The Temple Without Doors

Chapter Eight: The Temple Without Doors

"When you walk far enough, the road stops being a road. It becomes a reflection."— Shen Wei

The guards didn't say goodbye.They just shoved me into a wagon, tossed in a sack of dried rice crackers like it was a farewell feast, and locked the door behind me.

Zhao Gu was the only one who came to see me off. He leaned against the prison gate with his arms crossed and his hair finally starting to grow back from the incident with the soap bomb.

He didn't smile.

"Try not to ascend too hard," he said. "Or forget us mortals down here."

I gave him a look. "You think I'm going to become some kind of monk?"

"Worse," he muttered. "You're going to become a metaphor."

Then he hugged me.

It was brief, awkward, and smelled vaguely like onions. But it was real.

And then he let go.

And the wagon wheels started moving.

The road out of Black Hollow was long and quiet. No chains. No destination in sight—just the open world, with nothing but fields and wind and the distant outline of mountains too stubborn to bow to time.

I hadn't seen an open sky in… how long?

Weeks?

Months?

I couldn't tell anymore. Prison erodes time. It grinds the days into a paste of repetition and bad soup. But outside, time returned in the form of wind and sun and the ache of muscles not used to moving.

Eventually, the road became a trail. The trail became steps. And the steps became stone.

Waystone Monastery was built into the cliffside like a secret someone tried to whisper and then forgot halfway through.

There were no doors. Just pillars. Sloping rooftops. Empty halls that echoed with a silence so old it felt sacred.

A monk greeted me at the threshold. He didn't speak. Just nodded and gestured for me to follow.

He led me through narrow corridors, past gardens with no flowers and scrolls that hung from trees like forgotten thoughts.

Finally, we stopped at a chamber lit only by a single brazier. At its center was a round stone platform with a symbol carved into it: 無 — nothing.

A second monk stood waiting. He looked old, but not in the usual way. His face was young, but his eyes had seen too many endings. His robes were plain, but his silence filled the space like thunder.

"You are Shen Wei," he said.

I hesitated.

Then nodded.

He tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle with a missing piece.

"You have come to ascend?"

"I've come to finish what I started."

He stepped aside and motioned to the platform.

"Then step into yourself."

I expected light. Thunder. Heat. Or at least something more dramatic.

Instead, the moment I stood on the stone, the world fell away.

No wind.

No light.

No body.

Just consciousness, floating in a space where sound didn't exist.

At first, I thought it was an illusion—another trial like the ones I'd faced with fear, memory, or control.

But this was different.

I wasn't being tested.

I was being peeled.

Then came the voices.

Not from outside.

From inside.

"You think letting go makes you wise? You just gave up."

"You could have been something. A leader. A cultivator."

"You are not free. You are just afraid to try again."

Each voice was a version of me.

The student who left his sect in shame.The boy who failed his first trial.The man who chose exile over revenge.The prisoner who looked for meaning in dust.

They circled me like wolves, wearing my face.

"Why do you get to move on?"

"What have you earned?"

"What are you without us?"

I tried to answer. But I had no mouth. No form. I was just awareness. Just weight.

Then I saw it.

A mirror.

Floating in the dark.

This one didn't show versions of me.

It just showed me.

Now.

No aura.

No pride.

No defenses.

And I realized something terrifying.

I didn't hate who I saw.

But I didn't recognize him either.

I reached out.

The mirror shattered.

The space dissolved.

And I landed, breathless, back on the stone platform—knees hitting the cold surface, palms braced, heart racing.

I looked up.

The monks hadn't moved.

The brazier still burned, low and steady.

But I was different.

Not stronger.

Not wiser.

Just… emptied.

The old monk stepped forward.

"You have seen."

I nodded.

"You are ready to receive your new name," he said. "To shed the last."

And that's when I said it.

"No."

The air didn't stir, but I felt the shift in weight.

"No?" he repeated, calmly.

"I don't want a new name," I said. "And I don't want to keep the old one."

He studied me for a long moment.

"Then what are you?"

"I don't know," I said. "But that's the point, isn't it?"

They gave me no robe. No title. No certificate of enlightenment.

Just silence.

And a path leading away from the temple.

I left Waystone the same way I arrived: alone.

But something had shifted.

I didn't walk with purpose.

I didn't walk with power.

I just walked.

And the wind didn't call me by name.

It didn't need to.