The karma slammed into him before he had taken two steps.
His knees hit the stone floor of the Ancestral Hall. The impact should have hurt, but he couldn't feel the stone anymore. The hall around him was thinning, as if reality was being pulled apart.
Yuming found himself in a vast, empty space with a clear sky hanging over him.
He felt a pressing weight from above.
Since being saved by Jinghan, Yuming had always felt Zhan as a sturdy branch above him. Each witnessed transaction was another small thread that bound him to the branch. The sky carried the gentle weight of obligation, pressing just enough to keep him from standing fully upright.
Now, it was as if the Heavens had opened up, forming a funnel that fed down into the center of his being. Numerous fine threads reached for him; shimmering filaments spiraled downward leaving trails of radiance as they fell.
Each thread that landed filled him with memories.
A weak thread brushed against him, and Yuming recalled receiving a medicinal pill. It left a faint pressure, gone almost as soon as he noticed it.
Another followed, slightly thicker, and he remembered Tianjue giving him five spirit stones. Something settled against his wrist, but it wasn’t quite tight enough to bind.
Another caught, and his thoughts returned to his days at the Merit Archive Pavilion. When the memory passed, he found that his footing had been shifted.
Larger threads gathered, each pushing him closer to stillness.
At last, the great branch above descended. With a single, unhurried motion, it pressed him into a kowtow while drawing his head up to stare at the open sky.
The funnel widened.
Something darker began to pour through, too heavy to drift or spiral, dragging with it memories of connections he didn’t recognize. It was the karma that connected Zhan and Xu.
It carried the weight of obligations between branches: debts accumulated over decades, threads that bound Zhan to Xu.
Zhan wanted to graft them onto him. When it was done, Zhan would be clean, while Yuming would hold the weight of everything that had bound them.
The pressure reached the fault line running through him and forced it into a chasm.
Yuming split into two, Chenming and Yuming.
The two identical young men prostrated themselves under the sky; one’s eyes brimmed with boundless longing, the other stared above with a chilling glint.
The Xu karma streamed towards both.
Chenming’s side was sticky: forty threads floated wistfully above. They drifted toward Willowbank, toward blood and family, toward true sorrows and true joys—yet they carried no direction at all, stirring without purpose.
As the karma fell, some of it caught on the threads, some fell onto the body beneath.
On Yuming’s side the karma landed cleanly. He looked identical to Chenming, yet he was somehow more defined, more spared. The Xu karma navigated towards him.
He could feel it settling into his Self, finding the grooves that had been carved for it.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Some of the Xu karma didn’t land at all. It bled off along the distance, thinning as it pushed through the funnel.
It’s not as accurate as it should have been. Zhan sent the karma through the Tree network, and I noticed the trap before reaching the Tree.
He turned toward Chenming, observing his numerous sticky threads that continued to accumulate weight. Chenming’s body jerked, convulsing as the caught karma dragged him forward and back.
Chenming probably can’t think at all.
Even though he’s the one who got us in this situation.
At least now he can’t hold me back.
Yuming closed his eyes and calmed himself. He felt a thread of his own, drawn from the same golden substance as karma that grabbed him, except it led downward, bound to a life he had once saved.
Yujin. This is the karma from when I saved his life at the cave.
Tracing that thread to its source, he could slightly make out the scene of a young boy offering gratitude.
Gratitude flows up.
Yujin was below Yuming, connected by Zhan karma. If he could send the Xu karma towards Yujin...
The dark Xu karma tilted toward Yuming, dragging at everything it touched. He caught it and nearly buckled. The weight was too dense, pressing down through his chest until his breath stuttered.
He forced his attention inward, clinging to the downward thread, trying to feed the karmic load to Yujin.
Yuming’s vision dimmed as he pushed, inch by inch, driving the karma against resistance as his bones ground together.
Only I can decide my direction!
He let out a roar, and something gave. The karma yielded just enough to let the weight pass through towards the thread that hung below him.
Only when the Xu karma finally touched the thread did the pressure truly drop. It recognized the substance—a similar substance to the funnel that had carried it—and followed.
Gratitude flows up.
He glanced across the chasm to Chenming, who suddenly felt something.
Chenming was convulsing. Dozens of threads rose from him, drifting only to snag on the heavy karma, yanking at his body until he was left shuddering and disfigured.
He dragged his head up with visible effort and reached out, his fingers clawing at empty air. Grief twisted his face into something self-loathing—his eyes holding unmistakable horror.
He strained his mouth to open, gasping out words that only barely crossed over the distance.
“Yuj—”
“He is—innocent.”
Yuming shook his head and looked away.
So were we.
But he couldn’t just leave Chenming like this. Unfortunately, they shared a body, and one day they would need to be merged into a stable Self.
He closed his eyes and reached out towards the chasm, trying to resonate with the Tree fragment.
Something pale and slightly luminous began to rise from the chasm’s depths, a gnarled branch fragment. Fine offshoots—like tendrils—unfurled as it ascended, carrying trails of recognition that reached towards both Yuming and Chenming.
Yuming wrapped the fragment with his will and led it across the chasm.
It stretched towards Chenming, who was still thrashing about; Xu karma slowly collided with him.
The fragment touched him.
Chenming and Yuming locked eyes. For a moment they were connected. Yuming firmly anchored to the side, Chenming gripping desperately to the pale wood, the Wen Tree’s recognition closing the gap between them.
But Chenming had forty threads hanging from his body, forty threads that didn’t respond to his instructions.
They stirred aimlessly, some snagging onto more Xu karma, some reaching back towards the Zhan branch that tried to hold Chenming in place. The pull snapped Chenming back, his fingers scraping uselessly.
His body stretched and distorted as the two sides pulled.
Yuming pulled harder until the fragment strained.
Chenming screamed.
Pieces of him began to loosen—the smell of Willowbank after the rain, the sound of Chenrui’s laughter, the feeling of getting beaten by Yiling. The memories stretched and thinned, losing their edges and fading.
Part of Chenming began to unravel. His outline started blurring, his body began to smear, until pieces of his Self dissolved into the churning background.
Seeing this, Yuming felt his stomach curdle. His hands trembled.
Come on, come on.
He pulled harder and harder.
The Xu karma that had been sticking to Chenming’s forty threads began to snap. One by one they recoiled back towards the funnel they emerged from.
The tension released all at once.
What remained of Chenming—diminished, holding sticky threads and Xu residue—darted across the chasm.
Yuming had no time to brace. The impact drove through him.
It wasn’t a collision of two physical bodies, but a collision of two Selves. Chenming’s grief poured into places where Yuming kept himself clean. Chenming’s sticky karma wrapped around his threads.
Yuming glanced down at Yujin’s karmic thread and felt a growing sense of horror and loneliness.
No—get back—you’re supposed to stay on your side—
But there was no side anymore.
