Three scents hit Rui Yifu's nose.

Sandalwood, fresh water, rot.

The surrounding stone was all encompassing. Zhiming really had not been joking about how long the journey was. It was like a tunnel, leading deeper and deeper into the earth, so deep down the light of the throne room was long gone, wrapping him in deepest darkness. Rui Yifu, in truth, was actually well adapted to darker areas. If not in a human shape, then in his actual form as a shark. Unfortunately he could not swim his way down the steps. The steps downwards were all completely even but even still Rui Yifu was gingerly putting one foot in front of the other and keeping his hand firmly against the wall. The wall itself was relatively smooth, showing the signs of brickwork. He considered the idea that the tunnel had first been bored down through the earth and then fancy bricks were later inlaid into the wall. Bricks of most types were incredibly uncommon in the Ancient Dynasty, maybe it had been another show of wealth to import foreign bricks in such quantity to line the walls of an underground tunnel.

Rui Yifu enjoyed the occasional bit of opulence but this was a little too much. At least put some lanterns around so people could see it! The darkness was making him even more exhausted.

His boot touched stone and he moved his other foot forward, expecting a step but finding more flat ground, nearly toppling over himself ungracefully. He huffed yet was relieved to have finally made it to the bottom.

He walked forward a few steps before two bright orange eyes appeared in the darkness making him stop warily. Two lanterns sprouted to life, emerging from the ground like weeds, their bulbs lighting up the small antechamber. The orange eyed thing was the statue of a middle aged bureaucrat, neatly dressed with its hands open, palms facing upwards. "What do you offer to the Grand Imperial Library of Ten Thousand Sages?" It asked in a voice like two stones being rubbed against each other. Rui Yifu wondered if his ears were about to bleed.

He ground his sharp teeth together for a moment. Of course it would not be so easy as to simply walk inside the library now would it? But then he remembered, he still had Liu Xie's horrible poems somewhere on his person.

The stone guardian patiently waited as Rui Yifu searched about his person for where he had stuffed the poetry. After a minute he found it tucked into his inner sleeve and pulled the pages free, holding it out to the guardian.

"Will this suffice?" Rui Yifu asked in a wheedling voice.

The stone guardian took the small stack of poems from Rui Yifu's hands, its worn fingers gripping the pages tightly as it turned its eyes downwards to the words. A moment of silence passed between them before it looked back up at him, "these are terrible." It said.

"I know."

He was not quite sure but he felt like the stone guardian looked somewhat defeated, "you who have offered... art... to the Grand Imperial Library of Ten Thousand Sages may pass into the domicile of scholars, sages, and artists. Tread carefully for you are a guest of the Emperor and under the eye of the Heavens." It intoned, before it abruptly sunk into the ground to reveal a plain iron door that in turn slowly opened.

The smell of sandalwood, fresh water, and rot rolled over him like a powerful wave and his eyes watered. He coughed, walking past the door and then into an absolutely bewildering chamber.

Light was cast from beautiful glowing orbs enclosed in alabaster lanterns carved so finely they were nearly translucent. The shelves themselves were tall and made of sturdy red painted wood, stuffed full of books, scrolls, bamboo slips, stone and wax tablets, bone carvings, coral sculptures, and weavings of anything from silk to kelp. Censors were held by statues of beautiful young women ensconced into the walls, although Rui Yifu doubted that they were all mere statues. As he walked further inside he saw that the massive chamber branched off into two more equally large and filled chambers. Cutting through the center of the chamber he did stand in was an artificial river large enough to accommodate a two person boat. The water itself was flowing out from an overturned urn held by another statue in a brilliant profusion of toxic colors, this one of a tall androgynous figure in a curiously angular style that did not match the censor holding statues. But he knew where such a style could be found.

In old Fish People cities.

The figure was K'un, the Progenitor of all Fish People. At the base of the statue where feet had taken the half-form of flippers, he saw the ash of old incense mixed with dust.

What was a statue of K'un doing here? Rui Yifu was puzzled, perhaps it had something to do with the better relationship between Man and the Ocean's Children back in the middle years of the Ancient Dynasty. It had to have been a gift, material of the statue would have been too dense to haul upwards as victory spoils.

"Aghh..."

Rui Yifu stopped his pondering to look around. Wobbling shapes slunk around corners and shelves, wheezing or muttering unintelligible gibberish. He sighed heavily, part of him just wanted to sit down and rest but he had a very strong feeling that if he sat down for too long he might never get up again.

So instead he moved away from the statue, hopping over the fake river and landing on the other side with more force than he intended.

The actual face of the Grand Imperial Library of Ten Thousand Sages slowly unveiled itself past the waters. A withered body was sitting beside a shelf, its clothing having somehow lost all color to it in the millennia it had sat there. It was not dead, since its chest still rose and fell very slowly. The stone tablets in its lap were all mathematical essays, with barely visible reddish ink left to show someone's attempt at editing. Rui Yifu had no interest in monotonic function so he continued his careful walk.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He had no idea where to begin his search. He did not understand the ordering of the grand library's contents. He did not even have a good idea of what he would search for. Yes it was something related to the moon, surely, according to Zhu'er and what his old teacher once said. But what of the identity stealing, would that lead him to a compendium on evil spirits instead? What was the likelihood he would find anything about a prior deity of the white flame?

There was no organization of the books as far as he could tell. One book he pulled from a shelf was a collection of recipes from barbarian women in the far west who had been brought in as kitchen slaves specifically to appease the prodigious appetites of some no-name Emperor, while the book right beside it was a set of poems about children dying for their sins by what Rui Yifu decided was a hateful hermit. He picked up a scroll that threatened to crumble in his hand, but found it was only talking about whether the beings the other gods derive their power and authority from should really be called 'gods'.

Another book was about the selective breeding of rice to increase crop bounty as well as healthy crop rotation, but was marked as unfinished with a small note appended saying the author had swallowed poison after a crime by his father had been publicly revealed.

One stone tablet he struggled getting down seemed promising, labeled 'White Flame Aesthetic'. But the actual tablet was only speaking about a group of scholars who had tried harnessing the white flame for better lighting for winter nights and had been consumed by it.

He could not make himself read any more of it. The selfish folly of the scholars was too familiar, too painful. He rubbed the scars along his neck.

He wandered around, leaving the first part of the library and moving into its next massive section after what felt like far too long of a walk. The library truly was massive, and he came across the manmade river once more. He peered into it and found a hideous greying face looking back, eyes too big, mouth too wide, the scarred gills on his neck opening and closing subtly with each breath. He looked away from it, disgusted.

Rui Yifu went down another long row of shelves, stopping short at its end as a wobbling shriveled almost-human thing stumbled by. He tensed, the short battle against the flower eaten palace guards as well as opening a portal had both drained what little was left of his own energy. He still had the sword but he was no swordsman. But rather than attack the thing stared at him with its shriveled little raising eyes, its mouth agape and laboriously breathing, before it trudged away. Did it even realize he was there, or did it just have no interest in fighting? Either option worked for Rui Yifu so he waited until the pitiful creature was fully out of sight before moving to the next row of books.

He grabbed books at random, flipping through their contents before dropping them. He tore ancient feeling bamboo slips from their resting spots to check them as well, picked up the wooden sculptures and coral records.

A small path of discarded items began forming behind him as he moved. What was he even expecting to find? An answer? A clue? A way to stop a god? What good would that be when he was by himself, slowly withering away?

He shook his head, trying to dispel the thoughts welling up inside of it. It was no time to wallow in his own self doubt. He stepped over another body that held a book about imperial edicts and their ramifications, the fingers shifting ever so slightly. Perhaps it was going to turn a page?

Rui Yifu picked up another book that was nestled between a carved animal skull that held a chunk of dully glowing amber in its teeth and a black tome bound in something that looked oily. Impatiently he flipped through the pages before his eyes fell upon the characters 'white flame'. He steeled himself for inevitable disappointment.

The White Flame which gnaws incessantly upon the falsity of nonexistence

Ingesting and burning the substance of reality which it births simultaneously

Endless, endless, cyclical like the seasons and unpredictable as storms

Reflected and butchered three times and split a myriad more

source and sibling

a river unending

a flame that does not burn

starving, gluttonous

its home is a prison of ashes and bone

its gift is consumption of despair

Rui Yifu furrowed his brow at the melancholic... poem? Essay? Whatever it was it did not seem to be written by someone at the happiest point of their life. He flipped through the other pages of the book. They were also sad poems. The title of the book itself was 'The 44 Mournings of Wei Yang', which explained its dreary content. He went back to the first page of the book, which announced that the book he held was in fact a copy that the 34th Emperor ordered to be made of the extremely fragile and old original, which had been moved to another location.

He reached into his mind to try remembering how far back the 34th Emperor would have been. As Chen Zihua, he had spent many years gathering as many ancient tales as he could to put them together. He had become fairly acquainted with the various 'important' emperors of the Ancient Dynasty. The Last Emperor was never referred to by a number, and some of the less impressive ones had essentially faded from the recorded, leaving gaps in the history that even Fish People could not fully recollect. The last Emperor he could remember learning anything of actual note besides the one who ended it all was the 89th Emperor who had on his ascension to the throne freed every slave in the empire and gave noblewomen the right to the holdings of more than six households in their own name, essentially making them landlords on the same scale as their husbands. The 89th Emperor ruled for a glorious sixty two days before being publicly strangled by his own brother who reversed the changes and then promptly faded into obscurity.

The Mournings had to be incredibly old then, being closer to perhaps even the First Emperor.

The phrase 'reflected and butchered' played at his mind. It was a strange phrasing to refer to how the Celestial Mother created the Three Divine Siblings.

Unless the Three Divine Siblings had formerly been one.

He nearly dropped his book as the thought popped into his mind. What if at one point there had just been one sibling, who was later reduced to make the Three Siblings? Or perhaps, given the strangeness of the gods of the Four Flames, he had only existed as a single child for an infinitely small amount of time before the Celestial Mother had him reflected into three or four new forms. But why did this other god disappear? Why did Liu Xie take his place? Why did the gods go to such great lengths to erase any hint of it from the mortal world?

A sharp pain entered his chest and the book fell from his fingers. It was a burrowing and fierce pain, agonizing as it burned through him. He gritted his teeth as he looked down at the blade jutting from his chest. He had been so caught up in his thoughts he had not considered the other library 'patrons'.

Rui Yifu pulled himself forward, the blade sliding out from his chest with another spurt of red and he drew his own blade, swinging it around to the softly smiling face of Wang Huaqing.

"It seems I caught you in the middle of a good book, hopefully you have the good manners to not bleed on it," he said with a smile.

"Certainly, hopefully you'll have the same good manners to die easily?" Rui Yifu replied, before lunging with a roar.