Although she did map out this complex town of Jinghai, with its many gatherings and peculiar architecture in the day, she hadn’t tried to see what actually lay outside the fortress very carefully. There were several village settlements nearby in the suburbs, as well as a vast forest stretching out in the west from the brim of the northern mountains. The mountain range itself was majestic; cradling the whole valley in a half moon like shape, it stretched in the north and all the way down the east, into the south. It was a vast region, full of many peculiar topographical features, which she definitely couldn’t map out in a single day, even with the help of her spiritual consciousness! Wei Zhiruo decided to do that in the following week. Right now, she just wanted to leisurely find something to distract herself. Either way, it was a good source of distraction.  

Actually, in such moments of thoughts exploding in her head, those thoughts dared not leave her sight and she of them, but in the midst of this tussle for power and sovereignty between themselves, she usually tried to find a distraction to ease some of those ravenous observations and stop thinking of at least some things, stop some images from haunting her endlessly. As such she didn’t feel that she was wasting her time in fancifully chasing a fish. That fish just happened to jump out over a reflection of the moon - what a beautiful sight! 

In the mirror-like water filled fields of suburb, many small fishes and their fries had imperceptibly broken into hinterlands. Seeing them, she was unconsciously reminded of some more memories from home. Once, and only once, she had got the chance to observe them – her human subjects from up close. The human in their breast, the culture and traditions of their humble selves, and the strange pride and vanity that divided them into groups – she had found their children to be the most peculiar of the bunches. Children, who used to be delighted by the simplest of gifts and rejoiced in its easy gains – particularly when the bounty had anything to do with hunting, climbing trees or catching bird’s egg from the trees of their liking. She recalled back those simple faces and hearty smiles with a strange bewilderment.

If this world had children who entertained in similar pleasures, Wei Zhiruo felt that the coming morning, with its warmer hues and softer showers and its uncountable promises of goods in form of warmer sunlight – in all likelihood was going to welcome a hoard of children and all of them eagerly ready, prancing and rushing about those muddy waters in no time. They will be eager to catch some fishes: a game which promised them a taste of a one-time meal which would be filled with meat. A luxury in hard times. And hard times for some people seemed to never end. It was always hard times.

‘The world is brimming with vitality, and yet strangely the spring is so far away,’ Wei Zhiruo couldn’t help but sigh, as she swept her spiritual senses all around Jinghai.

Her spiritual senses swept over the farmers in their hot-beds, curled to early comfort. There were archers up in the high towers of the city fortress with their longbows polished and ready to move, gazing with their hawk-like gazes in ponderous doubts. And also those stiffly clothed guards yawning and scrunching their faces, walking around the town gate unbothered. Every one of them appeared unaware of the other and of her. Yet the moonlight was mellow and all embracing.

Watching them, Wei Zhiruo couldn't help but recall her own time as a human. Like people seldom do to call back certain deeply closeted and forgotten memories kept under locked up chests burrowed deeper into layers of forgetfulness – she tried very hard to paint those hazy pictures. 

She actually did remember her own time as a human in her previous life. She was young, the memories albeit a little vague, were still in good enough state for her to assess them. It was a magical time when her own mind hadn’t been so noisy, so full of ‘thoughts’. When it was nothing but clueless and in keeping of great calm – although it was unflinchingly separated from the harmonies of the world, from its secret talks bubbling all around her, its reiterated joys and humble hymns that could be heard even in rustling winds; they were in no way as suffocating.

She was unable to watch or hear the budding growth of a plant, or marvel at the churning of water and its majestic runes, or swirls of the cloud and its magical rules – she was also not stifled under their overbearing presence! Just like now - she was drowning in them!  

Despite all that, she felt she was very lucky to have this ability. Having eyes that could see natural rules and runes and observe secrets of heaven and earth was not common. Even in her magical world, with endless tales of magical abilities and physiques that people could be born with, she had never heard of another soul having such weird abilities as her own! After reading several clan anthologies left by past ancestors, she not only never found another person like herself, she also found that feeling what both inanimate and animate things thought, was near to an impossibility, because that would mean a person was a recipient to what a 'soul' thought or felt!  

This amazing talent had helped her great deal but…it was also painfully overwhelming at times. At moments like these, she couldn’t help but wonder - was the pain worth it? The answer was almost always - yes; with exceptions being such moments where there seemed to be no end to these foreign thoughts. But still, she would never trade this magical aspect of herself with anything! 

“Perhaps it became worse," Wei Zhiruo mumbled, “because I changed back into a human?” But in the past when she was a human, there were none of these pervasive thoughts clamoring all day long, right? 

She distractedly thought of when it all changed.

Once upon a time, long long time ago, in ages past and in some distant land, where common men and women dwelt and rejoiced in life, she too had been the daughter of such a common man. And she had nothing but thoughts of a common human. But then, like the fate of a butterfly that must break off its own cocoon to spread its wing, or die stifled in it– she had shed off her human limitations. Since then, that awakening, these thoughts had accompanied her, echoed with her, filled her with themselves and made itself heard and felt – and little by little, with each passing moment, she had encompassed a gap between the capabilities of what was humane.

                                      In your lands, I stood forsaken

                                   Deeply grooved in your barren soils;

                                  With a soul maligned and a throat cut

                                         –with all my voices undone.

“What an enchanting night.” Wei Zhiruo mumbled.  

It was a beautiful night indeed; a nightingale burst into one of the neatest of her songs, and the croaks of frogs appeared to be its accompaniment. Even pale moonlight wound its yarn and stars sparkled with unparalleled brilliance, peering through their mischievous eyes as if alluring their paramours. Even in Wei Zhiruo’s stale eyes, one could peer brilliance, like thousands of scattered fragments had made its home there - settling blue and deep.

A nodding head curled up closer. With knees drawn back, her back curling into a circle, the tiny figure fell into a trembling slumber full of thoughts and dreams, lulled by the gentle swinging of the water ripples.