Spring night, year sixty-nine of the Firefolk Era.
Beside the Ruin Abyss well, fresh snow had just begun to melt, the earth's veins stirred faintly, and a river of light flowed unseen. A Ming stood beside the bluestone. A Man's empty lamp in his hand remained unlit, yet held the gentle warmth of a heart. Behind him stood a young girl—Xiao Li, a mute, and his first disciple.
She could not speak, but she could use her finger as a brush and light as ink to draw words upon a lamp's flame.
That night, she laid her hand over the lampshade. The flame suddenly softened, and a line of faintly glowing words appeared: "Mother, I've learned to speak."
A Ming froze.
It was no illusion, no spell, but a lamp flame forming words, Light Language carrying the heart. Xiao Li's fingertips trembled slightly, and the flame flowed with them. The words were like breathing, like whispers, like departed souls murmuring softly in the wind.
She had been an abandoned mute girl. Her parents had perished in a sandstorm in the Western Desert, and she alone had survived, living by scavenging until A Ming brought her back. She never cried or smiled, only silently tended the Guardian Lamp. Yet tonight, she gave light a voice and spoke the words she had left unsaid for ten years.
The flame changed again, revealing a second line: "They're in the lamp, watching over me all this time."
A Ming looked at her and said softly, "You've become a 'Light Speaker.'"
Light Speakers spoke not with their mouths, but through Light Language.
They relied not on hearing, but on what their hearts could sense.
**They could hear the whispers of lamp flames, see the words within fire, carry the unfinished last words of departed souls,