The way from the Heavenly Abode was trackless—save for the mark of silence. When Xiao Hua stepped into the world of men again, the mountains did not weep, nor did the winds clap. Only the trees leaned slightly, as if bowing to a man who now stepped not in power, but in presence.
His shadow had stretched out, but his form had grown lean. Not emaciated, but sculpted like the brushstrokes of a sage—each bone a stroke, each scar a whisper.
He had not eaten for seven weeks.
Nor spoken for eight weeks.
And yet, his eyes, once dulled by youth and grief, now burned with a searing tranquility.
The House That Waited
Ling Yan's hands were no longer soft.
She had learned to split wood, to haul water from wells iced over, to barter wordlessly in the market with hawk-like eyes. The illness in her heart still lingered, a quiet demon wrapped beside her ribs—but she had learned to no longer fight it.
Instead, she had woven herself into the rhythm of waiting.
She'd sit each morning at the window, where frost held the glass edges in its grip, and knit the sweater: a cloak of red and gray wool, each strand knotted with a prayer, each stitch holding something unspoken.
And one morning, when the fog lifted like the slow blink of an old god, she spotted him walking in the mist—his robes tattered, his stride steady, his figure impossibly thin.
Xiao Hua had returned.
She opened the door. No words were said.
He did not embrace her, nor she him. Instead, he bowed—not the bow of a warrior, but of a man who had walked through fire and returned not for triumph, but for the murmur of home.
She handed him the sweater without a word. He took it with reverence, as a sacred scripture, and draped it over his shoulders.