The rain would not stop the night Mingyao was born.
It fell like silver needles, hissing against the wooden roof of the hut nestled deep in the jade forest. The trees bent low, as though in mourning. Thunder rolled like the anger of ancient gods, and fireflies vanished into the dark. The air itself held its breath.
Yet inside the hut, the world was silent.
The boy had been born, but he did not cry.
Lianhua held the newborn in her arms, drenched in sweat, her pale lips trembling. Her face was ashen, yet her eyes remained open, fierce and alert. Beside her, Tianzuo sat on his knees, blood staining his divine fingers, his golden robes soaked through.
His face, once calm and bright like spring sunlight, had turned to shadow.
"He does not cry," Tianzuo whispered, voice cracking.
"He doesn't need to," Lianhua murmured. "He is already awake."
Indeed, the child's eyes were open. A child not even a breath old, and his gaze held the storm. Black eyes flecked with glowing silver, as if stars had been crushed into his irises. He did not scream, nor wail, nor grasp. He simply looked at the world—as if he knew it already, and was unimpressed.
The storm outside quieted, as though frightened by that gaze.
Tianzuo wrapped the child in a worn red cloth, the same color as the phoenix that once crowned his father's armor. His hands shook. This was not how he had imagined it. Not the boy's birth, not the war, not the betrayal.
The gods had turned their backs.
And Nüxi, the Goddess of Creation, had cursed this child before he drew his first breath.
Yet still, Lianhua smiled.
She reached out and touched her son's cheek with the last of her strength. "His name… is Mingyao."
Tianzuo turned to her, eyes wide. "You shouldn't—don't speak. You must rest."
But Lianhua shook her head. Her life was slipping from her like smoke, but she would not die voiceless. "Promise me," she whispered. "Raise him… away from the heavens. Let him… choose. Let him be… free."
Tianzuo could not speak. He held her hand as her eyes slowly closed.
And then, for the first time, the boy cried.
The scream was not mortal.
It shook the sky like a cracked bell. Trees split. Rocks trembled. The hut's walls quivered. And in the high sanctums of Heaven, where celestial generals and divine scribes walked barefoot upon clouds, a tremor echoed through the floor of the Jade Pavilion.
The High Oracle gasped. "He has been born."
Nüxi, the radiant one, raised her hand, and her long sleeve fell like water.
"Then we must erase him before he becomes choice."
---
Twelve moons passed.
The village of Qingrui, where the hidden god and child now lived, was small and forgettable—by design. Nestled between crooked hills and shrouded rivers, it was a place of sheep and silence. Farmers did not ask questions. Priests did not visit. The forest here was thick, but not haunted. Or so people hoped.
Mingyao, now walking and speaking in full sentences, was not like other children.
He did not laugh.
He did not play.
And the birds followed him.
He would sit by the riverbank for hours, watching the sky. When he stepped into water, fish would rise to the surface, shimmering with gold scales, and vanish again. Old women whispered that his eyes were not normal. Some said he was blessed. Others, cursed.
But all agreed: the boy was not one of them.
Tianzuo kept to himself. No longer dressed in gold or jade, he wore the simple robes of a traveler, his once-flowing hair tied back in a humble knot. He taught the boy to write, to fight with a wooden staff, to trace ancient sigils in the dirt with his fingers. But he never said the word "god." He never spoke of Heaven. He never told Mingyao what his blood carried.
"Why can't I go beyond the hills?" Mingyao asked one dusk, as they watched the sun fall behind the forest's teeth.
Tianzuo was silent for a long time. Then he said, "Beyond the hills, men are not always kind. You are safer here."
"But I am not afraid," Mingyao replied.
"That is why I am afraid," Tianzuo muttered, too softly for the boy to hear.
---
The thirteenth moon rose.
One day, a stranger arrived.
He came walking on a cane of white birch, robes torn by thorns, his eyes wrapped in a linen cloth. He called himself Jieshou, and claimed to be a wandering monk, seeking food and shelter.
The villagers welcomed him with caution. The man smelled of incense and rain, and spoke only when spoken to. He helped repair roofs, carried water, and played a bamboo flute that made babies stop crying.
But when he passed by Mingyao, his steps faltered.
He turned his covered face toward the boy and tilted his head.
"Who is this one?" he asked.
"A child," Tianzuo said, stepping between them. "He is no concern of yours."
Jieshou bowed, the motion fluid and practiced. "Of course, of course. Forgive me. I simply felt… a wind in his breath. As if he were born not from womb, but from thunder."
Tianzuo said nothing.
Jieshou said no more. But that night, alone beneath the apricot tree, the monk removed the cloth from his eyes.
What lay beneath were not eyes at all.
Only empty sockets, filled with swirling galaxies.
---
In the dream, Mingyao stood in a garden of mirrors.
Each mirror showed a different version of himself. In one, he wore armor and rode a dragon across the sky. In another, he stood bloodied, atop a mountain of corpses. In another still, he wept beside a woman in flames.
Then a voice spoke:
"You were not made. You were decided."
He turned.
A woman stood behind him. Her hair was a veil of night, her body shifting like mist. Her face was not his mother's, but her eyes were familiar.
"You are hunted by gods and demons alike," she said. "But your throne is empty."
Mingyao stepped back. "Who are you?"
She smiled. "I am the possibility they fear."
And the mirrors shattered.
---
Mingyao awoke in a cold sweat. Outside, the wind howled.
A shape moved past the window.
Tianzuo was already awake. Blade in hand, robe tight around his waist. He stood at the door.
"They've come," he said.
"Who?" Mingyao asked, heart pounding.
Tianzuo opened the door. Outside, the world had turned gray.
No trees. No sky. Only fog.
And from that fog, they came—three spirits in red, their bodies made of petals and bone, eyes hollow with divine light. They did not walk; they floated.
"Mingyao of Heaven and Hell," they intoned as one. "We come to return you to nothing."
Mingyao felt fear. Real fear.
But something stirred inside him. A heat, old and angry.
Tianzuo stepped forward, sword drawn. "You will not take him."
The spirits did not respond. They opened their mouths.
The wind died.
A scream erupted—a sound of mothers losing children, of temples burning, of stars collapsing.
Mingyao's ears bled. The world turned white.
Then—
A roar.
It came from him.
A pulse of silver fire burst from the boy's chest. The spirits shrieked. Their petals turned to ash. The scream reversed into silence. Trees that had vanished returned. The fog collapsed inward.
Tianzuo grabbed Mingyao, shielding him. "Are you hurt?"
Mingyao shook his head, eyes wide. "What… what was that?"
Tianzuo looked into his son's glowing eyes.
"Your birthright," he said.
---
Far above, in the glass towers of Heaven, Nüxi watched the ripples spread across the cosmos. She traced a finger along a starmap. The constellations shifted.
"So it begins," she whispered.
From the shadows behind her, a man stepped forward, clad in silver silk and crow feathers.
"He survived?"
Nüxi nodded. "For now."
"What do we do?"
She turned to the map.
"We break the one who raised him."
---