Li Rong's chest throbbed with the rhythm of pride and defiance. The city streets swarmed with banners and voices; he had marched before, shouted before, but never had the world felt so alive and yet so cruel. Signs in every color danced like fire in the hands of those brave enough to wield them. Yet the crowd's roar became a suffocating tide, pressing against his chest with invisible fingers, relentless and heavy.
He smiled faintly. Finally, a place where he could exist. Where pronouns, expectations, and the invisible walls of his body did not cage his soul. And yet, as he took a step forward, the air twisted, voices blurred, and a sharp, suffocating pain tore through him.
Then nothing.
When consciousness returned, it came with a weight both strange and solid. His lungs filled with air that smelled of earth and wood. He blinked, confused. The world was quiet, small, and strange: soft sunlight filtered through thin paper screens, painting the rough-hewn wooden floor with shifting golden patterns.
He looked down. Hands — long, strong, sun-kissed — flexed instinctively. Muscles coiled beneath skin that glimmered faintly in the morning light. Amber eyes stared back from a reflection in the polished wall. Dark hair, streaked with reddish-brown highlights, fell past his shoulders, catching light like liquid silk. Lean, agile, beautiful — neither fully male nor fully female. A ger, he would later understand.
His clothing was simple but unusual: a tunic of muted indigo, stitched unevenly but soft and flowing, tied at the waist with a thin cord that held a small pouch and wooden comb. The fabric swished with his movements, practical yet artistic, flexible enough to allow unencumbered motion. The body felt foreign, yet capable — agile, alive, and strangely familiar.
Confusion lanced through him. Who was he now? Where was he? And why did this new life feel at once welcoming and alien?
Then, as if pulled by invisible threads, the memories of the body he now inhabited surfaced. Fragmented, blurred, and deeply melancholic, they whispered of a life spent in isolation, of nights spent alone in the hut, eating simple meals, gazing at the sky, wondering why the world had rejected someone so different. The owner of this body had been an outcast, misunderstood, discriminated against by villagers who were backward, illiterate, rigid in their ways. There had been hope, brief moments of joy, but always overshadowed by loneliness. Depression had weighed like a stone, and the life had ended quietly, tragically.
Li Rong's chest tightened at the shadows in these memories. He understood now the weight of the life he had inherited — resilience born of solitude, strength born of suffering. And he felt something almost sacred: the body's freedom, its rare gift of gender fluidity, a freedom granted to him alone in this world. Yet even in this liberty, there were edges. The villagers would not fully accept him. Prejudice lurked like a shadow at every corner.
He turned, noticing the hut around him in detail. Rough-hewn walls smelled faintly of pine and smoke. The low roof pressed gently over his head, yet the space was oddly comforting. Straw mats covered the floor, worn but functional; a clay stove sat in one corner, blackened from fire. Outside, the wind rustled through grass that bent like waves, carrying the distant laughter of children and the occasional cluck of chickens. The hut was simple, humble, yet somehow alive — a place that promised survival, reflection, and the possibility of growth.
For the first time, Li Rong allowed himself a thought: I can exist here. I can breathe. I can be myself.
He pressed his palms against the wooden floor, grounding himself. Somewhere in the haze of memory, he felt the echoes of loneliness linger. And yet, in the same place, the faintest pulse of hope stirred. I am alive. I have survived death. I am myself.
Outside, the wind swept over the fields, carrying both promise and warning. A bird called to its mate in the distance, a sharp, joyful note. And Li Rong, standing in a quiet, humble hut in a world not his own, realized he could, perhaps for the first time, be unafraid.