Darkness did not end; it folded, creased, and unfolded into a sky the colour of bruised amethyst. Lin Yan stepped out of the fold and found himself standing on nothing—a glassy black sheet suspended in mid-air, reflecting a city that hung upside-down above him like an afterthought. Chains as thick as temple pillars linked the two cities, clanking softly in a wind that had no temperature. Between the chains, sparks of silver drifted—each spark a broken star, humming lullabies of extinct worlds.
He drew a breath. The air tasted of copper and incense, of memories that had been burned to mask older sins. The black lotus on his chest unfurled a single petal, tasting the air, and settled again—sated, watchful.
A bell tolled somewhere, low and elongated, as though time itself had yawned. Doors opened in the empty sky—wooden, iron-banded, impossibly old. From them poured a tide of figures: cloaked in rag and splendour, some walking, some gliding, some upside-down, some inside-out. All headed toward a single point beneath Lin Yan's feet where the glass sheet dipped into a gentle bowl and revealed a staircase of cracked ivory descending into a market that existed in the negative space between worlds.
The Hollow Bazaar.
He had no name to give the gatekeepers, so he offered the absence where a name once lived. The guards—twin boys sharing a single shadow—nodded and parted. The staircase accepted his weight with a sigh, as though it had waited centuries for precisely this hunger.
Down he went, counting one-hundred and forty-four steps, each engraved with a character that had been outlawed by Heaven. Mid-step the characters slid like living things, rearranging into a new sentence: First Law Severed—Destiny—pays no toll here.
At the bottom, the market exploded into senses he did not know he possessed. Aisles of impossible geometry: stalls that grew inward, fountains that flowed upward into their own sources, lanterns fuelled by regrets auctioned by the gram. Currency was whatever a vendor could extract from a soul—laughter of first love, courage of a last stand, the colour of a childhood sunrise—wrapped in silk, weighed on scales of butterfly wings.
A vendor with fingers of glass beckoned. "Pretty void, young lord. Trade you a future for that scar on your heart?"
Lin Yan touched the lotus mark; it pulsed, rejecting the bargain. He walked on.
Another stall: cages of translucent jade, each imprisoning a single tear. Labels in languages that predated throats. The keeper, face smooth as river stone, lifted a tear that showed a man betraying his brother. "Strong stuff—adds ten years to sword intent. Yours for the memory of your mother's last smile."
He clenched the offer like a mouthful of thorns and moved away.
At the crossroads of four impossible angles he found what he had not known he sought: a girl in a fox mask, seated behind a table that was a single slab of frozen starlight. Upon it lay neat rows of bottles—each containing a swirl of light, colour, sound. She was polishing an empty vial with sleeves the colour of dusk.
Her sign read: Kai – Memory Broker – We Buy, We Sell, We Lend.
She looked up; the mask's eyes were cut from actual eclipse, drinking light and giving nothing back. "Nameless," she greeted, voice like ink spilled on silk. "I was wondering when you'd arrive."
"You know me?" The words tasted strange; he had traded his name for passage, yet she addressed the absence as if it were decoration.
"I know the hole where you used to be." She corked the vial, set it aside. "Holes are my business."
A pause; the market's roar dimmed around them, as though space itself leaned closer.
"Sit," she offered, indicating a stool that had not existed a heartbeat earlier. Lin Yan sat. The stool accepted his weight and his doubt, both.
Kai produced a deck of cards—each card a sliver of translucent bone. "First, diagnosis." She fanned the deck; images flickered: meteor, lotus, broken gate, a sword dripping starlight. "You carry three curses and one blessing, but the blessing eats the curses faster than they can breed. Interesting appetite."
She plucked a card showing the cracked Dao Crystal of Qinghe. "This is leaking. Your old village will send hunters—Heaven's Will does not appreciate broken toys. You have perhaps two days before the first arrow sings your direction."
"I am not going back," he said. The statement felt like removing a blade that had been lodged so long it had become furniture in his flesh.
"Good. Regression is bad for inventory." She tapped the table; a map unfurled—not parchment but living skin, veins glowing faint blue. It showed a path spiralling upward through empty space, anchored by seven waypoints: The Mirror Hollow, The Gravity Garden, The Deathless Labyrinth, and four others whose labels writhed away from comprehension. At the apex hovered a city chained to twin moons—the Upper Heaven Realm in all its indifferent majesty.
"The Cracked Path," she named it. "Each waypoint severs a Law. Sever all seven and the city will open its throat to you. Fail, and the path folds you into a cautionary tale."
"And you want what in exchange?"
She leaned closer; the eclipse eyes reflected his own face fractured into a hundred possible futures. "I will lend you a name. A good one—strong enough to open doors, flexible enough to slip nooses. When you reach the city you will return it, plus interest."
"What interest?"
"The memory of the first person who believed in you." She said it softly, as if apologising with a blade.
Lin Yan felt the lotus stir, curious. He thought of Wan-Er handing him the peach bun, flour on her nose, trust still warm. He nodded.
Kai exhaled; the eclipse eyes brightened. She reached into the air and drew out a syllable that shone like molten silver. It floated between them, morphing: Yan—the second half of what he had surrendered, now purified by void. She pressed it to his breast; the lotus swallowed it, petal folding over petal until a single black character glowed above his heart: Yan.
"Name-lending complete. Valid until used against you. After that, collection automatic."
He touched the character; it felt like holding a heartbeat he had borrowed and would one day break.
"One more thing," she added, producing a small iron token shaped like a broken hourglass. "Show this at any stall—my credit is yours. Spend sparingly; debt grows teeth at midnight."
He accepted the token; it weighed more than its mass, as though time itself had been soldered into the metal.
Behind him the market's roar swelled back to fullness. Somewhere a bell tolled twice—midday in the Hollow Bazaar, though no sun rode the sky. Kai rose, starlight table dissolving into fireflies that settled on her shoulders like epaulettes.
"Walk carefully, Name-Once-Lin. The first waypoint is closer than you think. And remember—mirrors always lie, but the void never bluffs."
She turned away, already haggling with a vendor whose wares were the sound of rain on forgotten roofs. The eclipse eyes dimmed, leaving Lin Yan alone amid the riot of impossible commerce.
He tightened the strap of the empty pouch that had once held his mother's hairpin, now home to a borrowed name and a debt not yet understood. Around him, the Hollow Bazaar breathed—inhaling hopes, exhaling prices. Somewhere above, chains clanked as the upside-down city adjusted its weight, and a single lotus petal drifted across the amethyst sky, searching for a place to land.
Lin Yan exhaled, tasting copper and incense, and took the first step toward the Cracked Path. Behind him, Kai's voice floated back, half promise, half warning:
"Break wisely, Yan. Every fragment cuts both ways."
The market swallowed him whole, yet he walked lighter than before—carrying nothing but absence, and the hunger to fill it.
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End of Chapter 3