Leonid: Turns out I was the one who was left in the dark ...
Leonid: Now I wonder why you let me guide you into these dreams. Weren't you afraid? As I'm afraid now. The Foundation won't go easy on me if they find out you operated the machine without training! And what if anything goes wrong, and we're stuck in here forever?
Yanping: You have an interest in handicrafts.
Leonid: Hm? Oh! A sudden change of topic. Y-yes, of course. I wasn't lying to you ...
Yanping: I made note of the place you mentioned ...
Leonid: You did? That's good. In fact, if you ever go there, do you mind bringing me a couple of things ...
Yanping: ... And I'm hoping you might remember this place of mine.
Yanping: We are born with the talents of speaking human language and reading bones. Our bodies are a combination of humans and birds. They will turn into skeletons as soon as we die.
Yanping: It is my people's belief that we should witness as many beings and events as we can. To record them in our bones while we are still alive.
Yanping: And after our death, our bones will be taken to our next home.
Yanping: We moved from the borderlands to the Central Plains because of war.
Yanping: Our future changed dramatically not long after we'd arrived. Then, one by one, my people left the mountain; now more and more bones are brought back, and with the bones come rumors ... tales about us.
Yanping: People in the human world call us Mièméngs,
Yanping: yet we prefer to call the entire race by one surname, which is Gětiān.
Yanping: And I am the first Gětiān ever born in the Central Plains.
A mountain breeze rises, gentler than the icy wind of the land where they had been, it rustles through both hair and feathers.
They hear the footsteps of animals on soft earth, the patter of tree branches, and the humming of water in a brook.
Getian: For a very long time, I simply roosted on this tree.
Getian: As the days passed, fewer and fewer of my people visited me. Most had become the lazy bones lying in the temple.
Getian: The bones never lied about their owner's character. Some could be talkative, some were taciturn.
Getian: The lives of mortals then scarcely intrigued me, but the life in the mountain had grown dull in equal measure.
Getian: Until a thought dawned on me: though humans cannot read bones, they have their own ways to pass on memories.
Getian: They write, or draw; they compose music, they shape mud and earth or carve solid stone ...
Getian: I have mastered all these skills and read the lives of my people, almost every one of them. I will make an attempt.
Leonid: What are you going to show me? A room full of treasures?
Getian: A room with only lifeless objects.
Getian: Please come in.
Getian: My wand is made of bone, the bone from one of my people. He had taken a lot of trouble on my behalf before I left the mountain.
Getian: His bones were never returned to this temple; for a long time, I assumed he was alive somewhere far beyond the mountain. Until one day I overheard the bones speaking, and they mentioned where his remains lied.
Getian: The temple he last stayed at was not far away from the city. The place was long deserted ... He gave up his life, neither wanting to return to his people nor to be remembered and worshiped into posterity.
Getian: I didn't understand his choice.
Getian: I choose not to take him back to our temple, as he wished it to be. But I took his story home, to write it down in one of these scrolls.
Leonid: This isn't a very large room, but it would be some effort to find anything specific.
Aided only by the dim light seeping in from the outside, Leonid squints at the collections waiting in the dark.
Some things are hung in the air, while others appear casually tossed aside. Barely visible in the dark clutter; bones and carvings, losing their dull luster to age.
Leonid: How are you going to find the right scroll in a dark room like this?
Getian: Not a concern.
The bird turns his head and the room is suddenly basked in warm lamp light.
Getian: "Who can tell the difference between the bones of the great and those of the ordinary? One should seek the pleasure of life, not the future after death."
Although the language he speaks is completely unfamiliar to him, the young man seems to understand the meaning of each word.
It dawns on him that Gětiān is continuing to use his powers to keep their conversation smooth and clear.
Leonid: That's true. Whatever we have done when we are alive, we will become a pile of bones after we die.
He looks around and gasps out of amazement.
Leonid: Your collections ... and these works. I'm amazed.
Leonid: You truly are one of the best craftsme- er, birds, I've ever seen.
Getian: Is that so?
Getian: Thank you.
The temple is quiet. Words are unnecessary here, for they are useless to the dead.
The only sounds in the room are Gětiān's feathers brushing across the scrolls.
