Withered Banks: A Record of Knocking on the Heart

The Cangming River has been dry for thirty-seven years. Its riverbed, once nourishing a thousand miles of fertile land, has cracked like a spiderweb and become the “Withered Shore,” a place that devours living souls. Shen Yan, a descendant of the Stonekeepers, carries his family's Duan inkstone and half a copy of the Record of the Stonekeepers into this wasteland buried beneath yellow sand. Three years ago, his family was exiled for the crime of “colluding with the Drought Qi.” His father died after being burned by the Knocking Stone, and his mother was reduced to bones. Only his master's dying words, “The inkstone subdues withered souls; the stone reveals the true heart,” remain as his sole fixation in his search for the truth. Deep in the riverbed, he encounters a Knocking Stone glowing with a ghostly blue light. The instant his fingertips touch it, the inkstone in his arms suddenly grows hot. The cloud patterns along its edge align with the cracks in the riverbed, and a vermilion glow like blood seeps through. Words appear of their own accord on the blank page of the Record of the Stonekeepers: “Strike the Knocking Stone three times, and the withered bones will open the door.” From the ruins in the distance comes a roar: the dry bones possessed by the “Drought Qi” are calling to him. When Shen Yan strikes the Knocking Stone for the third time, blue light surges from the cracks. Layer upon layer of dry bones are revealed, each carved with the same patterns as the inkstone. The silver ring on the topmost skeleton is identical to the keepsake from his mother on his own finger. The so-called crime of “colluding with the Drought Qi” turns out to be a secret guarded for generations by the Stonekeepers: the Knocking Stone holds the life force of the Withered Shore, and the Drought Qi was once the souls of the wronged, trapped beneath the yellow sand. The flatbread in his pack grows drier by the day, while the inkstone grows hotter and hotter. Clutching the burning Duan inkstone, Shen Yan presses on through the narrow passage between dry bones and Drought Qi. He seeks not only to clear his family's name, but also to find a way to make the Cangming River flow again and send the withered souls home. He does not know that every echo of the Knocking Stone forces him to confront his own fixation, and that the heirloom inkstone hides a choice heavier than the truth itself.