Ascension Is a Hook - Chapter 6
I am ninety-seven as I write this book.
A lifetime at Qi Refining.
No Foundation Establishment.
No Golden Core.
No Nascent Soul.
Everyone in the cultivation world pities me.
I became a disciple of Patriarch Xuanwei, yet spent my whole life trapped at Qi Refining.
I witnessed so many ascensions, yet could not even touch the surface.
They do not know how grateful I am.
I do not taste good.
So I survived.
Rain is falling outside my window.
It drips into the water jar in the courtyard.
Like someone, far away, letting out a line.
I set Master’s fish scale on the table.
After all these years, the characters have faded.
*Do not take the bait.*
I found Lu Xingzhou’s scale by the Eastern Sea thirty years ago.
That year, a shooting star fell into the sea.
The cultivators said it was a treasure bestowed by an immortal.
I found a white scale on the shore.
It bore Lu Xingzhou’s sword intent.
He had left no complete message.
Only a shallow mark.
Like an unfinished character.
I studied it for thirty years before I finally understood.
It was not a character.
It was a line.
He was telling me:
The line was still there.
The angler was still there.
Perhaps Master was still there too.
Perhaps all those who had ascended were still struggling on some shore beyond our understanding.
But what difference would it make?
Fish in the water cannot save fish on the bank.
Worse still, the fish in the water do not want to be saved.
I no longer have the strength to travel.
All I can do is write these things down.
For those who come after me.
For you.
Yes.
For you.
Having read this far, perhaps you think you are reading a story.
A cultivation story.
A story about the lie of ascension, hooks descending from heaven, and all living beings being fish.
Perhaps you are wondering:
What is behind the hook?
Is Master dead?
Did Lu Xingzhou climb all the way up?
Where did the people who were caught go?
Will I be caught in the end too?
You see?
The bait is already dangling.
The story is bait.
The truth is bait.
The ending is bait too.
The more you want to know, the tighter the line draws.
As I write this, I suddenly hear water outside the window.
Not rain.
A deeper sound of water.
As though the entire mortal world were submerged in a vast pond.
I look up and see a crack open in the roof.
Beyond it, there are no stars or moon.
Only an expanse of wet white.
A hook descends from the dark.
A speck of golden light hangs on its point.
Very small.
Like a written character.
Like a sentence.
Like the last line you have wanted to read all along.
I catch its scent.
So I can hunger too.
So the only reason I have spent my life writing “Do not take the bait” is that I had not yet encountered the bait meant for me.
Now it has come.
It hangs before my eyes, gently swaying.
I know that if I bite, I will know everything.
Where Master went.
What Lu Xingzhou saw.
Whether Qinghe truly escaped.
What the things in the sky are called.
And whether the things we spend our lives desperately pursuing are meaning—or hooks.
My hand closes around the brush.
Its tip hovers over the paper.
Ink falls and spreads into a black stain.
Suddenly, I remember what Master asked me so many years ago.
“A fish can only live in water. What about you?”
I did not understand then.
Now I do.
People are the same.
People can only live while they do not know they are fish.
I set down the brush.
I will write no more.
This story has no ending.
Or rather, I cannot be the one to write it.
Because the moment I write the last line, you will bite.
So this is where it stops.
Do not ask what happened afterward.
Do not ask what lies beyond ascension.
Do not ask whom those things descending from the sky are waiting for.
Above all, do not look up.
Some things do not begin to exist because you see them.
Instead, the moment you see them,
they know—
there is still one fish awake in the water.
