But how could that be? Struck by the Tribulation Lightning, how could he not die?

Mo Hua frowned. Relying on his keen intuition for cause and effect, he immediately had a guess:

“Unless this Master Tu has more than one life.”

Mo Hua’s heart trembled slightly. Master Tu, as a great figure…

The wind swept over Zhongnan Mountain, and the snow had turned into a thin layer of frost, covering the eaves and grass tips. The first rays of morning light broke through, like fine gauze draped over the earth. The short flute lay quietly in the deaf-mute girl’s palm, its golden glow gradually fading, like a star spark that had burned all night and returned to silence. She gazed at it, her fingertips gently caressing the edge of the flute hole. Suddenly, a melody resonated in her heart—not heard, but naturally welling up from the depths of her organs, like the rushing sound of blood in veins.

The old lecturer looked at her, his gaze gentle and profound. He knew that this flute was no longer just a musical instrument; it was the “Heart Catalyst” forged from the soul of the first Watcher three hundred years ago, capable of awakening the spirit of words slumbering in the hearts of all beings. Now, the contract was complete, the wielder of the flute had changed. Its owner was no longer the white-haired old man who had spent his life guarding the silent truth, but this girl who had never spoken a word, yet understood the echoes of heaven and earth earlier than anyone else.

She raised her hand and slowly signed: Teacher, I’m afraid.

The old man shook his head, gently stroked the wisps of hair on her forehead, and signed back: It’s not you writing; it’s your heart writing. You are just letting it flow out.

No sooner had he finished speaking than a faint glimmer flashed outside the window. A black butterfly fluttered from afar, its wings adorned with intricate script. It circled the house three times, finally resting on the tip of the short flute. In an instant, the flute’s body glowed with golden patterns again. A delicate thread of light shot from the flute hole, pointing towards the sky, connecting with the lingering shadow of the light bridge that had vanished last night.

At the same time, in the Mo Bamboo Forest of Nanling, newly grown bamboo nodes split open, and jade slips flew out, arranging themselves into a formation in the air, automatically forming a complete scripture, “Heart Voice Record, Volume One.” Its opening sentence boldly stated:

“Words are drawings of the heart, characters are roots of life; those without sincerity have no name, those without will have no voice.”

By the Huangquan Well in Xiyu, the petrified black flute pillar began to rotate slowly, its inscriptions shifting from still to moving, and millions of wishes surged like tides. Whenever someone approached and recited, the stone pillar resonated, the ground trembled, and underground spiritual veins responded, actually giving rise to patches of new oases. There were even legends that if one knelt before the pillar on a full moon night and silently articulated a wish, a black lotus would emerge from the sand the next morning, its petals concealing a line of small script—the very wish that person had never spoken aloud.

The massive banner on the Ten Thousand People’s Vow Wall in Jingcheng continued its tour across the Five Continents. Wherever it went, old systems crumbled. Those術士 (shùshì) families who had profited by altering fate books discovered with horror that their ancestral cinnabar brushes suddenly dried up, and talisman papers no longer showed spiritual power when burned. Instead, blood characters appeared: “Deceivers, their pens shall be broken.” Meanwhile, private schools, village schools, and mountain academies in the common folk reported strange phenomena: poems inexplicably appeared on walls, children learned obscure characters in their dreams, and even blind people woke up able to recite the entire “Thousand Character Classic,” claiming, “Someone taught me at night.”

All of this was due to the three Qingyu Wu Yu Pens that flew into people’s brow centers.

On Wuyin Cliff, the Watchtower Hall still floated in the clouds, but it was uninhabited. The giant brush stood still on the hall’s roof. Although its seven threads of light had turned golden, they no longer connected to the stars but descended to the human world, each pointing to the location of one of the three new wielders.

The first, the Jiang family woman, returned to her hometown and opened the “Heart Voice Lecture Hall.” She did not teach imperial examination essays, but only how to write one’s true thoughts. At first, no one understood, until a farm woman tearfully wrote, “I want my son to live,” and that night her child, critically ill with a high fever, miraculously recovered. The news spread, and people flocked there, scrambling for charcoal sticks and scrap paper, just to write down the words they had suppressed in their hearts for decades. These words were collected and pasted all over the lecture hall’s walls. In the quiet of the night, the entire house would glow faintly, like a lighthouse in the human world.

The second, the disciples of Duo Yun宗 (Zōng), did not return to the orthodox path of cultivation. He trekked through the Northern Wilderness, searching for orphans who had been decreed “died young,” “poor and lowly,” or “afflicted by disaster” by fate books. He removed the iron rings inscribed with their Eight Characters from their necks one by one. For each person he freed, he used his fingernail to write the character “我” (wǒ, “I”) on their forehead and whispered, “Your fate is now your own.” More and more abandoned children followed him, forming a silent yet determined team. Some called them bandits in troubled times, but those who had seen them said it was an “awakening journey of fate.”

The third was the deaf-mute girl at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain.

She did not leave, nor did she immediately embark on her journey. She simply sat by the hearth every day, writing characters in the air with her fingers, over and over again. The old lecturer understood what she was practicing: the entire lyrics of “Gui Qu Lai.” Although she could not speak, her heart was singing. Every syllable transformed into invisible words, drifting out the window, merging into the air, seeping into the earth.

On the morning of the seventh day, she suddenly rose and walked towards the plum tree in the courtyard, which had been dead for many years. She pressed the short flute against the tree trunk and closed her eyes for a long time. A moment later, the bark cracked, tender shoots emerged, and the first flower bloomed—its petals black as ink, its pistil golden, emitting a faint fragrance. What was even more peculiar was that after the petals fell, they did not decay but transformed into tiny jade tablets, on which wishes in different languages appeared:

“I want to go home.”
“I don’t want to lie anymore.”
“Please forgive me.”
“I loved you, but I didn’t say it.”

The old lecturer picked up a piece, his eyes welling up with tears. He knew this was the “Heart Voice Flower,” the legendary flower of life that only the flute wielder could awaken, each one a soul’s deepest confession.

Just then, a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky.

The Twelve Stars shone brightly again, but this time, the starlight did not scatter across the earth. Instead, it converged into a逆流之河 (nìliú zhī hé, reverse-flowing river), pouring down from the sky towards the Guizhen Hall in the East Sea. The sea churned violently, and layers of talisman arrays appeared outside the crystal palace, as if welcoming some kind of arrival.

The fisherman girl stood by the shore, tightly clutching the Qingyu Wu Yu Pen that belonged to her. Since becoming the eleventh Watcher, she had not yet truly put pen to paper. Because she knew that the first stroke meant officially inheriting a three-hundred-year mission—not just to record, but to reshape.

She looked down at the beach, the sentences written by seashells had been carried away by the tide. She crouched down, picked up a sharp reef, and redrew three characters in the wet sand:

Who am I?

Before the characters were complete, the seawater receded a hundred zhang, and nine chimes echoed from the seabed. The gates of Guizhen Hall slowly opened. The altar inside automatically moved to the entrance, the ink in the inkstone boiled, and the pen tip trembled slightly, as if urging her.

She took a deep breath, dipped the pen in ink.

The first stroke fell, the sand trembled, and all the children in Qizhi Continent looked up simultaneously, their charcoal sticks uncontrollably writing the same characters;

The second stroke fell, the stone pillar in Xiyu cracked open with a rumble, and countless specks of light flew out, scattering in all directions;

The third stroke fell, the bamboo forest in Nanling collectively swayed, and all the “Heart Voice Record” jade slips floated up and rearranged themselves, forming a map marking the locations of one hundred thousand people who had written “I am willing.”

This stroke was called “Qicheng” (启承,启 – initiate, 承 – inherit/undertake).

Meanwhile, on Zhongnan Mountain, the deaf-mute girl suddenly opened her eyes, and the short flute in her hand emitted a clear, prolonged鸣 (míng, sound), as if responding to a call from a thousand li away. She stood up, looked eastward, and signed to her teacher:

I want to write too.

The old man smiled and nodded, then turned to take out a long-sealed wooden box. When opened, it contained a brush that was entirely black with a silver tip. Two ancient seal characters were engraved on the brush handle:

“This is your pen,” he said. “It’s not a bestowal; the path you forged yourself chose it.”

The girl took the pen. The moment she touched it, rivers seemed to surge within her. She knelt on the ground, facing the hearth fire, using her finger as a guide to write in the air. As soon as the first character formed, the flames twisted and deformed, transforming into a leaping human figure—that was her last memory before losing her voice in childhood: her mother holding her, running amidst the flames of war, shouting, “Live on!”

Tears streamed down, and the second character appeared: 愿 (yuàn, wish/desire).

The third character appeared: 好 (hǎo, good).

The three characters formed a silent vow. The firelight suddenly surged, breaking through the roof and soaring into the clouds. At the same time, the other two wielders also sensed something, each stopping their writing and looking up.

Though separated by thousands of li, their hearts resonated at the same moment.

They understood that the true “Array of Longevity” was not sustained by one person’s power, but by a spiritual barrier collectively built by tens of thousands of “I am willing.” As long as someone dared to face their inner self and write the truth, the array would not collapse.

Several days later, Guiming Academy held a special ceremony.

One hundred thousand students gathered in the square, standing solemnly around the Wordless Stele. The dean ascended the platform and announced three new regulations:

One, abolish “Fate Evaluation.” From now on, anyone who enrolls, regardless of origin, aptitude, or past, will take “What do I wish for?” as the entrance examination.

Two, establish the “Heart Voice Gallery,” open one day each month, allowing anyone to come and write down secrets, regrets, or dreams. The writings will be sealed in an underground palace and only opened after a hundred years.

Three, reconstruct the “Watchtower Department,” to be remotely led by the three new wielders. “Lamp Bearers” will be stationed in various regions, responsible for collecting popular sentiments and transmitting them to the central hub on Wuyin Cliff.

As the ceremony concluded, a star shower descended again from the sky, and ink blossoms bloomed across the fields. One particular blossom was exceptionally large, blooming on the highest pine branch of the academy. Within its heart were written three names:

Mo Gui, Jiang Zhiyi, Xiao Duanzhang

These were the true names of the three wielders.

Only then did people realize that the long-missing traitor of Duo Yun宗 was named Xiao Duanzhang, and the Jiang family woman’s true name was Jiang Zhiyi. As for “Mo Gui,” according to ancient records, it was the pseudonym of the first wielder three hundred years ago. Could that deaf-mute girl actually be his soul reincarnated?

No one pressed for answers. For at this moment, no confirmation was needed.

That night, on the snowfields of Qizhi Continent, the female teacher put away her slate and softly asked the children, “Today we learned ‘Who am I?’ Tomorrow, what shall we learn?”

A boy raised his charcoal stick and loudly said, “Teacher, I want to learn how to write ‘I want to change!'”

Everyone laughed, and the bonfire crackled.

And in the distant depths of the East Sea, within Guizhen Hall, the fisherman girl finally completed her first essay. The entire piece contained only one sentence, yet it took her a full seven days:

“From now on, I will no longer wait for others to tell me who I should be; I will write myself, stroke by stroke.”

As the essay was completed, the entire crystal palace shone with brilliant light. The relics of past Watchers, slumbering in the deep sea, awakened: broken brush handles reassembled, faded fate books restored, broken flute tubes rejoined. They transformed into a stream of light, circling the girl three times, finally merging into the Qingyu Wu Yu Pen in her hand.

The inscription on the pen body quietly changed, a new line of small characters added:

“Eleventh Wielder, Lin Wanzhou.”

It turned out her name had always been hidden in the depths of fate.

In the small house on Zhongnan Mountain, there was a sleepless night.

The deaf-mute girl used the “Heart-Questioning Pen” to write in the air all night. The characters remained, circling like dragons. The old lecturer watched quietly, then suddenly noticed that the characters were absorbing the lingering warmth of the hearth fire, gradually solidifying into a thin silk scroll. By dawn, a painting appeared on the silk: vast mountains and rivers, common people holding pens, children learning characters, prisoners repenting, old soldiers returning home, orphaned girls holding lanterns—every scene depicted the most simple wishes of the human world.

She signed to her teacher: This is the future I saw.

The old man tremblingly caressed the painting, murmuring, “Good, it’s truly good.”

That afternoon, he peacefully passed away in meditation, a smile on his face, still holding the short flute that had played sad songs for three hundred years. The last wisp of golden light on the flute’s body dissipated, turning into dust in the wind, scattering across the four seas.

Three years later, a new custom emerged across the Five Continents: on New Year’s Eve, families no longer pasted spring couplets. Instead, the youngest child in the family would take a pen and write the sentence they most wished to achieve in the coming year above the doorframe. Regardless of whether they could write or even if it was just a doodle, it was considered the “First Wish of the New Year.”

It is said that on that night, the starlight between heaven and earth was the brightest.

At the ruins of Wuyin Cliff, an open-air academy was built. There were no walls, no thresholds, only three thousand stone tables neatly arranged, each with an inkstone and a brush, for passersby to use freely. In the center of the stone tables stood a stele, inscribed on the front with:

Characters are fate, brushes are power, the heart is the Dao.

On the back were four large characters:

Array Asks for Longevity.

Whenever the night wind blew, the three thousand brushes gently swayed, making a faint clinking sound, like a whisper, or perhaps a chant.

Many years later, a white-haired old woman came to this place. She was one of the hundred thousand participants who had signed up for the “Heart Lantern Gathering” that year. Although not chosen, she had always insisted on writing a diary every day. She sat at a stone table, opened her yellowed notebook, and wrote the last line:

“I lived, I spoke, I wrote. This life is enough.”

The moment she closed the notebook, an ink blossom quietly bloomed at her feet, and two characters appeared in its heart:

Longevity.

The wind rose, paper pages fluttered, falling into the stream, and flowing away with the current.

After an unknown period, in a mountain village primary school, a little girl picked up that page. She didn’t recognize the characters on it, but she found them beautiful, so she imitated and traced them.

She didn’t know that what she was writing was the beginning of “longevity.”

As long as someone is willing to pick up a pen,
As long as someone has words in their heart to say,
As long as one soul refuses to be silent,
It continues.