Chapter 1 – The Relic That Weeps
Stillness.
The first sound Uyển Nhi heard wasn't wind. Not a heartbeat. It was the sound of something delicate shattering—not out loud, but inside her. Like glass cracking in the soul. Soft, but impossible to forget.
She woke in a strange land.
No stars above.
The ground beneath her colder than memory.
Her body frail, robe torn at the shoulders, hair long and tangled in the damp soil.
A single silver strand caught the dim light—foreign, misplaced.
In her left hand, she held a shard of broken Lưu Ly.
Not sharp. Not warm.
But… it was crying.
Yes. She could feel it.
When her fingers closed around it, a deep tremor echoed through her bones—wordless, but mournful.
As if the shard had once been whole, once meant something vast—and now carried nothing but sorrow.
"You once chose."
The voice wasn't spoken aloud.
It whispered through her marrow—like a fracture that never healed.
Uyển Nhi jolted upright.
Before her stretched the Abyss of Oblivion—a boundary between Order and Chaos.
A place no one returned from.
And yet here she was.
Alive.
Or something like it.
She had no memory.
No name.
No past.
But the pain was real.
She looked at her hand. It trembled.
Not from cold.
But from a buried instinct—that these hands had done something unforgivable.
The wind passed by, laced with ash—like the breath of a fire that never died.
At the abyss's edge, a charred tree stood impaled by a shattered mirror.
Uyển Nhi stepped closer.
No reflection.
Only an eye. Deep, dark, bottomless.
Watching her from within the fractured glass.
Was it her own?
She couldn't tell.
Her spirit had not awakened.
No aura. No technique. Nothing.
Yet when that gaze met the shard in her hand, the air cracked faintly.
A strange clenching seized her chest.
"What… did I choose?" she murmured.
But the wind swallowed her words—
as if the world itself feared the answer.
A thunderclap—silent, yet it split the earth behind her.
From the depths below, a heavy mist rose—thick with something that didn't belong to the living.
Light formed around the shard.
Not radiating—devouring.
The darkness around her tightened.
From the shard's center, a fissure glowed.
Symbols emerged, strange and ancient—etched like coagulated blood.
She couldn't read them.
But her hand moved.
Forming seals.
Unlearned, untrained.
Each gesture eerily familiar—like muscle memory from someone else's dream.
Then—
A flood of images:
—A little girl beneath a burning roof, crying out "Tỷ tỷ!"
—A hand stabbed clean through, yet clutching a mirror.
—A faceless figure in white, smiling: "If I die, you'll still remain…"
And then, everything broke.
Uyển Nhi gasped, cold sweat on her neck.
The shard fell silent again.
But the weeping didn't stop.
She stood.
No memory.
No direction.
But one truth echoed within:
"I won't let this crying be forgotten again."
Above, the moon hung torn in two.
Its light slashed across the sky like a blade—
cutting through blurred memory.
That rift in the heavens—
was the same as the fracture within her.
Far below, a figure walked the abyss.
Not sneaking.
Simply… always having been there.
Tonight, only the moon would know:
A girl was awakening—
Not to return to life—
But to face all that was left behind.
Chapter 2 – A Tongue Without a Mouth
Silence has sound.
Stillness speaks.
Uyển Nhi didn't walk—yet the ground slid beneath her feet.
As if the world itself was pushing her forward.
One breath at a time.
At the farthest edge of the Abyss of Oblivion, where even light dared not pass, a voice began to rise.
It had no mouth.
"Memories are not lost.
They're only buried behind the words never said."
She turned.
No one.
But the voice wasn't outside.
It slithered up from the ground, crawled along her spine, and poured into her skull like a curse made of breath.
A figure was there.
No face.
No shadow.
Only a robe of black ink stitched with drifting characters— symbols broken, fragmented, like poetry dissolving in wind.
Unreadable. Unspoken.
But she felt every one of them.
"Are you... memory?" Uyển Nhi asked.
"I am the Keeper of Memory,"
his voice not spoken, but scraped across the inside of her mind.
"You came here before. You walked past me once."
She stepped back.
But the path behind was already gone.
Before her: the Keeper—
and a space where language did not exist.
🩸 He didn't speak with a mouth.
Each line he "wrote" wasn't made of ink—
It was blood, streaming from his wrist into the air.
When Uyển Nhi looked at them, she didn't read.
She heard.
"Don't forget what you haven't remembered."
"Don't remember what you never chose."
No rhyme.
No rhythm.
Yet each word landed like it had waited centuries to be heard.
Uyển Nhi clutched her head.
The flood came—not in order, not with mercy:
Fire breathing through ice.
Wind howling through broken glass.
A scream without a mouth.
A girl writing in blood on a fractured mirror.
A shadowy figure behind her, whispering:
"If I disappear, you still remain…"
She screamed.
But the scream dissolved into silence.
"You have two paths," the Keeper whispered.
"One forward. One backward."
"Neither leads out. But one of them... holds the truth."
She stared into his absence of eyes—
and stepped forward.
Not because she trusted him.
But because she feared what would happen if she stayed.
"Language may break. But if you still hear... you still remain."
His voice scattered like dust.
But in the wind, Uyển Nhi heard something not spoken—
a presence pressed against her ribs.
A thought:
"I once... chose."
Chapter 3 – The One Who Already Knew
Uyển Nhi stepped into a space too dark to cast shadows.Each step sank into something softer than memory—like she was walking across the skin of a forgotten thought.
Here, light did not travel with objects.Everything appeared… peeled. Stripped. Exposed.
"I thought you'd come sooner."
The voice came from a place where no figure stood.She froze. The shard of Lưu Ly in her hand pulsed—not as a warning, but in eerie familiarity.
Then, from the dark, a man emerged.
Ash-gray robes.Hair lazily tied at the nape.Eyes that smiled, but didn't soften.In his hand: a charred branch, smoldering faintly.Like he'd just stirred the ashes of a long-dead fire.
"Phó Hàn Yên," he said.Hands behind his back, gaze lifted toward a sky with no stars.
"That's what they used to call me. Back when I still believed in something called 'meaning.' Now, it's just a reminder I once lived."
Uyển Nhi tightened her grip.Her eyes didn't flinch—nor did they welcome.A frozen lake beneath still eyelids.
That silence made the moment stretch thin—One spoke from memory.One listened without knowing if she had the right to hear.
"You know me?" she asked.
"Yes," he nodded."Not because we met. But because I read you—in a world no one remembers."
A breeze passed—not carrying leaves, but unwritten lines.Uyển Nhi glanced down.The ground was littered with half-burned characters.
"Where are we?"
"A corner of memory you haven't accepted.You were here once. Left behind a question you never dared to ask."
He knelt.Tapped the ground with his branch.Sound rippled like ink dropped into water—revealing a fogged doorway beneath.
"Below lies the Scripture of First Speech.The original tongue.Language that shatters false memory."
Before Uyển Nhi could speak, he smiled.Not kind. Not mocking.Just… as if he'd seen this version of her before.
"You don't have to believe me.I don't need to be remembered.But if you want answers—I'm the only one who's ever heard the real voice of that shard."
The shard in her hand glowed—not with light.But with soundless resonance.
As if someone once whispered her name, using grief that never turned into words.
Chapter 4 – The Forest That Remembers Names
They walked into a forest without the sound of leaves.
Not because it was silent— but because the leaves here didn't make noise when touched.
They spoke only in something deeper: emotion.
"What is this place?" Uyển Nhi asked.
Phó Hàn Yên didn't answer right away.
He raised a hand—not to touch, but to let the wind pass through his fingers.
As if the wind carried a language only he could hear.
"Forbidden Path," he said.
"Though some call it the Forest of Lingering Bones.
Every branch here once belonged to a memory that was never acknowledged."
Uyển Nhi looked around.
This forest… had no roots.
Everything grew out of the air—
as if forgotten memories were trying to find soil again.
The first tree they passed changed color.
From black—
to red—
to pale like bloodless skin.
"It's reacting to your emotions," Phó Hàn Yên said, without turning.
"No one walks here without being read."
Uyển Nhi didn't respond. But her chest ached.
The shard of Lưu Ly in her hand trembled a second time.
A vision surfaced:
—A hand on her shoulder.
—A trembling voice: "Tỷ tỷ, don't let me disappear again..."
—Then, an explosion. Blood.
She stopped.
The wind wasn't cold. But memories could freeze bone.
"It's not just the leaves," Phó Hàn Yên said, eyes lifted.
"This forest has layers."
🌀 The low layer—where the grass quivered like it breathed.
🌀 The middle layer—where emotion rose like mist: scentless, but suffocating with unnamed feelings.
🌀 And the highest layer—beyond the reach of sight.
Something was watching.
Not god.
Not ghost.
But fractured memories, once denied—now witnessing.
Phó Hàn Yên stopped at a tree that cast no shadow.
"This is the crossing."
"If you stop here, the forest will let you go."
"But if you continue… memory will not remain still."
Uyển Nhi gripped the shard tighter.
"I don't need stillness."
"I need the truth."
And she stepped forward.
Chapter 5 – The Eyes That Were Never Born
The forest warped when no one moved.
Uyển Nhi stood within the Forbidden Path, but the forest no longer resembled trees.
Every leaf became an unblinking eye—
reflecting gazes from a time she couldn't remember.
The wind no longer blew sideways.
It breathed, rising up from the soil.
Phó Hàn Yên had been silent since the flower shattered.
He walked ahead, slower now.
His shadow stretched long and thin, like a thread pulling her back to a memory with no form.
They reached a broken path.
Not worn by time—
but sliced clean, as if by a single, deliberate stroke.
On the rock wall ahead: a deep slash, body-length. The blood hadn't dried.
Above it stood a figure.
Not clearly enemy. Not clearly human.
It looked like Uyển Nhi— but it had no eyes.
Not gouged out.
Never formed.
It didn't look at her.
But when she looked into its face, she saw herself—
staring backward, into a past that hadn't forgiven her.
"Don't touch it," Phó Hàn Yên warned.
"That's a wound still open. If you approach without memory, it'll close— sealing over something false."
Uyển Nhi didn't listen.
Not out of defiance— but because the weeping inside her drowned out every other sound.
She stepped forward.
At three steps away, the shard of Lưu Ly in her palm changed color—
a deep violet swirl bloomed across her skin like a bruise that wouldn't fade.
She didn't touch the figure.
But the figure… touched her—
with sight.
No eyes.
But a gaze.
Not vision.
Truth—
something she'd once refused to see.
A surge of memory broke through:
—A young girl kneeling among mirrors, her face smeared with someone else's blood.
—A shattered sword lodged into another's eye—
but the hand holding it trembled.
"If I forgive… who will punish?"
The memory ended— with her own eyes.
Back when she was innocent enough to believe she was blameless.
Uyển Nhi fell to her knees.
Not from fear— but because in that moment, she wasn't sure she was the one in the right.
The shard slipped from her grasp—for the first time.
And for the first time, it cracked again.
A small fragment broke off and floated upward— like a tear from an eye that never existed.
Chapter 6 – Memories That Were Not Her Own
The space didn't shift.
But the memories inside her no longer matched what her eyes saw.
Uyển Nhi stepped across moss-covered stone— but in her mind, she heard footsteps crunching through snow.
Wind slipped under her collar— and she shivered as though drenched in freezing water.
"What is happening?" she murmured.
Phó Hàn Yên didn't answer.
He kept walking, as if he'd never stopped.
His eyes weren't on her—
but fixed on something invisible to ordinary sight.
They had entered the Interstice Layer—
a place where every sensation lagged behind.
Words spoken here didn't echo until doubt had already crept in.
A bird flew overhead. But its shadow touched the ground before its wings ever moved.
Uyển Nhi looked at her hands. Her skin hadn't changed— but her nails… had been stained by a memory that wasn't hers.
"I killed someone here…"
The words left her mouth—
but the voice wasn't her own.
Phó Hàn Yên turned.
"What do you remember?"
"A room of mirrors. A child called me 'Tỷ tỷ'… and fell.
But the face… didn't match the voice."
She slowed.
Every step became a knock on a door— but she didn't know whose.
"Are you sure that was your past?" he asked.
She didn't respond. Because a strange sound was rising in her mind—
her own laughter.
But she had never laughed like that.
Then— a memory cracked wide open:
—A figure in white calling her "a manufactured memory."
—A hand holding the Lưu Ly shard—
but the left hand.
Not hers.
—She stood at a crossroads of mirrors—
but each reflection showed a different version of herself.
The shard in her palm split—a nearly invisible fracture.
Not shattered.
But one etched symbol had vanished.
"You're remembering what isn't yours," Phó Hàn Yên said,
taking the shard and studying her.
"Some memories were planted—long before you chose who to be."
Uyển Nhi no longer knew: Was she remembering…
or being made to remember?
Chapter 7 – The One the Mirror Forgot
They entered a land with no light— but still, they could see.
Not with their eyes— but with memory's echo.
In the middle of a gray void hovered a single mirror. Not resting on the ground.
Not hanging in the air.
It simply existed—grown from space itself.
Uyển Nhi stepped forward.
No reflection. No distortion. Nothing.
A flawless surface.
No dust.
No frame.
No depth.
And it was silent.
Not because it was empty—
but because it was choosing what to reveal.
"What is this?" she asked.
Phó Hàn Yên turned away.
As if the mirror had once shown him something it shouldn't have.
"It doesn't reflect appearances," he said softly.
"It reflects the right to exist."
Uyển Nhi didn't back away.
Didn't tremble. But inside—
something else within her took a step back.
Then, the mirror moved—
not by frame,
but by intention.
Its surface remained still.
But she saw a child:
herself, much younger.
The girl didn't cry.
Didn't speak.
She only looked at Uyển Nhi with eyes that asked:
"Why was I left behind?"
Next image:
—Uyển Nhi, older, but not who she was now.
—A scar on her forehead—
its inscription scraped away.
—She stood in the midst of faceless figures—
they whispered:
"The one made from error."
Uyển Nhi stumbled back.
The shard in her hand didn't glow—
but inside it, a faint knock sounded—
as if someone trapped inside was trying to get out.
"If I'm a mistake…" she whispered,
"...then where is the original?"
The mirror cracked—
a line straight through the child's eye.
No blood spilled—
but the sound echoed like a promise long denied.
Phó Hàn Yên caught her as she wavered.
"This mirror doesn't show what you know," he said.
"It shows what you're too afraid to admit— and the part of you still screaming to be real."
Uyển Nhi closed her eyes. And in the darkness— she felt another pair open.
Not hers.
But from the other side of the glass.
Chapter 8 – The Line Never Spoken
White light swallowed everything.
Then—
stillness.
No explosion. No collapse.
Just a silence so deep it seemed to have shape.
Uyển Nhi opened her eyes.
She was standing inside a dense field of compressed stillness— as if every sound ever made had been crushed into mist.
Phó Hàn Yên stood beside her, unmoving.
His lips parted—
but no sound escaped.
Even breath had no voice here.
Not because it wasn't drawn—
but because in this space, meaning was severed from expression.
In front of them floated a translucent sphere. Suspended in lightless void.
Inside—
a scene:
Uyển Nhi, but not the current one.
She sat by a lakeside. Not crying. Not speaking.
But each tear that fell into the water—
turned into a letter.
Unreadable.
But undeniable.
Phó Hàn Yên glanced at her.
"This is the realm of unsaid dialogue."
Uyển Nhi didn't ask why they were here. She already knew— this was where the unspeakable took shape.
Around them, fragments of floating imagery began to stir.
Each fragment was a memory never voiced:
—She once reached to protect someone… but kept her hand in her sleeve. —She once meant to apologize… but nodded instead, then walked away. —She once knew she was wrong… but waited for someone else to stop her.
No one stopped her.
And she said nothing.
Then, a figure appeared. Blurred. Smoky.
Its face was indistinct—
but in its hand was a small light.
Uyển Nhi looked closer. It wasn't fire.
It wasn't a word.
It was a sentence—
never spoken.
No letters.
No language. But the moment it lifted the sentence—
she knew.
She had once meant to say it.
To someone. Before he vanished.
"Can you say it now?" Phó Hàn Yên asked.
She shook her head. Not because she didn't want to.
But because saying it now would be too late—
and silence had become too loud.
The blurred figure faded. But the unspoken line fell—
wrapping around her wrist like a thread.
It didn't bind.
Didn't choke.
It simply whispered:
"There was something… you should have said."
She clutched the shard of Lưu Ly.
A glowing line appeared in her palm:
"Even words left unspoken—can hollow someone from the inside."
Chapter 9 – The Memory Someone Else Remembered for Me
Some places don't need footsteps to know you've arrived.
And some memories don't need you to remember—
they wait until you're ready.
Uyển Nhi opened her eyes.
She wasn't in a fixed space anymore.
Instead, layers of memory floated like drifting fog—
each with its own temperature, its own weight.
There were no boundaries between truth and dream. No more such thing as "self."
She could feel it clearly—
she was inside someone else's dream.
—or maybe, they were inside hers.
A drop of water fell.
No splash.
But it echoed like a memory long kept.
She turned. Someone was behind her.
Phó Hàn Yên.
But… not him.
His face was almost right.
His posture slightly off.
His gestures one breath too slow.
Like he wasn't really here—
just remembered.
"Are you… my memory?" she asked.
He smiled.
Nodded.
Didn't answer.
The ground beneath her feet began to glow.
With each step, she left behind a word—
not written,
but felt.
—A time she walked away without turning back.
—An eye she couldn't meet.
—A silence longer than an apology.
The more she walked—
the warmer the light became.
As if pain had finally been called by its true name.
From the other side—someone else appeared.
It was her.
Not the mirrored reflection. Not the false self. But the version of her remembered by someone else.
This Uyển Nhi didn't look at her—
but through her.
As if in that person's memory…
she had never dared to face them.
She stepped closer.
"Who remembers me like this?" she whispered.
The other Uyển Nhi smiled—
and let a single tear fall.
That was when she understood:
Somewhere, in some part of time—
she had been the memory that saved someone else.
And in that moment, she saw clearly:
People don't always remember us because we were real—
but because, for a moment, we filled a hole inside them.
But that version…
was never complete.
And what remained—
was only a distorted version of herself.
The air rippled. Layers of memory brushed against each other.
A voice spoke— from nowhere and everywhere:
"Would you walk into someone else's dream—
before you've finished remembering your own?"
She didn't answer. She stepped forward.
In front of her:
a plane of light— where all dreams met, where the forgotten began to remember… each other.
She entered.
And heard a sentence never spoken by any memory of her:
"Uyển Nhi… if I die, don't remember me with words— but with your silence."
Volume 1 – Tử Vân Khởi Diệt
Chapter 10 – Light That Fell from the Wrong Direction
All the layered dreams dissolved like mist as Uyển Nhi stepped to the edge.
There was no door.
No clear path forward.
Only a hairline crack—
a thread of light, thin as a stitch, but glowing.
Nothing could be seen on the other side.
But she felt something: A pressure—
not pulling,
not pushing,
just waiting.
Phó Hàn Yên reappeared beside her. He stood like an ellipsis—
a sentence not yet finished.
"That way... isn't for those certain of who they are."
Uyển Nhi said nothing. She no longer needed certainty. And that—
no longer frightened her.
The Lưu Ly shard in her hand began to glow— not outward, but diagonally—
as if searching for its own path.
She raised it.
The light didn't open a gate.
It didn't blast the way forward.
It cracked the silence.
A seam split open in space.
Not a portal—
a pressure point.
Beyond it:
an indeterminate radiance—
a field without center or direction.
Not a horizon.
Not a core.
Just a feeling:
"If you step in, you won't come back the same way."
Phó Hàn Yên smiled faintly.
"Go that way, and you'll find nothing—
unless you become what you seek."
Uyển Nhi looked at him.
"And if I don't want to find—
just… to continue?"
He didn't smile anymore. He nodded.
She stepped forward.
The shard's light cut into the seam—
no sound,
no flash,
just dissolving.
Uyển Nhi passed through.
For a moment between spaces—
she saw:
A wall of stone. A figure with their back turned. Carving names with bare nails.
She approached. The last name being written:
Uyển Nhi.
The figure didn't turn. But she understood:
Someone had been remembering her—
before she ever knew who she was.
She kept walking.
The path behind her collapsed.
There would be no returning.
End of Chapter 10 – Light That Fell from the Wrong Direction
End Volumie - 1