The broken world

Autumn lingered, reluctant to yield to winter, as if the seasons themselves hesitated in Shinju. The kind of snow-blanketed winters Gerel had known in the west and north seemed absent here. Rain fell incessantly, day after day. Each morning, the garden lay shrouded in a damp, bone-chilling mist, curling between the blackened trunks of the trees. The perpetually clouded sky made twilight seem to come early, and the lanterns cast their pale glow through a greenish haze of moisture, dim and subdued, like light refracted from the depths of a river. Custom dictated that when officials and nobles moved to a new post, they brought their servants along — it was safer that way. In unfamiliar, often hostile, territory, surrounding oneself with loyal and familiar faces was prudent. Gerel had done the same, bringing a retinue of ten servants from Cheongju. But his new residence was no mere estate; it was the imperial palace itself. Filling such a place with loyalists would have been impossible even if he'd tried. Instead, it teemed with Ryukoku locals who loathed him. He could have dismissed them all, of course. He hardly needed them — or even his own servants, if it came to that. But these people had lived in the palace far longer than he had, and he felt no right to drive them from their home. The unending rains saturated the air inside the palace with oppressive humidity. It soaked into the very walls, turning wood to rot, destroying books, and summoning intricate blossoms of mold to life on every surface. At times, Gerel felt as if the palace were submerged, its halls an undersea realm where they all lived miraculously alive, breathing water instead of air. He imagined schools of fish drifting lazily past the windows, and it struck him as odd that the courtiers hadn't grown tails to help them glide through this damp labyrinth. Along with the dampness, the air swam with unspoken animosity — a silent, brooding hatred between the palace's original inhabitants and their new overlords. Gerel poured every ounce of effort into reconciling the two sides. He strove to restore the workings of the palace, the city’s services, and the bureaucratic machinery of governance. While appointing some Cheongju men to key positions, he left many roles in the hands of local officials. He had no desire to rule as a senseless tyrant, trampling over the people of Ryukoku. Respecting the locals — at least superficially — seemed the only way to foster dialogue and, perhaps, eventual progress. But progress and reform were distant dreams. For now, he focused on restoring a semblance of what had been. His plans were many, his strength far less. The city drained him. Days blurred into one another, vanishing like raindrops into the earth. Each evening, he promised himself that tomorrow he would act — but his promises remained hollow.   Everything in the palace reminded him of that autumn, one year ago. The objects, the books, the omnipresent dragon motifs etched into every artifact. The faces and robes of the courtiers. The paper lanterns. The distant sound of an erhu. Maple leaves, scattered like scarlet ghosts on the stream’s bottom. “Snow falls upon my grave — winter has come. But over your home, rain still pours, leaves still circle —  week after week, month after month...” The old men playing board games at tiny tables in the city’s alleys reminded him of Mist and Clouds. Even the tea evoked memories of Yukinari — he still remembered precisely which teas his friend preferred. He sifted through the jagged shards of memory, revisiting over and over the roads not taken. His mind conjured vivid images of how life might have unfolded had he chosen differently—if he had heeded Yukinari’s call. Memory handed him, with cruel precision, every moment he could have changed his fate. If he had agreed to serve him that night in the garden by the dragon pond… If he had ridden ahead of his men after the battle at the Setagawa River, reaching the abandoned imperial villa to warn him in time… Even during their final meeting in The Claw, it hadn’t been too late. Gerel had held enough influence then. If he had been cold and calculating, he might have staged a coup and killed Tokhung. But his mind had been a storm, chaos reigning supreme. And then there were Yukinari’s words from their chance meeting in the lower city market: “Let’s leave for Yuigui. Then this war won’t touch us.” Like a hand, outstretched in hopeless pleading. Hopeless, because Yukinari, of course, had known it could never happen. Gerel cursed himself for being unable to break free from this sick cycle, for his obsession with the past. He could not sleep. Though he blamed the rain rattling against the windows or the damp chill, he suspected the true culprits were wine and his unquiet soul. Each night, he whispered to Yukinari’s ghost the words he had never spoken aloud. He imagined how Yukinari would reply, how together they might have ended this damn war, leaning over maps and papers, planning side by side. Sometimes he spent entire nights weaving intricate stories in his mind, begging for forgiveness. Only as dawn approached, exhausted, would he succumb to sleep — and for a fleeting moment, just before consciousness faded, he felt forgiven. For that instant, everything seemed right.   The palace was not just damp; it was bitterly cold. It held hundreds of bedrooms — emperors of old had rotated between them constantly, a prudent measure against assassination. Gerel, defying warnings, chose one and made it his own. He had the room filled with carpets, blankets, books, wine, and vibrant lanterns. Amid the gray-green chill of the palace, it became a warm, pulsing heart. If not for his duties, he might have happily retreated there, forsaking the rain-drenched city outside this warm, bright room. How he loathed that city and all it stood for. The feeling, unsurprisingly, was mutual. The other Cheongju men fared no better. Once the drunken euphoria of victory wore off, they began to grumble, plead to return home, and curse the Ryukoku people. Reports reached him more frequently now: dissatisfaction with his orders, voiced openly. He understood. Among his chief annoyances was the palace’s head astrologer. Unlike Master Fox, this man was no Taoist but a practitioner of Ryukoku’s own divination traditions, centered on Yin and Yang. Claiming to read the stars and hexagrams, he foretold calamities destined to befall the conquerors — and Gerel in particular. “Even my most potent talismans fail in the presence of this demon,” he would proclaim. It was all a bit tiring. Dismissing him outright would have been foolish; the man hailed from a distinguished Ryukokuan family. Still, unlike the enigmatic Master Fox, this astrologer seemed little more than a charlatan, more tiresome than dangerous. Equally harmless were those who publicly reviled Gerel in the streets — people who were either drunk or completely desperate. According to these whispers, he was as tall as two men and invulnerable; the son of a nine-tailed fox and a sorcerer; he fed on blood; he could turn a person to stone with a single glance. Gerel did not punish anyone for such talk — fear slightly reinforced his authority. Rather pitiful reinforcements, it must be said. Much more dangerous were the conversations between those who did not believe in the old men's tales. Rumors spread like snakes, and among the many harmless ones there were also several far more venomous — those that accidentally turned out to be true. "...Have you heard anything about his family?" "No, little is known about him. Most of it’s rumors, fantasy." "I’ve heard his mother was a..." the speaker lowered his voice, "servant." "Impossible! And such a man now holds the throne? We must uncover more of his secrets. Surely he’s not as fearsome as they claim..." "If you pull out the tiger's claws, it will just be a cat..." A servant, they said? More accurately, a slave. Or perhaps they’d prefer: “A sharp-eared beast, barely a step above a mangy stray dog.” What would these refined aristocrats say if they learned the details of his childhood?   Suffocating within the palace, he wandered Shinju’s streets. Often, he found himself in the lower city, the bustling trade district where he had once seen the girl Momoko. She mattered little to him; she wouldn’t have recognized him anyway. So why return? He couldn’t have said. Perhaps he’d insist it was nothing, but nothing always hides something. One day, he saw a lost girl — not Momoko, a stranger. She wandered the streets, repeating in a flat, eerily calm voice: “Have you seen my mother? She’s gone. She’s gone.” Again and again, the same words, the same tone, as though rehearsing a role. In a way, he envied her. At least she knew what she sought. Maybe he searched for Yukinari’s face in the crowds of young merchants. A foolish notion, surely.   He couldn’t recall when he’d begun drinking. He had always disliked drunkards, distrusted the way wine could transform a person into someone unrecognizable. A soldier’s toast after battle was one thing, but drowning sorrow in drink — this was new. The habit had crept in here, in this wretched city of the drowned — Shinju. He had never expected ruling a nation to be easy. But this apathy gnawed at him, eroding all he tried to build. Everything crumbled before his eyes, like a sandcastle beneath the tide. Even his personal guard that guarded his bedroom, men he had trusted, began to doubt him. He heard their whispered discussions, saw their uneasy glances. His actions were discussed quietly, not openly, but anyone with eyes and ears would have noticed it. "...I don’t like it either, but we must try to get along with them. Ryukoku is our home now," one young soldier said earnestly. "The Ryukoku people aren’t our enemies anymore. We should treat them as brothers." "‘Home?’" spat Yullyo, commander of the Left Palace Guard, her tone dripping with scorn. "‘Brothers?’ Heavenly Tiger, save me from such a family! How old are you to believe in this bullshit? Spare me your fairy tales. Ryukoku’s people hate us more now than ever before." The young soldier hesitated. "I am nineteen. But these are not my words, but those of our General. But these are not my words, but those of our General — that is, I wanted to say, Lord Governor." "I’ve heard this Lord Governor's nonsense too. Mark my words: there will never be peace between us and Ryukoku. Betrayal is in their blood. In Cheongju we don't know how to feel anything halfway. We are not used to waiting, hiding. Hatred, revenge — we know how to deal with those, swiftly and honestly. But Ryukoku’s people? They’re serpents, cold and cunning. They’ll smile at you for decades, all the while sharpening their knives." "Are you calling General Gerel a fool?" "Far from it, boy," Yullyo said coolly. "He’s too clever for his own good. He spent his youth among those poets and scholars in Yuigui, and now he thinks he can become one of Ryukokuans — and make us like them too. I doubt he even thinks in our language anymore... But what’s good for him isn’t always good for us." "What are you saying? General Gerel always took care of us, fought shoulder to shoulder with us," another voice was heard. "And why shouldn't he fight? He's immortal, what could happen to him? The general has a mind of his own. He's not like us, and he'll never be like us." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Let no one forget: he’s a yaoguai." No one dared object. Gerel leaned his forehead against the cold wall, trying to dispel the fog of drunkenness and make sense of what he had just heard. He was failing not only as a governor — he couldn't even control his own people. Such talk could not be tolerated, but you couldn’t punish everyone with sticks or send them to the mines. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a wretched, entirely human face with eyes bloodshot from alcohol. Dirty strands of pale hair hung limply on either side of his gaunt face. Fit for a grave, he thought bitterly. It was astonishing that anyone still mistook him for a mighty yaoguai sorcerer. He attempted a smirk, but it turned into a mocking grimace, and for one brief moment, he imagined another version of himself in the mirror: cold, immortal, a demon. That other Gerel, the one in the mirror, was laughing at him — at the failure he had become.   When sleep did come, it brought troubling, twisted dreams. Sometimes he couldn't tell what was a dream and what had truly happened. Depression, fears, paranoia, alcoholic delirium, and nightmares all blended into a murky, gray-green whirlpool that pulled him deeper and deeper. At times, he felt as if he were slowly losing his mind. Something about the little girl he’d seen earlier that day in the lower city must have disturbed him, because that night, he dreamed a terrible dream about his mother. He knew the kind of dream it was from the start and hated it above all others — the ones that began with a stale, rotten feeling, as if something dreadful was bound to happen. That sensation would grow into certainty, and eventually, the inevitable would occur. In his dream, he found himself in a city, which — following some strange dream logic — he initially thought was Shinju, though it bore no resemblance to the real Shinju. The dream-city was bright and sunlit, entirely drenched in light with no shadows to be found. And it was silent: no shouts of merchants, no laughter of children, no clatter of water-carriers’ buckets, no rattle of carts — just an eerie, oppressive stillness, as if the city had been frozen in a single moment of time, like an insect trapped in amber. There were no people. None at all. It felt as though they had been there mere seconds ago but had vanished before his arrival. Or as if they still existed, but in some parallel reality, unseen and unreachable. At first, their absence didn’t strike him as wrong or strange—it seemed perfectly natural — but then the loneliness hit him, sharp and unbearable, and he felt the first pangs of fear. The linden trees were blooming, heavy and stifling. He was a child — small and lost, as he often was in such dreams. Even when he saw himself as an adult in dreams like these, it made no difference. They all ended the same way: badly, no matter what he did. At some point, he thought he saw his mother — a figure with a halo of pale hair — but she disappeared into a courtyard, and he lost sight of her. He ran after her but found no one. As he searched for her, he suddenly realized that this city was nothing like Shinju. How could he have mistaken it? This dream-city resembled none of the cities he knew in the Middle Kingdoms. Its architecture was alien to him: most buildings were made of bronze-brown bricks that glowed yellow in the sunlight, with domes of the same hue, arched doorways, and winding staircases. Everything was weathered with age; ivy covered many of the walls, and the stonework was crumbling. He wandered through the dusty, golden streets of the not-Shinju for what felt like hours, searching in vain for any sign of life. At last, his mother came to him, emerging from beneath an archway. Around her hips were wrapped filthy, bloodstained rags. Her movements were wrong, so unnaturally wrong that his mind recoiled, unwilling to process what he was seeing. For a long, endless second, he couldn’t understand what was wrong; then he saw — below her hips, there was nothing. She moved on crutches. He had seen this dream a dozen times before. The details varied, but the essence never changed. Sometimes his mother was maimed, sometimes blind, sometimes dead or dying. Somewhere in the middle of the dream, he usually realized — bitter experience teaching him — that it was all just a nightmare. But that knowledge never made it any less disgusting, nor any less terrifying. “Mo... Mother,” he managed to stammer, “what happened to your... to your legs?” She answered gently, calmly, “Oh, it’s nothing. I wasn’t looking where I was going, you know how scatterbrained I am... I stepped in front of a cart... Don’t worry about it.” The casual tone of her words, the way she behaved as if nothing had happened, as if there were no tragedy in the fact that she was now half a person, only emphasized the horror of what he was seeing. She moved toward him, her crutches jerking her body forward in sharp, insect-like motions, her serene smile never faltering. The grotesque contrast between her beautiful face, her golden hair, and those dirty, bloodied rags burned his eyes. “No, no!” he cried, trembling, as he backed away. But she hobbled closer, still smiling. “Come, my darling,” she said softly. “Come with me...”   In the chaotic swirl of his dreams, one stood out in sharp clarity, as if he had been floundering in a swamp only to dive into a pool of crystal-clear water. It came to him one morning. Gerel had risen early, determined to attend to his duties. He had even washed his face, but the gray-green gloom outside his window drove him back to bed. As soon as he closed his eyes, he somehow knew he was dreaming. This had happened to him before, but only in the fleeting moments between waking and sleeping, and never with such vivid awareness. In this dream, there was a sea. Northern and cold, steel-gray, utterly unlike the greenish waters of Shinju. Waves lapped rhythmically against a rocky shore. A chain of stony islets stretched out from the shore, fading into the horizon where the gray sea merged with an equally gray, low-hanging sky. The strangest part was that, though he was aware of himself within the dream, he did not wake. He stayed there, fully immersed, and unease crept over him. What if he couldn’t wake up? He had no idea how to do it. Also, something about the landscape seemed familiar. He had seen this place before, though when or where he couldn’t recall, and the uncertainty opened a yawning chasm beneath his feet. A jagged stone staircase led down to the water. He was standing on it. The steps, worn and weathered, descended directly into the waves. If he stepped down a few more, he would be ankle-deep in the freezing sea. The water lapped at the bottom step, swirling over smooth pebbles. Little red leaves, shaped like five-pointed stars, were scattered across the steps. It was late northern autumn; the trees clinging to the rocky cliffs had already begun to shed their foliage. The air was cold, damp, and heavy. Water dripped from the branches. It was the kind of landscape poets of Ryukoku loved to write about — misty skies, distant cranes in flight, the melancholy of old age. Gerel did what he had wanted to do from the start: he stepped down, just a little. The water, even through his boots, was shockingly cold. The waves tugged gently at his ankles, as if beckoning him out to sea, away from the shore. In that moment, through the haze of this strange dream, he remembered another dream about this same cold northern sea. Then another, and another. He realized he had visited this place many times in his dreams. It was familiar, a refuge — a starting point for other dreams, a sanctuary. Turning away from the waves, he climbed back up the steps, determined to see where the staircase led. His boots squelched with seawater. The stairs became a trail winding between jagged rocks and spindly, twisted trees. The path curved, leading him back toward the sea — this time to an old wooden pier. A boat was moored to it, bobbing gently on the waves. He walked along the pier, finding a torn fishing net, a piece of polished sea glass, a bent coin, and a few rusty hooks. The dream had no plot, no narrative — just a vivid landscape and an almost unbearable sense of reality. Everything felt real: the icy spray of the sea, the water in his boots, the smell of salt and rotting seaweed. Even pain was real. Curious, he pricked his finger with one of the hooks. The sting felt genuine; a drop of blood welled up, which he licked away. It tasted like blood. At the end of the pier, he saw something — or someone. Squinting, he recognized a figure sitting at the edge, legs dangling over the side. It was Master Fox. Though the figure’s back was turned, Gerel knew him instantly by his messy, flame-red hair. He approached silently and stopped behind him. Without turning, Fox said, “It's bloody cold here. Like a water spirit’s ass.” “No one invited you,” Gerel snapped. Strangely, in dreams, he found it harder to hate Master Fox as much as he did in waking life. He couldn’t banish him from the dream either, so he resigned himself to the conversation. “This meeting is just as unexpected for me,” Hu Xiansheng replied, his tone acidic, “and just as unpleasant.” “What is this place?” Gerel asked. “Not only gods create worlds. People do it too, though on a much smaller scale. And, in case you’re wondering — not only people. Beings like me as well.” Finally, Fox turned to face him, his slanted, inhuman green eyes meeting Gerel’s. “Everyone has a world like this inside their mind. A refuge you can retreat to at any time. Few know of its existence, yet it’s there for everyone. A person might come here when they are sick, mad, or dying — or if they know how to walk through dreams. I call them heart-worlds. And I’m telling you all this only because you won’t remember it when you wake.” Am I sick? Mad? Dying? — Gerel wanted to ask, but instead, he voiced another, more pressing question. “What are you doing in my world?” “Freezing, mostly,” the Fox replied sourly. “Your soul is an uninviting place, my dear.” “How does one enter another’s world?” Gerel pressed. “As I said, this meeting is an accident. Don’t try to play a game beyond your comprehension.” “A game?” Gerel thought of the war between the Middle Kingdoms. “You mean the war?” “I mean the game played by beings far greater than humans,” Fox replied... And then Gerel woke up. For a while, he lay still, not opening his eyes. The dream lingered, vivid and sharp. If someone had asked, he could have recounted every detail: the stillness and peace; the muted tones of the sea and rocks, which somehow brought not fear but a strange comfort; the bright smears of red leaves; the icy water in his boots, the spray on his skin. He could still taste the blood in his mouth. He held up the finger he had pricked with the hook, but of course, there was no wound. Yet he was certain the place he had dreamed of was real, in some way. And if it was real, then so was his conversation with Hu Xiansheng. “I won’t forget this dream or that dialogue,” he vowed to himself. Though he didn’t understand its meaning, nor did he find Master Fox’s words particularly important, he replayed the conversation in his mind several times, determined to hold onto it.