The Starblind, the Thirteenth Star

He cannot see the stars. The star-blind of Ash Street are fit only to live underground. Pipe cleaner Lin En should have rotted away without a sound in the narrow space between the aether conduits, alongside his younger brother, Tuo Bi. Until one day, he found a warm metal shard inside a pipe. The shard embedded itself in his left hand and became an astrolabe. Now he can see other people’s stellar paths and borrow their powers. The price is that every time he borrows a power, it kills the person he borrowed it from. The first person whose power he took became a fire fiend and burned to death in an Ash Street alley. Before dying, they said, “Someone stole my fire.” The second, the third, the thirteenth... The markings spread inch by inch up his left arm, his right pinky went permanently numb, and the people around him saw their astral corrosion levels shoot up like mercury. Some called him the “Ghost Doctor,” some called him “Black Lin En,” and some said he was the reincarnation of Ophiuchus. He was just a pipe cleaner trying to protect his younger brother. This is not a story about “getting stronger.” It is a story about “borrowing against a debt.” And every debt must eventually be repaid.