Mist curled endlessly around the forgotten island, a pale ocean with no shore. The villagers had long stopped wondering what lay beneath it; to them, the abyss was simply part of life. Boats fished in shallow pools, crops clung to narrow terraces, and the world beyond the drifting mist was spoken of only in half-believed stories.
To Lin Feng a thin, quiet youth of sixteen, the island was both a cradle and prison. His back bent daily over scrolls, repairing old records in the archive his father used to keep. Ink smudged his fingers and dust gathered in his hair. He remembered how his father used to nag him sweetly.
"Lin Feng," his father's voice echoed faintly across the shelves,
"be sure to finish cataloging the northern ledgers. The sect taxes must be in order when the ferrymen arrive."
"Yes, Father," Feng replied, though his voice held little life.
He smiled at the memory as he glanced through the window. Beyond it, clouds of mist shifted and swirled like restless spirits.
Somewhere out there lay the Jianghu, the martial world of duels, sects, and legends. Every child on the island dreamed of leaving to join it. Everyone, except Lin Feng. Or rather, everyone told him he couldn't.
He was too slight, too sickly, too… ordinary.
Still, he dreamed. In stolen moments, he imagined himself leaping across mist-bridges, sword gleaming, name carried on the wind. Then the dream would dissolve, and the ink-stained scrolls would remind him who he truly was.
That night, as the lamps burned low, Feng reached for a forgotten bundle shoved behind the shelves. The paper was brittle, edges curled with age. Unrolling it, he frowned: it was no ledger, but a parchment painted with celestial diagrams.
Constellations stretched across it, yet the patterns were strange, looping, broken, unfinished.
Beneath the stars, faded characters formed a verse barely readable:
"When the heavens fracture, the void shall bind. Stars shall fall, and one shall rise."
Feng traced the words, his fingertips brushing faint ink.
For a breath, the scroll trembled. The diagrams shimmered as if touched by moonlight.
Feng jerked back, heart pounding. In the silence of the archive, he thought he heard a whisper, like the sigh of wind through the mist outside.
He clutched the parchment to his chest.
Outside, the sea of clouds shifted with sudden turbulence, waves of mist colliding in the abyss. The island itself groaned faintly, as though the heavens had stirred.
[At dawn]
Lin Feng moved quietly along the narrow stone terraces, carrying a bundle of scrolls wrapped in oilcloth. His fingers ached from the night's labor, but he barely noticed. His mind still lingered on the strange celestial diagrams he had discovered the night before, tracing constellations invisible to the naked eye.
"Feng! Breakfast!" his mother's voice drifted from the small kitchen by the docks, but he did not respond.
He had learned long ago that questions about the world beyond the mist were met with sighs, not answers.
The villagers had their rhythms. Fishermen ventured out on small rafts to scoop the misty waters, shouting to each other across the fog.
Children chased each other through narrow alleys, their laughter muffled by the sea of clouds. And Lin Feng-ordinary, quiet and unnoticed, walked among them like a shadow.
Yet, for the first time, he felt uneasy.
He stopped at the edge of the island's cliff, where the mist pooled like a restless ocean below. From this height, he could see the faint outline of another floating isle, drifting lazily on the silver sea. The stories said that sects ruled those islands with iron fists, and that warriors could leap from one to another only with the aid of skills far beyond mortal reach. The tales had always seemed impossible. Until now.
Feng's gaze returned to the scrolls in his hands. The diagrams shimmered faintly in the early light, ink twisting in subtle patterns that almost seemed alive. He traced a looping constellation with a fingertip.
"When the heavens fracture, the void shall bind"…
The words pulsed in his chest as if echoing a rhythm he did not understand.
A sudden clatter from the docks drew him back. Two fishermen shouted, gesturing wildly. Feng squinted through the mist and saw a small raft being dragged backward by a strong current. A man had fallen into the water.
The villagers shouted, but fear froze them.
Without thinking, Feng dropped the scrolls and sprinted down the stone path, heart hammering. The water below the dock was cold and churning, and the man struggled against it, screaming for help.
Feng reached the edge, then remembered he had no martial skill, no swimming prowess. Panic surged. Yet instinct overrode fear. He grabbed a thick rope, tying one end around his waist, and tossed the other toward the man. It tangled around the fisherman's wrist.
"Hold on!" Feng shouted. He braced himself, digging his heels into the slick stones, muscles trembling. Inch by inch, he pulled, the rope cutting into his hands, the mist pressing against him like a living weight. The fisherman coughed and gasped, but Feng did not relent.
Finally, with one last heave, he dragged the man onto solid ground. Both collapsed, soaked and shivering, but alive.
The villagers erupted into cheers, clapping him on the back. But Feng felt only a strange emptiness, a flicker of something he had never known: pride, yes, but also fear… fear that the world beyond this island was far larger, far darker, than he had imagined.
As he caught his breath, a shadow flitted across the mist below the cliff. Too swift, too silent, to be a villager. Feng froze, scanning the fog. There was nothing yet the feeling lingered, a subtle heat at the back of his neck, as if someone had been watching, waiting.
He shook his head. "Just imagination," he muttered. But the air remained charged, the mist heavier than before.
That evening, as the villagers feasted quietly after a long day, Feng returned to the scrolls. He unrolled the celestial diagrams again, tracing each line, each star. His hand trembled with anticipation. He did not know it yet, but the shimmer of the diagrams had drawn attention, far beyond his island.
From the mist, far out on the horizon, a figure watched. Masked, silent, impossibly still. Eyes like shards of moonlight followed Feng as he worked. The wind carried no words, but in that stillness, a silent vow seemed to pass between the observer and the boy.
The first step has begun. We will meet again.
And the mist swallowed the watcher whole.