They floated above the clouds—a man and a child, though it was clear the child was no ordinary child. The sky was now clear, free of the sickly purple light that had been seeping through earlier. Still, there was something else in the air, heavier than silence itself.
"Uncle?" Xiao Tu's voice was almost a whisper.
"Mm?"
"You're going to leave, aren't you?"
Zhenwu watched the boy. He noticed how the small fingers clutched the hem of his robe—a nervous habit that made him look exactly what he was: a frightened child trying to appear brave.
"I have to go home for a while."
"Home." Xiao Tu repeated the word as if tasting something unfamiliar. "I… I don't really remember what that feels like."
The confession hit Zhenwu harder than he'd expected. The child had borne the consciousness of an entire planet for so long that he'd forgotten what it meant to belong to one place. To one family.
"How long?" Zhenwu asked softly. "Since you were just… yourself?"
Xiao Tu's brow furrowed. "I think… I was only two when it happened. When I became… this." He gestured vaguely at the sky around them. "That was three years ago. But it feels… like forever."
Three years. Carrying the weight of a whole world at the age of two.
Zhenwu reached inside his sleeve, and something that clearly had not been there a second before appeared: a small wooden bird, carved with astonishing detail. Its wings were spread; its eyes were tiny shards of jade that seemed to glitter with their own light.
"Here." He offered the object into Xiao Tu's hand.
Xiao Tu turned the bird over carefully, as if afraid it might break. "It's beautiful. But… what is it for, Uncle?"
"For nothing." Zhenwu's smile was gentle. "Absolutely useless. No function at all."
"I… I don't understand."
"You will." Zhenwu ruffled the boy's hair. "When you remember what it's like to do something simply because it makes you happy. Not because the world needs it." "While I'm gone, try to rest. The world won't end because you sleep for a while."
"But what if another fissure—"
"There won't be one. I sealed them tight this time. Strong enough to last years, even without you keeping watch." Zhenwu's voice softened. "Find children your age. Eat ice cream. Get scolded for bringing mud into someone's house."
Xiao Tu looked down at the wooden bird in his hands. "I've forgotten what it feels like to just… be myself."
"Then learn again. You have time now."
Zhenwu extended his pinky. "Promise me one thing."
Xiao Tu stared at the finger as if it were a foreign language. "For what?"
"You've never done a pinky promise?"
He shook his head.
"Oh dear. That must be fixed." Zhenwu took the boy's small hand and hooked their pinkies together. "If you promise like this, the promise mustn't be broken. At all. This is the most serious promise."
"More serious than a vow to heaven?"
"Far more serious. My mother said so. The sky may forget its vows, but a pinky never forgets."
Xiao Tu's eyes widened with solemnity. "What should I promise?"
"Promise that you'll try to be an ordinary five-year-old again. Promise you won't shoulder everything alone."
"I promise." They unlinked their pinkies. "And… will you promise you'll come back?"
"I promise, and you can come see me whenever you're free." Zhenwu's voice was firm. "I have some matters to attend to first—family things. Human things. But after that, you can visit me anytime."
The boy's smile broke open—the first true smile Zhenwu had ever seen on him. Not the brave smile he'd worn while trying to save the world. Just… a child's smile.
"Xiao Tu?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For keeping the world safe until I arrived. You're incredible, kid. More than incredible."
Tears welled in Xiao Tu's eyes. "I was so afraid… that I wasn't strong enough."
"You are strong enough. You just don't have to be strong alone anymore."
With that, Zhenwu tore the space around them and left only a faint trail of persimmon blossoms in the air.
Xiao Tu floated there for a long time, hugging the wooden bird to his chest, feeling something he had almost forgotten: the luxury of not being afraid. Below him, the world turned peacefully on its axis. For the first time in years, Xiao Tu let it be.
The dirt road to Qingshan village was no different. Still muddy and squelchy along the main path—typical for the countryside. The old wooden fence posts had been eaten soft by time; only faint traces of paint remained.
Zhenwu walked slowly. He was trying to steel himself, though in that other world he was respected—the thought of facing his parents again, whom he had left behind, was worse than facing the strongest opponent.
Smoke curled from village chimneys. The scent of burning pine mixed with rice and steamed buns. Somewhere, someone grilled fish—surely old Chen, who always burned things because he daydreamed too much; who knew what was on his mind.
A group of children chased a colorful kite snagged on a clothesline. One little girl with pigtails stopped when she saw him.
"Mama," she shouted toward the house, "a stranger is wearing strange clothes, and he looks like he's on TV!"
Zhenwu flinched. "Damn, I forgot to change my appearance." He bent his head and looked at the gray robe he wore.
The girl's mother appeared, dusting flour from her hands onto her apron. Her eyes widened when she saw Zhenwu.
"Ai-ya," she breathed, then called loudly to her daughter, "Come inside now."
Doors began to open along the street because of that one shout. Gazes followed. The village whispers rose.
"Is that…?"
"No way. It's been so long…"
"But his face, look. The same as—"
"That's Zhenwu. Little Zhenwu, who used to steal my apples."
"A ghost?"
"Wasn't he the one… by the river?"
"He's not little anymore."
Zhenwu kept walking. Each whisper hit him with nostalgia; some were warm, happy to see him. Others were uncertain and confused, like people seeing something that shouldn't be there.
At the corner of the road, an old woman drying rice almost dropped her bamboo basket. She took a step back, her cloudy eyes blinking.
"Zhenwu?" Her voice was hoarse. "The boy… who drowned?"
"Grandma," the child beside her hissed, "don't talk like that."
"But I saw it myself. The river carried him. We searched for days, but nobody found it."
The whispers spread like fire across dry grass:
"That's true… I helped search back then."
"The water was muddy after the rain. The current was so strong."
"Maybe he swam ashore and got caught upstream?"
"For years?"
"Or maybe this is…"
The last thought trailed off, but their looks shifted—a mixture of awe and fear, seeing someone they'd assumed dead.
Near the village well, someone was drawing water. The creak of the pulley sounded the same as four years ago. Some things never changed.
The man at the well was now streaked with gray where his hair had once been dark; his back was bent from years of fieldwork. But Zhenwu recognized Liang Weiming—his father's younger brother, the uncle who'd taught him woodcarving and always defended him when his father beat him.
"Uncle," Zhenwu called softly.
Weiming's hand froze on the bucket rope. He didn't turn for a long moment, as if afraid he'd misheard or was hallucinating.