CHAPTER 9: DREAMING ROOTS
Prince Yan Ling did not rise from his knees. He slumped forward beside the glowing bonsai, his hand slipping from the warm clay pot to lie limp on the damp flagstones. The faint, steady pulse of silver light within the miniature tree's grey wood cast long, dancing shadows over his unnaturally still form. Blood, dark as crushed rubies, stained the stone beneath his lips.
Panic seized Zhi'er. He scrambled to Yan Ling's side, fingers fumbling for a pulse at the prince's thin wrist. It was there – faint, thready, like the beat of a trapped bird's wing. But his skin was cold, his breathing shallow and wet. The cost of awakening the anchor, of reinforcing its cage under assault, had pushed his ravaged body to the brink.
"He needs help!" Zhi'er cried, looking desperately towards Caretaker Chen.
Chen shuffled closer, his milky eyes fixed not on Yan Ling, but on the softly glowing bonsai. He leaned heavily on his gnarled stick, the aftermath of his sonic blast seemingly draining his own reserves. "Help…" he rasped, the word sounding like dry leaves scraped together. "Help comes… from the root. Or not at all." He nodded towards the luminous tree. "Tend the garden, boy. The gardener… sleeps."
Frustration warred with fear in Zhi'er. Tend the garden? What did that even mean? He looked from the dying prince to the pulsating tree – Yan Ling's impossible secret, his sleeping daughter, now radiating a quiet power that hummed in the very air. *Ling'er. The Garden's Heart.* The anchor was awake, and Yan Ling, the only one who truly understood it, was unconscious.
Gritting his teeth, Zhi'er dragged Yan Ling away from the damp stones, using his own body as leverage. He hauled the frighteningly light prince back towards their chamber in the east wing, leaving the glowing bonsai under the watchful, unseeing eyes of Caretaker Chen and the indifferent grey dawn.
---
The chamber felt colder, emptier, with Yan Ling laid out on his thin pallet, barely breathing. Zhi'er covered him with every spare blanket he could find, stoked the meager fire, and wiped the blood from his face with a damp cloth. He felt useless. He'd thrown a tile, he'd *tried* to hold a boundary, but it hadn't been enough. The prince had paid the price.
Restless, Zhi'er returned to the walled garden. The mist was lifting, revealing the damage – scorch marks from Xiao Hong's shattered compass, gouges in the flagstones from the Strikers, the shattered remnants of the garden gate. And at the center, the bonsai. It pulsed steadily, a silent, silver heartbeat. The faint light seemed to seep into the surrounding air, making the dust motes dance like captured stars. The vibrant golden chrysanthemum beside it seemed brighter, more alive.
Caretaker Chen was still there, sitting on a moss-covered stone bench near the plum tree, his clouded eyes seemingly fixed on the glowing pot.
"Who are you?" Zhi'er asked, his voice tight with suspicion and exhaustion. "Really? You're no simple caretaker. You stopped them with… sound."
Chen didn't turn his head. "Caretaker is… what remains," he rasped. "Once… I was **Jian's Shadow**. His blade. His silence." A tremor ran through his gnarled hands. "When they took him… on that 'hunt'… I was too far. Too slow." He fell silent for a long moment, the memory a tangible pain in the air. "The Prince… the *true* Prince… he found me after. Broken. Gave me this place. This… purpose. To watch. To wait. To tend the roots… until the gardener returned." He finally looked towards Zhi'er, though his eyes didn't seem to focus. "He has returned. And now… the root dreams. The garden remembers."
**Seeding Ling'er's Influence:**
> *As Chen spoke, Zhi'er noticed something strange. Near the base of the glowing bonsai, where Yan Ling's blood had dripped onto the soil, tiny, impossible shoots were pushing through the earth. Not weeds. Delicate filaments of pure, shimmering silver light, like solidified moonlight, forming intricate, miniature patterns in the dirt – abstract, yet reminiscent of the containment glyphs Yan Ling drew. They pulsed softly in time with the tree's light, then faded after a few seconds, only to reappear moments later in a slightly different configuration.*
"It remembers," Chen repeated, nodding towards the ephemeral silver glyphs. "And it dreams… of protection."
---
Back in the chamber, Yan Ling stirred. Not awake, but restless. Whispers escaped his bloodless lips, fragmented, fevered. "…Jian… too close… they sensed…" His hand twitched, sketching faint shapes in the air. "…the root… don't let them… cut the root…" His brow furrowed in deep distress. "…Ling'er… cold… the dream… too bright…"
Zhi'er knelt beside him, dipping a cloth in cool water to wipe his brow. The prince's skin burned. His whispers shifted, becoming softer, laced with a sorrow that cut deep. "…should have… let you see the sun… forgive me… my little blossom… trapped in winter…"
The raw pain in the unconscious words, the name *Ling'er* spoken with such devastating tenderness, shook Zhi'er. He looked towards the window, towards the garden where the root dreamed silver dreams into the earth. Trapped in winter. Because Yan Ling had buried her to save her. And now, that protection was failing, and he was dying for it.
Driven by a surge of helpless determination, Zhi'er grabbed the small inkstone and a sheet of paper. He didn't try a complex glyph. He thought of the simple circle, the boundary. He thought of the bonsai, the sleeping presence within. He thought of Yan Ling's feverish plea: *Don't let them cut the root.*
He dipped his finger in rainwater and drew a circle on the paper. Then, focusing not on perfection, but on *intent* – on shelter, on quiet, on shielding something precious and fragile – he drew a second circle inside it. He poured his will into it, picturing the glowing tree, picturing the little girl from the sketch. *Safe. Contained. Protected.* He imagined the space within the circles as a cradle of stillness.
The inkstone remained silent. No chime, no vision. The water circles held their shape, beading clearly. But as Zhi'er focused, a faint warmth spread from the paper into his fingertips. Not the heat of effort, but a gentle, soothing warmth, like sunlight on stone. He felt… a resonance. A quiet hum, almost below hearing, that matched the steady pulse he *felt* coming from the garden, not heard.
He looked at the simple double circle. It wasn't the Threefold Seal. But it felt *solid*. Intent given form. A defined space. He carefully placed the paper on the small table beside Yan Ling's pallet, near his head.
Almost immediately, Yan Ling's restless murmurs quieted. The deep furrow in his brow eased slightly. His breathing, while still shallow, seemed to lose some of its frantic edge. He didn't wake, but the feverish distress lessened, replaced by a deeper, more natural sleep. The tiny, protective glyph hummed softly on the paper, a small circle of calm in the chamber's tension.
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**Jiang Xi** stared into his obsidian mirror. The image showed not dissolving Stalkers, but a report delivered by a kneeling Xiao Hong, her face bruised from the compass blast, her voice tight with fury and failure. She spoke of the glowing tree, the shattered compass, the old caretaker's unexpected power, and the boy's disruptive tile.
But Jiang Xi barely heard the details of the setback. His entire focus was locked on the core of Xiao Hong's report: *The anchor is awake. It pulses with power. The stasis is active, not broken, but… resonant. Like a slumbering dragon stirred.*
A slow, terrifying smile spread across Jiang Xi's face, devoid of warmth, filled with predatory triumph. "Active," he breathed, the word echoing in the silent chamber. "Not broken, but *awake*." He steepled his fingers. "The root dreams, Xiao Hong. And dreams... can be shaped. Can be *invaded*." His eyes, like chips of glacial ice, gleamed. "The Nightless Blade used silence as his shield. But his daughter... she dreams. And dreams make noise. They make... *vulnerability*."
He rose, his presence filling the chamber with palpable, icy power. "Gather the **Dream Weavers**. Prepare the **Chant of Falling Stars**. We shift tactics." He looked towards the mirror, not at Xiao Hong, but as if gazing through it towards the distant Summer Palace and the pulsing silver light within its garden. "If the gardener won't yield the root... we will harvest the dream."