The Village of Dancing Mirrors and the Garden of Rooted Lies
The Storyteller's Shadow and the Mud Games
Lin Xiu's words fell like seeds into fertile soil. The children around him paused their mud game, their eyes wide as bowls.
"And what happened to the mute dog, uncle?" asked a boy with a mud-smeared face.
Lin Xiu spun the broken broom in his hands (now reformed with threads of shadow):
"He came upon a tree that grows upside-down... its roots touched the stars, while its leaves drank from illusions!"
As he performed with exaggerated gestures, his eyes caught a long shadow behind the village house—a shadow with three broken horns.
Yue Yan approached and whispered: "The shadow is moving."
"The children are playing... let the shadow dance alone!" Lin Xiu laughed, but his finger drew three overlapping circles on the ground—a signal to spread and encircle.
Treacherous Mirrors of the Night
By nightfall, the village had become a forest of reflective mirrors:
Mirrors that showed distorted versions of passersby.
Mirrors that reduced shadows to black lines.
Mirrors that imprisoned past moments like captives.
Yue Yan stood before a mirror that showed her as a child wielding a bloodstained ice sword.
"This isn't a reflection... it's a memory trap!"
She tried to shatter it, but the mirror absorbed her ice energy.
Lin Xiu approached with hands behind his back, calculating angles of reflection:
"Mirrors are beautiful because they lie honestly! But..."
He struck the mirror at the point where light and shadow intersected—
CRRACK!
The mirror splintered into three shards, falling like dice to the ground.
"The solution's simple: turn the lie into a game!" He picked up the shards and rolled them like dice.
The numbers appeared: 3... 1... 4.
"Head northwest!" he declared in a tour guide's tone.
Yi Bao whispered to Yue Yan: <
The Garden of Rooted Lies
Following the dice's direction, they arrived at a garden walled in by newly grown trees:
Roses speaking with human voices.
Apple trees bearing tiny knives.
Grass composing love poems into the soil.
On a stone bench sat an old man feeding paper birds.
"Welcome, travelers! I'm the garden's caretaker. Want a lie to plant?"
He pointed to a row of empty pots awaiting "seeds of speech."
Yue Yan stepped forward cautiously: "We're looking for a shadow."
The caretaker laughed: "Shadows are the best lies! But beware... the big lies grow roots and become truth!"
He handed her a black seed. "This was Zou Lan's favorite lie: 'Chaos sets us free.'"
Lin Xiu took the seed and swallowed it.
"Tastes... bitter, like forgotten truth!"
Then he spat out a black flower into his palm.
The Game of Hiding Truth
Suddenly, the garden moved!
Trees blocked the paths.
Roses screamed false warnings.
The apple-knives flew like darts at them!
Yue Yan raised an ice shield. Yi Bao emitted golden waves to stun the blades.
But Lin Xiu walked toward the apple tree, singing:
"O foolish knife-tree,
Why do you pluck the universe's nails?
Don't you know that wounds...
Are the best soil for lies?!"
As he sang, he kicked an exposed root!
The tree bowed suddenly, revealing a hidden door in the ground.
"Here! The fox's burrow!"
But before they could descend, the three-horned shadow lunged from the leaves!
A Hunt Through Rooted Maze
Inside the tunnel, they faced a maze of moving roots:
Roots that twisted and strangled.
Roots that secreted memory-burning sap.
Roots that whispered false temptations.
The shadow (Zou Lan) laughed from the dark:
"The Seventh Domain isn't power... it's the absence of limits! I am now... an idea waiting to spread!"
Yue Yan unleashed a frost storm to freeze the maze.
Yi Bao turned his light into a spectral map.
But the roots adapted:
They melted the ice quickly.
They blurred the map with false lights.
Lin Xiu crouched down, drawing on the ground with black spit (from the flower):
"Every maze has three weak points: the beginning, the end... and the middle that thinks itself safe!"
His drawings formed a molecular map of the roots, marking vital intersections.
"Yi Bao! Strike the golden node! Yue Yan! Freeze the blue one!"
They followed his orders.
The roots suddenly hardened, forming a bridge to the maze's heart.
The Chamber of Core Mirrors
At the center, they found a circular mirror chamber. In the middle stood a semi-transparent statue of Zou Lan, fed by shadow-threads from the mirrors.
"I'm not here... I'm in every mirror!" echoed Zou Lan's voice.
The mirrors began to reflect:
Yue Yan killing her mother.
Yi Bao signing the demonic pact.
Lin Xiu fleeing from his dying master.
Yue Yan fell to her knees, the images draining her energy.
Yi Bao shouted: <
Lin Xiu approached the statue, his laugh cold:
"You planted your lies in fertile soil... but forgot they need truthlight to grow!"
He crushed the black shadow flower above the statue.
The flower sprouted roots of light that pierced the statue!
"No! That's not your power!" Zou Lan screamed.
"No... it's yours—the lie 'Chaos sets us free'—the one I swallowed!"
The Bitter Harvest of Truth
The statue exploded into glowing dust. The mirrors cracked, their false images crying black glass.
From the ruins emerged three spheres of light:
1. A white sphere: Yue Yan's true memory with her mother.
2. A golden sphere: a lost fragment of Yi Bao's soul.
3. A black sphere: the Heavenly Seal in full form.
Yue Yan touched the white sphere. Warm tears flowed for the first time since childhood:
"My mother... never abandoned me. Zou Lan trapped her in an ice mountain!"
Yi Bao swallowed the golden sphere. Wings of light flared briefly from his back:
<>
Lin Xiu took the black sphere (Tian'gu's Seal). He did not place it on his forehead.
"Absolute power... Zou Lan's final lie!"
He crushed it in his hand.
The seal turned into shadow birds that flew toward the shattered mirrors.
The Last Madness of the Gardener
The chamber collapsed. They found themselves back in the real garden—now dead:
Wilted roses croaked with hoarse voices.
Knife-trees lay fallen like corpses.
The grass had written the word "Goodbye" in broken strokes.
The old caretaker was dying on his bench:
"I used to be this garden's gardener... until Zou Lan came. He promised my lies would become truth."
His body was turning into dry leaves.
Lin Xiu sat beside him: "The garden died because you believed in one big lie... instead of planting a thousand mad truths!"
He handed him a seed made of shadow birds.
The caretaker planted it with a trembling hand. It grew into a tiny mirror tree that reflected random colors.
"Thank you..." he whispered as he crumbled to dust.
The Final Shadow Dances Alone
At the garden's gate, Zou Lan's shadow stood for the last time—transparent as smoke.
"You destroyed Tian'gu's Seal... what do you want now?"
Lin Xiu tossed him a mirror shard:
"Look! This is all that remains of you... a shadow in a broken mirror."
The shadow looked at its reflection: a tired-looking ordinary man, no horns, no darkness.
"Who... am I?"
"A man who misread chaos... mistaking it for destruction instead of play."
Lin Xiu flipped the shard. The shadow dissolved with the last thread of darkness.
Yue Yan asked: "Is it over?"
"One game ended... but the garden needs new gardeners!"
He pointed to the mirror tree. On its leaves, a tiny shadow had begun to dance with joy.
New Seeds in Old Disciples
At the edge of the village, the children awaited the story's end.
"And what happened to the mute dog?"
Lin Xiu pulled out three seeds: white, gold, black.
"He planted his mad garden... and everything grew—except order!"
He tossed the seeds into the village fields.
By the next morning:
The rice fields had sprouted whispering ice flowers.
The mango trees bore tiny clocks that laughed when ripe.
The streams carried golden letters that wrote poetry.
Yue Yan picked an ice flower: "Is this real... or a beautiful lie?"
Yi Bao held a laughing clock: <
Lin Xiu leaned on his broom. His eyes surveyed the new village with cold precision:
"Lies become truth when believed by the heart... so why not plant beautiful lies?"
And in the shade of the mirror tree, he began a new tale...
As a small shadow danced on its trunk, learning its very first steps.