The Narrator's Seal

Inspired by my recent writing journey

When I was revising Chapter Four of "Dragon and Tiger Requiem" for the thirteenth time, I noticed something strange.

My protagonist, Lu Lin, originally a young nobleman from an established family, suddenly decided to journey alone to Snake Mountain in the northern territories to uncover family secrets. This decision seemed completely illogical and contradicted the character I had initially conceived.

Looking through my notes from earlier chapters, I discovered I had indeed written about his curiosity regarding ancient family legends in the first draft, but this was merely a minor character trait that had somehow transformed into the main driving force behind the entire plot.

Lu Lin's story was supposed to be straightforward: a young nobleman from a prestigious family becomes entangled in palace intrigue, loses everything, and emerges as the sole survivor on a path of vengeance. But now, as I dive deeper into this world, everything has become bewilderingly complex.

My desk was covered with sticky notes and draft papers, filled with scribbled notes about mythological systems, bloodline inheritances, and historical events. Initially, "Dragon and Tiger Requiem" was simply a historical fantasy novel about political intrigue and revenge. Now it had expanded into a vast mythological system involving the three founding emperors creating the world, the struggle between dragon and tiger bloodlines, and ancient seals.

I tried to trace when I began adding all these extra elements. The original concept was simple: Lu Lin discovers that his family's murderers were connected to the royal family, and he began on a journey of revenge. But I wasn't satisfied with this. I added the mythology of the emperors, then the dragon-tiger bloodline conflict, then the sealed Snake God Zhu Jiu Yin. Each addition required me to rewrite previous content to maintain consistency.

Strangely, as I continued revising, the characters seemed to develop lives of their own. Lu Lin was no longer the calm, wise nobleman I had created. He became impulsive, confused, and sometimes made decisions I hadn't anticipated at all. I remember one late night when I wrote about his decision to abandon his revenge against the royal family to pursue an ancient northern legend about a mountain encased in ice. Surprised, I searched through my notes and found a page I didn't remember writing, detailing the seal on Snake Mountain and the connection between the Lu family and the Snake God.

"This is impossible," I muttered to myself, "I never created this mythology."

Yet somehow, these elements had appeared in my story and seemed crucial to the plot. Even stranger, when I tried to remove these mythological elements, the other characters' actions became more illogical, and the entire plot structure began to collapse. Eventually, I had to accept these additions and rebuild my world around them.

This phenomenon became increasingly frequent. I would find details in my notes that I didn't remember writing, characters would take actions I never planned, and these changes always required me to expand my world-building and create new explanations to make these behaviours reasonable.

One storming night in Lisbon, I sat at my desk, staring at my latest chapter. Lu Lin, on his way to the northern territories, encountered an unexpected snowstorm. In the blizzard, he saw a vision: a giant snake-like shadow coiled around a distant mountain range.

This should have made sense, given the sealed Snake God in my story. What disturbed me was that I had originally planned for the Snake God's influence to gradually emerge in the latter part of the story, yet this scene seemed to have decided to appear earlier.

Even stranger, I found myself not adjusting the timeline of this plot point but creating a new explanation: the northern seal was much weaker than I had initially established, and the Snake God's consciousness had already begun to seep into the real world, much earlier than I had planned.

I stopped, feeling dizzy. I no longer remembered the story I had originally wanted to tell. Now my world was filled with contradictory bloodline inheritances, illogical mythological connections, and sudden awakenings of ancient powers. Each character seemed to live in their own reality, following logic I couldn't fully comprehend.

One day, I received a strange letter. No postmark, no address, just a letter written on ancient paper, the handwriting seemingly carved with some non-human tool:

"Dear Narrator, I notice your revisions to 'Dragon and Tiger Requiem' are destabilizing the seal. Please stop adding new bloodline designs. Your characters are beginning to realize their sealed nature. This could lead to serious seal breakage."

I stared at the paper, my fingers trembling. Was this some kind of prank? Or a hallucination from my exhausted mind? I put the letter in a drawer and decided to rest for the night.

The next morning, I found my laptop screen lit up, displaying a document I didn't remember writing. The title was "Whispers of the Snake God," and it told the story of a writer who, while creating a novel called "Dragon and Tiger Requiem," discovered he was unknowingly breaking an ancient seal, and his character, Lu Lin, was actually the last line of defence for this seal.

I closed my computer, feeling a chill run up my spine. This couldn't be a coincidence. Either someone was playing a trick on me, or I was experiencing some kind of mental breakdown. Or, there was another possibility, one I hardly dared consider: my creation had somehow connected with an unknown force.

In the following weeks, I stopped writing, trying to clear my thoughts. But strange things continued to happen. I would find notes scattered around my apartment with plot points I didn't remember recording. Once, I even discovered strange symbols written in condensation on my bathroom mirror, twisted into a sentence: "Let Lu Lin discover the truth about the tiger blood."

I tried to follow these hints and resumed writing. I had Lu Lin discover an ancient cave during his northern journey, with wall paintings depicting the story of the three emperors creating the world and how the dragon and tiger bloodlines joined forces to seal the Snake God. There, he also found a stone tablet inscribed with ancient text, recording a terrible prophecy:

"Dragon blood stabilizes, tiger blood seals, snake venom consumes, the three types of blood will eventually become one. When the narrator loses control of the story, the seal will be broken, and Zhu Jiu Yin will return to the world."

My hands froze over the keyboard. This was too much. I was writing about a character who discovers he is part of some mysterious seal, and this character is reading a prophecy that mentions a "narrator"… isn't that me? The layers of reality made me dizzy.

However, when I tried to delete this section, I found I couldn't. Not because of technical issues, but because of some deeper resistance, a resistance from the story itself. It seemed this twist was crucial to the plot's integrity, and even I, as the author, couldn't change it.

At that moment, a terrifying thought struck me: what if I wasn't creating a story, but reawakening a sealed ancient entity? What if Lu Lin, Emperor Xiao, and those dragon-tiger bloodline conflicts weren't my fiction, but some forgotten truth re-emerging through my writing?

I looked around my apartment, suddenly noticing various unusual details. My walls were somehow covered with ancient maps I didn't remember purchasing, my bookshelf contained old tomes I had never seen before, with spines inscribed with symbols similar to those in my story. Even outside my window, the clouds in the sky seemed to be forming a giant snake pattern.

I opened my notebook and began frantically writing down these thoughts, pouring my suspicions and fears onto paper. If my writing was indeed affecting some deeper level of reality, perhaps I could control it through writing. Perhaps I could re-seal those powers I had unknowingly released.

I began rewriting the ending of "Dragon and Tiger Requiem." In this new version, Lu Lin finally understood his mission – he wasn't meant for revenge or breaking the seal, but for reinforcing it. His tiger blood wasn't a curse but a responsibility. He no longer fought against the dragon-blooded descendants of the Xiao family but realigned with them to jointly resist the temptation of the Snake God.

As I wrote the ending, I felt the air in the room become fresher, and the clouds outside dispersed, revealing long-absent sunlight. I exhaled deeply, feeling a mysterious sense of relief. Perhaps I had just been too immersed in my own creation, developing some unrealistic ideas.

I saved the document and prepared to shut down the computer. The screen suddenly flickered, and then I saw a message:

"Seal reset. But remember, narrator, every story is a door, and you have opened the one leading to me. We will meet again."

The message disappeared, and the computer returned to normal. I stared at the blank screen, uncertain whether what I had just seen was real or an illusion.

That night, I had a strange dream. I dreamed I was standing on a mountain peak, overlooking a world both strange and familiar. In the distance, a giant snake-like figure coiled among the mountains. It raised its head, its eyes burning with ancient wisdom, looking directly at me.

"Every story needs a narrator," it said to me, "and every narrator will eventually become part of the story."

I woke with a start, discovering a small scale-like pattern on my arm, faintly flickering with the outline of a snake. I turned on my computer and decided to start a new story – a story about a writer who, while creating a novel called "Dragon and Tiger Requiem," discovers he might be being written by a higher-dimensional entity.

I wrote down the first sentence: "When I was revising Chapter Four of 'Dragon and Tiger Requiem' for the thirteenth time, I noticed something strange."

Somewhere, perhaps another author, or another entity, is reading this story, and as they read to this point, will they also feel a chill run up their spine? Will they also wonder if they are merely characters in a larger narrative?

And you, who are reading this story now, have you noticed that as you immerse yourself in these words, something has quietly entered your consciousness? Do you feel a strange connection, as if some ancient entity has established contact with you through these words?

Every story is a door. And now, this door has opened for you.