The sky had not yet fully brightened.
Shen Yuzhu did not know how long he had slept. When he opened his eyes, the sky was the same grey-white as before—no clouds, no birds, only wind blowing from the north, passing through his left shoulder, continuing south.
He sat up. The transparent section of his left arm was still there. The moonlight had receded; morning light passed through that place without bending, without lingering, only passing through—like passing through any place where nothing existed.
But he knew that region still had weight.
Not physical weight.
Time's weight.
He had been passed through too many times. The light had learned his shape. The air had learned to go around him. Even the wind remembered to slow by half a beat at his left shoulder. Those memories were not in him. They were in the world.
He stood, brushed the dust from his clothes, and continued walking.
No direction. No destination. His feet chose the road themselves.
He did not know how long he had been walking.
Did not know what day it was.
Did not know how far the nearest village was.
Those questions had once been important, like ropes that tied him down. Now the ropes had loosened. He was still himself. The road was still the road. Walking was still walking.
After a while, he saw a tree.
Not a special tree. An ordinary one. Its branches were somewhat withered, its roots exposed above the ground, like a hand gripping the earth. Beneath it lay a stone, large enough for one person to sit.
He did not sit.
He only stood there, looking at that tree, for a long time.
Then he crouched down.
He noticed a hollow beside the tree's roots—
a depression formed by the soil pushing up around them.
Not deep. About a palm's width across.
When wind passed through that place, it slowed by an extremely short beat compared to elsewhere.
He recognised that rhythm.
The same as the blank before the Object Mound.
The same as the air beside the crack in the Rectification Sect's secret chamber.
The same as the transparent region of his own left shoulder.
He reached out and touched that hollow.
His fingertips met damp soil, cool, the same as any other soil. But his hand, when it touched, paused for a beat. Not his decision. His hand paused on its own.
He did not know who had left that hollow—whether the tree's roots had formed it as they grew, whether the wind had worn it, or whether someone had once sat here, sat for so long that the ground remembered their shape.
He only knew that the curve of that hollow was exactly the same as the curve of his left shoulder.
He withdrew his hand.
He did not fill it in.
Did not ask how it had come to be.
Did not try to find a reason.
Because he knew—some shapes did not need to be explained. Only seen.
He kept walking.
He did not know which direction he was heading, did not know what lay ahead, did not know how much longer he would walk before stopping.
But his body knew how to walk. His feet knew how to step. His knees knew how to bend. His breath knew how to stay steady in this rhythm.
Like a tree that does not need to know how tall it will grow.
It only grows.
He walked for a while, then stopped again.
Not because he had seen something. Because his body was saying: here, you can stop.
He turned. By the roadside, there was a stone. Not a special shape. Ordinary, grey-white, its surface smoothed by the wind.
He walked over and sat down.
The stone was just the right size for one person—not too wide, not too narrow. When he sat, his body found a comfortable position on its own. Not something he adjusted. The stone adjusted it for him.
Like a position that had been waiting for you. The moment you sit down, it already knows how to hold you.
He sat for a while.
Wind came from the north, through his hair, through his left shoulder, through his right palm resting on his knee.
The character "North" was still there in his palm. The ink had not faded, the strokes had not blurred. He did not look down, because he knew it was still there. It was not somewhere he needed to confirm. It was somewhere his body had already learned.
He said a sentence softly, no one heard:
"I don't know where this is."
Paused a breath.
"But I know I am here."
He did not stand.
The wind continued blowing. As it passed his left shoulder, it slowed by an extremely short beat compared to elsewhere.
He did not know that, beneath the same sky, the blades of grass around the blank before the Northern camp's Object Mound swayed in that same beat.
He did not know that the light from the new crack in the Rectification Sect's secret chamber lingered in its own position in that same beat.
He did not know that, on the extreme north snow plain, the blank beside the third sheet in the teahouse man's bundle breathed in that same beat.
He did not know that, in the Pivot chamber, the blank page of Helian Xiang's open journal was passed through by wind in that same beat.
He did not know any of this.
But he knew he was here.
Wind continued blowing.
Breathing continued.
Inhale---empty---exhale.
[CHAPTER 294 · END]