There were some six of these stones with almost identical Runes drawn over them. These specific stones formed a very conspicuous looking hexagon; each corridor, each chamber abandoned or occupied had these carved stones embedded into its floor. It was so conspicuous that Wei Zhiruo realized that each of them was encircling this pond as its center. This puzzled her more than it answered her questions.

"What is this shape – it tells a story, for sure. There is a law in it, a strange rhythm of sounds. A magnificent piece, but all too artificial. It's hardly any different from a man-made structure, but if so, could the mortals here draw such complex structures and with so many resonating laws in them? Are there really native Rune-makers in this world too? How much more advanced are they from those of the Cuiping world?" Greatly puzzled by this new discovery, she looked at it some more, comparing them to her own original Rune's or to those she had seen in her own world –the Cuiping world.

As her consciousness prodded and touched the small agate-like pieces of stones embedded into the floor, examining them from all sides and grasping their runes so intrinsically carved over yellow texture, she realized that it was actually a [gate] or an [entrance] rune, functioning as a 'opening' to another dimension. After comprehending the meaning of the Runes, the next step was easy. Soon she touched their laws and found an entrance to the Runes fully functioning structure of synthesis, found a breach and entered. 

But the next development was completely out of her expectation. She didn’t enter the proper space led by those stone’s Runes but was instead, stopped in another space interface in the middle of the transit -!

Her spiritual consciousness was cut-off by a strange force, and then she was surrounded in a strange field of energy! The sky was no longer the starry sky, the water was no longer that of a small pond – no, it was much more unfathomable, more ancient and majestic.  

She found herself stranded in an ocean, sitting on a small canoe. The sky was full of swirling majestic Runes and clouds of vibrant hues looking chaotically similar to the cloud swirl of a nebula she had chanced upon in space. Equally vibrant and bursting with energy. The vortices of it looked so powerful, that her mortal body couldn't help perceive its unfathomable power without shirking in quakes of passionate fear. It took great discipline and control from her side, to not just jump out of her skin!

An ancient song seemed to appear out of thin air. Wei Zhiruo hurriedly looked up. The moon was nowhere, the sky a purple firmament. Next, she bent down to look at the water. Her figure  was now completely leaning against the canoe's edges, dangerously leaning forward to face her shadow in the ocean water. It was a mesmerizing ocean of floating star fragments.

These were real star fragments —milky white and burning bright — and they were floating in the ocean like pieces of broken iceberg! But they were hot – actually too hot for the water to hold them without showing any reaction! When she neared some of them, she could feel their heat emanating from far away, yet when she was at a close distance to them, or when she touched them with her hands, she felt nothing. The same happened to the boat. Whenever those fragments touched the boat, they didn’t do any harm to it; almost nothing happened, as if what the boat was wading through was just a sheet of some frozen fragments of icebergs floating in a real world ocean, leaving a clean black trail behind itself as it moved across it. Wei Zhiruo leaned further down to touch the ocean water itself- but she couldn't hold it in her hands however much she tried. The water just slipped right through her hands like a cold liquid,  leaving no wetness on her palms!

Wei Zhiruo was no longer rowing the canoe, but it never stopped moving forward, pushed by the ocean waves. Wei Zhiruo fell back on her bottoms, her ears keenly filling themselves up with that hollow, primeval song. The black of the water, the white of the star and the purple of the sky – no words could ever claim to capture their grace, their magnanimity, the resounding majesty of nature, and what appeared in front of her eyes!

The song though - was strange, yet familiar.

You yourself might have heard its soft edges, its trebles and falls, its gratified rise and twisted maneuverings of passion, or encapsulated its emotions and its headiness in your reason. Yet, for unknown reasons, when tracing it back to its origin or from where it frothed, you'd have found its rhythm fading away and it appearing hollow like a carved flute. Emerging from the deepest, darkest corners of soul, yet so shallow and so flimsy as if it were made of a whim, or dream woven. So intangible that it seemed worthless to ponder over them. So, most people enraptured in such a euphoric melody seldom care for reason for their being even there. For one, Wei Zhiruo hadn’t. In her case, her calm originated from her nagging doubt that it was just what she had read about - a piece of newborn world singing.

"Bright." Wei Zhiruo echoed suddenly, her mind finally easing a little.

That song swelled up in her mind, replacing her thoughts and fear of the unknown; her lips urged her to burst into them. A tune so, so mellow. Something familiar yet unfamiliar. But unconsciously, she restrained. She mumbled, hummed along that thrumming throbbing pulse in her red-blood and fed it back to heaven and her loosened thoughts. Unnoticeably, some strange runes started flickering in her blue eyes, the color of which lightened a degree, becoming an icy blue.

Ah, how she remembered.

「" There is a fond tale amongst travelers of the sky – that when it is night and right time, when the wheels of fate have just attuned to rhythm of the sky, when two realms overlap – in between them they synergize, they marvel and open up a space of their own, a space so volatile, so turbulent that no one dreams of staying longer than needed. But this space is a marvelous invention of true nature, a play of rules and heaven's grace. If luck accords you a chance to travel therein, you must beware of its enchantments, it’s ensnaring – but also, stop a while, settle down and glimpse. Here the marvels of nature collude in a mystery, and here it sings a melody of order, primeval order and of life itself. If you capture those – you will be born anew." 」

Ages ago, she forgot most of the struggle of her life, but not the little pleasures she stole in her father's library. It was in one of its oddest-looking books she had found that passage.

At that time, her clan hadn’t been exterminated and she still hadn’t traveled up into space to flee to the Middle World, or gone on any of her adventures. In fact, it was way before her Awakening into a being, much, much different from a human, from herself of the past — a true blooded member of the blood-clan.

She forgot its title, but it was tucked in her memories as fresh as the rain of the day. Because it talked of strange lands and strange events – it was no more than a book of fantasy to her. But no, look! Here she was in that fantastical notion of her childhood! That five-year-old girl would have been so pleased after finding that, unknown to her, in some lands there did exist an enchanting reality, matching those fantastical tales she had read about.

Yes, a fleeting dream, or fantasies should be transient. Washed off by the next wave of the ocean called reality. But it just doesn't sound pleasant enough. And for her, whose fate had never ebbed to set or froth at its edges – reality was always the bitterest bite to her - fantasies of strange worlds had always been a constant numbing medicine. It lulled her aching heart to sleep. When fate left her to grapple with the deepest, darkest secrets all at once, she could always cut herself away by remembering one of these ‘strange tales’. 

Her...blood-seed had always had its own thoughts about things, and he liked to read things and people around her. With his help she too had found several ‘enchanting’ books and scrolls. 

Especially since she shed her human layers, it was more overwhelming than ever as her abilities surfaced and took over her life like a storm and there was no moment to breathe in peace and quiet. And in those moments of reorienting herself to her new identity, there too, books had helped her a lot. In the middle of a strange world full of ‘thoughts’ she was acquainted with even stranger creations in the book.

What was the bird feeling today, and what did the westerly wind convey? Did the blade of grass like the warm sunlight, or the cloud humming a strange rhythm sounded full of life, or particularly sated today? She was full of their wandering ‘thoughts’. What was left of her own musing was how to chase a decent ‘stream of thought’ and stick to it, to appear normal in front of others. It was hard enough to hide all her abnormalities from others' peering eyes, on top of that she also had to hide the existence of her blood-seed. In those chaotic days of struggling to stay afloat, some tales were her spiritual sustenance. Having them affirmed felt strangely fulfilling - as if she had succeeded in entering her own kind of world.

She wasn’t portraying her abilities as ‘evil’ or a source of all her pain. No, they weren’t that at all! She had learned many, many things from them which she could never in any book of the world. All she had always been lacking was just restraint…or a way to reign them in to quieten them down.

With so much surveillance and constant disregard of her own opinions, all her childhood she was never given a chance to study restraint, or find if such restraining techniques even existed. Later, the clansmen all died– her sole purpose thereon became revenge. For it she fled her birth world, found refuge in a foreign world and spent all her time studying, fighting, and struggling to survive under completely foreign rules. Learning restraint? How could she spare time for that?