Staircase

Huo Qiuliang gathered his thoughts after finishing his recollection, looked at Shi Yu, and said:

"Anyway, leaving everything else aside, the rank alone is already beyond most people's reach. The seventh rank is equivalent to an Heir's fourth art. That level already surpasses mortals. They can do things we couldn't even imagine."

As he spoke, Huo Qiuliang brought his fingertips together, forming a triangle.

"The Staircase is the path of the Gifted. We start at the beginning and climb upward from that starting point, all the way to the end."

Then he changed his gesture, bringing the heels of his palms together to form something like a lotus pedestal.

"Arts are what Heirs pursue. They begin their exploration and study at the commonly seen tenth art, specializing downward until they reach the first art, the pinnacle."

"Oh, right, I haven't asked yet. How many steps did you see when you awakened?"

Huo Qiuliang turned to look at Shi Yu.

"How many steps?"

Ten.

Shi Yu remembered clearly, but he didn't know whether this was important information. What if the conservatives were like those in some movie and humanely exterminated everyone with orange* abilities? What if ten steps was very weak? Shi Yu didn't want to answer directly, but he also knew that brushing this guy off would definitely backfire, so he said plainly:

"I don't want to answer. I'm not sure what the higher-ups' current stance is."

Huo Qiuliang froze for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?"

Shi Yu looked at Huo Qiuliang, who was laughing so hard he couldn't close his mouth, and felt a little angry.

"You don't need to be so cautious. At least not with me."

Huo Qiuliang laughed for a while before he finally managed to stop. He looked at Shi Yu with a comical expression.

"We're-ha!-all just working stiffs. Maybe we have some lofty ideals, but anyone who's Gifted themselves and sells out their teammates to curry favor with the higher-ups is a fucking idiot. You don't need to be so wary of me. As long as you're not an Evil Sin, I don't care how many steps you have, ha!"

Watching Huo Qiuliang, Shi Yu felt that he wasn't acting.

Most importantly, he had used "Thought."

Will anything bad happen if I tell him the truth?

There was no reaction. So Shi Yu planned to tell the truth, but before that, he still needed to clear up his question.

"I still want to ask: does everyone have a different number of steps?"

Huo Qiuliang rubbed his face and said:

"Let me ask you a question first."

Looking at the Kumamon in Shi Yu's arms, Huo Qiuliang said:

"Do you think people are all the same?"

"Of course not."

"Then what determines those differences? Leaving aside family and what previous generations accumulated."

"Personality, ability, intelligence, physique."

"Exactly."

Huo Qiuliang affirmed Shi Yu's answer.

He picked up the wolf plush beside him and began playing with it, making the little wolf dance beneath his hands.

"All of those make people different. But there's another decisive factor."

Huo Qiuliang's eyes were very pale, much paler than most people's. Looking at Shi Yu, he said:

"Talent.

"Talent determines everything about you: personality, ability, intelligence, physical aptitude.

"People with greater talent can achieve more with less effort, while those with less talent struggle to catch up even if they work hard. It hurts to say it, but that's the truth."

Huo Qiuliang's hands stopped moving, and the wolf plush lay obediently on his lap. He said slowly:

"That's why we're called 'Gifted.' We possess gifts ordinary people don't have, gifts that cannot be acquired through learning later in life."

Huo Qiuliang stared straight into Shi Yu's eyes and continued:

"But are all Gifted the same? Of course not. There are more talented Gifted, and those whose talent is more ordinary.

"This determines not only your lower limit, but your upper limit too."

Huo Qiuliang made his fingers hop along the sofa like a little person climbing a ladder as he said:

"Some people clearly see ten steps when they awaken, while others chase desperately just to barely set foot on their one and only step.

"Someone with ten steps can become a first-rank Gifted without making any effort, while someone with one step can only ever be a first-rank Gifted, no matter how hard they work.

"That's the difference. Do you understand?"

Shi Yu looked at the hand standing on the sofa, shifted his slightly numb legs, and said:

"I understand."

Huo Qiuliang looked at Shi Yu and returned to his original question.

"So? How many steps do you have?"

Shi Yu lowered his eyes. He looked at his own hands, feeling the lines on his palms. Blood flowed through his heart, and he felt it rushing swiftly.

"I have ten. Ten steps."

Orange*: in the movie The Darkest Minds, all children with orange-level superpowers are exterminated.

Silence.

Silence began spreading through the room the instant the last note of Shi Yu's voice faded.

Huo Qiuliang looked straight into Shi Yu's eyes. In the somewhat dim living room, the remaining light illuminated his pale brown eyes, bringing to mind a waning moon in the pitch-black midnight sky.

Only after a long silence did Huo Qiuliang break the stillness that had made Shi Yu's palms sweat.

"You're not lying."

It was not a question, but a statement.

After speaking, Huo Qiuliang slowly stretched his lean body and nestled loosely into a corner of the sofa. His whole demeanor grew languid, and there was a barely perceptible envy in his voice.

"How nice... ten steps, ten journeys. Can you push open that door?"

"Door?"

The seemingly infinitely tall door flashed through Shi Yu's mind, and he instinctively seized on the word.

"That's right. The door."

Huo Qiuliang stopped staring at Shi Yu and instead let his mind drift. He murmured:

"A piece of information that all Gifted hear or come to understand when they reach the fifth rank.

"Those who push open the door can command the supreme power of their own Staircase and gain a path to 'godhood.'"

"And someone who obtains that power could probably resolve any Netherworld with ease."

Huo Qiuliang suddenly stopped speaking, then turned the wolf plush's face toward Shi Yu and said:

"Don't tell anyone else you have ten steps. If anyone asks again, say you have seven."

Shi Yu froze.

Huo Qiuliang, however, seemed unconcerned. Still playing with the wolf plush, he said:

"Your concerns weren't wrong. If this were Jing City, someone would take you away the instant you revealed you had ten steps. They would brainwash you in their own way, physically or through superpowers, and turn you into a puppet they could manipulate however they liked."

Shi Yu's tension lasted only an instant. He quickly calmed down.

Huo Qiuliang's voice continued.

"But fortunately, this isn't City A, and I'm not that kind of hunting dog. Like I said, only idiots sell out people like themselves. Unfortunately, there are quite a few idiots."

Shi Yu slowly loosened his grip on Kumamon. Looking at Huo Qiuliang, who had hidden his face behind the plush, he said:

"So what was your purpose in lying to me?"

"I didn't lie."

Huo Qiuliang gently shook the little wolf's head, his long fingers resting over the plush's eyes.

"I really won't report this. I really don't care about your steps, and I really won't pose a threat to you. You should have your own way of confirming that, right? Does it have something to do with your Staircase?"

Shi Yu didn't answer.

"Looks like it does. Don't let it bother you. Just do as I say from now on, and I guarantee there won't be any problems."

But Shi Yu couldn't believe that. Frowning, he said:

"I don't believe the higher-ups have nobody who can look into people's minds. Staircases come in all kinds, as you said. Who knows whether there's one that can detect lies?"

Huo Qiuliang abruptly sprang upright. He stared straight at Shi Yu and asked a question.

"Who do you think you are?"

Shi Yu froze for a moment, but quickly understood.

"Remote regions, ever-increasing numbers of Gifted and Netherworlds-the peace and prosperity the conservatives imagine is nothing but a bubble, ready to burst at a touch."

"They'll be scrambling before long, and even their screenings will prioritize major cities. Nobody will care about a remote little county town like ours."

"Do you know why a remote county town has an Heir as powerful as Sister Yiyi?"

Huo Qiuliang abruptly steered the conversation toward another subject.

Shi Yu had already understood the first issue troubling him, so the answer to this question was obvious.

"You were 'exiled.'"

Huo Qiuliang nodded in confirmation.

"That's right. We're all people with too many ideas of our own. The conservatives think leaving people like us in prosperous cities is like keeping time bombs around, but trying to get rid of us might provoke a counterattack. So they chose a compromise: out of sight, out of mind.

"That's exactly why we can approach you so freely. Otherwise, the rules do require some professionals to question you. But if someone else had come, your ability would probably have warned you too... As for mind reading? Lie detection? Those abilities aren't cabbages sold on the street. They were reserved long ago as tools for certain political struggles."

Shi Yu let out a relieved breath after hearing this, but it also strengthened his resolve to be more cautious.

"Keep your steps hidden... I sincerely hope... that one day, someone can bring everything to an end."

Huo Qiuliang relaxed again and said with something like a sigh:

"Someone who can slaughter every last Evil Sin... brutally."

Looking at Huo Qiuliang, Shi Yu felt that he must have been through a great deal. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so full of schemes despite being about Shi Yu's age. Shi Yu grew curious about him too.

Shi Yu looked at Huo Qiuliang and said:

"We've talked so much, but I still haven't asked how many steps you have."

Huo Qiuliang turned his head toward Shi Yu. Seeing the curiosity on his face, he rolled his eyes upward and gave it some serious thought, then suddenly turned over and buried his head in the sofa. His muffled voice came out.

"Not telling you!"

"You bastard!"

Shi Yu abruptly stood and hurled the Kumamon in his hands at him!

Thump.

Kumamon traced a parabola and landed on the sofa.

He landed right where Huo Qiuliang had been squirming moments earlier. It was now empty.

"I'll tell you. Don't be mad."

Shi Yu jolted and quickly turned behind him. Huo Qiuliang's voice had just sounded beside his ear.

As Shi Yu turned and backed away, a pair of hands pressed gently against his shoulders, stopping his retreat.

"All right, enough messing around. I'll tell you now."

Shi Yu knew this feeling all too well.

"Cognitive confusion?"

Shi Yu stopped moving and asked.

"More or less. At least for now."

Huo Qiuliang's voice sounded beside Shi Yu, and only then did the pressure on Shi Yu's shoulders disappear.

Shi Yu turned his head toward the sofa beside him. Huo Qiuliang was sitting there now, holding the Kumamon plush.

"My Staircase is very unusual. Honestly, I still don't know how many steps it has. That's the truth. When I awakened, I was simply guided toward a certain place, and I successfully reached the first rank. It was much the same with the second rank. I've never seen my Staircase's steps or door, yet I really am advancing."

Huo Qiuliang held out a hand and clenched it into a fist. Studying that pale, thin hand, he said:

"So I'm a freak too. An exiled freak. And my Staircase's name is very unusual too."

Looking at Huo Qiuliang's clenched hand, Shi Yu felt an inexplicable curiosity arise.

Huo Qiuliang sensed Shi Yu's curious gaze and slowly unclenched his fingers.

Suddenly, unease rose in Shi Yu's heart. Instinct told him not to look at Huo Qiuliang's hand, but at that moment, it seemed to hold an indescribable attraction for him, making him unable to look away.

Shi Yu simply closed his eyes before Huo Qiuliang spread all five fingers.

Huo Qiuliang's voice came from beside Shi Yu:

"The Staircase of 'Thin Moon,' second rank: 'Deep Well.'"

"That's the name in my mind, but I prefer the name other people use to describe it to me."

Listening to Huo Qiuliang's voice, Shi Yu felt an incomparable longing for the answer, like a parched man longing to discover whether a well's water was clear.

Shi Yu's lashes quivered as his eyelids trembled. At last, Huo Qiuliang's voice came.

"The Staircase of Lies."

*Note:

The Staircase of "Thin Moon," second rank: "Deep Well."

"Caution enclosed, unease piled high."

"Inside a heart where curiosity has sprouted, a parched deep well thirsts for truth... I shall obtain a fitting secret with which to nourish my greed."