Lian touches his chest. His heart is a small brass scale now, tipping side to side. Tick. Tick. Tick.
In the Imperial City of Leng Ran, no one dreams. But everyone is a dream—waiting for someone else’s Libra to find them true.
“Welcome home,” the mirror says. “Or have you always been the Illusion?” Leng Ran Libra Imperial City Illusions
In the Hall of Balanced Scales, a young man named Lian kneels before the floating brass mechanism. The Libra’s arms are etched with constellations—one side Libra, the other side a wolf devouring its own tail. Above him, the Imperial City shimmers like a fever dream: towers lean into impossible angles, windows open onto rooms that do not exist, and the wind carries the scent of white tea and betrayal.
Under a mercury sky, the Imperial City of Leng Ran does not gleam—it breathes . Its spires are crafted from frozen starlight, its streets paved with the sighs of forgotten oaths. Here, the Libra does not weigh gold or jade, but the tilt of a single heart. Lian touches his chest
Lian hesitates. He sees himself not as he is, but as he dreams—standing on a bridge of bone-white jade, hand-in-hand with a figure whose face is always turned away. Snow falls upward. A clock ticks backward. In that illusion, he is never lonely. In that illusion, the Imperial City is not a cage but a cradle.
The Keeper smiles. “Good. Now the second weight: your deepest illusion.” But everyone is a dream—waiting for someone else’s
He places that vision into the right scale.
Lian whispers it— Leng Ran . The name falls into the left scale. It does not sink. It floats , trembling, as if alive.