The Nine Luminaries as Nails

Lin Feng, a blacksmith in Qingyang City, was tested and found to have no star pattern. The Zhao family broke off their engagement on the spot.

That night, he dug a copper bell out of the earth. Its clapper was a segment of a finger bone.

At the first ring, the blind cobbler in the eastern part of the city stopped working. He said the Nine Luminaries in this world were not stars, but nine nails, driven into a tower. The people inside the tower were sealed in stone and transported north, cartload after cartload.

He also said the bell must not ring nine times. When it rings for the ninth time, you will no longer be yourself.

Lin Feng could not read, so he learned to read first. Unable to draw on the Luminaries, he learned to count instead: stones, names, and how many times the bell had rung.

From Qingyang City to Zhongzhou, from the anvil to the foot of the White Tower, he had only one question: Why should those who kneel be unable to stand?

And the eye that had been open atop the tower for three hundred years was waiting for him to climb.