The surroundings had fallen into silence. The banquet's distant music faded into an echo, as though the world itself had withdrawn, leaving only moonlight and memory. The moon hung high, its silver glow spilling across the tiled courtyard, outlining every stone, every leaf, every breath of wind.
Zhou Fang stood there, his gaze fixed not on his father but on the infinite void above, where countless stars blinked like watchful eyes.
The story his father had spoken still reverberated in his ears. But while Zhou Tian thought he had opened his heart, Zhou Fang heard more in the silence between the words than in the words themselves.
His mind turned, sharp as a blade cutting into veils of shadow.
Why? Why did they survive in those ruins? Why, when others far stronger perished, did my father—a mere Tier-C ranker then—live to walk out alive?
It could not have been chance.
He replayed the story in his head. The desert. The endless silence. The sudden portal. The cultivators of the Immortal Realm. The divine flame choosing his mother. Every piece fell together like fragments of an incomplete puzzle, its missing center mocking him.
Coincidence? Luck? Destiny?
To lesser men, perhaps. To Zhou Fang, those words were cheap opiates, meant to drug the weak into acceptance.
Coincidence is the mask of ignorance. Luck is the excuse of fools. Destiny is the lie of those who cannot control their own hands.
Zhou Fang's heart stirred with something cold and resolute.
"No…" he murmured within. If they survived, it was because someone ensured they survived. Someone unseen. A hand that turned the wheel when it should have crushed them.
But who? And for what?
He remembered his mother only through fragmented impressions—stories from his sisters, traces left in his father's silence. A woman who had crossed worlds, who had descended from a realm above, who had burned with a flame not of this earth.
And yet, even she had left. Not of her own will, but torn away, leaving a wound in his father's heart and an abyss in his own life.
A cold wind brushed his face. The moon seemed to tilt, silver light spilling across his father's figure. Zhou Tian stood there, mistaking his son's silence for grief, for longing. He sighed softly, his weathered hand reaching into his sleeve.
"Fang," he said quietly, his voice heavy yet gentle, "you are already eighteen. Your mother left this for you."
From his palm, he revealed a cubic object, small, dark, and heavy, as though carved from shadow itself. Its surface was smooth, yet beneath the moonlight faint inscriptions shimmered—lines too fine for mortal eyes, weaving like rivers of stars across the cube.
Zhou Fang's eyes narrowed. He did not reach for it immediately. He only studied it, gaze deep, unreadable.
"Your mother said this was to be given to you only after you reached this age," Zhou Tian continued. "She said it would guide you when the time was right."
He hesitated, then added in a voice low with sorrow:
"And remember this—your mother has suffered greatly for us. Do not hate her. Whatever you think, she did what she did to protect us. That is why I have trained relentlessly, why I have pushed beyond my limits… so that one day, perhaps, our family may reunite."
His hand trembled faintly as he placed the cube into Zhou Fang's grasp.
Then, without waiting for his son's reply, Zhou Tian turned and walked back toward the banquet hall. His figure receded into lantern light, shoulders broad yet heavy, like a man carrying the sky alone.
Silence returned.
Zhou Fang held the cube in his hand, its weight sinking not into his palm but into his soul. The inscriptions pulsed faintly, as though acknowledging him, as though whispering in a tongue only his blood could understand.
He lifted his gaze to the sky, where the moon glowed like an ancient eye, indifferent and eternal.
At last, he spoke softly, his words drifting into the night air, each syllable sharp as a blade and deep as an abyss:
"Every being is marked by suffering. It does not belong to justice, nor does it spring from injustice; it is beyond such petty categories.
To plead for the world to change in response to your agony is to shut your eyes to its true design.
The game unfolds regardless. Wisdom is not found in rebellion against its laws, but in mastering the moves within them."
His eyes glimmered, cold and resolute.
"Others cry against the heavens. But I will not waste breath. The rules are chains for the weak, but for me—they are the board upon which I shall carve victory."
The moonlight deepened. And in that silent courtyard, Zhou Fang's shadow seemed longer than before, as though the night itself bent to listen.