The forest remained virtually unchanged. Pine needles still crunched underfoot, exactly as they had when he was seven years old, chasing fireflies with a wooden sword carved from kitchen chopsticks. The scent of earth after rain still reminded him of his mother's vegetable garden, where he was often scolded for trampling cabbage seedlings while chasing grasshoppers.
Liang Zhenwu sat cross-legged atop a moss-covered boulder—the same stone where he used to eat stolen persimmons while wondering why adults always looked so tired. Four years had passed on Earth. A mere blink for someone who had lived a hundred thousand years, yet strangely, that time felt longer than all the eons he had ever traversed.
He closed his eyes, trying to feel... ordinary. Just a man sitting in the forest. Not Supreme Zhenwu, who could split mountains with a single thought. Not the guardian who had prevented three inter-realm wars. Just... Zhenwu. The lazy child who refused to help his father fish, who stubbornly rejected parental advice, and whose curiosity was too vast for his small frame.
But just as he found that peace, reality slapped him back.
---
3,000 Kilometers Above Earth
The International Space Station shuddered. Not from satellite debris or solar storms, but from something that made their instruments shriek in a language they couldn't even recognize.
Commander Sarah Chen reached for the communication panel as screens flickered—normal, then incomprehensible, then normal again. "Houston, we have... a situation. All satellites went dark for 3.7 seconds, then came back online with impossible gravitational anomaly data."
"ISS, this is Houston. We're seeing it too. Every observatory recorded the same phenomenon. It's like... spacetime just hiccupped."
Dr. Martinez floated to the observation window, his face pale. "Sarah... look at that."
Below them, clouds were forming spirals over the Chinese countryside.
Not a typhoon. Not a weather system. The clouds moved with perfect mathematical precision, as if drawn by an invisible compass.
"Beautiful," Chen whispered. "And terrifying."
---
Hidden Temple in the Wudang Mountains
Master Liu Changming had been meditating for eighteen hours straight when the tremor came. Not an earthquake. Deeper than that. As if it emanated from the very foundation of cultivation itself.
Liu's eyes snapped open, pupils contracting in terror. "Impossible," he whispered. Then louder, "Impossible!"
Disciples rushed into the meditation hall, startled to hear their master raise his voice. In forty years of teaching, they had never heard such a thing.
"Master, what's wrong?"
Liu stood on trembling legs, sweat beading his forehead despite the cool mountain air. "Someone has returned. Someone who shouldn't be in this realm. This spiritual pressure..." He clutched his chest. "Like being crushed by the heavens themselves."
Throughout China, in hidden monasteries and forgotten temples, the elders felt the same thing. Some fainted. Others collapsed to their knees unconsciously. The few strongest remained standing, but all understood one terrifying truth:
Something beyond their comprehension had come home.
---
Between Dimensions
The Dao of Heaven and Earth had always imagined itself magnificent. Ancient. Wise beyond mortal understanding.
Right now, it was panicking.
It took the form of a five-year-old boy—because that's exactly how it felt: confused, overwhelmed, and desperately wanting someone older to take charge. It sat in the space between dimensions, hugging its knees and rocking gently.
"He's back, he's back, he's back..." it whispered. "The Dreadful One. The overwhelmingly powerful one. The one who could erase Earth with a sneeze."
For the past four years, the Dao of Heaven and Earth had been frantically holding back interdimensional invaders trying to breach Earth's barriers. Exhausting, but manageable.
But this? This was Liang Zhenwu. The man who once stared at a natural law, decided it was wrong, and changed it through sheer will alone.
"Maybe if I stay very quiet, he won't notice that this planet is leaking qi everywhere," the small Dao muttered. "Maybe he's just visiting his mother and will leave."
But the wind shifted, and suddenly the void felt too cramped.
---
Back in the Forest
Zhenwu opened his eyes. One breath. That was all it took. One exhale, and he nearly tore spacetime simply by existing. Earth's qi density was chaotic—too concentrated for the mortal realm. Overlapping layers, like energies from various dimensions, are forced through the same filter.
He stood. That simple movement triggered ripples in the void. Satellites couldn't ignore it. Cultivators couldn't misinterpret it.
"Well then," he muttered. "So much for coming home quietly."
He snapped his fingers. Gentle, barely audible.
Instantly, the chaos vanished. Satellites stabilized. Clouds returned to normal. Telescope data made sense again—though scientists would spend months trying to explain those inexplicable 3.7 seconds.
But that was just a band-aid. The real problem remained: dimensional rifts, hastily sealed, leaking foreign qi into Earth's atmosphere. Someone had been trying to break through for years.
His expression hardened. Not anger. Just annoyance—like someone discovering their childhood home had been vandalized.
His consciousness expanded, searching for the source. And he found it: a small figure cowering, trying desperately not to exist.
With casual ease, Zhenwu reached out, grabbed the Dao of Heaven and Earth by the scruff of its neck, and pulled it from its hiding place.
---
The child-shaped Dao kicked its little legs in the air. "H-hi! I was just... just cleaning everything up! Nothing's wrong, really!" the child stammered.
Zhenwu regarded it like examining a curious insect. "You've grown since we last met."
"You remember me?" The child looked torn between fear and hope.
"Hard to forget. You used to be more of a formless concept, always shouting about universal equilibrium." He softened, lifting the child like a frightened kitten. "Why the human form?"
The child pouted. "It's easier to think this way. Focusing on one thing is lighter than being alert to everything at once. Especially with all the recent chaos," the child explained.
"Earth's qi—three times denser than it should be. Why?"
The little Dao's eyes welled up. "There are people from other dimensions. Powerful ones. They've been trying to break through for four years. No manners, no permission, just forcing their way through until things crack!" the little Dao cried.
Its tears fell—each drop potent enough to destroy a small mountain.
"I patch things as fast as I can, but I... I'm still young. Only several billion years old. Foreign qi keeps leaking. Ordinary humans haven't noticed yet, but the cultivators are going half-mad, their meditation disrupted by alien energies."
Zhenwu simply listened, occasionally nodding.
"I tried contacting other Daos... but they're busy. I... I didn't dare disturb you either. You wanted to retire. To go home. I didn't want to be a burden," it whispered.
Zhenwu stared at the child for a long moment. Something tightened in his chest. Not the weight of the cosmos. Just a simple desire to comfort something that was hurting.
"What's your name?" Zhenwu asked.
"Na-name?" The Dao of Earth was stunned for a moment, thinking long and questioning itself. Who was its name? "I-I am me," it answered randomly, unable to find an answer to that question.
"..."
"..."
They stared at each other—one adult, one in the form of a small child.
"Alright, from now on, your name is Xiao Tu."
"Xiao Tu... Xiao Tu," the little Dao of Earth repeated, somehow feeling awkward with that name, yet sensing its identity slowly awakening.
"Hello, my name is Xiao Tu... nice to meet you, Uncle." The child began introducing itself, as if reborn with the same entity as the Dao of Earth.
"Uncle..." The corner of Zhenwu's mouth twitched, hearing the child call him uncle. Never mind, as long as it was happy.
He set the child down on the moss-covered stone.
"Alright, Xiao Tu, show me where they are."
---
With Xiao Tu as his guide, Zhenwu's consciousness soared, following the young Dao beyond what mortals could reach, penetrating the blind spots.
He saw the pattern. The rifts weren't random. Systematic. Someone was testing Earth's dimensional weak points with extremely precise spatial knowledge.
"They're not just breaking through," he murmured. "They're studying Earth. This is reconnaissance."
The Boy nodded wearily. "I realized it a year ago. They send probes, take qi samples, then flee before I can seal properly. Like... preparing for something."
Zhenwu's expression remained calm. But the temperature dropped several degrees.
"And you've endured all this alone for four years?"
"I... didn't want to trouble anyone," it replied softly.
Silence for a moment. Then Zhenwu chuckled softly. Warmly.
"You know, you remind me of someone—Tianming, my disciple. Always wanting to handle everything alone." He ruffled the young Dao's hair.
"Here's the thing. Sometimes true courage isn't bearing everything alone. It's asking for help."
He stood, dusting off his robes. For a moment, he looked not like a deity, but just a young man who used to sit by riverbanks avoiding his father's lectures.
"This is my home. My responsibility is to protect."
His knuckles cracked. A simple sound, but as if the void itself was prepared to be reshaped.
"Besides... I promised my disciples I'd bring back souvenirs from the village. Can't do that if the planet's in ruins."
The young Dao's face brightened with the first hope in four years.
"You... you'll help?" the child asked, hope blooming in its eyes.
"I'll help. But first, you show me everything. Every rift. Every trace they left behind. Then we fix it together."
He looked at the child with warmth, almost paternal.
"And next time—if anything happens, call me immediately. Retirement doesn't mean I stopped caring. It just means I choose to come home when the reason is right."
The child nodded vigorously.
"Now..." Zhenwu's voice shifted, low and decisive, "Let's have a chat with those audacious fools who dared to enter my domain without permission."
In the distance, on a scale imperceptible to ordinary humans, barriers began to vibrate. Liang Zhenwu prepared to do what he always did: solve problems with decisiveness, with zero tolerance for stupidity.
The difference this time was simple—he was doing it for the place where his mother once made persimmon candy, and his father once grumbled about his lazy son never bringing home any fish.
It turned out there was a motivation stronger than duty.
That motivation was simple.
Personal.