Acupuncture Beneath the Starry Vault

Someone has waited by a well for seventy years, waiting to become a door. Someone has set out seven cups at the foot of a mountain, waiting for seven people to come drink tea. Someone at an emergency station asks, “Does it hurt?” and uses silver needles to bear other people's pain. Someone has carried the souls of eighty-one brothers and breathed inside a dragon's bones for four thousand six hundred years. Someone at an archive guards seven empty places, waiting for “things beyond explanation” to come of their own accord. Someone in an attic copies other people's stories, only to discover at the end that the seventh point of light is themself. They are waiting for the same thing in different places. Waiting for a person. A needle. A moment that can take them “back.” They don't know the others exist. But their heartbeats have already crossed a thousand miles and begun to beat as one. This is Starry Sky Acupuncture. A story forged from the wisdom of the Hundred Schools of Thought, the Sichuanese saying “only an empty vessel can be filled,” and the four-thousand-six-hundred-year wait of eighty-one battle spirits. Some call it science fiction. Some call it Eastern fantasy. Some call it a philosophical fable. In truth, it is none of those. It is simply eight people and a well. In the well is a mirror. In the mirror are seven points of light. The seven points are waiting for an eighth. Then the door will open. Then they will go somewhere. The largest black hole in the Milky Way is Jinjiang Ferry. The place beyond Jinjiang Ferry is called... Jinjiang Domain. Acupuncture, a treasure of Chinese medicine: on a small scale, it can cure disease; on a moderate scale, it can heal a nation. On a vast scale, can it heal and save the starry heavens?