, closing his eyes.
The official's voice droned on, announcing his crimes. He wanted to lift his head, to argue, to say something, anything. But his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. What would he even say? That he was innocent? That he had never betrayed, never stolen, never conspired? Would it matter?
To them, he was already guilty. To them, he was already nameless.
The whispers of the crowd swelled for a moment, and he caught fragments this time—"orphan," "worthless," "no one will remember him." He wanted to protest. He wanted to scream. But what right did he have? Who in that crowd would care?
His mind began to drift. He saw flashes—small things, meaningless things. The smell of damp straw in the hut. The rough texture of his old blanket. A girl's laughter from years ago, when he had shared a stolen apple. He could not even remember her face clearly now. Everything blurred together, and yet the pain of losing it was sharp.
Was this what it meant to die nameless? To watch every scrap of your life scatter like ash in the rain?
The rain pressed harder now, as though even the sky leaned down to watch. Droplets drummed against the wood, rolled down the grooves carved by countless blades, and gathered in the cracks where old blood had already seeped deep.
Shi Yue closed his eyes. If he could not see, perhaps he could pretend. Pretend that this was only a nightmare, that he would wake to the sound of roosters crowing outside a hut, the smell of porridge rising from a clay pot. Pretend that he was still nameless only because he had not yet been chosen by fate—not because fate had decided to discard him entirely.
A soldier's hand gripped the back of his neck, forcing his face lower. The cold bite of iron brushed his skin where the chain shifted. His cheek pressed to the wood, slick with rain, and he shivered despite himself.
"Hold still," the soldier muttered, as though Shi Yue's trembling were an inconvenience.
The crowd's murmur rippled again. He heard laughter this time—thin, sharp, quickly swallowed by the rain. It cut more deeply than any blade. That laughter said: You are nothing. You are a spectacle, a passing diversion. You will be forgotten before the rain dries.
His heart beat faster, erratic, but not from fear of death. It was the weight of erasure, the knowledge that he would vanish without ever having existed in their eyes.
Something inside him recoiled against it.
The official's voice rose, more forceful, declaring that justice would be served. He listed each crime again, attaching them like stones to Shi Yue's back. "Conspiracy against the city. Theft of grain. Blasphemy."
Shi Yue wanted to scream that it wasn't him, that he had been nothing but a boy scraping by, too invisible even to be accused of such things. But he knew—he had always known—that no voice would defend him. The world did not listen to those without names.
A sudden clap of thunder rolled faintly in the distance. The crowd stirred, some glancing up at the clouds, muttering. His heart leapt for a moment—was this the heavens, finally? Would they intervene?
But the thunder faded, leaving only rain.
No miracle would come.
His mind began to wander again, slipping between present and past. He saw himself as a small boy, crouched beside a ditch, cupping rainwater in his hands to drink because the well had dried. He remembered the ache of hunger, the sharpness of a stick in his ribs when another child had beaten him for daring to beg at the market. He remembered curling up under a thin mat, the wind whistling through holes in the hut, telling himself that if he just survived one more day, perhaps tomorrow would be kinder.
Tomorrow had never been kinder.
And now there would be no tomorrow.
The executioner stepped forward. Shi Yue did not see him clearly, only the shape—a man broad-shouldered, face obscured by a conical hat, blade gleaming even in the dim rain. He felt the shift of air as the man tested the weight of his weapon.
The crowd hushed. All at once, it was silent, as though every voice had been swallowed whole.
Shi Yue's breath came ragged. He dug his nails into the wood, splinters biting his fingertips. He wanted to live. The truth burst up from his chest, fierce, undeniable. He wanted to live—not because life had been kind, but because he could not accept this ending, this nothingness.
A thought clawed at him, wild and desperate: If no one gives me a name, then I will take one myself. If no one remembers me, then I will carve myself into the world so deeply they cannot forget.
His throat ached with the scream he could not let out.
Rain streaked down his face, mixing with tears he had not realized were falling. His chest tightened, breath caught. Every heartbeat seemed louder, heavier, as though it were fighting against time itself.
"Raise the blade," the official commanded.
The soldier's grip tightened on his neck. The crowd leaned forward.
The world seemed to slow. Shi Yue could hear the raindrops, each one striking wood and stone like tiny drums. He could hear his own heartbeat, frantic, thunderous. He could hear, faintly, a voice inside him—not his own, but something deeper, colder, whispering through the marrow of his bones.
Do you wish to live?
He froze. His eyes flew open, but the square around him remained unchanged—rain, crowd, executioner, silence. Had he imagined it?
The blade lifted, catching the pale gray light.
The voice came again, clearer this time, vibrating through his skull: Do you wish to live?
Yes. The answer tore itself from him without hesitation. Yes, he wished to live. He wished to live so desperately it burned.
But no sound left his lips. His body remained bowed, helpless.
The executioner exhaled, and the blade began its descent.
The rain blurred the world into streaks of gray and brown. Everything smelled of wet earth and iron, and yet somewhere beneath it all, Shi Yue could feel a strange, sharp clarity. The blade was coming down. Every nerve in his body screamed, yet somehow he felt suspended, as though the moment stretched thin between heartbeat and eternity.
Then—
A sharp vibration, subtle at first, ran through the chains. The wood beneath his cheek trembled. Shi Yue's eyes widened. Something in the air shifted. The rain seemed to hesitate, mid-fall. The crowd's murmurs hung frozen on their lips. The executioner faltered, hand twitching as the blade wavered.
Shi Yue's mind raced. What is happening?
A strange sensation surged through him—like fire crawling up his spine, cold and insistent at the same time. His chains rattled again, though no one touched him. A whisper echoed in his head, calm but commanding:
Hold on. This is not the end.
His pulse thundered. The world blurred—rain, crowd, blade, all melding into a single, dizzying streak. And then, in a breathless instant, he felt something crack.
The blade stopped.
All at once, the square erupted in chaos. Shouts. Gasps. Soldiers shouted orders, but voices clashed and tripped over each other. Shi Yue's chest heaved, yet he could barely move; every muscle was taut, trembling with the rush of fear and disbelief.
And above it all, that whisper:
Live. Find your name. Become what no one can erase.
Shi Yue had no time to question, no time to think. He only knew, with a clarity sharper than any blade, that something—someone—had intervened. Something had pulled him back from the edge of death.
The rain poured harder, washing away blood and mud alike, though the smell lingered, acrid and sharp. Shi Yue staggered to his knees, chains rattling as if echoing his heartbeat. He tasted metal in his mouth, felt it in the air, yet somehow… he was alive.
Somewhere inside, a fire had been lit. Not a small ember, not the flicker of hope that dies too easily. A raging, persistent flame that demanded he survive. That demanded he claw back his existence from the hands of the world.
He tried to stand. Legs wobbled beneath him, muscles trembling with exhaustion, with shock, with disbelief. He didn't understand what had happened—didn't even know if he should call it a miracle or a curse. But he did understand one thing clearly: he was not dead yet.
Not entirely.
The crowd was still watching. Some screamed. Some ran. Some seemed frozen, trying to comprehend the impossible. Shi Yue ignored them. Every sound, every face, every shout of disbelief faded into the background. His focus narrowed to one point—the rain-soaked world, the chains, the life still stubbornly clinging to his body.
And then he remembered.
He had no name. He had never had one that mattered, never one that could claim him as more than a body in the mud. And now, more than ever, he realized that to live, he would need one.
Not one given to him. Not one carved by others.
One he would take for himself.
Pain clawed at his wrists, at his chest, at every part of him that ached with living, but he welcomed it. It was proof. Proof that he still existed. That he could still act. That he could still—somehow—be.
The rain slowed, turning from needles into a fine drizzle. The square was in disarray. Soldiers shouted. Officials cursed. And in the center of it all, Shi Yue rose to his feet, trembling, dripping, nameless but unbroken.
For the first time in his life, he did not feel small. He did not feel forgotten.
Because even in the face of death, he had chosen to survive.
And the world, chaotic and cruel as it was, would have to reckon with him.
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