By the time the tides of pleasure brought by her surroundings waned, Wei Zhiruo felt she had sobered up a little. The sleep washed away the remaining of her restlessness. Sobriety dawned over her in waves like an epiphany. It stole away the shivers, the pleasures and in its place left a cold, hard touch of reality. Thoughts filled her: her own, others, permeable thoughts echoed each other, resounded and ricocheted.

Sobering up, Wei Zhiruo hid her tiny figure further inside the canoe, stiffening her body into an inconspicuous blob as she collected the events of the day, finally ready to analyze her current circumstances.

She woke up. Was cared for by a maid in her courtyard. Those shards of broken jar had vanished by the time she was dressed and dolled up for any proper company and left to her own devices for the rest of the day. She recalled the face of that maid, and the only exchange they had had today –

"Ninth miss, you must stay in your room, okay? Please don't go out on your own, it won't be good if Mistress finds out about it. It is the eldest master's crowning ceremony and many families from around the county have come to pay a visit. Everyone's been quite busy, you see. It is crowded and you usually don't like these kinds of occasions, do you? You're such a quiet child, may god bless you for that. You never give Tou'er any worries. Be obedient, miss, our Missus said she will ask you out when it's time for dinner. Then you can gift the young master with those embroidered kerchief you have made for so long! I must say, how happy he would be with you after that! It's your Eldest brother's most important moment in life! You wouldn't want to ruin it, right? Is miss happy? If not, I could go ask mistress for permission…"

A strange kind of schadenfreude had dripped from the maids seemingly well-intentioned words. Her eyes had almost narrowed down to a slit, especially showcasing her amiable cheerfulness, though. But a pretense was pretense. How dare it feel real?

'Snitch,' Wei Zhiruo had summed up the role of that woman in an instant.

She was this family's ninth miss and today she was forgotten, remained confined in her chambers, on the occasion of the coming-of-age ceremony of the house's heir. It was a lot of information to take in at once.

Unfavored or orphan? Perhaps, an illegitimate child? Wei Zhiruo had thought of many reasons of such disguised ostracization at that moment and even asked tentatively–

"Will others be there? My sister…"

"Eldest miss? She? Yes…of course she has to go. No other way about it. A while ago the royal edict came– all of us were so afraid, you mightn't have an idea how much (Aunt Jiang was so close to fainting – for a long time she refused to get back to the kitchen at her post, but I think she was pretending for the most part). We had no inkling of what was to come, and everyone just thought about which kind of trouble the Master had put us into this time, but fortunately! Guess what? It was an edict of engagement! Eldest Miss has been promised to the second prince! Although the royal family is so far away in the capital, far away from Jinghai, I heard that he had heard of our eldest miss’s reputation. They had met by chance (how lovely is that!)and then the engagement was settled. The prince might come to greet our Young master and meet the family this time. A prince, must you know! Such an honor has been earned by Eldest miss for the family, how could she not be present there on such an occasion?! Of course she will be there tonight!"

"Oh well…then, will my other sisters go too? Will you go there?"

"…oh, they…"

After that, there came no reply. Her maid had just continued twisting her long hair, twice her body size into an unfamiliar coiffure, adorning it with strands of jeweled ruby dangling beside her earlobes, touching down her small, narrow neck. Few carved pieces were stuck in between the rolled buns. The rubies, intricate though when put together in a single piece of jewelry, were uncompromisingly huge for her own head. Not her own for sure.

After that exchange, there was just silence; no pretense of obedience was heard for a long time. With a stiffened and annoyed smile on her lips and dull light in her eyes the maid had slipped away reminding-

“Ninth miss - don't forget alright? You cannot come out to the banquet tonight.”

If only this event had happened, it wouldn't have mattered much to Wei Zhiruo.

An abandoned child, uncared for by everyone is a great news for her personally. She could spend time at her leisure and find clues about her surroundings without any worry of being discovered or treated as an alien, much worse like a pariah - a body snatcher. Particularly, now when what she knew was so little about this world, that every step she took was filled with a probable chance of being discovered as something not right, like an alien with no common sense or knowledge of norms.

Although her age could act as a shield for such ignorance, putting it against such an affluent family as this where children are so precocious since birth - she didn’t want to take her chances at all. Finally, she couldn't be sure that her wayward emotions or streams of thought that phased like moon, would remain unnoticed if she was under the gaze of others all day long. Lesser the crowd around her, the better. Or she risked being declared insane. Being a closed off bastard was a great chance, an invisible role with little to no consequences.

What had troubled her mostly was…an unfamiliar, unkind gaze that had been chasing after her since the moment that maid had left her courtyard. From that moment on, a pair of cold, covetous eyes had been following her. Thoughts, unfamiliar, rootless and especially malevolent, so chaotic that if manifested in reality it would look like an unscrupulous, unresolvable piece of jumbled up wool, spattered with mud – had started filling up her room. One of the reason's she even went out tonight was that - she was looking for this thing, hiding in the dark.

This was deeply concerning, especially for her who was so easily influenced by thoughts of any kind – even a stone could arouse a storm in her mind, if she chanced upon such a Rune filled stone. Not to mention, that malevolent thought had no root. It was all chaos, with no good thing in it for her to accept!

All day, she had looked for its source, yet the strange thing was that it seemed to be especially alert of her combing spiritual consciousness. This situation of standing in the light, while her predator was looking up from somewhere, crouching in the shadows out of sight, was really unsettling – more than being uninvited to a special family gathering or banquet.

Wei Zhiruo breathed in the fresh cold air, her back straightening a little and losing their nervousness. A strand of her hair flew up in her inattention, blowing up with the wind. Then suddenly it touched the surface of the black water, creating a few ripples. She chased it blankly then looked up.

She unabashedly stared at the sky filled with countless stars, flickering, dancing merrily. She eased her mind, letting her spiritual consciousness travel as it pleased.

Waves after waves emerged from the depth of her soul. It rolled in small ripples, encompassing all that came in its way, like a misty cloud swallowing down hilltops and trees, herds of sheep and cattle asleep, inconspicuous housetops and rolling meadows and valleys. It submerged everything, intangible and tangible in its midst and rolled. Mightier and mightier waves emerged and followed. In a space, impervious to all, her spiritual consciousness was combing through the town.

From the small inconspicuous corner of that manor, it trebled past its majestic walls and shadows, past its grooves, orchards and bamboo yards rustling in the mellow wind and past the small stream that ran along its boundary walls, creating invisible ripples and waves in its cold, dark water. It flowed like churning waves, rustling past Jinghai city fort, even past the mirror-like water filled fields of suburb, past all the way towards the cracks and crevices, snowy tops of the snow-covered Mysterious mountains.

The spiritual Consciousness rose up like smoke and fume, and dark rolling tides of oceans– it brimmed over and bubbled, frothed and shattered its own loosening edges, finally merging into one with the wind. Once again –

"Over-exerted, have I?" She questioned an unknown bystander. "But where is its source – Or how could it be so traceless? Where are you hiding? What makes you so invisible? Not in this plane, are you?"

But no, not everything was futile. She found some strange traces – strange places with rune filled stones. Although, she couldn’t tell whether they were related to that sight that was chasing her, but any peculiarity was a step forward.

These specific stones formed a very conspicuous looking hexagon; each corridor, each chamber abandoned or occupied had these carved stones etched into their 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 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 much resonating laws in them? How much more advanced will they be from the Cuiping world, if it is so?" puzzled, she looked at it some more.

As her consciousness prodded and overturned the small agate like piece of stone etched into floor, examining them from all sides and grasping their runes – so intrinsically carved over yellow stones – all into her own mind, trying to touch their laws and find an entrance to its fully functioning structure of synthesis, she suddenly 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 Rune but was instead stopped in another space interface in the middle of transit -

Her spiritual consciousness was cut-off by a 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 looking.

As if she was stranded in an ocean on a small canoe, with a sky full of swirling majestic runes and clouds of aurora looking vibrant yet chaotic- if there was something akin to it, it must be 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, all the more as her mortal body couldn't help perceive its unfathomable power without shirking in quakes of passionate fear. It took great discipline and control to not just jump out from her skin!

An ancient song seemed to appear out of thin air. Wei Zhiruo hurriedly looked at the water surface. The moon was nowhere, the sky a purple firmament.

The figure of the tiny girl was now completely leaning against the canoe's edges looking down deeply at the water – a mesmerizing ocean of floating star fragments. Wei Zhiruo was no longer rowing the canoe, but it never stopped moving forward.

No one knew how, even she was completely unsure – she was now floating above a behemoth of an ocean, with countless pieces of milky white star fragments floating abound. These were real star fragments, milky white – and they were floating in the water like pieces of broken iceberg. But they were hot - too hot for the water. Wei Zhiruo leaned further down to touch the ocean water - but it slipped right through her hands like a cold liquid, yet leaving no wetness on her palms.

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!

Wei Zhiruo fell back on her bottoms, her ears keenly filling themselves up with that hollow, primeval song. It was strange, but 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, its rhythm begins to fade away and it appears 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.

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

That song swelled up in her head, 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 in her red-blood and fed it back to heaven and her loosened thoughts. Unnoticeably, some strange runes started flickering in her cold eyes, the color of which darkened a degree deeper, 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 has 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 still 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, its ensnares – 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 had forgotten 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, she still hadn’t traveled up into space, or gone on any of her adventures. 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 yesterday. Because it talked of strange lands and strange events – for years, it was no more than fantasy. But no, look! Here she was in that fantastical notion of her childhood! The five-year-old her would have been so happy to know such things do exist.