The Gate of Life and Death
The darkness was absolute. Not like a moonless night, but like the womb of a forgotten world. There was no wind. No scent. No Dou Qi. Only the subtle vibration of a consciousness that had just crossed the threshold between death… and something far greater.
Zhu Xian opened his eyes. The first thing he felt was not the cold ground beneath his back, nor the dampness in the heavy air, nor the slight tremor running through his limbs. It was silence. An ancient, sepulchral silence. So deep it seemed to devour every thought before it could be born.
His body was twenty-five years old: tall, sculpted with divine symmetry, skin smooth and pale like marble under the light of a moon that did not exist in this place. And yet, every part of him ached. As if his flesh, newly formed, had not yet grown accustomed to bearing the weight of an entire existence.
—So… this is my rebirth. —He murmured. His voice sounded distant, as though he were speaking from behind a crystal mask.
The Gate of Life and Death… That was the name he had heard before dying, when his soul had been summoned by the deity of the earth and rewritten with the power of fate. A sealed place, where not the slightest trace of Dou Qi could exist. A silent hell where magical beasts fought without reason, and the humans who entered… rarely ever left.
Zhu Xian rose slowly. The robe covering his body was thin, barely enough to shield him from the sharp rocks carpeting the ground. His bare feet stepped on dry bone. A crunch. He did not flinch. In front of him, an endless valley opened in shadows, illuminated only by pale lichens clinging to the walls of black stone. There was no sky. Only an eternal, dead vault.
A strange sensation coursed through his bones. His Dou Qi was sealed, yes. But his soul… His soul vibrated with a serene intensity. As if his existence, beyond flesh, had been strengthened by centuries of accumulated karma.
He remembered the voice of the deity in his mind:
"In this place, you will spend three hundred years. Not as penance, but as a seed. Your body will be nourished by cruelty, and your soul by solitude. If you survive… the world will be your garden."
Zhu Xian smiled faintly.
—Seems fair.
He stood. A simple movement, but one that demanded from his body the effort of someone being born again. His legs trembled slightly. Balance was a stranger to him for a moment. Still, he did not fall.
Before him, a slope descended into a deep crevice, from which a warm vapor rose. The smell was a mixture of ancient blood, minerals, and something else… a faint trace of animal rage.
He took the first step. The edge of a rock sliced the sole of his foot. It bled. He did not cry out. He walked.
And on the third step, he stumbled upon a human skull. The bone bore bite marks and burns, as if the body it belonged to had been dragged, devoured, and then forgotten. Zhu Xian lifted it, observing it calmly.
—Did they promise you heaven, too?
The skull did not answer. The abyss did. A distant roar shook the earth. The magical beasts.
He remembered the little they had told him. Creatures twisted by centuries without Dou Qi, consumed by madness, driven only by the instinct to devour and survive. And he… he had no weapon to defend himself, only his hands.
But his soul, even without prior training, pulsed with an energy the beasts seemed to sense. Because when the first one appeared—a creature with four eyes and reptilian hind legs—it stopped just five meters away. It sniffed. Growled. And left.
Zhu Xian remained still. His eyes followed it until it vanished into the mist.
—They don’t fear me… but they recognize me.
—He said, more to himself than to any witness. For there, in that gray hell, there was no one to hear him.
He kept walking. Descended hills made of bones. Slept in caves where echoes twisted like whispers. Drank stagnant water that tasted of metal. Learned to move his body with precision. To fall without breaking. To leap without exhausting his muscles.
Every hour was a struggle. Every day, meditation.
And as his flesh healed, his soul expanded, as if the walls of the abyss were being etched within him.
One night —or what passed for night, for darkness never left— he found a fragment of carved stone. On it, a name etched in ancient characters: Xian.
He held it in his hands. Wondered if its previous owner had also been a cultivator. Wondered if they, too, had dreamed of a great family… of love… of creating a new world.
He buried it among the rocks. Stacked a small pile of stones above it.
—Rest. —He said.
And then, for the first time since his arrival, he closed his eyes and slept.
In the distance, the beasts stirred. But none dared to touch him.