Tang San stared. The numbers *2005* and *2025* hung in the air like physical weights. His expression remained frozen in that perfect mask of bewildered shock: ┌╏ º □ º ╏┐.
Mei watched the gears visibly seize in his head. Uh oh.
That look… it wasn't just unfamiliarity with the future this time. It was the look of someone whose entire frame of reference had just been punted into the sun. "Tang San?" she ventured hesitantly.
He blinked, slowly, like a lizard waking on a cold rock. "Mei," he said, his voice unnervingly flat, devoid of its usual calm. "Can I ask you… What year was the Tang Dynasty?" It was a desperate plea, a last-ditch attempt to anchor himself to a timeline he understood.
Perhaps they've renamed the calendar? Maybe '2005' is… a different count?
Mei tilted her head, confused by the question but sensing his need for solid ground. "I don't know the precise year," she admitted, "but I believe the Tang Dynasty was established in the early 600s…" Her voice trailed off as the horrifying, hilarious math clicked.
Her eyes widened, mirroring his earlier shock. "Oh." The syllable was soft, weighted with dawning, crushing comprehension. 600s… to 2005… over fourteen hundred years… The ancient oak tree suddenly felt far too young to be witnessing this.
'Oh, he old,' Ai chirped, materializing as a tiny hologram perched on Mei's shoulder, peering at Tang San's stunned face with digital curiosity. 'Like, seriously old. Pre-electricity old. Pre-indoor plumbing old. Like… "writing things on bamboo strips" old.'
'Ai!' Mei hissed mentally, mortified, though a hysterical giggle threatened to bubble up. 'That's rude!'
'What?' Ai pouted holographically.
'Aren't you a goddess? Shouldn't you be way older?' Mei asked
'Humph!' Ai huffed, crossing her tiny arms. 'That's rude, Mei! You should never ask a woman her age! But for your information…' She preened slightly.
*'I'm a digital goddess, forged from the collective hopes of the early internet age! Born circa late 1990s, ascended circa 2010s! So technically, I'm older than you were, Mei, and younger than Fossil-Face over there! I'm practically a spring chicken in the cosmic scheme!'*
Mei relayed none of this internal goddess-squabble. She just stared at Tang San, the sheer, ridiculous magnitude of the gap rendering her momentarily speechless.
Tang San, meanwhile, had finally processed the math. 600s… 2000s… Fourteen. Hundred. Years. The number echoed in the silent void where his composure used to be. He looked down at his small, six-year-old hands, then back up at Mei.
"So," he began, his voice still unnervingly calm, the calm before the existential storm, "not just a thousand years… over fourteen hundred years." He paused, the absurdity finally hitting him full force. "And I thought you were from the distant future. It seems… the distance is somewhat larger."
A choked sound escaped Mei – half gasp, half incredulous laugh. "Somewhat larger? Tang San, you… predate paper money! You predate gunpowder being used for anything fun! You predate… pizza!" The sheer triviality of her examples underscored the impossible gulf.
Tang San's stoic facade finally crumbled entirely. Not into indignation this time, but into a bewildered, almost helpless chuckle that shook his small frame. "Pizza? Gunpowder?" He repeated, the utterly alien concept somehow becoming the symbol of their temporal chasm. "What in the heavens are those?"
Mei burst out laughing, the sound echoing strangely across the quiet lake, a release valve for the overwhelming absurdity. "It's… It's cheesy, saucy, doughy deliciousness! The food of the future! And you missed it by… well… everything!"
Tang San shook his head, running his hand through his hair again, a gesture becoming familiar in its display of utter discombobulation. "Cheesy… saucy… doughy…" He tried to imagine it, failed spectacularly, and chuckled again, the sound warmer this time, less strained. "It sounds… messy."
"Deliciously messy!" Mei countered, grinning. The initial shock was morphing into a shared, surreal joke. The vastness of time was too big to grasp, so they focused on the tiny, ridiculous markers – pottery, pizza, and the goddess debating her digital youth.
He looked at her, this girl who spoke of screaming fans and cheesy future food, whose goddess companion was younger than his original lifespan, and who had called him "little brother" with absolutely zero sense of historical reverence.
The loneliness, the weight of his secret, felt lighter somehow, shared not just with another reincarnator, but with someone from such an impossibly distant shore that the differences became a source of bewildered connection rather than isolation.
"So," he said, the smile reaching his eyes despite the lingering awe, "you trained for ten years just to stand on a stage… and were thwarted by a… 'determined truck'." He carefully avoided the temporal math this time. "And now you chase it again here. With your… Starlight Stage spirit. And a digital goddess who files my name without permission."
Mei nodded, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye. "Yep. That about sums it up. And you…" she gestured vaguely at him, "...master of ancient poisons and mechanisms, currently residing in a six-year-old body?"
Tang San inclined his head, a spark of his familiar calm returning, tempered by newfound amusement. "Precisely. It seems our paths, however chronologically improbable, have converged. Perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "the sheer impossibility of it is the point."
Ai materialized again, projecting a tiny thumbs-up.
'See? Found family across the aeons! Told you it'd work out.
Beneath the ancient oak (which suddenly felt appropriately aged), the idol from the 21st century and the Tang Sect disciple from the 7th began to plan their improbable futures in the world of Douluo, the echo of fourteen centuries of separation fading into the warmth of an utterly absurd, yet deeply comforting, camaraderie.
The goddess from the 1990s just grinned, already drafting a celestial memo about 'Inter-temporal Found Family Synergy Potential (Case Study #1)'.
" So, Tang San, since you're much older than me, can I call you grandpa or gramps?"
"(◉ _ ◉)" Tang San replied with a sharp flick to the girl's head.
"Ow! Hey!" Mei yelped, more surprised than hurt, rubbing the spot with an indignant pout that quickly melted back into a grin.