The fourth watch of the night arrived upon the Floating Mountain, and with it. That silence so complete the universe itself seemed to hold its breath.
Across the vast land-wide realm two thousand meters below, the four billion souls of beasts, mortals, spirits, and immortals slept under an unclouded canopy of living stars. The rivers flowed through fertile valleys without flooding. The ancient forests breathed without fear of flame. And the cities rested without the sound of marching armies or the scared wail of war horns. Five hundred years of blood, ambition, and cosmic chaos had finally dissolved into the deep, healing medicine cool of the midnight hour.
Down on the lower slopes of the mountain, the Academy of Combined Arts stood in peaceful darkness. In its dormitories, mortal children and beastfolk cubs slept under the same quilted blankets, dreaming of tomorrow’s calligraphy classes and kite-flying festivals. In the surrounding guest pavilions of the bathhouse, ancient sect patriarchs who had once plotted each other’s deaths slept on adjoining tatami mats. Their snores rose in harmonious, calm swells.
Up on the eastern summit, the Eternal Cedar Bathhouse stood bathed in the conjoined radiance of the Silver Moon and Azure Moon.
The stone waters in the five stepped storm-cedar basins had returned to total, undisturbed stillness. With the last bathers asleep, the surface of the Tier 2 Nourishing Jade Pool had become a flawless, dark liquid mirror. Not a single breeze stirred the water. The dual moonlight poured through the open timber…
