The Mirror of Names

Chapter Seven: The Mirror of Names

"The last prison is not the cell. It's the name carved on your bones."— Shen Wei

The cell was too quiet.

Zhao Gu was gone—temporarily reassigned to latrine duty after he tried to teach the guards "improvised lightning formation" using soap and copper wire.

I told him it wouldn't work. He told me I lacked imagination. The latrine exploded. So did Zhao's eyebrows.

Peace, as always, came at someone else's expense.

But now, with him gone, the silence pressed in.

And with it, the weight.

Self.

I didn't recognize it at first.

I thought maybe I was just tired. Maybe I missed Zhao's endless commentary or the way he dramatized peeling a turnip like it was a court tragedy. But it wasn't that.

It was the quiet voice at the back of my mind that started asking questions again.

Who are you?

What are you becoming?

What's left after all the letting go?

I laid back on the stone bed and stared at the ceiling. Same cracks as always. Same small smudge shaped like a bird. Same stale air curling in lazy circles above me.

And yet… it felt like everything was different.

It started with a letter.

Delivered by an official courier, no less. Sealed with the wax mark of the Waystone Monastery—one of the three "neutral sects" that were supposedly above the conflicts of the world.

I broke it open with fingers I didn't realize were shaking.

To the one known as Shen Wei, inmate of Black Hollow Penitentiary,

Word of your progress has reached our ears through channels you cannot imagine. There are whispers of a man with no aura walking a path with no form. This intrigues us.

You are invited to undergo the Silent Ascension Trial at Waystone. If you succeed, your record shall be erased, your name rewritten, and your life—restored.

You have seven days to respond.

Walk well.

— Abbot Lian

I read the letter three times.

Then I laughed.

It wasn't a joyful laugh. It was the kind that had nowhere else to go. That kind of laughter that arrives when you realize the world has finally started taking you seriously—right when you've stopped caring.

Zhao Gu returned that evening, hair scorched, boots missing, and carrying a bucket of salt with no explanation.

He found me staring at the letter.

"What's that?" he asked. "Another confession from a sect you accidentally enlightened?"

"An invitation," I said.

He blinked. "You got invited to something? That's suspicious."

"Waystone Monastery. They want me to take a trial. A real one."

"Oho. Are they offering robes? Chants? Enlightenment tea?"

"They said they'd wipe my record. Give me a new life."

Zhao sat beside me slowly, the usual glint in his eyes dulled for once.

"And… do you want that?"

I didn't answer right away.

Because I didn't know.

I had walked this path for six weights. Let go of ambition, fear, memory, pride, attachment, and control. I had nothing left—except, apparently, a reputation.

And now someone wanted to give me my life back?

What life?

The one where I was a nameless cultivator's disappointment?

The one where I was thrown in here for crimes I didn't commit—and a few I technically did?

The one where I tried to define myself by being "not like the others"?

I looked at Zhao.

"Who do you think I am?"

He scratched his head. "Philosophically? Metaphysically? Legally?"

"Zhao."

He leaned back. "Honestly? You're the only guy in here who got stronger by doing nothing. That makes you terrifying."

"That's not an answer."

He shrugged. "You're Shen Wei. Unless you're not. Which… I think is the point, right?"

That night, I dreamt of mirrors.

They weren't mystical or shimmering. Just plain, silver-backed slabs. Dozens of them, forming a circle around me. Each showed a different version of me.

One stood tall, robed in silk, eyes glowing with power. Another was ragged and chained, face hidden in shadow. One was smiling, peaceful. Another cried without sound.

I tried to look away, but the mirrors followed.

Everywhere I turned, a different me stared back.

Until one—directly ahead—flickered.

It showed nothing.

Not darkness.

Not emptiness.

Just… nothing.

And for the first time, I felt panic.

I stepped toward it.

The others whispered.

"You could've been more."

"You gave up."

"You lost everything."

"You are no one."

I touched the blank mirror.

And it cracked.

I woke up sweating.

Zhao Gu was already awake, somehow making a stew using only hot water and crushed rice crackers.

"Sleep well, O fragmented soul?" he asked without looking.

"Do you ever wonder what your name means?"

Zhao stirred the stew thoughtfully. "Well, 'Gu' means bone. 'Zhao' means call. So I guess my name means Summoning Skeleton."

"…Seriously?"

"Dead serious."

I stared at him.

"Fine," he said. "No. I don't think about my name. Names are chains. You spend your whole life trying to live up to one, or running from it."

That hit harder than I expected.

Because it was true.

The last weight wasn't about letting go of the world.

It was about letting go of the version of me that had been constructed by years of failure, expectation, memory, and pain.

The version called Shen Wei.

That was the name they carved into the prison records.

That was the name my brother used when he looked at me with shame.

That was the name I whispered when I thought I'd never amount to anything.

Maybe I had to shed even that.

The next morning, I sent a reply.

I would go to Waystone.

Not for salvation.

Not to reclaim my life.

But to lose it.

To see what remained when I was gone.