The forest was quiet again—too quiet.Mist rolled low over the ground, carrying the faint scent of iron and rain.They had walked for hours, yet the path behind them refused to stay.Each time Xu Pingsheng looked back, the trees had shifted, their roots twined into different patterns, as if the mountain itself were turning in its sleep.
Li Yan broke the silence first."So," he said, "you touched Heaven's broken toy, nearly died again, and now the forest's playing tricks.On a scale of one to doomed, where are we?"
Pingsheng didn't answer. His sleeve still glowed faintly where the fragment had burned him.Every few steps, a whisper rose at the edge of hearing—not a voice, but a counting.Slow. Patient.One... two... three...
He stopped. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Li Yan squinted. "The wind?"
"No. The counting."
Elder Qinghe, walking ahead, turned. "Describe it."
"It's like someone keeping time." Pingsheng pressed a hand to his chest. The Soulwheel pulsed once. "And it's counting my breaths."
Qinghe's gaze sharpened. "Then stop breathing."
Pingsheng obeyed. The sound did not stop. It grew louder.
The elder lifted his cane. "The fragment is marking you. Heaven's ledger doesn't like blanks."He struck the ground once; ripples of light rolled outward, revealing thin silver lines in the soil—Threads, hundreds of them, writhing like worms toward Pingsheng's feet.
Li Yan swore and jumped back. "That's new."
Qinghe barked, "Move!"
The Threads struck where Pingsheng had stood. The ground hissed, stone turning to dust.He spun, the Soulwheel igniting in his chest, its rings glowing blue and white.
The Threads followed the light like hounds to blood.
"Elder!" he called.
Qinghe's hands moved in an old pattern, faster than thought. "They're drawn to what defies the Record. They're—"
Before he could finish, a voice rolled from the mist.
Defiance has a sound, after all.
Shapes formed—cloaked figures, half a dozen, their robes the same cloud-gray as Taiching's enforcers, but their lanterns burned black.The foremost stepped forward, face hidden behind a veil of sigils.
"Ledger Keepers," Qinghe hissed. "Heaven's accountants."
Li Yan blinked. "That's a thing?"
"It is now," Qinghe said.
The lead Keeper's voice was soft, like paper tearing. "The boy carries what belongs to the Roll. Hand him over."
Qinghe's cane cracked against the ground. "He stands under Taiching's law."
"He stands outside Heaven's."
The Keeper lifted one hand. Threads of darkness burst outward, binding air and sound.For an instant, the world folded in half—forest above, sky below.Li Yan vanished into the fog with a shout.
Pingsheng lunged forward. The Soulwheel screamed, its second ring flaring.The pull of the Threads met the push of his will, a collision that tore bark from trees and left light bleeding from the air.
He saw one Thread wrap his arm, sinking into skin.The counting roared.
One... two... three... four—
"Enough!" he shouted.
He tore the Thread free. It left no wound, only a symbol burning where it had been—a small, perfect circle.The Keeper staggered, his veil splitting. Beneath it was no face, only another Thread, coiled like a serpent.
The specters faltered. The Soulwheel spun once more.Light burst outward, silent and absolute.
When it faded, the forest was whole again.No fog. No Keepers.Only the echo of the counting, fading into nothing.
Li Yan crawled out from behind a fallen trunk, hair full of leaves. "If that's what you call a simple errand, I quit."
Qinghe leaned on his cane, pale. "They shouldn't have been here. Heaven doesn't send Keepers below the clouds."
"Then why did it?" Pingsheng asked.
Qinghe looked at him, at the faint circle still glowing on his wrist."Because it's afraid," he said. "The last time a Soulwheel turned against the Roll, the sky burned for seven days."
"And what happened to him?" Li Yan asked.
The elder's eyes dimmed. "He disappeared. Along with the stars above his name."
The wind shifted. Far to the east, lightning flashed without sound.
Qinghe straightened. "We return at once. The Council will want to seal the fragment. Heaven will move again."
Pingsheng closed his fist around the crystal shard.He could still feel it pulsing, faint and alive, like a second heart.
If Heaven fears what it made, he thought, then it remembers losing before.
The wheel turned.
— End of Chapter 7 —