…That counts? The thought flicked like a sparrow at the eaves, startled by a door that swung open too easily.

Yekase froze, eyes wide like pools before dawn. In her mind, a proper “couplet to enter a secret realm” plot should make her sit like a stone at the gate for days, then catch a lightning-flash of insight to pass.

They just let me through? The question drifted like mist across a river, thin but cold.

So the other side never meant to pen her in. That intent felt like a breeze through bamboo, more invitation than trap.

Hello? Then… excuse me— Her voice tiptoed like a kitten over polished wood, careful not to wake the mountain.

If curiosity decides how far you can see, awe decides how far you can walk. That truth rose like a mountain path under cloud—before this secret realm and that bronze door hewn by thunderbolts, even thorn-bright Yekase folded her edges, fearing she’d anger a figure beyond her horizon.

And that figure… it should be that one, right? The guess glowed like a lantern under rain, naming a shape in shadow.

Sandryon had mentioned her—a history teacher tucked into some nameless valley school, the oldest presence on Huaxia’s soil. The title rustled like old silk: Bookwright of the Hundred Schools, Ji Xia.

She passed through a dark corridor where sound fell like dust. Two steady lamps trembled with amber light, and in their sway Yekase saw a back.

A youth’s frame, slim yet straight as a pine after snow. No coronet; a scholar’s blue robe lay quiet as a lake. Her ink-black hair spilled like a waterfall, pooling against a woven cushion.

It looked like a costume-drama role… no, dramas look like her, the way rivers copy the sky.

She bent over a long wooden table, brush dancing like cranes across paper. Behind the table, shelves marched into an unseen horizon, packed to the grain, books stacked like terraced fields.

Above, below, left, right—space unrolled like silk around her desk, endless yet near, as if any volume could drop into her palm like fruit when needed.

Ji Xia didn’t stop writing. She gave Yekase only a silent silhouette, a mountain seen through fog.

Calm, unworlded, fine as jade—no, any word felt like clay on porcelain. The image stood beyond time and borders; two thousand years of civilization poured like a river and hardened like bronze into that slender, weighty back, making her spine a pine trunk and her brush-hand a steady hill.

Yekase slipped into the lamp’s circle and sat cross-legged like a monk in dew. Chin propped, she took out her phone, a small star against oil-paper light.

It even caught Ivalice’s wifi—the signal flickered like a net in the tide. Is this a subspace like a Cosmic Bubble? Right, my master did say Ji Xia carries the Library of Alexandria inside a curtain of latitude, like a fisherman stowing the sea in his net.

So the curtain’s doorway is pasted onto the Book of the Light-Car? The idea hung like a talisman above a lintel.

—You there. The voice echoed through the hall like an old bell, dry and ancient as winter reeds—how long since she last spoke?

Sitting on the floor—what propriety is that? The rebuke touched like a ruler on knuckles, firm but not cruel.

At some unseen cue, Ji Xia set down her brush. Her right hand pointed to the air like a crane’s beak, and a cloth-sewn cushion bloomed out of nothing, dropping beside the table like a peach from branch.

Not a teleport—true creation, a bud from empty sky.

My surname is Ji, given name Xia, courtesy Yubing. No rank, no office, merely a student from Jizhou. Welcome to my study, child of man—come, sit, speak. Her words flowed like spring water over stones, old-fashioned yet warm.

I’m Yekase, no courtesy name. …A craftsman. The answer landed like a hammer on anvil—simple, bright.

She hesitated by Ji Xia’s side, thoughts folding like paper cranes. Kneel like her? Her own legs protested like cats; in the end she sat cross-legged again, a pine knot refusing to bend.

Are you a dragon? Yekase asked, the question rising like wind before rain.

Ji Xia didn’t answer at once. Her hand drifted to her forehead like a moth to a lamp—no horns there, yet the movement opened the curtain.

…Ah. Why do you think so? Her tone was a reed across a pond, soft but clear.

Eastern dragons call wind and rain; they shouldn’t be hunted to extinction like deer. And you feel… not human. You even called me “child of man.” The logic settled like snow—quiet, firm.

Ah, so I exposed myself. As for hunting—how can a dragon’s might match rifles and cannons? Her smile was a tranquil lake under moon, taking the sting away.

Yekase squirmed, cheeks hot like tea steam. She glanced around and caught a stack of modern printouts—rows in two columns, neat as fields. Ji Xia had been copying one onto xuan paper, brush tapping like rain.

The title floated up like a banner: “An Instructive View on the Generation and Transformation of Flash Energy.” Familiar as a scar.

Eh?! That’s my paper— The exclamation leapt like a sparrow from a branch.

Ji Xia watched her sudden panic with a calm as deep as a well. In your second argument, you rely on a premise not yet widely accepted. How will you defend it? The question perched like a hawk, patient, sharp.

…Uh. Her mind emptied like a tide pool, exposing stones.

Didn’t I say… The memory pricked like thorns: No advisor riding me through second and third drafts—feels great, like I finally steer my own life.

Yekase lowered her head, a flower closing at dusk.

No need to be ashamed. The premise is sound; the data just isn’t there yet. Her assurance fell like a steady rain, nourishing without fanfare.

Uh… thanks. The gratitude stirred like steam from rice, shy but warm.

You’re two thousand four hundred, right? Shouldn’t you be pure classical diction, all literature, social thought, and history, deep as old forests? Why are we workshopping my freshly published paper? The thought buzzed like a fly, comic but earnest.

Back to the road—through which door did you enter? The pivot glinted like a blade, clean.

The City of Ivalice’s Book of the Light-Car. The reply sat like a seal on a letter.

Ji Xia narrowed her eyes, memory unrolling like a painted scroll. Her face, usually still as a pond, showed a ripple of joy.

…Greenfield. Those children who chase truth—no heir for so many years, I feared a landslide. Her voice carried like wind through bamboo, proud and sad.

I’m not an orthodox heir… I found traces of the school in several places, searched long like a pilgrim on a ridge, asked a five-hundred-year Longlifer, even met Fa Ai himself—no luck. I stumbled on the notebook by accident. Yekase scratched her head, sheepish as a fox.

No matter. I grant you full orthodoxy. They’ll be happy. Ji Xia pressed her hands together, smiling sweetly like peach blossoms.

They’ll say “now you’re a sinner too!”—self-flagellation like nettles. But in their hearts, joy—bodies perish, faith remains. A good story, like a lantern passed hand to hand. Her words floated like incense.

Since you put it that way… The concession slid like a coin. New title, unlocked—nah. Useless in practice, and the Church will want me. I’m probably wanted already. The joke winked like a firefly in tall grass.

Since you’ve come, you’re a guest of this Hundred Schools Study. From our meeting back two thousand years, every book, article, poem, even unwritten ballads—all are collected here. I can give you three hundred years; as long as you don’t leave, every page is yours. Her offer opened like a valley of grain, endless and golden.

Does time outside flow as usual? The concern rose like a tide, practical and cold.

Outside, I can’t help. The admission fell like a shadow at noon.

Then one night is enough. The resolve hardened like frost on stone.

Ji Xia’s interest sparked like dawn. Treasure mountain before you, yet such restraint—you’re interesting. You remind me of the last visitor, also of Huaxia—Xiaoyuan, I think. Her memory chimed like a bell.

Xiaoyuan? I know her! The surprise leapt like a carp.

Her answer was “rice, water, oil, salt, all hard-won.” The couplet matched poorly, like mismatched shoes, but a rare heart-born body—so I promised her a life of peace as my book-boy. She refused: the motherland in peril; not yet time to study—she wouldn’t stay even a heartbeat longer. Ji Xia’s smile drifted like cloud, gentle and far.

… Yekase’s silence lay like a stone in water, small but heavy.

Huaxia stood up; then demon fog rolled back—this I know. So, did she study later? Ji Xia’s tone was mist over reeds, neither pressing nor lax.

She slacks every day now, surfing the net… The truth shrugged like a gull. Yekase felt the air sharpen, a sweet smile taking on a blade’s sheen like moon on ice.

After a pause, Ji Xia sighed, and the pressure blew away like a storm leaving clear sky. Knowing how to read is good—good enough. Go find what you wish, and mind the books like you’d mind a spring. Her benediction settled like petals on water.

…

…

At dawn, Yekase stepped out from the shelves of the Library of Alexandria, her figure flickering like a swallow between spines.

She’d raced the clock through the night, a comet across ink-dark sky, dragging every text with a scent of the Greenfield School, laying them in a half circle like stones around a fire, reading ten at once like juggling moons—possible only since her Infinite Force Perception broke a Soul Power node and began to drape reality like a second vision.

After finishing, she held about eighty percent of the school’s history and results, a harvest like full granaries—enough to honor the “first new heir after the break,” ancestor-certified.

What shocked her most was the “fourth City of Sin” she’d joked past. The Greenfield School had investigated in earnest, lanterns in deep fog.

They named it “the Pre-Existent,” “the Vanished City of Glory,” “Arcadia, the City of a Thousand.” The names rang like bells in an empty town.

Before Newton’s birth, before the World Tree was planted, it stood somewhere in Europe like a citadel above vineyards. Then, in one night, it burned to ash and slid off the tongue of memory, a legend stripped to bones.

No—such a “city vanished” tale should spread like wildfire among folk, branch into versions like streams; it shouldn’t disappear like a fish swallowed by the sea.

Others might stumble over that turn, like travelers in sudden snow; Yekase had already walked that road.

Reverse Meme. An observational black hole, a fog over the mind, an enemy of the real—idealists’ grand conspiracy, a net with no threads. Her anger sparked like flint.

Luckily, both Yekase and the Greenfield School had craft and scars enough to confront—or sidestep—the Reverse Meme, like stepping around a pit in moonlight.

Like the hole in a doughnut, it doesn’t “exist,” but you can sketch it by the circle around it, an absence framed by bread—rhetoric as a bridge over void.

Yekase used “the set of zeros”—“ZEROS”—to outline the memory gap, a constellation of nothing that still maps the sky.

That unknown member used “the Pre-Existent,” drawn from the ninth sefirah of Kabbalah’s Inverted Tree, “Foundation,” its largest idea—roots described by the soil around them.

As for The City of Sin, its author likely heard the school’s lectures and pierced a little of the fog like sun through lattice. He didn’t grasp Reverse Memes, but his storyteller’s spice hit true by accident, letting a forbidden memory drift through streets like gossip.

Yekase borrowed both books, the covers warm as loaves.

By five in the morning, the city still slept like a cat on a stove. Her body handled the all-nighter like a well-tuned engine, but her mind sagged under the weight of information, clouds heavy with rain.

She decided to go sleep, the choice simple as closing a window.

Stepping out of the library, she walked straight into someone who’d waited at the door like frost forming overnight.

Fujiwara Ningning. The name pricked like a thorn.

She’d planned to strike with that mindcraft at night, a knife in velvet; but Yekase vanished inside the stacks like smoke, nowhere to be found. In the end she chose to block the door like a rock in a stream.

Yet Fujiwara was curled in the corner between wall and pillar, dozing—a small animal in a warm nook—breath rising like tide.

That’s enough, onmyoji of Japan… The thought blinked like a fox’s eye.

Yekase wanted to ignore her, but if she woke, storming in with thunder, trouble would bud like mold. So Yekase patted her shoulder, a light knock on bamboo.

Morning. Why are you sleeping here? Her voice was tea at dawn, mild but clear.

Ugh… guh—haaa— Fujiwara stretched a full lazy stretch, limbs reaching like willow branches in wind.

Her eyes found Yekase’s smile; panic sprang like a hare, and she jolted—back of her head thunking the metal wall like a gong. Professional spirit finally flickered like a candle; she bit through the pain, pulled a neatly folded paper man from her bosom, and shouted:

—Mind–Body Manipulation! The cry cracked like thunder over a shrine.

Ah? The syllable lifted like a brow.

A surge of Sorcery burst from Fujiwara’s body, flooding the paper man like oil into wick; in a blink it became pure flame, burning clean as alcohol—no ash, no smoke.

And the target, Yekase—

…nothing happened, like rain on stone.

She wanted to laugh—like water finding a reed flute. She held it back, a smile folded like a fan.