Age 20
He walked for three days without stopping.
Not because he had somewhere to go. Because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and feeling meant acknowledging that the hole in his chest was wider than the crack in his core.
The wilderness swallowed him.
Mountains gave way to forests. Forests gave way to plains. Plains gave way to nothing—just endless grass under that wrong-colored sky, with stars that didn't belong to him.
He didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Didn't speak.
The voices were silent.
All of them.
For years, he'd wished they would shut up. Now they had. And the silence was worse.
This is what it feels like. To be alone.
He kept walking.
Day Four
A village appeared on the horizon.
Small. Poor. The kind of place that existed because people had nowhere else to go.
Gu Chen walked through it without stopping. Faces turned to watch him pass—a young man in strange clothes, eyes hollow, moving like a ghost.
No one spoke to him.
No one ever spoke to him.
Good. That's how it should be.
Day Seven
He found a cave.
Not a conscious decision—he simply stopped walking when the rain started, and the cave was there. He sat against the wall and watched the water fall.
His core pulsed weakly. The crack was wider now—he could feel it, a fault line running through the center of everything. One more abandonment, he suspected, and it would shatter completely.
Would that kill him?
He didn't know.
He didn't care.
That night, the Soldier spoke.
Get up.
Gu Chen ignored him.
Get up. You're not dead.
Close enough.
You're weak. Pathetic. You let him take everything and you just walked away.
What was I supposed to do? Kill him?
Yes.
Gu Chen opened his eyes. Stared at the cave ceiling.
Killing him would have meant caring. I don't care anymore.
Liar.
The voice wasn't the Soldier. It was the Beggar.
You care. That's why it hurts.
Gu Chen closed his eyes.
Go away.
We can't, the Beggar said. We're you.
Day Ten
He left the cave.
Not because he had a destination. Because the cave was starting to feel like home, and nowhere felt like home. Not anymore. Not ever.
He walked east.
Or west. He wasn't sure. The sun was wrong in this world—too large, too close, moving in patterns he didn't understand. Direction was meaningless.
But the road was there, so he followed it.
Day Fifteen
A traveler passed him on the road.
An old man—not like Old Mu, not hungry, just tired. He rode a donkey and led a second donkey loaded with supplies.
He stopped when he saw Gu Chen.
"Young man. You look half-dead."
Gu Chen kept walking.
"Hey." The old man nudged his donkey to catch up. "I'm not trying to bother you. But there's a town ahead—half a day's walk. You'll make it by nightfall if you keep moving."
Gu Chen said nothing.
"Or not. Suit yourself."
He rode on.
Gu Chen walked.
Nightfall
The town was real.
Small walls, wooden gates, lanterns flickering in the dark. Gu Chen passed through the gates and found himself in a market square—smaller than the Wanderer's Market, quieter, but alive.
People ate at outdoor tables. Children ran between stalls. A musician played something sad on a stringed instrument.
Gu Chen stood at the edge of it all and watched.
You could sit down, the Orphan whispered. Eat something. Pretend to be human.
Why?
Because you are human. Even if you've forgotten.
Gu Chen thought about it. Then he turned and walked to the edge of the square, where the shadows were thickest, and sat against a wall.
Not participating. Just existing.
It was enough.
The Next Morning
He woke to a coin in his lap.
Someone had put it there while he slept—a small copper piece, barely enough for a bowl of rice. He looked around. No one met his eyes.
Charity, the Beggar said. For the pathetic beggar boy.
I'm not a beggar.
You're sitting against a wall looking like death. That's close enough.
Gu Chen stared at the coin.
Then he stood, walked to a food stall, and bought a bowl of rice.
He ate slowly. The first food in two weeks. It tasted like nothing.
One Month After Old Mu
He stopped counting days.
The town became a temporary home—not because he chose it, but because leaving required energy he didn't have. He found work where he could. Carrying goods. Cleaning stables. Running messages.
No one asked where he came from. No one cared.
He preferred it that way.
At night, he sat against the same wall and stared at the same sky. The stars didn't change. Neither did he.
The voices spoke occasionally now.
The Soldier urged him to train, to grow stronger, to prepare for the next abandonment. The Beggar laughed and said it didn't matter—they'd all leave anyway. The Monk whispered about forgiveness, but his voice was faint, almost apologetic.
The Orphan said nothing.
That worried Gu Chen most of all.
A Stranger
He appeared on a Tuesday.
Young, maybe mid-twenties. Cultivator's robes. Sword at his hip. Eyes that scanned everything and everyone with the casual confidence of someone who could kill anything in the room.
He sat at a table in the square and ordered tea.
Gu Chen watched him from across the way.
Cultivator, the Soldier said. Core Formation. Maybe higher.
So?
So watch him. Learn.
Gu Chen watched.
The cultivator drank his tea, paid, and left. But before he did, his eyes swept across the square—and stopped on Gu Chen.
Just for a moment.
Then he was gone.
That night, Gu Chen dreamed.
Not of the monk this time. Of something else.
A king. Sitting on a throne that was crumbling beneath him. Courtiers walking away, one by one, until he was alone.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
No one answered.
The throne collapsed. He fell.
Gu Chen woke with the King's voice in his head for the first time.
They will all leave. Rule them or they'll destroy you.
He lay in the dark, heart pounding.
A new voice. The fifth.
Not yet, he thought. Not until the next abandonment.
But it was there. Waiting.
The Next Day
He made a decision.
Not a big one. Not dramatic. Just a choice: stop drifting. Start moving toward something.
He didn't know what. But the King's voice had planted a seed. Rule them or they'll destroy you. He couldn't rule anyone yet. But he could get stronger.
He found a map. Studied it.
There were sects in this world. Places where cultivators gathered. Some were rumored to accept anyone—even rootless wanderers—as long as they could prove their worth.
He picked one at random.
Cloud Peaks Sect. Three weeks east.
He left the next morning.
On the Road
Walking felt different now.
Not purposeful—he still didn't know what he was looking for. But directed. Moving toward something, even if that something was just a name on a map.
The voices settled into their usual rhythm. Soldier planning. Beggar mocking. Monk meditating. King observing.
The Orphan remained silent.
He'll come back, Gu Chen told himself. He always does.
But he wasn't sure.
Two Weeks Later
The mountains rose before him.
Cloud Peaks, the map called them. The sect was somewhere in those peaks—hidden, protected, waiting for those worthy to find it.
Gu Chen began to climb.
The air thinned. The cold bit. His cracked core pulsed with each step, protesting, demanding rest.
He ignored it.
Three days of climbing. Three nights of sleeping on bare stone. On the fourth morning, he saw it.
A gate.
Stone arches. Carvings of clouds and swords. Two guards in matching robes, watching him approach.
"Halt. State your business."
Gu Chen stopped. Looked at them.
"I'm here to join."
The guards exchanged glances. One laughed.
"You? You have no cultivation. No sect would take you."
Gu Chen said nothing.
The other guard studied him longer. Something in his eyes flickered—uncertainty, maybe.
"Wait here," he said.
He disappeared through the gate.
Hours Later
A man emerged.
Older than the guards. Robes of a higher rank. Eyes that had seen decades of disciples come and go.
"You're the one who wants to join?"
"Yes."
"No cultivation. No backing. No resources." The man's voice was flat. "Why would we take you?"
Gu Chen met his gaze.
"Because I'll work harder than anyone you have. Because I'll take the worst tasks, the lowest ranks, the dirtiest jobs. Because I need somewhere to belong."
The man stared at him.
Something shifted in his expression. Not pity. Not kindness. Something colder. Assessment.
"We don't take rootless wanderers," he said finally. "But..." He paused. "There is one position. Outer disciple. Lowest rank. No resources, no training, no guarantees. You clean the latrines. You run messages. You do whatever you're told, whenever you're told, without question."
Gu Chen didn't hesitate.
"I'll take it."
The man nodded slowly.
"Then follow me."
He turned and walked through the gate.
Gu Chen followed.
Behind him, in the shadow of a twisted tree, a woman in white watched him go.
"Four down," Su Wan whispered.
"Five to go."
She pressed her hand against the trunk. The bark cracked. She did not move for a long time.