She expected mediocre lighting, overpriced entry, and at least three different kinds of elderly art snobs giving side-eye to her canvas sneakers.
What she did not expect was to trip on a floor tile, knock over a velvet rope, and fall directly into a five-hundred-year-old silk scroll like it was a foam pit.
And yet—
That’s what happened...
***
The exhibit was called “Unseen Sects: The Lost Schools of Inkbrush Immortality.”
Meilin, self-proclaimed xianxia dabbler, history minor, and mild dumpling addict, had tagged along mostly because of the scroll in question.
It was rumored to be from a nameless painter. Anonymous. Untraced. But the scene—ah, the scene!
A grand sect courtyard.
Robes in the wind.
Mysterious figures in dynamic, slightly dramatic poses.
One man doing sword forms on a roof for no reason.
Pure perfection.
She leaned closer.
There was something familiar in the brushwork. The sweep of the clouds, the fine detail in a goose’s angry eyebrow.
— Looks like Grandpa Wuyin’s style — she murmured.
And that’s when her foot caught.
One moment: modern air conditioning and the faint scent of sanitizer.
Next moment: wind, plum blossoms, and someone yelling,
— Watch out for the scroll maiden!!
She landed in a koi pond.
***
— Name? — demanded a robed woman with hair longer than Meilin’s existential dread.
— Uh… Jun Meilin. Visitor?
The woman squinted.
— Family of Jun Wuyin, the brushseer?
Meilin blinked.
— That’s my great-great–something-grandpa?
Wait. How do you know—
— He painted us. This realm. Every stroke you see around you is his qi, preserved in silk.
Meilin stared.
— I’m in... a painting?
— We prefer "scroll-bound spirit domain."
— Cool cool cool. I’d like to go back now.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The woman smiled.
It was not a helpful smile.
— You cannot leave until you fulfill the brushmaker’s legacy.
— Which is?
— We don’t actually know. He vanished after drawing our Sect Leader mid-bath.
— Excuse me what now.
***
Over the next few days—
(which may have been minutes, or months, because time in inkspace was inconsistent at best)
—Meilin attempted the following:
- Meditation (fell asleep)
- Swordplay (accidentally cut a laundry line)
- Making tea the traditional way (started a small fire)
- Asking polite questions (accused of espionage)
Eventually, she found her rhythm: giving unsolicited advice, distracting the Sect Leader with duck impressions, and helping a junior disciple confess to his crush using fan poetry.
It was weirdly fulfilling.
Still, every night, she stared at the sky—which glitched slightly if she looked too long—and wondered about home.
Then, in a scroll archive, she found it.
A signature.
Jun Wuyin.
Next to a note, scrawled in delicate brush:
“If anyone from my bloodline finds this—
know that the life I painted was not fiction.
It was memory.
I wanted to preserve not just beauty—
but the people I once failed to protect.”
Meilin swallowed.
She looked around at the painted world.
At the girl with ink on her nose and ambition in her eyes.
At the grumpy sect uncle writing angry poetry about birds.
At the scroll sky blinking gently above them all.
They were alive.
***
Eventually, she was summoned.
A celestial rooster guided her to the Sect’s Heart Pavilion. There, two scrolls floated midair.
One glowed silver.
One glowed warm gold.
— Choose — said the scroll rooster.
Stay in brushworld. Or return to dumplings and data plans.
Meilin hesitated.
— What if I choose wrong?
— Then you’ll have a story either way.
She touched the gold.
***
She landed exactly where she’d started—facing the scroll, behind the velvet rope, as if nothing had happened.
The velvet rope was upright. The tile was dry. The scroll behind glass—unchanged.
But now, if you looked closely…
A small figure had been added near the pond.
Canvas shoes. Peace sign.
She went home, pulled out her great-grandfather’s old scroll sketches from storage, and sat for hours.
Not to look.
To learn.
—
?? Mini-Theatre: The Return of the Scroll Maiden
Scene:
A celestial studio space that looks suspiciously like a paper scroll with sparkles.
Jun Meilin lounges on a floating ink lotus.
A rooster in a scholar’s robe clucks judgmentally nearby.
ROOSTER MASTER:
You had the chance to become immortal and you chose... taxes and instant noodles?
MEILIN:
They have bubble tea now. And I have 53 unanswered group chat messages. I missed chaos.
ROOSTER MASTER:
You could’ve led an entire sect.
MEILIN:
I led someone to confess their feelings and not die of internal bleeding from repressed emotion.
Same thing.
ROOSTER MASTER:
You dishonor your lineage.
MEILIN:
I found out who I came from.
And I came back to carry it, not escape it.
ROOSTER MASTER:
…Still. Bit rude you stole the scroll goose’s brush.
MEILIN:
He told me to take it. Then chased me. I call that mixed messaging.
They sip tea. Somewhere, a brush quietly rewrites the stars…
?? Mini-Extra – Post-Scroll Commentary
Later that week, at the museum gift shop…
Curator #1:
So… you’re saying the scroll updated itself?
Curator #2:
I’m saying it has a girl flashing a peace sign next to a koi pond and that wasn’t there yesterday.
Visitor:
...Do you sell prints of that version?
“There’s a story here I’ll never fully know,”—
maybe that’s true.
But maybe we can still listen for the brushstrokes behind the silence.