第 009 Ch.| The Ring in the Sand

Lan Yingchen woke on his own at 06:30.

The drumming had stopped. Ge Zhiheng was already at the desk, writing.

Today Lan began the Void a little earlier. He sat at the foot of the bed, closed his eyes, and began counting his breaths.

The first minute — that drumbeat was still inside his heart. One beat, a pause of three seconds, then another.

The second minute — the ring began to appear. Earlier than yesterday. Clearer than yesterday.

The third minute — the voice came. Calling his name. Nearer than it had been the day before — as if a full layer of water had thinned to half a layer. Yet he still could not make out its timbre.

The fourth minute — the ring widened, and Lan was "aligned."

The fifth minute — inside the ring, a smaller ring appeared.

Two rings.

Lan had not expected it. He nearly opened his eyes. But he held still and kept sitting.

In the latter half of the fifth minute, the small ring turned once inside the large one, and then the two rings overlapped. Just then there was a stir at Ge Zhiheng's desk, and it drew Lan back.

Lan opened his eyes.

"…Five minutes," Ge Zhiheng said.

"…Five minutes," Lan said too.

Ge Zhiheng glanced at him. "How was it?"

"…Two rings appeared," Lan said.

Ge Zhiheng paused a second. "…Tell the Acharya."

---

Lan remembered Devraj's instruction from the day before — once the Void was finished, write it down at once, no polishing, no rearranging.

He didn't change clothes first. He took a sheet of paper from the pocket of his pen-case, sat down at the desk, and wrote:

The voice is very faint, like it comes through a layer of water. Still can't make out the timbre. But it is calling me.
Today, during the Void, in the fifth minute, two rings appeared. One large, one small. Overlapping.

He folded it. Slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat. Only then did he change clothes.

He went downstairs for breakfast. The courtyard was empty today — not even the student who drew pentagrams or the senior who washed his hands at the well.

Lan asked, "Where did they go?"

Ge Zhiheng: "…Don't know. It's different every day."

---

08:00. The classroom in the Main Court area.

The five of them returned to their places.

As Lan handed in his paper, he stole a glance at the other four.

Aaliya's paper — very short, a single line. Lan couldn't read the content, but her writing was neat, as if she had practiced calligraphy.

Nahid's paper — not words. A drawing. Nahid kept it half-covered with the edge of her palm, and Lan caught only a corner — a curved line, like the edge of some ring.

Even so, his breath stopped for half a second.

Amara's paper — words plus a drawing. The words were in a language Lan couldn't recognize; the drawing was the shape of a drum.

Aarav's paper — written in two scripts. One was Sanskrit, the other Chinese. In the Chinese part Lan saw only a short line: "Grandmother said the name."

All five had handed in. Devraj gathered the five sheets, set them on the stone table, and did not read them.

"Today — each of you, in turn, will report what happened during the Void."

---

Aaliya first.

"Today, during the Void, the mirror had no second shadow. It was blank."

She paused half a second.

"…But I felt — the second shadow was watching me from somewhere else. Not in the mirror."

Devraj nodded. "Thank you."

Nahid next. She spoke in Chinese, slowly, as if each word had to be confirmed.

"…During the Void, sand spilled out of my pocket, and on the desk it piled into… a shape I've dreamed before."

"What shape?" Devraj asked.

Nahid looked at Lan once. She didn't answer.

Devraj didn't press. "Thank you."

Amara spoke a passage in her own language, then rendered it into Chinese:

"…Today, during the Void, the drumming was gone. It has never been gone before."

She stopped a moment.

"But I heard a voice. Calling a name. I didn't catch the name clearly."

Devraj raised an eyebrow slightly. "Thank you."

Aarav.

"…Today, during the Void, my grandmother was speaking to me. She told me a name — how to pronounce it."

"What name?" Devraj asked.

Aarav looked at Lan. He hesitated a moment.

"…Lan."

Lan's breath stopped for a second.

Devraj looked at Aarav for three seconds and offered no explanation. "Thank you."

Last — Lan.

"Today, during the Void, in the fifth minute, two rings appeared. One large, one small. Overlapping."

---

Devraj did not react at once.

He stood looking at Lan, then looked at Nahid, then turned back to Lan.

"…Thank you," he said.

But Devraj did not return to the stone table. He stayed where he stood, for five seconds, looking at the five of them.

And then he said something Lan hadn't expected.

"Today's assignment has changed."

The five of them lifted their heads slightly.

"From today, during the Void, think of one another."

"…Think of one another?" Aarav asked.

"Think — the five of you are classmates. Think — perhaps the five of you are more than classmates."

Devraj paused half a second.

"Perhaps — you are different facets of the same dream."

The five fell silent. Lan could hear Aaliya draw a faint breath. Nahid didn't move, but her eyes dropped. Amara murmured a single word in her own language, very softly — it carried something like "at last." Aarav nodded slightly.

Lan turned it over inside: "different facets of the same dream." Devraj's hand hadn't moved as he said it, his voice hadn't risen — the same as when he ordinarily said "Thank you." Yet this was the first time in the week that Devraj had put all five of them into a single sentence.

He wanted to ask what dream. But he knew Devraj would not answer.

"Dismissed. Tomorrow, 08:00."

Palms together, head bowed.

---

The five rose, ready to leave.

Nahid didn't go at once. She took from her pocket a tiny cloth pouch — the same kind as the sand pouch on the desk at Jiang Wanxin's "Center," but smaller.

She opened the pouch and poured the sand onto her own desk.

Across the grain of the wood, the sand began to flow.

Lan's gaze went that way by instinct. Ge Zhiheng, in the back row, didn't move either — but he was watching the sand. Aarav watched too.

On Nahid's desk the sand gathered slowly, then took form.

The first thing it formed was — a ring. The ring had a gap, the gap falling between the three- and four-o'clock marks.

The same ring Lan had recognized from his very first day — the bronze mirror, the street corner, the wax seal on the envelope, the "Center" poster, the bronze bell — all of them the same one.

But the sand didn't stop.

The second — at the center of the first ring, a smaller ring appeared.

Two rings overlapping.

Exactly the same as what Lan had seen in the fifth minute of the Void that morning.

---

By instinct Lan wanted to draw back. But he was sitting on the cushion and didn't know how to retreat. He stayed where he was, looking at the two sand rings on Nahid's desk — the sand still holding that shape, as if fixed by some rule, refusing to scatter.

The whole classroom was quiet for about ten seconds. Aaliya had stood but hadn't gone; Amara had stopped in the doorway; Aarav stood beside his own desk, watching the sand — and two of the seniors exchanged a glance.

Lan didn't move.

Nahid lifted her head and looked at Lan.

She spoke, in Arabic.

Aarav came over. Only then did Lan realize — Aarav understood.

Aarav rendered it into Chinese for Nahid:

"She says — she dreamed of a boy. Three years ago. There was a ring inside the boy's body — the same as the one on the desk now."

Lan didn't move.

Aarav went on translating: "She thought that boy didn't exist. Today, during the Void, the sand told her — that boy is you."

Lan wanted to speak; he couldn't.

Aarav translated again: "She says — she wants to tell you herself, in her own words."

Then Nahid walked to Lan's desk, stopped on the far side of it, looked at him, and in the limited Chinese she knew, slowly said:

"I dreamed of you — three years ago."

---

Lan looked at Nahid. Then he looked at Ge Zhiheng. Ge Zhiheng was watching Nahid too.

Lan thought back to three years ago.

Three years ago — he was fourteen. That autumn his grandmother passed. The funeral, an emptied bed, his mother who didn't cry, and Lan himself shutting his room for three days.

The first time he saw "something that shouldn't exist" was probably during that stretch. Afterward he chose the version where "it was only a hallucination," folded those memories away, and never looked at them.

Until eight days ago, when the ring pried that fold back open.

And now Nahid was saying — three years ago, when he was fourteen, his grandmother just gone, when he himself wasn't even sure whether what he saw counted as "Seeing" — there had been a Middle-Eastern girl, on the other side of the world, dreaming of a ring inside his body.

"…Three years ago I was fourteen," Lan said, his voice low. "My grandmother had just died."

Nahid nodded. As if confirming that the timing matched.

Lan wanted to ask, "In your dream — how old was I?" and wanted to ask, "Was I — crying then?" — neither question made it out. That stretch three years ago, just after his grandmother died, was something he wasn't willing to speak of in class, in front of Ge Zhiheng and Aarav.

Aarav translated for Nahid: "She wants to talk to you. Tonight, come to the Middle-Eastern College. She'll be waiting."

Lan didn't answer at once. He glanced at Ge Zhiheng — who gave a slight nod, meaning he could go.

"…All right," Lan said.

Nahid bowed her head slightly, turned, and left with her senior. The senior looked at Lan once — that look was much like the way Aaliya's senior had looked at him the day before: lingering, sweeping over him up and down, as if checking him off someone's list.

After Nahid had gone, Aarav made a one-handed gesture of palms-together toward Lan, then left with the Indian seniors.

What remained was Lan and Ge Zhiheng, and Aaliya, still standing in the doorway.

Aaliya didn't come over. But she looked at Lan, then gave a very slight nod — different from the turn she'd made after "we'll talk next time" the day before. Today's nod was more like "I understand now."

She turned too, and left with her senior.

---

On the way back to the Eastern College, Ge Zhiheng didn't speak at first.

Only when they reached the courtyard did he say anything.

"Nahid's side…" he said, "…is more direct than Aaliya's."

"Direct?"

"Aaliya will wait until you're ready," Ge Zhiheng said. "Nahid doesn't wait. She acts on what she sees. Foretellers are usually like that."

"…Foretellers?"

"Over in the Middle East a few people dream the future," Ge Zhiheng said. "Not all of them. Nahid is one."

"…She dreamed of me three years ago?"

Ge Zhiheng glanced at him. "…If she says so, then she did. Nahid doesn't get the timing wrong."

"…"

"Go to the Middle-Eastern College tonight," Ge Zhiheng said. "She'll be waiting. I'll take you there."

Lan nodded.

"Ge Zhiheng…"

"…Mm?"

"What Devraj said — 'different facets of the same dream' — what does it mean?"

Ge Zhiheng walked about ten paces before he answered.

"…I don't know," he said. "But he doesn't say things like that lightly. For him to say it today means he believes the five of you — really do share something."

"…In three years he never said that to you?"

"No," Ge Zhiheng said. "He's never said it to any intake of new students — at least not within anything I've heard."

Lan asked nothing more.

---

Back in the dorm. Lan sat at the desk and wrote yesterday's paper and Devraj's words today into his notebook.

Halfway through, he stopped. Aaliya had approached him after enrolling; Aarav had "noted him down" after enrolling; Amara had touched his shoulder after enrolling — all three after enrollment. Nahid — had dreamed of him three years ago.

Of the four, the only one who had clearly sensed him before he enrolled was Nahid.

Lan closed his eyes and recalled Devraj's line: "The five of you — perhaps you are different facets of the same dream." He'd first taken it to mean the five had recognized one another before the Academy. Now he thought it back through: when Nahid dreamed of him three years ago, she hadn't so much as heard of the Academy, let alone known anyone in it. She couldn't have recognized him first. Only one explanation was left — something was moving between her and him, and it had pushed her dream back to that night three years ago. The circle had been there all along. Nahid's dreaming of him three years ago was proof that this thing was in motion.

Lan opened his eyes and wrote in his notebook:

The five of us are being pulled by the same thing.

---

The light outside slanted. It was afternoon.

Ge Zhiheng was still at the desk, writing his daily assignment. Lan glanced at Ge Zhiheng's paper — it was some script he couldn't read, neither Chinese nor anything like Sanskrit.

"…What is this?" Lan asked.

"…A family script of the Eastern College. One entry a day — what I saw, heard, felt. I've practiced it three years; from the first day of enrollment, the Ge family records it this way."

Lan didn't push further. But a question suddenly came to him: "…Your family — could it have something to do with my grandmother's bronze mirror?"

Ge Zhiheng looked at Lan for about five seconds. "…I don't know. But the bronze bell my grandfather left is the same kind as your grandmother's — whether that's connected or coincidence, there's no way to say yet."

Lan put this on the same list as Nahid's dream three years ago, Aaliya's approach, Aarav noting him down.

---

Around 18:30. Lan went downstairs to fetch water.

That small bronze bell in the eastern corner of the courtyard — he'd noticed it the day before yesterday, and it hadn't rung since.

Now the bell was moving.

Not swayed by wind — it was vibrating on its own at a very low frequency, the rhythm matching the "one beat, a pause of three seconds" of Amara's drumming that morning. The direction of the vibration ran from the eastern corner toward the south — the direction of the Middle-Eastern College.

Ge Zhiheng came downstairs and glanced at the bell too.

"…It's time," he said. "After dinner I'll take you over."

Lan went upstairs, walked to the nightstand, and opened the bottom drawer.

The ring on the back of the bronze mirror — the gap's position unchanged, but along the edge of the gap there hung a very faint coppery glow, the same color as the glow that had rimmed the four characters "the Myriad Academy" on the envelope two days before.

Lan put the bronze mirror back in the bottom drawer of the nightstand.

As he went downstairs, the vibration of the courtyard bell stopped.

【Ch. 009 End · Eastern College dorm → Main Court classroom → Eastern College courtyard】