They reached the next town as the sun was rising on the day before chapter 15. It was a small, quiet place with a single noodle stall—"Chen's Noodles"—that reminded Lin Chen of Old Ma's. The air smelled of garlic and chili, and for a moment, everything felt normal.
Gao Yang's eyes lit up the moment he saw the stall. "Last bowl before… whatever happens tomorrow," he said, pulling Lin Chen and Yu Qing toward it. "We have to make it count. Extra egg, extra vegetables, extra everything."
The stall owner was a young man named Chen Wei, who smiled as they sat down. "Three bowls of signature noodles?" he asked. "My grandma taught me the recipe—she said good noodles should tell a story."
As he prepared the food, Gao Yang pulled out his broken staff and started tracing the deep black crack in it. "You know," he said, "I've been thinking about that reversed town. How grief can twist things, but you fixed it by letting it be real. That's what your story's always been about, right? Not erasing the hard parts, but making room for them."
Lin Chen nodded, his eyes on the crystal from Master Lian—now glowing so bright he could barely hold it. The threads of fate here were pulled tight, like a bowstring about to snap. The flickering star was gone now, completely faded from the sky.
Yu Qing closed her notebook, her hands trembling slightly. "Tomorrow's chapter 15," she said quietly. "Master Lian said it would be a turning point. I'm scared."
"Me too," Gao Yang said, surprising them both. He usually hid his fear behind jokes. "But hey—we've faced worse. Fate Cutters, living books, reversed towns. Whatever tomorrow brings, we'll face it together. That's what friends do."
Chen Wei set down three steaming bowls of noodles. They looked exactly like Old Ma's—warm, bubbling, filled with extra egg and vegetables. Gao Yang picked up his chopsticks, then paused.
"Wait," he said, looking at Lin Chen. "Can you write something in your book? Just… something to remember this moment by."
Lin Chen opened his blank book to the page before the one with the faint line. He wrote a single, simple line:
Three friends eat noodles as the sun rises. This moment is real, and it will never be erased.
The words glowed on the page, then settled into place—permanent, unchanging. Gao Yang grinned and took a big bite of noodles. "Best noodles I've ever had," he said, his mouth full. "Even better than Old Ma's."
"Liar," Yu Qing laughed, wiping a tear from her eye—she didn't know why she was crying, just that the moment felt both happy and sad, like a goodbye.
After they finished eating, Gao Yang stood up and stretched. "Okay," he said. "Let's find that carpenter. I want to start on that new staff tonight. The one with the white patch."
They walked through the town to a small carpenter's shop. The carpenter, an old man with calloused hands, looked at Gao Yang's broken staff and nodded. "I can carve you a new one by morning," he said. "But this old one… it's got a story in it. You should keep it."
Gao Yang took the broken staff and held it tight. "I will," he said. "It's part of my story."
As the sun set, they sat outside the shop, watching the carpenter work. Gao Yang was humming the tune from the reversed town, and Blank the cat was curled up on his lap. Lin Chen pulled out the stone from his pocket—its black line now matching the crack in Gao Yang's staff perfectly.
He looked at his friends—Gao Yang with his bright smile, Yu Qing with her notebook open, writing down every detail of the day. The core of his story was still there: potential, choice, the power of the blank. But the turn was coming. The refrain had reached its final note, soft but unmissable now.
"Hey," Gao Yang said, looking up at the dark sky. "Do you think there's a star for each of us? Even the ones that fade?"
"Maybe," Lin Chen said. "But even faded stars leave light behind. In the stories we tell, in the people we leave behind."
Gao Yang grinned. "Then my light's gonna be bright. Everyone's gonna remember the Storyteller who danced with a broken staff and ate too much egg."
As night fell, the carpenter handed Gao Yang the new staff. It was perfect—tall, strong, with a small white patch on the handle, just like Blank. Gao Yang twirled it, and it sang through the air, a clear, bright note that echoed through the quiet town.
"Ready for tomorrow?" he asked, looking at Lin Chen and Yu Qing.
"Ready," they said together.
But as they walked back to the inn, Lin Chen looked at the new staff's handle. There, hidden in the white patch, was a tiny black line—curved, sharp, exactly like all the others.
The turn was here. Chapter 15 was tomorrow.