Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 316 A Page of Unsent Poem in the Mist
"Those who write down their names must know: not all poems can ignite a fire; some are merely the last piece of paper sent to the fire."

Morning Stars and Night Manuscripts: A Page of Poetry Unburnt

The night in the Morning Star Times is quieter than fog and lasts longer than the tolling of bells.

In the observation deck on the second floor of the old newspaper building, the lights were still on, the ink was still wet, and the printing press still smelled of lead baked the night before and the burnt aroma of the paper edges.

This isn't news time; this is waiting time.

A kind of ritualistic waiting.

Si Ming sat beside the printing press, leaning slightly against the old wooden chair, his right hand still pressing down on the unfolded "Tomorrow's Morning News" template.

It was a cover without a subtitle or number, with only a blank line in the center, as if waiting for the echo of a sentence about to be written.

He turned to the last page, the edges still stained with scraps of paper left from the cutting table, the rough, prickly texture felt when he touched them with his fingertips.

He didn't clean it up, but simply pushed the papers aside, as if making room for something.

The door was knocked at 2:03.

The voice was not hurried, but there was a hint of chill in the air.

The visitor was Marlene, a messenger from the Morning Star Society and the youngest princess's personal freckled maid.

She wore a misty purple cloak, with dewdrops still clinging to her shoulders, and held a sealed letter in her hands. The letter was wrapped in white silk one and a half times, and a familiar red line marked the wax seal: "Royal Review and Approval".

She gently placed the envelope on the table without saying a word, pausing for a moment longer than usual at the corner of the table.

The God of Fate did not open the letter immediately.

He simply placed the letter above the manuscript frame in the "Morning Star Commentary" section, where a sentence left by the former editor-in-chief was engraved:

"We don't ask who the author is, we only ask if this passage can survive."

His eyelids were slightly lowered, and his tone was so calm it almost blended into the ink on the paper:
"She came up with the title herself?"

Marlene nodded, her voice low: "Yes. The poem is titled 'Torch in the Mist.' Originally, we wanted to call it 'The Torch Has Not Yet Died'... but she said that was too direct."

Si Ming nodded and said nothing more. He carefully aligned the edges of the manuscript paper, each movement slow, yet like the ticking of a clock, carrying an unalterable rhythm.

Marlene stared at him without saying a word.

Such silence is not unfamiliar to the Morning Star.

It's a tacit understanding where "we know each other, but don't ask each other anything."

Si Ming knew who wrote the manuscript, and Marlene knew that Si Ming knew as well, but neither of them revealed it.

This is the language of Chongqing.

“This time…” Si Ming suddenly spoke, his hand still resting on the typewriter, “she wrote even more hurriedly.”

“Yes,” Marlene replied softly, her eyes slightly lowered. “She also said—you will understand.”

The God of Fate did not respond further.

He simply spun the pencil slowly, the tip resting on the edge of the printing plate, and then wrote the small note to be printed at the end of the proof:
Between poetry and numbering, there are no boundaries. Only sparks and mist.

Marlene's fingertip paused near that line of text, touched it gently, and then withdrew.

She walked to the door, put her hand on the doorknob, but stopped just as she was about to push it open.

She whispered, "There are two more pairs of eyes at the street corner than yesterday."

Si Ming's gaze sharpened, and he slowly turned his head.

Marlene continued, "One was a church inspector, wearing an old-style penitential robe... the other was an intelligence sergeant from the military, wearing the new-style royal capital police armbands."

She didn't say the last sentence aloud: They're here to watch you.

Si Ming was silent for a moment, then turned his gaze to the window.

The night was deep, the fog had not yet dissipated, and the third street lamp at the entrance of Morning Star Alley was flickering slightly.

That was a lamp that he personally lit last night, a lamp that had used up two spare electric charms.

He didn't laugh, nor did he ask who sent him.

Just whispered:
"They all thought we were writing a story."

"But what she wrote—was not a story."

He pressed the poem manuscript onto the top layer of the typesetting frame and wrote a note by hand:
"Morning Star Supplement - Signed Liya"

Before Marlene left, she glanced back at the signature.

She did not speak.

She knew that wasn't the author's real name.

Si Ming also knew that it was a wisp of true fire under a false name.

The moment the door closed, the lead lettering wall behind Siming trembled slightly.

One of the character blocks loosened and fell to the ground.

It struck directly beneath the "Old Annals War" timeline, the sound silent, yet like a buried echo awakening in some still-unclosed battlefield.

Si Ming walked over and picked up the fallen type.

It has one word printed on it: "Fire".

He did not put it back in its original place.

Simply placing it at the center of "Torch in the Fog" is like connecting the past and the present with an unfinished line of poetry.

That page of the supplement, yet to be published, lay quietly on the printing press.

Under a lamp, a line of poetry remains unlit in the mist—but the fire has already begun to grow.

The seventh floor of the Royal Palace, east corridor of the Crescent Moon Hall.

The stone brick floor was not yet completely dry after the rain, and the morning light shone through the pale gold curtains, as if it were the first gentle ray of light willing to fall in this palace.

The air still carried the dampness from yesterday's garden leaves, mingling with the scent of sandalwood behind the bronze door, creating an atmosphere somewhere between solemn and dreamy.

Liseria was sitting at her desk, her fingertips flipping through the first print of the Morning Star newspaper that Marlene had just brought back.

She wasn't wearing a formal gown today, but only a gray-and-white trimmed cloak, and her hair was still unkempt.
A few drops of water clung to her shoulders, as if she had just woken from a dream in this palace, but had not yet sorted out her identity.

“He changed a word,” she said softly.

The sound was soft, yet carried a certain certainty, as if disturbed by the wind.

Marlene stood behind her, hands at her sides, without responding.

Liseria laid the newspaper flat on the table and tapped the supplement headline twice with her index finger: "'The torch has not been extinguished'—he changed it to 'The spark has not been extinguished'."

Marlene then responded softly, "He said that 'torch' is too high, and 'spark' sounds more like what ordinary people say."

Liseria had no objection.

She simply looked up and gazed out the window.

The morning mist had not yet completely dissipated, and a street corner of Morning Star Lane could be faintly seen beyond the Royal Palace watchtower.

That section is now blocked off by military cordon and the church's white stripe.

That was a place she knew well, but now it had become the intersection of all the "stories" in the city.

She slowly lowered her gaze, and whispered as if responding to some metaphor:
"He knows we know."

Marlene's lips twitched slightly, and she added in a very low voice:
"He knows it too, we know he knows it."

That wasn't just a joke.

It was, in fact, a political statement.

What appeared to be a routine submission to the Morning Star newspaper had actually evolved into a low-pressure confrontation between the government, the military, and public opinion.

The line of poetry in the newspaper was just a tiny spark, while the whole city was like roof tiles that had been dried out for too long.

The fire hasn't died down, but the wind has shifted.

Just then, footsteps came from outside the door—steady, regular, unhurried, like the sound of some unsheathed military discipline.

Liseria stood up, turned around and stood by the window, her fingers lightly resting on the windowsill.

A few breaths later, the door was opened by a palace attendant.

Prince Edel entered the hall dressed in military robes, without a sword, carrying only a scroll of official documents and a sealed letter.

“I know you haven’t been out on official business today,” he said bluntly, his voice calm, “so I’ve come to invite you in person.”

Liseria turned around, a polite smile playing on her lips:

"Your Excellency has been up all night on the sixth day; you should rest today."

Edel didn't bother with formalities, gently placing the envelope on her desk, his tone flat yet sharp:
"The military morning paper needs an introduction that can soothe people's hearts."

She asked casually, "Do you need reassurance?"

“It’s not us,” Edel looked at her, his gaze calm, “it’s the city.”

"A voice is needed—preferably a trustworthy pen."

He paused for a moment, then added a second sentence:
"Ideally, it would be 'Lia'."

She paused for a moment, lightly brushing the blurred ink marks on the newspaper with her fingertips, her eyes slightly raised: "Then perhaps I should remind you, sir, that 'Lia' is not a court historian."

Edel nodded, but did not back down: "The fire that 'Lia' started this time should not be written by her alone."

This statement, though only partially true, cuts through the surface to reveal the underlying truth.

Liseria remained silent for a long time before softly asking:
"Do you believe that this turmoil was caused by 'Morning Star'?"

Edel did not answer immediately.

He took a neatly folded sheet of paper from the documents he had brought with him and placed it on her desk.

That was the Military Intelligence Bureau's preliminary notification last night; the signature was not shown, but a serial number had been added.

He said, "This is not a conviction."

"But almost all of the numbered individuals were confirmed to have read the Morning Star's sixth-day editorial the night before they gathered."

He looked at her, his tone still steady, but no longer calm:

"We are not naive, sister. Information is not a knife, but it is faster than a knife."

"You know."

Liseria's expression remained unchanged; she simply lowered her eyes and replied:
"But that editorial did not incite. It was merely a statement."

Edel repeated with a hint of sharpness:

"statement?"

He put away the documents, his voice low but heavy as iron:

"A version that describes a kingdom on the verge of collapse, nobles committing heinous crimes, the church devouring people's hearts, and soldiers being sold into slavery?"

"And the author—never shed a drop of blood in the square, and didn't even have a real signature."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was so deep that it felt as if the entire hall was being suppressed by an invisible hand.

“I’m asking questions not to settle scores.”

"It's so that in the next storm, we won't be mistaken for fog again."

He paused, his expression softening unusually:
"That editor-in-chief isn't a writer."

"He is... the one who orchestrated this."

Liseria responded in a low voice:

"He was also the one who started the fire."

Edel nodded slightly, without denying it:

"Fire can light the way."

He looked up at the street outside the window, which was not yet fully illuminated by the sun, and paused slightly in his speech:

"It can also burn down a city."

At that moment, the two remained silent.

The wind outside the window grew colder, the curtains fluttered slightly, and the tallest bronze bell in the palace quietly turned to a new hour. But they all knew—

That's not time.

That was another, unnamed—verdict.

A gust of wind blew in through the window, lifting a corner of the newspaper.

Liseria glanced at the supplement section at the edge of the newspaper, her fingertips lightly pressing down on the flipped-up page, her voice barely audible:
"You're right, brother."

"I was too naive."

Her voice fell, but it was like jade cracking slightly, the echo slowly spreading through the hall.

Edel nodded slightly, standing ramrod straight, like a military monument that had never fallen.
"The kingdom does not need saints, but it needs clear-headed people."

"Don't forget, you are a royal."

"If the throne falls, all the poems you wrote will only be inscribed on the broken bricks of the ruins."

The palace was not brightly lit, especially on a late autumn afternoon, with light filtering through the shutters of the west corridor of the Crescent Moon Hall.
It fell obliquely onto the desk, the porcelain pen, between fingers, and on each other's faces, like a thin layer of snow, both soft and cold.

“Brother,” she suddenly said softly, “do you remember the first time you dragged me to practice riding?”

Her tone was gentle, but as she finished speaking, her pen continued to be written, slowly adding paragraphs to the article.

Her pen-holding posture was slightly awkward, not as rigorous as the standard writing method taught in the Wang family rules.

But every stroke is extremely neat, just like her—gentle yet stubborn, unwilling to let any stroke be crooked.

Edel paused, not answering immediately.

“You said— ‘Riding skills are not for fighting, but for learning to get up on your own after falling.’”

She didn't turn around, but stared at the pages, her tone not sad, but with a tenderness that could only emerge from distant memories.

Edel finally moved from his standing position and leaned against a pillar by the window, his hands clasped in front of his chest, his breathing slightly heavy.

"It was you who insisted on making me practice." He said softly, his tone not like a scolding, but more like a recollection after peeling away layers of armor.

"You are the only person I can learn from." She smiled slightly, turned to look at him, her eyes shining, but also weary.

He didn't laugh, but gazed at her for a long time before saying:

“Lissey, you know it’s not that I don’t believe what you wrote.”

“But you’ve gone too deep, too close—to the fires that royalty shouldn’t be near.”

"The fire wasn't meant to illuminate us, but to burn us through."

“But that’s our campfire,” she whispered, each word like a needle.

“They shouted ‘Whale Grave’, ‘Dream Lamp’, ‘Numberer’… not to overthrow anyone, but because they didn’t want to be forgotten.”

Edel lowered his head, stared at the toe of his boot for a moment in thought, and then lowered his voice by a notch:
Do you know what I'm most afraid of?

Liseria put down her pen and looked at him quietly.

“I’m afraid that next time someone stands in front of the Monument to the Military Spirit and calls out a name, he won’t say ‘for the Empire,’ but rather ‘for a certain editor-in-chief,’ ‘for a newspaper,’ or even— ‘for a certain magic lamp.’”

“I know the kingdom is burning, but I cannot teach the soldiers to sacrifice themselves in the flames.”

His voice was no longer as sharp as before, but rather a steadfastness born of utter exhaustion.

“And you are the light of the royal family,” he said softly. “Every word you write will be seen by outsiders as the attitude of our whole family.”

Liseria looked at him, remained silent for a moment, and then slowly took two steps closer.

“Then tell me—” her voice was soft yet firm, “if what I wrote is the truth, then shouldn’t our whole family… also learn to face the truth?”

They were only one step apart.

Edel did not back down.

The brother and sister gazed at each other for a long time.

“We are all too much like our father,” she suddenly whispered.

“I’m not like that,” Edel retorted almost instinctively. “Father would choose silence. You would choose to write poetry. But I—would choose to draw my sword.”

She looked at him, her eyes no longer arguing, but sighing, a sigh of swallowing her pain.

“Brother, you believe that the empire’s lifeline can be restored like the old military insignia because you believe in the system.”

“And I—” Her voice paused slightly, then continued slowly but clearly:
"I prefer to believe their memories."

"Even a nameplate charred by fire is more real than any order in our council chamber."

Edel's expression finally softened slightly, and his eyes no longer held only wariness.

He whispered, "You've changed."

She smiled and nodded gently.

"You taught it."

He smiled wryly, turned around, walked to the door, put his hand on the doorknob, but paused as he was about to leave.

"Write it down," he finally said.

"But don't write it too much like an oath."

"This kingdom has heard far too many oaths."

After he left, the hall fell silent again.

The wind still blew in through the gaps in the pillars, carrying the soft rustling of pages turning.

Liseria sat back down at her desk, picked up her pen, and rewrote the last sentence of yesterday's article:
"The fire is not extinguished, the stars are not dimmed, we have simply decided not to close our eyes again."

She looked out the window at the city that had been briefly quieted by the king's decree.

The fog was as thick as ever, but she knew that the faint light had not yet been extinguished.

The West Palace of the Royal Palace, the Cold Fragrance Palace, was still and windless late at night.

A wisp of calming white silk leaf slowly burns in the incense burner, its smoke as light as silk, yet it possesses a tranquility that subtly soothes the soul.
It's as if it gradually washes away people's emotions, leaving only the most detached judgment.

In the seven-story palace tower's corridors, Medusa stood before the carved stone pillars, her long hair lightly tied behind her shoulders, her embroidered gold inner robe trailing silently on the ground, her posture upright to the point of being almost cold.

Behind her, two white-robed church attendants stood still like statues, their shadows cut into two symmetrical lines by the moonlight.

She held a page of the Morning Star supplement in her left hand and a cup of tea in her right.

The tea had long since gone cold, and the surface of the water in the cup rippled slightly in the night breeze, but I still hadn't taken a sip.

That newspaper didn't come through official royal or military channels; it was sent by a Purifier she personally dispatched.
It was intercepted from the church's night patrols.

The delivery time was exactly the last moment before dawn.

Her gaze fell on a line of printed text in the corner of the supplement:

"The fire is not extinguished, the stars are not dimmed, we have simply decided not to close our eyes again."

She quietly recited the poem, a barely perceptible hint of sarcasm slowly rising to the corner of her mouth.

"So touching," she said.

The sound was extremely soft, yet it was like cold water dripping onto a stone slab, shattering crisply.

A servant in white silk immediately bowed and whispered, "The writing style is confirmed; it belongs to Her Highness the youngest daughter of the Emperor."

Medici didn't turn around or answer. She simply folded the newspaper slowly, as gently as if she were handling a farewell letter.

She placed the page into the letter burner beside her.

The flames licked the pages, instantly devouring the unfinished line of poetry, as if uprooting a trace of emotion without leaving a trace.

“My sister…” she began slowly, her tone extremely calm, as if she were judging not a relative, but a variable being archived.

"They really know how to waste talent."

Another servant chimed in with a low voice: "According to reports, the maid Marlene entered the Morning Star Newsroom three times in one week and was not driven away."

Each stop lasted more than 15 minutes, which initially suggests continuous submissions and exchanges.

"Is the editor-in-chief still here?" she asked casually.

"Yes. Stationed on the third floor of the newspaper office. Brightly lit at night, still on duty. Benham's rat web activities continue, and the secret paper-passing line remains unbroken."

Medici nodded, her voice steady:

“He’s very cautious.”

He paused for a moment, then added, his tone even more subdued:

"And also... knows how to 'keep things in check'."

When she uttered the word "measure," her voice remained unchanged in pitch, yet it was like the sledgehammer of a judge—light, but impossible to resist.

“Notify the Holy Mirror Inspection Team,” she slowly instructed, “to add it to the list of ‘sources of verbal pollution’.”

"If any terms such as 'Dream Lantern' or 'Numbered Flame' appear on public access walls in the city within three days—"

She paused for a moment, then added softly:

"Tacit approval of limited cleanup."

"Yes." The servant bowed his head, not daring to say anything more.

Medici finally turned around and walked silently back into the depths of the palace.

She walked slowly, yet with precision, her hem trailing like falling snow on the palace stones.

The scent of incense extended along her figure, like the shadow she left behind, and also carried an indescribable pressure.

She paused briefly as she passed the inner palace's mirror pool.

The water rippled slightly as she leaned down to look at her reflection.

The person in the mirror had beautiful features, neatly combed hair, and a calm gaze like a blade yet to be drawn. He seemed not to be a person, but a holy statue engraved on an altar.

“Liseria…” she murmured softly, as if calling the name of a stranger.

"She always liked to treat fire as poetry."

She looked up, slowly gazing at her reflection in the mirror, her tone gentle, as if conversing with herself:
"But fire cannot be written on paper."

"Fire must burn in people's hearts to leave ashes."

She looked away, walked back to the sandalwood carved chair, and sat down.

On the desk lay an unsealed draft of a parish decree.

She picked up her pen and added a sentence at the very bottom of the draft:
"Any mention of the term 'numbered faith totem' is considered potential class programming and will be included in the parish's mental disturbance monitoring."

She paused, remained silent for a moment, put down her pen, and closed her eyes for a short while.

Outside, the wind was still, but the curtains of the Cold Fragrance Palace clock tower swayed gently.

She seemed to hear the deep, ominous chime of a distant church bell tower, like a prelude to an unburied fire.

She spoke softly, her voice as if only she could hear it:

"Father's throne..."

"The younger brothers just want to protect."

She paused, opened her eyes, and her pupils reflected the interplay of imperial edicts and the glow of the hearth fire.

"But I will continue."

"And she..."

She picked up the teacup, took a small sip, and felt the coolness seep into her tongue.

"Too soft."

"Poetry can heal the heart, but it cannot heal power."

"She saw the star still burning, and I saw the wind rising beneath the throne."

—From *Private Letters: Medici's Night Talks*

(End of this chapter)