'Such weight atop our form,
Bear the Mountain and its tallest peak,
Brave Storm and its fiercest lightning,
Brace the crashing Wave and its silt,
'Till blind we are,
For when the Snow land atop a Dew,
Not once do we rest and be 'anew'.
Or so does the poem say, Wu Chen can't tell what makes this book so interesting, the book Nanming is supposed to have after he wins the Competition.
A compilation of Poems from an unknown author, known only by his frequent use of 'Dew' as an imagery.
It's in the middle of the night, the cold air stings his skin while each breath he expels becomes a frosted air, a cold cloud that crystalizes.
After training for eight hours straight, boredom strike Wu Chen and he finds himself perusing the library where he found this book by chance.
Why not? He thought to himself, though he feared a sudden wave of recollection and memory of his brother would come once more to wash him in guilt, he nevertheless brave himself to read it.
One page becomes two, two pages become three and Wu Chen was lost in the book, though he understood little of the meaning, he's nevertheless captivated by each passage and words weaved through the paper.
'Through the reed I seek,
Through the smoke I weed,
Though the people ridiculed me,
For I seek the impossible within the possible,
How I laugh once I dance,
For me is for myself,
Care not for what others might say nor think
For they are not me'
This one has no dew imagery inside, though it is easier to understand.
"Seeking through a reed, weeding a column of smoke, how curious"
Wu Chen mused, seeking the meaning behind the puzzle, the answer behind the question.
"…Perhaps the absurdity is the meaning, the impossibility is the purpose, what a way to say 'it's not the goal that matter, it's the journey'"
Wu Chen reached that conclusion, an overly difficult way of conveying an age-old proverb, or was it? What if the meaning he achieved isn't the truth? Wu Chen read the same poem repeatedly.
Until the sentence rolls easily from his tongue, through repetition the meaning becomes clear.
"What others think of me, a King should care for its outlook and attitude… yet the poem said that One should not care what others think"
This makes sense, no matter what action One might take, the end justifies the means. If the goal is grand enough it will silence every opposition, for they are at awe at the grandeur.
"This is quite relaxing"
Wu Chen said, a small tug of smile formed in his lips, now he understands why Nanming loves poem, such magnificent idea can be poured down to a simple sentence, if One were smart enough to understand it, a single poem holds more knowledge than a hundred book.
'Though flowery a poem may be,
Such simple passage cannot replace a true thought pours out,
Careless creation of brilliance shall birth a fool,
Careful does a step require to seek knowledge,
Less the word festers inside an empty mind'
The poem insight reaches deeper into Wu Chen, as if it was speaking directly to him.
A rush of cold air then blows the page and the candle inside the library, flickering light devoured by dark accompanied the sudden chill. The problem is, Wu Chen is indoors, where would the cold air blow from?
After this weirdness passes, Wu Chen inspected the poem, finding its entire passage has been changed.
'The falling words blind the truth,
Have you no eyes to see?
Yet I have given you the glass to peer?'
"…What in the?"
Wu Chen inspect the poem a lot closer, squinting his eyes in search of any irregularities, and then the word bends, the stroke flows into a different character before an entirely new passage was written in place of the previous passage.
'Low has my traitor fall,
Was this the same blood that tarnished mine?
How ridiculous'
"…You speak to me? Or was this a trick of sort?"
Wu Chen inquires, deep inside he is thinking, why has he become a vocal point to so many irregularities? Phenomenon not normally seen let alone experienced?
Was this too, another irregularity? Or simply his mind breaking away from the sheer exhaustion he felt from all that training?
'A trick you say,
Feeble mortal would find it hard to understand,
Though bright was mine blade,
Under you,
Dulled and rusted it become'
Why is it so aggressive? So many Contemptuous sentences flow out from the paper as it twists and reforms itself into a character once more.
'Wu Clan,
Clan of Hate,
Hu Clan,
Clan of Blood,
Musashi Clan,
Clan of Honor,
Nazawa Clan,
Clan of Brilliance,
Yet none matches Yurong,
Clan of Contempt'
"…Funny then, you speak that none match the Yurong clan"
Wu Chen jeers, his lips twisted into a sneer as he finds it funny that this book bounded voice boast about what he presumes to be his Clan, and the fact that it said the Yurong clan means that the one who is responsible for twisting the poem.
Was the Founding Heavenly Demon.
"Yet they are felled, by the Wu clan which is among the one you imply as lowly"
The air around Wu Chen grew colder as the word of challenge leaves Wu Chen, suddenly the book vibrates, as if itself were furious.
'Damn you!
Lowly traitor!
Dishonorable!'
It didn't even try to speak the way a poem should, it seems to Wu Chen, that such simple provocation could rile it up so much, then it's clear as to why it even fell from glory to begin with, losing Mogui Cheng and was forced to flee south.
'Though it brought me no joy,
To be inside a brat of the tarnished one,
To realize my dream,
A compromise is a must'
The poem speaks, once more it twists and turns but with a calmer movement rather than the previously erratic one.
"Who are you to speak of compromise?"
But Wu Chen won't simply let it do as it wishes to; as far as he is concerned, he is the only one that could perceive it, therefore the negotiation of a compromise is in Wu Chen hand, not it.
'So you are that Evil? Pride
Those who think, perceive, disillusion themselves with grandeur,
I see many of your Evil fell,
Samsara is cruel to you'
'Heh, now it tries to turn the table on me' Wu Chen thought, yet he is smart enough to not fall towards such provocation.
"Disillusion? What is there to hallucinate about what I can see clearly? I am weak, compared to the likes of my peer, I can only win through wits and trickery"
Wu Chen said while smiling, no shred of humiliation painted his face for this is a bitter truth he had come to accept.
Yuen, Liza, Laiza, Big sis Lixian, Big sis Mei, The Demon King, Wu Yincang and Nanming are monsters, and Wu Chen is but a venomous insect, he could sting them, maybe they die, but he can only sting once.
"And there is only so many trickery I can do, once it ran out, I will meet my timely end"
The poem didn't react, it remains in the previous passage, yet the flutters of its paper suggest that rather than staying silent, it tries to think of a way to respond.
Something Wu Chen doesn't give the luxury of.
"So, if you wish to offer a compromise, I hope that it could be one where I have a way to make my trickery endless and… well, tricky"
Wu Chen thought about this since the day he met that weird old man who gives him a realization, if the Founding Heavenly Demon 'fell out of time', and now 1/8 of them were inside of Wu Chen.
Doesn't that mean that he too, 'fell out of time'?
And if he did, the only perk he could think of is to perceive time itself, seeing the future.
No matter how skilled he is at predicting something, what is ultimately a coin flip fell short compared to just seeing the outcome directly.
"I wanted to perceive the future"
Those words close in like a door of a gate being shut, silence ensued as Wu Chen patiently awaits the poem to shift its passage once more, after several minutes of this, the poem shift.
'Now I could perceive you to be among them,
Crafty one,
I've been fooled,
Though this one is hardly surprising among the others,
I am still,
At awe'
Suddenly, the pages of the book flipped aggressively, alongside it a burst of cold wind blows through, making a mess of the library as countless scrolls, papers and books were flung out due to the sudden wind.
And then the book stopped flipping, alongside it the wind stopped blowing, and what ensues is a rain of paper that falls on the floor.
Each have a symbol, and as it settles a complete image were drawn circling Wu Chen.
An otherworldly voice, cold yet soft in its words, booms through Wu Chen skull.
-AHAM NAMAM VADAMI
An infinitely boundless voice replies to the cold call,
-VECA
This time it ripples in the very space itself, as Wu Chen felt intense pain coursing throughout not just his body, but his very Inhibition Core which caused him to emit his Aura involuntarily.
And then the cold voice responds back,
-ANATTA MAHAKALA
And what ensues is sudden blackness.
Wu Chen can only see the dark, the emptiness, the nonsense. Yet at the same time the light, the fullness and the wisdom.
All laid bare before him, it was all so… infinitely, sickly, terrifyingly enormous.
His heartbeats frantically, and the sound can be deciphered into words in his mind.
-thump -thump -thump -thump
In fact, everything, what he felt, what he thinks, what he… is. Is deciphered into words.
'Bear witness'
The cold voice said, before a figure materialize alongside Wu Chen, a female figure devoid of any feature.
'Surprise?'
It said, noting on Wu Chen bewildered gaze upon laying his eyes upon it.
"I thought you're a—"
'Male? My machinations work then'
The figure then points towards a thing; Wu Chen draws his gaze following its gesture.
'Now, what you see'
What he sees, a glowing sphere, a blue sphere, so hot, so cold, so immense, so small, so powerful, so weak, so smart, so idiotic, so, so insubstantial.
'Is a Tomb of a Nagaraja, perhaps you have yet to know, what a Nagaraja is'
Wu Chen stops responding, his nose bleeding out, his brain crushed before his Tarnished Gathering tries to fix a mind forced to see beyond everything.
'Insignificant fact, I have no intention of scrutinizing a vessel'
The female figure then brings her hand to cup Wu Chen cheek, in her face, a fang took shape.
'You wish to see the future, well, here it is'
The figure sinks her fang deep into Wu Chen eyes, yet no blood spurted out, rather the shape of Wu Chen pupils and the color of his eyes change.
From dark crimson, to depthless black.
'Wu Chen, the future you have is so interesting'
The figure says, gleeful in its intonation, it is as if it had found something it was looking for after years of searching.
'Much, much more interesting than even my own kin, Kamun'
The fang in its mouth then angled itself, as if to visualize happiness, and manic expression.
It then enters Wu Chen through his eyes, settling in before the blue star ripples and screams.
And suddenly, the black filled scene returns to the library, complete with the books and falling papers.
.
.
.
The world looks grey, blurry, unfocused.
Beyond this grey world, a window of sort exists. And beyond that window, a certain scene was played out.
A Rose that is showered in a rain of blood, before the same Rose grows into a dragon, it wields two spears.
A black looking Guan-dao and a Dragon-headed spear as it soars towards a fort, in its wake a mass of Black Mist follows, countless crimson glints were within.
With resolute strike it breaks the fortress, before it roars. The dragon roars, and a rain of black spearheads pelt the fortress before the Black Mist pours in, then a sound of blood curdling scream follows through.
The dragon then turns around to find two columns of smoke, it then rushed towards the column as if in a hurry, yet before it can reach it, both columns dissipate.
The dragon stops its movement, looking over to where the smoke has been, it cries out another deafening roar before a Tempest and Ice comes over.
Tempest so destructive it could uproot the very earth itself and Ice so majestic it towers through Heaven itself, and with the dragon command, it marches towards the North.
Perplexing, Wu Chen thought, overly abstract and non-sensical imagery was being played in front of him, one laden with symbolism and meaning yet he fails to see past them.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Wu Chen said out loud, expecting no answer.
"It's the Future"
Another voice responded, it was soft and cold at the same time. And as Wu Chen look towards the side to find a woman looking over his shoulder with a bored, almost aloof look as she saw the same scene Wu Chen saw.
"…"
"…We've met not long ago, and now you've forgotten me…"
She said, shifting her face to meet his, revealing a small lip and a wide eye, all having a feature of a serpent.
Her fangs peek through shyly through her crimson lip while her wide eye adorned in glittering crimson, all a feature of an impossibly smooth face, pale yet glowing, a figure of divine beauty and… that's it.
The woman only had a face; her entire body is blank and revealing only her lean frame.
"…Are you supposed to be the Founding Heavenly Demon?"
"Now you realized, surprising, isn't it?"
The Founding Heavenly Demon then rake her hand over Wu Chen face, he didn't react, feeling the impossibly cold finger of her traces his jawline, reminding him of Nanming cold fingers.
"The true me, is a far cry of the image I instill to fool the Heaven, yet I am imprisoned and entombed still"
She speaks in honeyed word, yet, it was just too frigid for it mean anything, as if she didn't bother trying to hide how performative she is.
"Tell me, Wu Chen, does my form disgust you? Or does it excite you? Or does the feeling deep inside those aching heart has yet to heal?"
"How do you know?"
At Wu Chen responds, the Founding Heavenly Demon laughed, so much so that she had to angle her neck back and let her long dark hair pool towards the ground.
"Hahaha! So much for those masks you are wearing! Nothing more but a scarred child~"
Before he could say anything, she begins to enwrap her hands around his neck, putting her thumb over his larynx and threatening to close it up, yet she didn't.
"You didn't react over those provocations, but you did once I mention something emotional"
She purred, once a cold voice now starting to be lit up by a dangerous fire.
"So, the Wu clan still do that accursed tradition, I never had a good look inside of Kamun but maybe I can with you…"
She was about to place her hand to cover Wu Chen chin, but he grabs her wrist before that.
"What do you mean this is the future?"
"Hihi, so quick to brush off past whatever unpleasant thing said to you… How very characteristic of those scarred by the Exhumed Rose Tradition"
She laughs, her lips smiling in such a way that her hidden fang started to show itself through her lips and still, Wu Chen didn't react.
"Exhumed Rose? What is tha—"
"Shush"
Before Wu Chen could speak another word, the Founding Heavenly Demon closed his mouth with her index finger.
"One at a time, what you just see is indeed the future, as to why it was so cryptic is because I am far too weak to conjure a proper Future"
She said, shifting her head to look towards the window that is frozen in the moment, showing the dragon marching.
"And you're about to wake up, I cannot manifest in your waking self so goodbye~"
She waved her hand, and before Wu Chen could even react, the grey world vanished and he is reeled back into he future.