Puddles on the bluestone pavement mirrored the lantern light from "Hidden Treasures Antiques." Chen Xiaoqi crouched under the eaves, wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve. The humid air of the rainy season seeped into one's very bones, leaving even the bronze mirror fogged with condensation. His eyes flickered toward the shopkeeper behind the counter—Su Shixiang, holding a brass water pipe, squinting at the day's acquisition list. The fifty-something proprietor always wore an indigo robe, his left thumb adorned with a jade archer's ring that clicked rhythmically against the abacus beads.
"Xiaoqi, polish that mignonette mirror properly," Su suddenly spoke, tapping his pipe against the inkstone. "It's an artifact from the Mystic Capital Temple—can't afford carelessness."
Xiaoqi acknowledged and resumed polishing the mirror's edge. A slender youth with gentle features, he carried an air of peculiarity—all due to the vermilion lotus birthmark behind his left ear, vivid as cinnabar.
"Shopkeeper, this mirror..." He hesitated, lifting the bronze mirror. "The inscriptions on the back seem like..."
Su abruptly cut him off, his ring carving a deep ink streak across the ledger. "That fire at Dragon-Tiger Mountain twenty years ago—" He stopped mid-sentence, retrieving an embroidered box from beneath the counter instead. "Use this."
When Xiaoqi took the box, he caught a scent—aloeswood laced with saltpeter. Inside lay a piece of dark red chamois, warm to the touch as living flesh. As he wiped the mirror's surface with it, the mignonette mirror suddenly emitted an eerie glow—
The mignonette bronze mirror in Chen Xiaoqi's palm suddenly turned translucent.
He saw the reflection of Hidden Treasures Antiques within—yet it bore no resemblance to reality. The Maitreya statue on the counter had transformed into a three-headed, six-armed Wisdom King, and the shopkeeper's jade thumb ring dripped blood. Most horrifying of all, the "himself" in the mirror slowly turned its head, the lotus birthmark behind his left ear oozing golden liquid that traced the Sanskrit syllable "Om" upon his cheek.
"This..."
The mirror's surface rippled. Chen Xiaoqi's fingertip pierced through the glass. A bone-chilling sensation surged through him as countless images flooded his mind:
He stood before the Celestial Master Hall of Dragon-Tiger Mountain, his peachwood sword impaling the chest of an old abbot. Yet the monk smiled faintly, crushing the Bagua mirror in his arms: "Good child... you've finally realized..."
The scene twisted violently. Chen Xiaoqi found himself kneeling in a rain-lashed sutra transcription yard, the palm-leaf scriptures in his hands recording not Buddhist verses but Daoist incantations from the *Scripture of Salvation*. When soldiers' arrows pierced his chest, he glimpsed the commander's jade thumb ring—identical to Shopkeeper Su's in reality!
*Crack!* The mirror split with a hairline fracture. Chen Xiaoqi realized with horror that he existed simultaneously across seven timelines:
1. As a Daoist priest performing rites for a deceased monk
2. As a Buddhist monk conducting rituals for a dead Daoist
3. As a coroner examining his own corpse
...
Each scene shared the same elements: the bleeding lotus birthmark behind the left ear, the shattered mignonette mirror, the wine gourd inscribed "Zhuang Zhou's Dream." The seventh scenario was most uncanny—a modern hospital delivery room where a newborn bore the very same birthmark.
*Pop!*Chen Xiaoqi plunged into a perfectly still mirror-world. Here, there was no color—only flowing scriptures composing every object. He saw seven versions of himself chained to the back of an enormous bronze mirror, each facing incomplete Buddhist sutras or Daoist texts.
At the center, an old monk and a Daoist priest played *weiqi* on a board that was an enlarged jade thumb ring. When the monk placed down a *śarīra* relic, the Daoist suddenly overturned the board: "Three thousand years, and still you Buddhists cling to form!"
As the pieces scattered, Chen Xiaoqi saw each black stone carved with *"The Dao follows nature"* and each white one inscribed *"All dharmas are without self."*
"See clearly." The limping Daoist's voice echoed from beyond the mirror. "In every lifetime, you died before uncovering the truth."
In reality, the bronze mirror suddenly purified itself, no longer reflecting horrors but a simple meditation room. On the desk lay an unfinished calligraphy scroll:
*"The mirror is no mirror, the trial no trial—"*
The rest was blurred by bloodstains, yet Chen Xiaoqi inexplicably knew the missing line:
*"All phenomena are but manifestations of the mind's light."*
The birthmark burned with sudden agony. Chen Xiaoqi angled the mirror to look—within the lotus now swirled a miniature Taiji diagram. As the yin-yang fish rotated, the Bagua trigrams and Sanskrit on the mirror's back rearranged themselves.
Every antique in Hidden Treasures resonated simultaneously: prayer beads emitted sandalwood fragrance, coins formed the *Hetu* diagram, even ledger numbers danced into hexagrams. Amidst the swirling scriptures, Chen Xiaoqi finally heard the mirror-spirit's true voice:
*"I am the true face you have forgotten."*