Lu Jiangxian dreamed a long, long dream. He dreamed of planting rice in the fields, of flashing blades and sword light, of immortal sects, a woman, a great lake.
"Hand over the Taiyin Breathing and Qi Refining Art and the Secret Essentials of the Moonlight Records, and we will merely strip you of your cultivation."
A woman's voice, both lovely and ice-cold, sounded at his ear. Lu Jiangxian could vaguely make out a hazy face, but nothing of it was clear.
"Clang!"
A violent shaking jolted Lu Jiangxian awake.
Kaleidoscopic colors surfaced in his mind. Lu Jiangxian tried to open his eyes, tried to sit up, but his body ignored his every command, as if a ghost were sitting on his chest.
Then a brilliant white light tore through the dense darkness before him. Though the dark kept surging in like a tide, that pillar of light stood firm, unchanging as the sun since the beginning of time.
Dense ranks of golden glyphs burst out of it, stretching themselves in the darkness and scattering across the sky like stars.
Lu Jiangxian stared and thought dazedly, So beautiful.
As the glyphs multiplied, as though reaching some limit, he heard a crack, like the shattering of glass.
The world lit up.
Lu Jiangxian saw a sky as vast and blue as the ocean, dense, boundless primeval forest, and not far off a small crescent-shaped lake; in that direction, a white streak of light slid down into the glinting water.
Below lay a little cluster of huts roofed with straw and stretches of rice paddy.
His view tumbling wildly, he felt like a weightless swallow skimming over the small brown-yellow village and its cooking smoke, gliding across the clear surface of a little river.
In one fleeting glimpse, Lu Jiangxian caught his own reflection in the river.
Looks like... a round, glittering sort of thing, Lu Jiangxian thought in bewilderment, and a vague premonition rose in his heart:
I'm not human anymore?
"Splash!" The violent pitching struck again, and Lu Jiangxian sank swiftly into the water. The stream was too shallow to absorb all the impact, so he bumped lightly against a bluestone on the riverbed.
The knock felt as if someone had punched him in the chest; it left him tight and short of breath. His body, though, used the churning water and the rebound of the impact to turn over neatly, face up, staring straight at the sun rippling on the surface.
Wasn't I pulling an all-nighter in my rented room, reworking the proposal?
Lu Jiangxian watched the sun on the water in silence. The current ran fast, making the patterns of light on the riverbed twist and writhe.
Groping back through his memories in silence, Lu Jiangxian found his head aching. All he could recall was collapsing onto the bed, utterly spent, while the cigarette smoke and neon glow of the rented room drifted past him.
He had opened a bottle of beer and sat at the dim computer desk, and then the world began to spin. His heart raced, his breathing grew harder and harder.
I think I... died?
And that's fine, really. No more worrying about the future, no more worrying about getting by.
Perhaps he had been bottled up too long, for such a thought actually surfaced in Lu Jiangxian's mind, and his mood even lifted a little.
He looked around him: above, the dark-green tips of branches trailing aerial roots; now and then a nimble fish darting quickly across his face; and faint plinks and tinkles of splashing water.
Lu Jiangxian sighed:
Only, at this rate, I'll go crazy from boredom.
So he simply stared as the sun slipped down from overhead, the blazing sunset climbing across the sky, the water beneath the treetops dimming bit by bit.
At one point two fish circled him out of curiosity, and a crab even tried to flip him over.
It was not until the moon climbed above the treetops and its clear light drifted softly over the river that Lu Jiangxian, to his delight, felt a cool breath seep down to the riverbed, bringing with it a faint sense of comfort.
Watching the moonlight gather little by little above his body, as though coming alive into a pale white lunar halo, Lu Jiangxian turned pale with shock, and his state of mind shifted entirely.
What is this, breathing in the essence of the sun and moon? So this world really does have immortals, wondrous divine powers, monsters, ghosts and gods? he thought in shock. Then what have I become — an artifact spirit?
Curiosity and joy rose from deep within Lu Jiangxian. The wisp of lunar halo, as if it had gathered enough strength, drifted down onto him.
He felt a chill all around him and sank into a meditation somewhere between sleeping and waking.
He did not know how long had passed; the current of air grew thinner and thinner, and Lu Jiangxian suddenly came to. The crescent moon had already faded from the sky, the sun had leapt above the treetops, and warm morning light lay across the water.
That was fast.
Lu Jiangxian was beside himself with joy. When he felt carefully, there was indeed a faint current of air lingering inside him, circling around and around along the round rim of his body.
Better still, when he gathered his Qi and steadied his mind, he could dimly see a gray-green mirror lying quietly on the riverbed, resting on a bed of pebbles of every color, with a few fish foraging along the bottom.
That crab was off to one side, digging in the soil. His field of vision reached roughly one meter around him, and it was not especially clear, like the fat-backed television sets he had watched as a child.
So this is what I am now, Lu Jiangxian thought with a bitter smile. Then he deliberately steered the current of air to a halt at the center of the mirror, and the gray-green mirror gave off a faint trace of light.
Apart from glowing, I haven't found any use for it.
First I'll absorb moon essence properly. Something may change qualitatively. He made his plans in silence. I don't know what this mirror is made of, or how the world out there treats objects that have a mind of their own. I'd better not let some cultivator spot me and casually snuff out my consciousness.
A white bird stands within the mirror; a painted boat sails across the sky.