Xiao Tu's hand was smaller than Zhenwu remembered a hand being. Warm. A little sticky. Like a child's hand after eating candy and forgetting to wash up.
"Don't let go," the boy whispered. "The space is… a little blurry and wobbly."
Wobbly, yes.
Zhenwu took a breath. He closed his eyes. The world folded. The barrier wrinkled, some parts wavy, some smooth. When he opened his eyes, they were hovering thirty thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean.
"That's Uncle." Xiao Tu pointed with his little finger, his lip pouting sourly. "See?"
Zhenwu saw it. A crack in the sky. As thin as a hairline crack in glass at first glance. But looking closer—really looking—the rift stretched for nearly two hundred meters. Its edges were jagged, as if glass had been hit by a hammer. A nauseating purple light seeped from it.
"How many cracks like this?"
"Seventeen. Wait, eighteen. Another one opened yesterday in… umm…" Xiao Tu frowned. "The place where people make cars. Detroit?"
Eighteen rifts. Each one spilling foreign qi into Earth's atmosphere. Zhenwu rubbed his thumb against his sleeve. Once. Twice.
"Show me how you close it."
Xiao Tu floated closer to the crack. His fingers traced a pattern in the air. It wasn't graceful. More like a child trying to color inside the lines but always going out of bounds. Golden light seeped from his fingertips. It trembled. The edges of the crack were pulled slightly closer. Slowly. Like a wound that refused to heal. For a moment, it worked. The purple light dimmed. The nauseating feeling in the air lessened.
Then the crack widened again. Xiao Tu was thrown back. He would have fallen if Zhenwu hadn't caught him.
"Sorry!" Xiao Tu's eyes welled with tears. "I'm sorry, I know I'm terrible at this, I know I should be better, but I… I don't know how—"
"Hey." Zhenwu's voice came out softer than he intended. "You're not bad. You're just…"
What? Too young? Too small? How could he explain to the consciousness of a planet that its task was too great for it?
"You tried."
More purple light seeped out. It brushed against Zhenwu's skin and… tickled.
Huh.
He thought it would be stronger. At least make him wince. But it was just like… a buzzing mosquito. Annoying, but harmless.
Zhenwu plunged his finger directly into the purple light. Letting it wrap around his skin like ice water.
"Uncle, don't!" Xiao Tu tried to grab his arm. "It's hot! It hurts if it touches you—"
Uncle? A corner of Zhenwu's mouth twitched at the little boy calling him uncle all the time. I'm not that old, kid, he thought. Zhenwu wiggled his finger. The purple light clung to it like silly string.
This wasn't a random interdimensional leak. This was intentional. And pathetic. So weak.
"Xiao Tu." His voice was flat. Still with the purple light wrapped around his finger like a silly thread. "The creatures are trying to get in. What do they feel like? Their strength."
"They are strong!" The boy's eyes were sad with helplessness. "So strong! Like… like a rabbit fighting a pack of wolves!"
"..."
Zhenwu stared at the crack. He stared at the purple light that felt no more substantial than morning dew.
Wolves, huh. Maybe wolves without fangs or claws.
"All of them?"
"The trees, the oceans, the humans." Xiao Tu's small hand clenched into a fist. "The qi. They want to suck all the qi dry."
Void Eaters. Zhenwu almost laughed. He thought they were all extinct. He had assumed he had killed the last of them when he destroyed their home dimension seventy thousand years ago. But these? They were like… baby Void Eaters. Void Eaters with no natural sense.
The purple light on his finger had already dissolved. Like sugar melting in water.
"Can you seal it temporarily? For at least six hours?"
Xiao Tu nodded, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Maybe… six hours?"
"Never mind."
Zhenwu stepped forward. The purple light licked his face like a lazy cat.
"Uncle?" The boy's voice shrank. "What are you doing?"
Every time this little boy called him uncle, he inexplicably wanted to smack the kid's head. Instead of answering, Zhenwu placed both of his palms against the crack. There was no need to be careful when dealing with a newborn baby. The crack sealed. Perfectly. The kind of seal that could last a thousand years.
"One done," he said, rubbing his thumb on his sleeve. "Seventeen more to go."
"But… it took me hours to close one! And it never even lasted long!"
"Mm." Zhenwu had already grabbed space. He folded the distance like origami. Found another crack—over the Atlantic. Pinch, close. Fold again. Japan. Close. Detroit. Brazil. The Arctic. Australia. Plup. Plop. Plung. Like stepping on soap bubbles in a rhythmic pattern.
Xiao Tu gaped. "Y-you… That's impossible… you can't just…"
Sixteen cracks were sealed in a matter of seconds. But the last one…
Zhenwu fell silent. He stared at the crack over the Indian Ocean. It was bigger. More rotten. The purple light dripped out like infected pus. The next moment, Zhenwu's hand split the air, and a tearing sound echoed in the void itself.
"It's time for dinner, Little Black."
From the void, a large black dog appeared. His appearance was exactly like a typical Chinese village dog. As soon as he emerged, he immediately looked around. "Where… where is my dinner, Master!"
Taotie was one of the "Four Ferocious Beasts," sometimes called the "Four Great Evils," along with Hundun, Qiongqi, and Taowu. Taotie was also sometimes depicted as one of the nine sons of the dragon king. Taotie was a symbol of gluttony and greed; he ate everything, especially the cores of planets, which were his favorite food. Ancient tales mentioned that his appetite was so great that he tried to eat his own body.
Little Black approached Zhenwu and rubbed his body against his robe, hoping his dinner this time would be delicious and filling, desperately hoping he would be told to devour a planet to satisfy his great appetite.
"Go away, you crazy dog; you're dirtying my robe," Zhenwu said, kicking Little Black away, but without using any power.
"Hehe… don't worry, Master, I bathed today," he said to Zhenwu, who was cleaning his robe of Little Black's shedding fur. "Next time you rub your body against my robe again, I won't mind having a meat hot pot."
Little Black, who had been so enthusiastic, stared at his master while wagging his tail. He suddenly froze—his ears that had been perked up drooped instantly.
"Big dog," Xiao Tu said, not loudly, but Little Black's sharp hearing caught it. And they weren't far from each other.
Little Black turned to Xiao Tu, his eyes suddenly wide. "Heavenly Dao… Master, may I devour him? He's enough to fill my belly for a few weeks." Little Black asked Zhenwu, drooling.
"Hiss… You ugly black dog, y-you can't eat me, I-I'm your master's hometown's guardian." Xiao Tu ran and hid behind Zhenwu. Like a child complaining to his parent that someone was bullying him.
"How dare you call me an ugly dog… I'll show you—" Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by Zhenwu.
"Alright, Little Black, stop that. I have a task for you. Do you remember the Void Eaters I fought seventy thousand years ago?" He pointed his finger at the last crack.
Hearing "Void Eaters," Little Black, who had been about to get angry, suddenly had his tail, which had stopped moving, start wagging excitedly. His drooping ears perked up like a child hearing his favorite fairy tale.
"Investigate this crack. Find their whereabouts—go wild and fill your bottomless belly." Zhenwu gave some words of encouragement to Little Black.
Little Black, who had been enthusiastic since hearing "Void Eaters," answered with a sharp tone, "Yes, my master... I will clean them all up without leaving a single one; I will search for them to the very end of the solar system... hehe." Little Black said, drooling profusely, as if he hadn't eaten for centuries. Then he disappeared on the spot.
Zhenwu stared at Xiao Tu, who was hiding behind his robe. "It's taken care of. Now we just wait for the mastermind behind all of this." According to Zhenwu, it wasn't that simple; there must have been someone behind the Void Eaters who was controlling them. There was no reason to invade a mortal world, unless… his gaze inexplicably turned toward the starry sky.
"Uncle? That last one?" He came out from behind Zhenwu's robe.
"This one is different." He held out his hand. Instead of closing it, he… gripped the crack. Folded it up like a tissue. Then swallowed it.
Xiao Tu made a sound like a squeezed rubber toy. "Ehhhh??? Y-you… you ate it?"
"Storing it. In here." Zhenwu patted his stomach. "I want to see what they do when they find their biggest door is locked from the inside."
"But… what if it's dangerous?"
Zhenwu remembered the purple light that felt only like warm water. He remembered the creatures he had once slaughtered when they were truly terrifying. "If it's dangerous, I'll just kill them again." His voice was flat. Light. As if he were talking about the weather forecast. "Besides," he added, "it's been a while since I had a decent snack."
They fell silent for a moment. A human, and a boy who wasn't really a boy. The sky was now clearer. No more purple light leaking from the wound in reality.
"Uncle?" Xiao Tu's voice was very soft.
"..."
"Yes?"
"You're… You're really strong, aren't you?"
Zhenwu looked at him. He saw admiration, relief, and a little fear in those too-adult eyes.
"Strong enough," he replied. He looked down at his finger. There was no residue of the purple light. Not even a tingling sensation. These creatures wouldn't be able to kill a houseplant, let alone a planet.
"No," he said. "We won't die." He rubbed his thumb against his sleeve. An old habit. This time, to keep himself from laughing. "But we still have to clean them up. Before they start dreaming too big."
"But… what's next?"
Zhenwu looked to the horizon. Towards the small village, where his mother used to tell him to pick persimmon flowers every spring.
"Making a fishing rod. For my father."
Xiao Tu blinked. "Your father… fishing? Can I come?" He waited for Zhenwu's answer, hoping.
"Long ago. Before I…" Zhenwu rubbed his sleeve again. "I took his old rod with me when I left. One hundred thousand years ago. It's lost somewhere in the cultivation world now. Probably broken."
"We can talk about fishing together later when the situation is under control." He had to think of a plausible reason for his parents. What would they think if he brought a five-year-old boy back after being gone for so long?
Xiao Tu lowered his head dejectedly at Zhenwu's refusal. "Alright, uncle."
"From a branch of the World Tree. I'll make one for my father and one for you later."
Zhenwu smiled. A smile that held a hundred thousand years of regret.
"Maybe a memory. Time. Things that managed to slip away."
The trip home only took two minutes. The difficult part was just… deciding how to knock on the door of the house he had left so long ago.