The soles of Ye Jin's boots were stained with ashes. They were not ordinary ashes, but the ashes of the life paper burned in the ruins of Tianxu. When he stepped on them, they would stick to the seams of his shoes, and they could not be shaken off no matter how hard they were shaken. He walked for seven days without drinking water, eating or stopping. There were three cracks in the knee, blood oozing out, dry and cracked, like old strips of cloth stuck to the bone. He didn't care. He remembered the road, every stone step that collapsed, and which brick had a half-severed finger underneath it—he had thrown it five years ago. The altar is still there, but there is only a circle of crooked stone pillars left, and the middle is empty, as if someone has taken away a piece of the heart. The sword was stuck in the center. The blade was black, the blood was not completely dry, and it still contained warmth. There are two characters engraved on the sword hilt: Qi Yao. Ye Jin squatted down, his fingers still an inch away from the sword, and stopped. The wind came from the east and blew a speck of ashes from his left cuff. The ashes fell into a crack in the stone and remained motionless. He reached out. The moment his fingertips touched the sword, he heard cracks in his bones.
