People say children don't remember much when they're young.
But I remember the night everything inside me shattered.
Before that night, my world was small.
A tiny village beside a slow river.A tiny house shared with Grandpa.A tiny bed that creaked every time I coughed.And a tiny fishing rod carved from simple wood, my most treasured thing.
Grandpa said fishing would help my weak heart."Quiet, gentle things suit you, Jin" he always said.
I liked quiet things.I liked watching water ripple.The river never judged me.
It was the only place I belonged.
But the river of my childhood is long gone burned, drowned, swallowed by the years.The boy who hid behind Grandpa's robes has walked through storms, crossed oceans, bled under foreign suns.
And now…
Now that same quiet boy stands before the most guarded gates in the Empire.
The Imperial Palace.
A place where the sky feels lower, where walls hum with spiritual formations, where every corner whispers of power and history.And in the heart of it all lies the place I have dreamed of for half my life:
The Imperial Heavenly Library.