Chronicles of Shenchuan

In the autumn, three years after the gods were destroyed, I found half a fragment of an ancient bamboo manuscript by the banks of the Chishui River. The bamboo slips, soaked in river mud, shimmered with an eerie indigo hue. The moment my fingertips touched the tadpole-shaped inscriptions, the entire river suddenly flashed with golden scales. In a daze, I saw twelve royal banners bobbing in the waves. The black-bird embroidery on them seemed to come alive, carrying a jade tablet as it skimmed past my brow.

Only after searching every book in the Grand Historian’s Library did I learn that this was the original manuscript of The Chronicles of the Divine River, lost for eight hundred years. Legend had it that the first royal historian wrote it with meteorite dust mixed with dragon blood, and that whenever a dynasty’s fortunes shifted, the manuscript would appear and choose its master. Now the bamboo slips before me were changing. The mottled ink marks swam and rearranged themselves as if alive, finally forming three lines of blood-red seal script:

“When golden eyes appear, the Imperial Star will fall.

When the Jade Seal cracks, the royal aura will scatter.

When the twelve monuments to the heroic dead are stained with blood, the Chishui will surge backward into the heavens.”

Suddenly, a fierce wind rose, and the candle on my desk went out. Moonlight slanted through the lattice window and fell upon the bamboo slips. A dense star chart appeared on what had been a blank reverse side. A broken sword was unmistakably embedded where the seventh star of the Big Dipper should be. The pattern carved into its hilt was the black-bird totem of the Divine River Dynasty.

The Kui Dragon Bell rang again, and the midnight watch drum echoed through the rain. I spread out the paper and dipped my brush into ink mixed with stardust. A thousand spirits sighed from the depths of the Chishui River. The vows buried by time, the joys and sorrows soaked into the pages of history, and the rotting truths beneath the throne would all come to light again as my brush moved across the page.