She spun the crank and walked up to the high platform.

She saw a dead pigeon. When she was born, her parents gave her this pigeon and she spent 12 years with her. Then one day it didn't move. The girl wept and called for the best doctor and the best magician in the city, but it remained motionless.

She saw the faithful and the priests. They prostrate themselves at the feet of the idols, and the midday light falls on them through the multicolored glass windows, forming mottled shadows. The priests told them to atone for their sins, and the faithful's faces were carved with the wind and frost of suffering, and they trembled with fear and offered their sincere prayers to the cold marble. But even so, their dead relatives did not crawl out of their graves, and poverty and disease never abandoned them.

She saw her coming-of-age ceremony. It was prophesied, "She will look down on the earth from the tower, and she will cause the mountains and rivers to move, and the red dragon to bow down, and the truth to be exposed to the people like a naked child." Her parents looked at her with joy, looking at her expectantly, as if she were destined to become a great magician, but the prophecy said, "All that she has done is not to demonstrate the authority of the saints, but to manifest the glory of mortals." She will die at the moment when her long-cherished wish is fulfilled, because her fragile body cannot bear the weight of the gods. ”

She saw the door to the library. The magic-obsessed girl wandered through the stacks of books, but did not open any of them, for she knew that human life was fragile and short, and that even the most inexpensive lifetime could reveal only a corner of this magnificent building. She lay down in the stacks and began to dream, she dreamed that she had pulled the books off the high shelves and read them word for word, and on the night of the seventh full moon she dreamed that the halls of the library were on fire, and that the columns carved in stone were hidden by the heat and twisted into waves.

She ran and cried in the midst of the fire, but the flames answered her, "Chase the eternal child, why do you have to be with these books that are about to decay? You should follow in the footsteps of the pilgrims, cross the borders of the empire all the way north, visit the mountains and rivers of the thousand years, and give birth to knowledge from thoughts, not books!" she wanted to respond to the flames, but the fire burned her eyes, and the pain stretched down her nerves and took root in her head, and she felt as if she had seen the light of the whole world in an instant.

She saw the encounter. It is the plateau of the Northland, the roof of the world, with snow-capped peaks reaching into the clear sky overhead, frozen soil stretching for thousands of miles at your feet, the scorching July sun shining on the eternal wasteland, and the wind mixed with ice, snow and sand swept across the vast land. The brutal altitude sickness caused her to develop a high fever and vomit in the tent until it was dark for three days and three nights. In a trance, she seemed to see a narrow beam of light in the darkness, and saw a young man in scaly armor take her into her arms and ask her why she was so desperate for her life.

"In pursuit of eternal truth," she heard herself reply, "the rivers will be diverted, the stars will be transposed, and even the gods will have their own fateful fall." Nothing can live forever. But only the truth is eternal. The boy smiled heartily. He took her up to see the thousand-year-old snowy peaks, as if to show off his newfound magic to a little girl, and he took her to the top of the continent, where he let out a long howl and watched her cover her ears and complain.

They flew over mountains and seas, through rust-smelling deserts and snake-infested swamps, they talked about philosophy, art and lost writing, they searched for ancient history in the ruins, they pestered each other, kissed each other, talked about their families, their future and their unborn daughter, and that night he offered roses, put a ring on her hand and heard her say "I do".

Then she saw a light. The wind stopped, and the midday sun filtered in through the layers of curtains. Knowing that her fateful moment had come, she did not hesitate to pull open the tent and throw herself into the boy's arms.

She saw the wedding. In a white wedding dress and a red carpet, she and her husband held hands, and the hem of her dress was adorned with stars. They offered flowers and applause, and blessed and worshipped and feared them, for because the prophecy had been fulfilled, she became the bride of the young man, and only she could make the proud and domineering red dragon bow his noble head. In the lingering night, she dreamed of fire again, and the flame trembled like the faint heartbeat of a baby.

When she decided to build a tower on the outskirts of the capital, he roared angrily, "This will make me lose you! it will drain your flesh and empty your soul!" and he looked into her eyes as if she were looking at the dying dove. But she convinced him that the dragons' lives were tough and long, and that the lives of mortals were only a short moment for them, and that even if she did everything possible to prolong them, how long could she stay with them.

Every evening, she had to take time out to write a letter, each to her unborn daughter.

She saw herself building a foundation on the outskirts of the Holy City, building towers out of machines and circles, a grand structure that would have the power to see so much that not even the truth of the world could escape its eyes, and she would bring the glory of this truth to ordinary beings, to give them a glimpse of eternity in their fragile and fleeting lives, and to free their souls from the feet of the gods.

She and her husband revisited every corner of the continent in search of strange sights and precious materials, they built intricate mechanisms of brass and ash wood, powered by precious stones and lubricated by blubber, and she began to write books day and night, mathematics, elementalism, anatomy, astrology, alchemy, and she threw books, letters, and countless star charts into the boiling fire, which she used as fuel to nourish the towers.

Such peaceful days lasted for about twelve years. People can often see the unconcealed sadness in the eyes of the red dragon, who hugged his delicate wife tightly, but it was like clenching the sand between his fingers.

She finally saw herself standing on the lowest floor of the tower, the last piece embedded in the majestic structure.

Laps, two, three, the shiny crank spun with the girl's push, and the sharp grinding sound of the brass gears vibrated back and forth in the wide hall. The night sky struck lightning at the tower, and an unquenchable flame lit up at the top of the tower, and as she ascended the stairs, each light lit up in turn, as it was intended. She walked to the place where she had meditated so many times: the extension of the fingertips of the statue of the Most High God, the sixty-seventh step of the staircase in the central hall to the left, the closest thing the whole world had to the truth.

Those who stand in this position will look beyond time and history to the past and the future. The maiden will know if she has fulfilled her great wish, and she feels a familiar burning pain in her eyes, a sharp pain that pierces deep into her brain through her nerves, for it contains all the light.

She saw it.

She saw the vastness of the ocean, the dawn and the dusk, the August showers, the broken statues in the old temples that no one believed in, the seven spots on the ladybugs, the bread and the whales, the ash boxes, the ashes and the wine, and the faces of the crowds that were stirred during the Eid sacrifices. She saw the ruins of the holy city, the mottled frescoes of the churches, the library, and every book and every word on it, the maidens who trekked through the sand, the letters, and the letter turning yellow with the passage of time.

She saw the nameless saint kneeling between the two facing mirrors, her figure reflected in the mirror with the tall doors and windows of the church, forming an infinite reflection, seeing North's longship swaying in the storm of the North Sea, the lonely adventurer embracing the sky with his hands until the fire of St. Elmo burst out of his fingertips, and the silent saint lifting up the branches of the fig tree, whose magic could change the color of mountains and rivers, and whose power could split the sea in two.

She saw her lover, her young face, the obscene, the ambiguous, lustful letters he had written to her, the words of which made her tremble with excitement, the fire she kindled when she saw her teenage self sleeping on the floor of the library, and she burned into her eyes the power of foreseeing the future and the knowledge that no mortal could acquire in a lifetime, and she saw her adult daughter, intelligent, graceful, As delicate as her mother, she saw the dusty bookcase in her hand, and saw the mother and daughter use paper and pen to start a conversation across time and space.

Then she saw the distant future, and saw the bell striking thirteen times in a row in the tower she had built with her own hands, and she saw that the twilight of the gods had finally fallen, and that people had begun to call themselves the primates of all things. She observed the stars, counted the days carefully, and knew that there were 132,900 days left. She looked directly at the flame of truth, and the excitement in her heart was irrepressible, the fire was formless and substantial, had no beginning and no end, like the morning dewdrops, like a black sandstorm, and like a girl with blond hair and green eyes—

However, she could no longer see. Her body had been overwhelmed by years of hard work, and her soul had been scarred by her sleepless research. This supreme bliss turned out to be the last straw that broke her fragile heart. By the time the husband arrived at the tower with his young daughter, his wife had already collapsed in the middle of the hall, a warm corpse. The starry dress folded down the sixty-seven steps, forming a large circle on the floor. The girl in the center of the circle has a serene and joyful expression, like a saint embracing heaven.

The ancient prophet died in the long polar night, and the noble dragon's blood will carry her legacy.

In the ancient capital of the empire, there is such a legend:

When the stars are in the right place, thirteen bells will ring in the tower of the Red Dragon's wife, the morning star will rise from the edge of the horizon, and the Messiah from Heaven will return with wisdom and truth to glorify the people of the earth with her authority.