Mo Hua trembled for a long time, letting out a long sigh in his heart.

Those who peered into the secrets of heaven were doing things to steal the Dao of Heaven for their own private gain, even going so far as to fuel widespread suffering among living beings.

Are these the chess players? Is this how the secrets of heaven are used? The taste in Mo Hua’s heart was complex and difficult to describe…

The Hall of Ultimate End was not on the human緯度 (wěidù), but suspended at the end of a temporal rift, revealing its true form only at the moment of “Shuang Yue Tong Tian” (Double Moons in the Sky). When Mo Gui arrived at Nanling Wuyin Ya (Misty Cliff of Southern Ridge), it was precisely the turn of the new and full moons, with a blood moon and a silver moon side by side in the firmament, their brilliance like eyes, gazing down upon all living beings.

The mountain path had long since crumbled, with broken steles and shattered stone tablets scattered amidst the sea of clouds. Each stone was carved with half a maxim, which, when put together, still formed no complete meaning. He ascended step by step; beneath his feet were not rocks, but solidified memories. One segment was of his childhood, chasing butterflies into the forest; another, his mother’s lullaby; yet another, Xuan Zhao’s last tear of blood falling into the yellow sand as he died. These memories did not belong to him at this moment, yet they had truly existed, like discarded drafts from a long scroll, silently surfacing in the land of ultimate end.

When he finally stood before the hall’s gate, the sight before him left heaven and earth speechless.

The Hall of Ultimate End was not built of bricks and stones, but was entwined from countless broken threads of destiny, black as charcoal, twisted like snakes, piled layer upon layer into a gigantic structure a thousand zhang high. The gateway was frameless, marked only by a裂口 (lièkǒu), its interior deep and dark, as if it had swallowed all light and sound. The fractured jade pressed against his chest vibrated violently, and the seven whispers ceased their chanting for the first time, transforming instead into a long sigh.

“You have come.” The voice of the suyi ren (plain-clothed person) sounded again, but not from the void; it emanated from within Mo Gui. The dark-gold key, sunken into his dan tian, pulsed slightly, as if it had gained a heartbeat.

Mo Gui closed his eyes, not answering.

He knew this battle was no longer a struggle against external enemies, but a final game between inner demons, destiny, and the self.

He stepped into the hall.

In an instant, the world turned upside down.

Under his feet was no longer ground, but pages of tattered scrolls suspended in the void, their yellowed paper fluttering in the wind, covered with possibilities he had never experienced in his life: chapters of him marrying, having children, and living peacefully in the countryside; records of him betraying the long scroll and joining the black-robed forces; and even an ending where he personally burned the fractured jade and severed reincarnation. Each line of text flickered, like living things attempting to bore into his eyes and rewrite his will.

“This is the ‘Path Not Taken’,” the suyi ren’s voice echoed. “Behind every choice are millions of possibilities for abandonment. What you see now are the projections of your fate had you chosen other paths.”

Mo Gui walked among them, his gaze calm.

He had once feared getting lost, but now understood: no matter which path he took, as long as he remembered why he started, he was not truly lost.

Suddenly, the pages ahead condensed into a human form—the Seventh Watcher appeared.

She was neither a shadow double nor an illusion, but her true body: a withered skeleton seated in the void, draped in a dilapidated white robe, wearing a broken crown, with all ten fingers severed, save for her right index finger pointing straight at the firmament. At its tip hung the last key—completely transparent, shaped like a hollow pen tube, floating silently.

“Come,” the withered skeleton spoke, her voice like grinding sand. “Take it, or be taken by it.”

Mo Gui stepped forward slowly. “Why can your true body remain?”

“Because I refused to write,” the withered skeleton slowly raised her head, two points of eerie blue flame burning in her hollow eye sockets. “After the Sixth, rules became ironclad, but I refused to believe in fate. I tore up my own destiny, hid my soul in the rift of ultimate end, preferring eternal non-reincarnation to becoming a puppet wielding a pen.”

“Then why did you still leave the key?”

“Because hope remains,” the flames flickered. “I cannot break the chains, but I can wait for someone not afraid to burn themselves out. You have walked the path of the eleven stars, endured the pain of oblivion, witnessed the blade of truth. Do you dare face the last question?”

Mo Gui nodded.

The withered skeleton raised her broken arm, pointing to his chest. “When you ignite the twelfth star, and the long scroll restarts, you will become the scribe of the new era. But the price is that you must personally write the destinies of everyone, including those you hate most and the souls you love most. Can you do it?”

The air solidified.

Mo Gui’s mind flashed with his mother’s face, the smile of the neighborhood girl releasing fireflies, the hot porridge offered by the old monk, the tender regret in the eyes of the woman from the ice abyss… None of them became Watchers, yet they taught him what warmth was through their ordinary lives.

“If I write their destinies…” he asked in a low voice, “can I still let them choose freely?”

“No,” the withered skeleton answered directly. “The scribe is the rule itself. Once you put pen to paper, all is set. If you write ‘he lives eighty years,’ he cannot die early; if you write ‘she marries a mortal,’ she has no chance at immortal cultivation. This is not a blessing, but a cage.”

Mo Gui was silent for a long time.

Then he smiled.

“So, true eternal life has never been about living long, but about living freely.”

He reached out, not for the transparent key, but grasped the fractured jade on his chest.

“I will not be the new scribe.”

As his words fell, the fractured jade exploded with a crash!

As the fragments scattered, the seven whispers chanted in unison, no longer a mournful hum, but loud as bells:

“The scribe walks, a solitary lamp illuminates the path of fate.
One thought ignites, and eternity becomes naught.
If one asks where eternal life is found,
The heart’s fire unextinguished, that is the way home!”

With the singing, seven keys emerged one by one from his body—from the bronze key first integrated into his bloodline, to the finally awakened transparent pen tube—circling him in sequence, forming a rotating light array. Each key reflected a segment of erased memory: the warmth of his mother’s hand by her sickbed, the shyness of his first out-of-tune flute playing, the night he dreamt of flying while hiding from rain in a dilapidated temple…

They no longer disappeared, but were re-accepted.

“You want to destroy the long scroll?” the suyi ren exclaimed in anger. “Then you will also be annihilated! Your name, your existence, every step you have taken, will turn into nothingness!”

“I know,” Mo Gui said softly, gazing at the nameless book floating in the sea of nothingness. “But if even the right to choose is predetermined, then what in this world is worth eternal life?”

He clasped his hands together, merging the seven keys into a single burning pen.

The pen tip was dipped in his blood, his memories, and the heart’s fire that had never extinguished along his journey.

He leaped into the sea of nothingness, charging towards the nameless book.

“I use my soul as ink, my life as paper. Today, I write no one’s destiny, only one sentence: From now on, all beings shall write their own fates!”

The moment the pen fell, heaven and earth disintegrated.

The long scroll burned, golden flames spreading to the end of the universe. The threads of destiny that had been bound snapped one after another, falling to the human world like a meteor shower. Some awoke suddenly from dreams, realizing they shouldn’t have died young; children cried as they were born, yet no book of destiny descended upon them; the cultivation world’s divination arrays failed overnight, and diviners wept on their knees, declaring “Tian Ji (heavenly secrets) are in chaos.”

And Mo Gui’s figure gradually faded in the fire.

He saw his mother standing in the village entrance amidst cooking smoke, smiling and waving to him; he saw the neighborhood girl carrying a lantern, looking for him to come home; he saw the old monk sitting before the temple, still offering a bowl of hot noodles.

“Niang (Mother)…” he murmured, “I’m home.”

Tears streamed down, evaporating into light before touching his cheeks.

In the last instant, he heard the suyi ren’s whisper, filled with relief and respect:

“It turns out, the true Watcher is not one who guards a predetermined fate, but one who wins unknown possibilities for everyone.”

The flames consumed him.

The Hall of Ultimate End collapsed, turning into dust, scattered by the wind.

Eleven stars extinguished one by one, only the twelfth star quietly lit up, suspended at the heart of the sky, neither dazzling nor contending, silently illuminating this land that had finally gained freedom.

A hundred years later, in a fishing village in Donghai (East Sea), a child asked his grandfather, “Are there really Watchers in the world?”

The old man smoked his pipe, squinting at the sky. “There was one. He said everyone could decide their own fate.”

“Then where did he go?”

“No one knows.” The old man smiled. “Some say he died, some say he became the wind, some say he hides in everyone’s pen tips—as long as someone dares to write ‘who I want to be,’ he hasn’t truly left.”

The night wind blew, and the bronze bells under the eaves gently chimed.

As if someone far away was softly playing a broken flute tune.

The tune was called “Gui Qu Lai” (Returning Home).

Though out of tune, it never ceased.

The moment the fractured jade shattered, time seemed to freeze. Seven keys floated around Mo Gui, like stars encircling his wheel of fate, each reflecting fragments of his erased memories: his mother’s unspoken “come home” before her death, the character “Gui” carved at the bottom of the bowl when the old monk in the dilapidated temple offered hot porridge, the children’s rhyme the neighborhood girl hummed softly on the night she released fireflies… These forgotten warmths, at this moment, all returned on the eve of destruction.

He smiled.

It turned out the true price was not losing memory, but finally remembering everything, yet still choosing to let go.

The transparent key slowly drifted down, merging into his palm, transforming into an inkless pen. The pen shaft was neither gold nor jade, but woven from countless broken threads of destiny, faintly glowing with a bloody light—that was the unfulfilled resentment and obsession of generations of Watchers.

“Are you really going to burn it?” The suyi ren’s voice came from all directions, with an unprecedented tremor. “Once the long scroll is annihilated and the rules collapse, heaven and earth will fall into chaos. The strong can slaughter cities and seize fortunes, the weak will have no protection, reincarnation will be severed, and souls will scatter… Have you considered these consequences?”

“I have,” Mo Gui looked up, his gaze piercing through the sea of nothingness. “But I have considered even more that if even the right to choose good and evil is taken away, then so-called order is merely an exquisite cage. I would rather the world be chaotic for ten years than for all beings to kneel for a thousand years.”

As his words fell, the pen tip ignited with an eerie blue flame.

This was not ordinary fire, nor was it formed from true essence, but “heart fire”—the flame of life ignited by belief, regret, love, and solitary courage. It burned not others, but only himself.

Mo Gui waved the pen, drawing the first mark in the air.

It was not a talisman array, nor an incantation, but the simplest character: “Ren” (人, human).

But at this instant, the entire sea of nothingness violently vibrated! The long scroll suddenly flipped, self-writing in retaliation. Countless dark figures crawled out from its pages, all past “defiers of fate” who had been erased: sons with immortal roots who refused cultivation and chose to be farmers, astrologers who altered Tian Ji to save common folk, and mad Taoists who tried to burn the book of fate but were consumed by it into ash… Their faces twisted, they all roared in unison: “Stop! You are the next slave!”

Mo Gui did not move.

The pen stroke turned, writing the second character: “Sheng” (生, birth/life).

The two characters combined: “Ren Sheng” (人生, human life).

In an instant, thousands of threads of destiny vibrated continuously, as if sensing something. The red threads that had been tightly wound around the heads of mortals began to loosen. Some woke suddenly from their sleep, finding they could freely choose their direction for tomorrow; the spirit-testing steles of cultivation sects failed overnight, no longer able to predict disciples’ futures; even the River Wangchuan (River of Oblivion) by the banks of Jiuyou Huangquan (Nine Netherworld Underworld) rippled, and a few lingering souls that should have dissipated slowly condensed, opening their eyes.

The long scroll roared in anger.

The entire book soared into the air, transforming into a thousand-zhang beast, with a dragon’s head and a snake’s body, entirely composed of densely packed characters. Each scale was a predetermined fate. It opened its mouth and roared, spewing forth the wind of decrees, where it swept, all things returned to order, and time flowed backward!

Mo Gui was flung dozens of zhang away, his left arm instantly broken, blood splattering across the void.

But he still did not stop writing.

With broken bones protruding from his flesh, he gripped the burning pen tightly with his left hand, continuing to write the third character: “Zi” (自, self).

The fourth character: “Zhu” (主, master/owner).

The fifth character: “You” (由, freedom).

The five characters formed a sentence: “Ren Sheng Lai Zi You” (人生来自由, Human beings are born free).

When the pen fell, heaven and earth were silent.

The long scroll beast let out a piercing wail, its body cracking inch by inch. The characters that formed it detached one after another, falling like withered leaves. Some turned to dust, others rooted into the ground, becoming nameless stone steles scattered across the human world. Anyone who touched them would have a strange memory surface in their mind, either sorrowful or joyful, none of their own experiences, yet felt with empathy.

The suyi ren appeared in the center of the ruins, his figure already semi-transparent.

“You won,” he whispered, his tone no longer cold, but filled with relief. “I waited a thousand years just to see this moment. I was not your guide, nor your enemy… I was the first who wanted to resist, but I failed. And you, you completed the path I couldn’t finish.”

Mo Gui gasped for breath, most of his bones shattered, his internal organs burning.

“Then who… are you now?”

“I am regret,” the suyi ren smiled. “And hope. When someone walks this path again, I will be reborn in a new form—perhaps as wind, perhaps as a dream, or perhaps just a crooked oath from a child’s pen.”

His figure gradually faded, his last words carried by the wind:

“Remember, true eternal life is not in the book, but in the heart of the one who writes the book.”

Mo Gui knelt amidst the ruins, the pen in his hand also turning to ash.

He knew his time was short.

Though the long scroll was destroyed, the world would not immediately become clear. Where old order collapses, new hegemonies will surely rise; the advent of freedom is often accompanied by confusion and chaos. But he had planted a seed—as long as someone dared to ask “Why is it so?” and dared to write “What do I want to do?”, that spark of heart fire would never extinguish.

He looked up at the sky.

The twelfth star had already lit up, its light gentle, like the dawn of early spring.

The eleven stars extinguished, leaving only this one star, not illuminating emperors’ halls, nor shining upon immortal mountains, but casting its light upon fields and villages, fishing boats and woodcutters’ paths, illuminating every ordinary person’s moment of looking up.

Mo Gui closed his eyes.

As his consciousness gradually blurred, he seemed to hear the sound of a flute from afar.

Intermittent, out of tune, yet it was the last part of “Gui Qu Lai.”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he whispered, “Niang, I’m done writing.”

His body transformed into tiny specks of light, scattering with the wind, merging into the earth, mountains, and rivers.

No tomb, no need for offerings.

A hundred years later, a charred and mottled remnant scroll was unearthed in Shazhou, Xiyu (Western Regions), bearing blurred characters:

“My name is Mo Gui, I walked by the Spring of Yellow Springs, and sought the Dao among the stars.
I seek not long life or eternal sight, only that all people may write their own destinies.
If there is a next life, please let me be born into an ordinary family, to hear the fireflies whisper one night, and call out for peace every year.”

No one knew if it was true or false.

Only every Qingming Festival, when children in Jiangnan release sky lanterns to make wishes, there is always one river lantern that floats the farthest, with two small characters written on it: “Gui Lu” (归路, Path Home).