Song drifted in darkness.

  Not the darkness of a moonless night, or the nightmare shadows of the forest.

  True utter pitch black, so dark he couldn’t see his own body.

  It took Song a moment to realize that he couldn’t hear anything either. Not his father’s voice, the sounds of the Verdant Mother’s forest, or the beating of his own heart.

  It was all gone.

  And he could feel nothing.

  He tried to move his arms, but they weren’t there. There was no sensation of heat or cold upon his skin, nor the prickle of goosebumps as fear began to overtake him. He couldn’t even smell the heady scent of changpo flowers to guide him home.

  He was a smear across the fabric of the universe.

  He’d deviated.

  Song’s fear was immediately quenched by shame. After all his training, all his lessons, all his pride, it’d come to this. He alone, of all his family, had failed to comprehend the Verdant Mother’s Name. Not even brother Taeyang, with all his shirking and uncaring cultivation, had undergone qi deviation.

  Just he, little Song.

  He would’ve wept if he still had eyes.

  Panic clawed, desperate to escape and overwhelm him, but Song clamped it down with an iron will trained from a decade of living with three elder brothers.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Head of stone. Heart of steel. Hold your tongue. Hide your thoughts.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  So, he’d deviated. But he didn’t see anything else out there, none of the telltale signs of an Inner Demon. Stories told how would-be-cultivators were locked within the mindscape of the eldritch monster that strung their flesh along as a puppet; a silent screaming witness as the horror toyed with their body.

  But he felt nothing. So it could be that.

  Song focused on his lessons. Given the environs, he was likely within the outer mindscape of the Great One known as The Dark Dreamer – the existence that lay at the center of all creation. Associated with the Moon, the stars, darkness, and the element of Void, the Dark Dreamer was the most enigmatic and mysterious of the Great Ones. Cultivators of the Dark Dreamer used illusions, formations, and trickery to beguile and subdue their foes. They were experts at assassination, spying, and running away.

  Nothing like his proud Lee family’s forthright martial style.

  But that was neither here nor there. Right now, he had to puzzle out what to do next. His family had paid dearly for this opportunity, and he wasn’t going to waste it. So what if it was the wrong Great One?

  It was still Great, right?

  Song considered what his father had told him.

  Focus your mind, steel your heart, and allow the sound to pass through you. Through you and into your dantian. When your dantian is full to bursting, allow the qi to overflow into your governing vessel. When it’s complete, follow the scent of changpo flowers home.

  Right, but there wasn’t anything to listen to. Just the darkness.

  And him. The little star.

  A star in the darkness.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Song let the fear flow through him, let the dark envelop him, and as he did he pictured a single bright star, the essence of who he was. A guiding star within his dantian, like the stars that led them on bright clear nights as they roamed the plains on horseback.

  Qi spilled into his dantian and flared to life. First an ember, then a pinprick in the night that swelled to become a shining star. His star.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Head of stone. Heart of steel. Hold your tongue. Hide your thoughts.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  With the star as his focal point, Song envisioned his meridians, the invisible lines of a constellation connecting the stars of his acupoints. It was as clear in his mind as the paint Wook had laid upon him moments ago. As his dantian filled to bursting, the qi flowed out to fill those lines with sparkling starlight.

  His governing vessel was soon awash with white flame; his star at the center. A fainter light ran through his outer meridians, lining his body like one of the village physician’s paper dolls.

  With trepidation, Song tried to lift an arm.

  And the glowing meridians of his ‘arm’ moved in a perfect replica of the motion.

  Relief filled Song as feeling snapped back to his body. He still couldn’t see anything beyond the lines of his meridians, and couldn’t smell or touch anything, but he finally felt like he existed.

  With feeling came rational thought. Now what was he supposed to do? He tried to call out, but he still lacked a mouth or lungs. He was simply one constellation within the sky.

  And constellations couldn’t smell. There were no changpo flowers to guide him home.

  But he could move. And he was used to long walks in a starlit night.

  So he walked.

  And walked.

  And walked.

  He made a faint trail in the Void as he went, the long tail of a wishing star.

  —

  Song didn’t know how long he’d traveled. He had no muscles to tire, nor need for food or water. There wasn’t even any ground, so he couldn’t be sure he’d moved a single step. He lost hope a few times, but the thought of his mother’s meat buns kept him going. As well as fear at the shame he’d bring to his family if he never came out of meditation.

  But then he saw it. Far off in the distance, another star! It looked much like his own, bobbing up and down in a steady rhythm. He quickened his pace, and to his delight, he could see the other star growing ever closer.

  He was moving!

  But what if the star was an Inner Demon? Or some other unknown being traveling on the outer periphery of the Great One’s mindscape? Maybe he wasn’t moving at all, but instead it was coming closer to him, hunting.

  But he cast the thought aside. The star ahead felt familiar, almost nostalgic. Somehow it was kin to his own, and he knew it in his heart and soul that it meant him no harm.

  So he trod forward.

  Eventually, Song was able to make out a shimmer in the dark, a clear wall of some sort that stretched out in all directions. It looked like the silvery surface of the mirror he’d been admiring himself in this very morning, and he realized with a pang of disappointment that it in fact was a mirror. A great, infinite mirror reflecting his own star back at him.

  But at least it was something, so he continued to march forward.

  When he got close enough to make out his constellation, Song paused. The reflection he saw within the depths of the Dark Dreamer’s mirror didn’t quite match. He could see his star, yes, and his faint lines of starlight, but there was also a more fleshed out and solid outline that enveloped them. A body, to match the bones of his meridians.

  It was a man roughly brother Wook’s age, with a high brow and spikey black hair. He had a pointed nose, a noble chin, two green eyes, and a laughing mouth.

  It was Song. But not him. Older? Different in a way Song couldn’t explain. The figure was also dressed oddly, in strange baggy blue pants and a short-sleeved shirt of a material Song didn’t recognize.

  Song was drawn to the figure, and even as his rational mind screamed to turn away, his feet plodded forward. His hand reached out, the figure in the mirror matching him in perfect synchronicity. When his fingers made contact with the cold silver surface of the mirror, joy surged through him at the feeling – finally, some sensation! His palm lay matched with the mirror him’s, though Song’s was slightly smaller. A boy’s hand.

  But joy turned to horror as the surface of the mirror gave way, faint ripples expanding outwards from his hand. The very Void itself trembled, as if something turned in its sleep. Song tried to pull away, but his arm was drawn inexorably into the mirror, as unstoppable as time.

  Song’s last thought as the Void took him was of his mother’s meat buns.

  I’m sorry for being an unfilial son.

  —

  In a yurtwagon atop a hill covered in changpo flowers, a young man started, falling out of meditation.

  As Cyrus Park woke up from a very, very, long dream.