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Early spring, the old house.
Outside, apricot blossoms bloomed.
After a night of spring rain, the morning was still laced with cold.
Li Yuan opened his eyes in the pale light of dawn. He glanced at the empty space beside his pillow, then rose silently, washed up, and made his way to the window. He pressed his hand against the wooden frame, paused, then pushed it open.
At once, rain-drenched wooden slats spilled beads of water down the windowsill with a soft, pattering drip drip like a curtain of drizzle…there for a moment, then gone.
He pulled out a wooden chair and sat down. His clear eyes quietly settled on the pile of torn-up notes and a single sheet spread out on the table.
That pile was the fragmented remains of the golden character he had scribbled down while watching the battle between the Human Emperor and Khagan. He had been studying it since last autumn, and only now had he finally managed to decipher a corner of it.
It was the character for wood, but not quite the wood (木) he was familiar with. It looked more like a child’s drawing, or rather like a primitive human’s sketch of a tree. A tree, simple and crude.
The surrounding strokes were still unclear to him, but he could faintly sense that all the outstretching,...
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