A forbidden love, sworn across a taboo the whole righteous world would burn them for. One arm. One venom. One vow — một giáp, twelve years — carried through a war for a country's own name.
He was the son of a hanged traitor, the boy a village wanted to fold his wings. She was the last woman of a hidden lineage sworn to seclusion — his master, and forbidden to him by every law of the martial world.
They crossed the one wall that could not be uncrossed: they changed a pronoun. And then the world climbed the mountain — a proud young blade named Summer, a bought sword named Lã Đắc, and a poison brewed to end a thousand years of frost. To save the man she loved, she had to make him believe she was gone, and vow to meet him at the Frost Pool in twelve years — a lie of mercy, so that he would live.
Ask the wide world what love is, that a soul would trade its breath to keep it.
In the village of Kẻ Sỏi they had two names for the boy, and neither of them was the name his mother gave him. To his face they called him thằng câm, the mute one, because grief had taken his voice the winter his mother died. Behind his back they called him con của phản tặc — the traitor's child — and this name they never tired of, for a village that has been burned twice by soldiers likes to keep a small fire of its own that it is allowed to poke.
The river caught him. That is the only way he could ever describe it afterward, and he described it to only one person in his life…
Preview mode. The full read unlocks on this device once you find the way in… (some doors open when you knock three times).
Lifetime access unlocked on this device. May the river always change its mind for you.
I read a story like this one when I was fourteen and swore I'd one day love like that — completely, foolishly, across every wall the world could build. This is my answer to that boy, forty years on: a story of our own held-hand words, and the one truth I've actually learned in the years between — that love is not a thing you're given, but a thing you keep deciding, in the cold, with no promise, because it's what you are.
“All limitations are self-imposed.”
“The more things you do, the more life you live!” — CườngFBI
“A life worth living, is a life always worth recording.” — CườngFBI
May you always be loving, laughing & living your life to the fullest.
Gieo nhân nào, gặt quả đó.
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Disclaimers. The Lamp in the Mist is a work of fiction; its characters, sects, lineages, and the grotto of White Cloud Gate are entirely invented, and any resemblance to real persons or existing works is the accident of a shared and beloved genre. This page is offered for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing here is legal, financial, tax, or medical advice. Any income or results referenced elsewhere in CuongFBI materials are illustrative, not guarantees (FTC). Kangen Water statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.