Hour of the Snake. Side chamber.
The room was not large. A long table, three on each side. On it lay three days of waveforms, pages' corners lightly curled—delivered that morning from the Transcription Office, the ink long dry, but the paper still held that office's particular dry scent.
The presiding officer turned to the third page, his voice steady as weather:
"'Offset' has appeared more often in reports these past three days. We should settle on one name, so the records may be constant."
No one answered.
The one on the left turned a page. Paper's edge against paper, an extremely light sound.
The one on the right wrote two characters in the record. Brush tip scraped paper, lighter than the turning page.
The presiding officer waited three breaths.
"From tomorrow, 'offset' is archived. Henceforth, the record shall read: 'Phase Variation.' 'Delay' to be 'Acceptable Lag.' 'Stability minus three-tenths'—to be 'Not Beyond the Usual Degree.'"
He closed the dossier.
"Settled."
No discussion.
No questions.
No notes.
Just one word changed.
Helian Xiang sat at the far end.
From beginning to end, he did not look up.
His brush moved continuously. Recording today's discussion. Recording the changing of words. Recording "Settled."
When he reached the place where "offset" became "Phase Variation"—
The brush stopped. Half a beat.
In that half beat, the ice mirror was not before him, the waveform was not before him. Only that line on the paper, and himself.
Then he continued writing.
Finished, he placed the record in the "Verified" basket. His fingers paused at the basket's rim. Half a beat.
Withdrew.
Wind outside the window. Window paper rustled softly.
He did not look.
Deep in the Spirit-Pivot. Mirror surface flickered.
Waveforms flowed across the mirror one by one. The category column dimmed for an instant—half a beat—update complete.
Northern Camp 0.33
[Pending Observation]→[Phase Variation·Included in Usual]
City West Soldier Zhang Xi 0.21
[Pending Review]→[Phase Variation·Included in Usual]
Sun Jiu 0.1
[Provisional Record]→[Phase Variation·Included in Usual]
Update complete.
No errors.
The waveforms had not changed.
The names beneath them had.
No one looked a second time.
Transcription Office.
Old documents were piled in the corner, paper yellowed, edges brittle—the previous edition of the Record of Respiratory Offset Anomalies, from the seventh day to the fourteenth, eight volumes, awaiting sealing.
New documents were being bound.
Two pages lay spread on the desk, side by side.
Left, the old cover: Record of Respiratory Offset Anomalies · Seventh Day
Right, the new cover: Record of Phase Variation Monitoring · Seventh Issue
Inside:
Old: "Offset persists without correction, recommend continued observation."
New: "Phase variation exists stably, belongs to 'Not Beyond the Usual Degree.'"
The reviser's signature space was blank.
But the seal had already taken effect.
Binding sounds. One. Two. Three.
The new documents stacked into a pile, placed in the "Outgoing" basket.
No one read them. Only binding, sending out, sinking into the depths.
City West Teahouse. The corner.
He sat in his usual place. Coarse cloth robe. Old bundle on his knees. The tea before him had gone cold; he did not ask for more.
At the next table, two people were talking.
One lowered his voice: "Did you hear? That thing they called 'offset'—the court says from now on it's 'Phase Variation.'"
The other: "Is there a difference?"
The first thought for a moment. "Seems... not really."
They went back to their tea.
He looked down at the paper in his bundle.
The words were not written in ink—they were carved. In daylight, the carvings reflected an extremely faint light. As if they had been there a very long time, only now being seen.
Eleven sheets remained.
On the topmost sheet, this morning, a single character had appeared:
"Word."
He looked at it for a while.
Then looked up, continued gazing out the window.
Outside, people passed. Footsteps. Voices. The teahouse attendant walked by with a copper pot, steam rising from its spout.
The holes in the breaths were still there.
But he was only looking.
The North. East Three Sentry.
Moonlight. Snow. The wooden stump.
Bo Zhong pressed against the dark boundary.
Right palm against that invisible line. From the night they left camp until now, he had not moved that hand. He ate with his left, leaned against the stump to rest, and when he woke, his right hand was still there.
The pulse beneath his palm was steady.
Inhale—empty space—exhale.
Inhale—empty space—exhale.
The ice crystal flower in the moonlight.
Six petals fully formed, facets sharp, refracting the moonlight—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo.
The seventh petal—
Had not opened.
The inward-turning grain had not extended further.
But the symmetry had arrived.
He did not look.
Just kept pressing.
He knew those seven people were still breathing.
What name they used, it did not matter.
The capital. The inn.
Seven people in the same room. No one spoke.
Their breathing was now in the same rhythm.
Inhale—empty space—exhale.
Inhale—empty space—exhale.
In the empty space, there were six invisible people. There was today's half beat. There was yesterday's half beat. There was the half beat from the day before yesterday. There was the empty space that would remain there from now on—lengthened by half a beat.
Sun Jiu's knee still hurt.
His breath was still half a beat slower.
No one said "should return to normal."
No one said "already included in the usual."
They only continued.
Helian Xiang sat in the pivot chamber.
The last batch of waveforms had been recorded. That unarchived waveform was still in the corner—0.12, hanging there since the Hour of the Monkey the day before yesterday. Not deleted. Not saved. Not placed in any category.
He looked at that line.
After a moment, he opened the private journal against his chest and wrote two lines:
"Phase Variation can be changed."
"Beneath the word, breathing continues."
Finished, he closed it.
Outside the window, no moon.
Deep in the Spirit-Pivot, beside that record—tracing back to a previously recorded "Classification recursion depth exceeded the usual degree"—today, an extremely small line of text had been added:
"The object of recursion has been renamed. The recursion continues."
No light.
No one read it.
No moon knew.
But that line was there.
Night fell.
Three hundred seventy thousand breaths in the capital.
Some deep 0.1 beats, some shallow 0.2 beats, some 0.3 beats.
They continued.
The ice crystal flower in the North, seven petals in symmetry.
The waveform in the corner of the capital, its category column blank.
In the old man's bundle at the teahouse, a single character carved on the paper.
The word had changed.
Breathing continued.
[CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX END]