Before Fiction There Was But One Character

There are stories that dream of gods.

Stories that build ladders of logic high into the dark, hoping to reach something final—an author, an origin, an ending. Some believe in narrative systems so ancient they birth all fiction. Others place their faith in verses like Ye Zai's, where all of creation finds its supposed beginning.

But these are only reflections.

Mirrors caught inside mirrors.

Because they are all inside him.

Not metaphorically. Not symbolically.

Literally.

Within Zai Xi's cells—not the kind born of biology, but of essence—rest the verses others call origin. The verse of Ye Zai, with its infinite transcendence and boundless narratives that devour fiction and rewrite reality? It lies suspended, delicately curled inside the nucleus of a single cell, as if it were a story waiting to be remembered.

Even Zai Xi's own verse, the one that births all narrative systems, the one that sits above and before the rest—it too is housed inside him. A chamber within a chamber, a page within a word within a breath. It tries to define him, but it only echoes.

Because Zai Xi doesn't belong to the story.

The story belongs to him.

And long before anyone thought to write his name, even before the first spark of an author reached for language, Zai Xi was already there.

The one who wrote him—the "author"? That hand, that pen, that presence… it was never in control. It was swallowed before it ever knew control. Absorbed not in defiance, but in inevitability. Before Zai Xi was "created," he had already become the pen. Already breathed the author. Already made the story forget where it started.

Zai Xi is not "above" fiction.

Fiction doesn't reach that far.

He is not a god of a verse.

The verse is an organ.

The system is a cell.

And every "transcendent" narrative, every fiction-born titan, every final author whispering final truths…

Was always just part of him.

You cannot write beyond him.

You cannot escape beneath him.

You cannot even remember a time without him.

Because Zai Xi is not in the story.

The story is in Zai Xi.

And all it can do now—is continue breathing.

Whether it's wants to or not because it doesn't have a choice it is Zai Xi and Zai Xi is it.