parentshiftbook Chapter 23 The Mark of the Stele
Chapter 23 The Mark of the Stele
The direction of Tian Shu City still stretches out into the distance.
Shen Chi saw a cluster of houses appear in the valley ahead. Gray tiles, earthen walls, from a distance they looked no different from Qingxi Town.
But there was no smoke rising from the chimneys. Not even a bird chirping.
"stop."
Shi Jian squinted for a while and said, "The Yansheng Pavilion was cleared of its territory. That happened many years ago. They were all moved away overnight."
Shen Chi stared at the houses, gripping his Hundred-Refined Hammer tightly. If he hadn't blocked the Gray Eye that day, would Qingxi Town have become like this?
Upon entering the village, he noticed that every door was open, and the wind blew through, making the doors creak. Some houses had bowls and chopsticks on the tables, the contents dried out and covered in a layer of ash. Shen Chi stood at the doorway, glanced inside, and gently closed the door behind him.
Half a stone tablet stands in an open space in the center of town.
Shen Chi knew what this place had once been. A monument to the people's hearts.
He stared at the broken stone tablet, the bronze seal on his chest feeling slightly warm, but it quickly cooled down—the tablet was dead, no longer responding to any of the promise holders who approached.
A-Zhu stood half a step behind Shen Chi, her eyes also fixed on the broken stone tablet, but her expression was different from Shen Chi's. She was stunned.
"A-Zhu?"
She came to her senses, shook her head, and couldn't say a word.
------
They rested for about 15 minutes. When Shen Chi opened his eyes, he found that A-Zhu was no longer in the corner.
He jumped to his feet and scanned the village—there was no one in sight. His heart leaped into his throat.
"A-Zhu!"
No one answered.
He went around the corner of the wall, ran two steps toward the town center, and then stopped.
Azhu was in the open space. She stood in front of the broken stone tablet, looking down at the remaining stone tablets on the ground. The surface had faint patterns, like the roots of some kind of plant growing into the stone.
Ah Zhu squatted down, reached out, and touched the broken surfaces of the wreckage.
Then she froze. Her fingers dug into the broken surface, her fingertips turning white, and her pupils suddenly dilated, as if she were looking at something very, very far away—not in terms of distance, but in terms of time.
"A-Zhu!"
Shen Chi rushed over and grabbed her shoulder, but she was as taut as a fully drawn bow, and he couldn't pull her back. He saw her lips moving, but no sound came out.
"Shi Jian!"
Shi Jian ran over, placed his hand on A Zhu's wrist, and closed his eyes to sense a few breaths: "She touched something left on the tombstone. These remnants still bear very deep emotional imprints, not completely wiped away. She must have seen that imprint."
Shen Chi looked down at A-Zhu. She wasn't afraid, but her eyes were red.
A tear slid down her cheek and landed on the wreckage.
Then she let go, fell backward, and went limp.
Shen Chi caught her.
------
Ah Zhu was unconscious for half an hour.
Shen Chi placed her against the wall and cushioned the back of her head with his coat. Her breathing was steady, and her expression showed no pain—she was simply asleep.
Shi Jian squatted down beside him, holding a small piece of the wreckage in his hand, examining it for a long time: "The marks on this wreckage may be something that was sealed in when the monument was erected. It may also be someone's last memory left in front of the monument."
"What did she see?"
Shi Jian shook his head: "Only she knows."
Shen Chi looked at A-Zhu. She was curled up, her lips slightly pursed, as if she were having a dream.
------
When Azhu woke up, the sky was already turning west.
She opened her eyes and saw Shen Chi squatting in front of her. She was stunned for a few moments, then sat up on her own.
"Would you like some water?" She nodded. Shen Chi handed her the water pouch, she drank a few sips, and then returned the pouch to him.
There was a moment of silence.
Ah Zhu looked down at her hands and slowly opened her palms.
A new line appeared in his palm. It was very shallow, like it had been lightly drawn with a fingernail—but its shape was clearly discernible. It was winding and extended from the palm to the base of the middle finger, exactly the same line that Shen Chi had seen on the Human Heart Monument.
Shen Chi stared at the mark and thought of the heart imprint on his own chest. A-Zhu's was in his palm, his was in his chest.
"That person..." A-Zhu began, "He was standing on a huge, huge pile of ruins. Everything was broken. Houses were broken, the ground was broken, even the sky was broken."
He was holding a nail.
Shi Jian stroked his box.
"He kept crying." A-Zhu looked up at Shen Chi. "But he wasn't sad—he was... unwilling."
"Don't want what?"
A-Zhu shook her head: "I don't know. But the nail in his hand isn't what he wanted."
Shen Chi remained silent for a long time.
He helped Azhu up: "Let's go."
A-Zhu dusted herself off and followed him for a few steps. Suddenly, she tugged at his sleeve and said, "Brother Shen Chi, that monument... it's crying."
Shen Chi paused in his tracks. "Why is it crying?"
"It has recorded too much information, and no one comes to see it anymore."
After saying this, A-Zhu tucked her patterned hand into her sleeve and followed Shen Chi on their way again.
------
night.
Azhu was already asleep. She was sleeping soundly, with a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth—as if she was dreaming of something not too bad.
Shi Jian glanced at Shen Chi: "She must have awakened some kind of perception. The mark on that piece of rock today has been sealed for at least a thousand years. An ordinary cultivator wouldn't react to it—but she not only reacted, she also saw it."
"Her perception is unique. It's not something at the level of cultivation, but something deeper—it belongs to the same system as the Monument of People's Hearts."
"What system?"
Shi Jian paused for a moment, then uttered a word Shen Chi had never heard before: "commitment perception."
The fire crackled.
"Commitment perception isn't a cultivation method. It's a talent." Shi Jian looked at the fire, as if carefully considering how to put it. "She can feel how heavy a commitment is, how hot it is, what it looks like. Just like she can 'see' your light. This kind of thing can't be taught or trained; you're born with it, or you don't.
Shen Chi recalled what A-Zhu had said before: "Your light is trembling," "His light is black," "That person's light is about to go out"—she had always been able to see these things, but he didn't know what they meant. Now he knew.
"Only she has it?"
"Not necessarily. But among all the people I've met, she's the only one."
Shi Jian added the last piece of firewood to the fire and patted the ash off his hands.
"Such people are mentioned in the ancient books of Tianji Pavilion. Very few, extremely few. Each one is chosen by the Human Heart Stele. What the Human Heart Stele cannot remember, people will remember."
Shen Chi's heart skipped a beat: "What did you choose to do?"
"remember."
Shi Jian glanced at him.
"The monument to people's hearts may be broken, but the promises remain. Someone has to remember them."
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Shen Chi woke up once in the middle of the night.
The fire was still burning. Shi Jian was meditating with his eyes closed, while Mo Huaizhou was sleeping against the rock wall. A Zhu was curled up beside a rock, one hand outstretched, palm open, and by the firelight, one could see the faint lines on it.
Shen Chi looked at her with heartache for a long time. He didn't know what A-Zhu would see or remember in the future. But he knew one thing—no matter what it was, he wouldn't let her remember it alone.
He closed his eyes again.
We'll continue our journey tomorrow.