The second dawn in this new body came quietly. Mist spilled down from the Cangyun Mountains, folding Qinghe Village into pale veils of silver. From the small mud-brick hut pressed against the mountain's foothills, Li Rong stepped out barefoot, the cool earth beneath him firm and unyielding.
The hut was little more than four walls of packed clay and straw, patched where cracks had formed. The thatched roof sagged slightly but kept out most of the rain. Inside, there was only a low bed of woven reeds, a clay jar for water, and a small stove blackened with smoke. Compared to the stone and glass of his former life, it was rough, primitive — but there was a kind of honesty in its simplicity. Nothing pretended to be more than it was.
From here, the village looked both close and far. The neat cluster of tiled roofs and courtyards gathered around the Baiyun River, while the farmland stretched outward in patient rows. Already, the rhythm of life had begun. Men guided oxen through winter fields, their calls echoing across the valley. Women gathered at the well, their bright headscarves fluttering as they gossiped while drawing water. Children chased each other, laughter rising and falling like birdsong.
Li Rong stood at the edge of it all — part of this world, yet not of it.
Fragments of memory pressed against his mind. The original body's life, blurred but heavy. Whispers at the well: "Don't let him fetch water, it sours the bucket." Children jeering: "Ger freak, ghost-touched by the mountains." Long nights where hunger gnawed, where the hut was silent except for the beating of a lonely heart.
He saw, too, how this body had been different even among gers. Taller, with a frame too close to a man's. Skin sun-kissed rather than pale like porcelain. Hair dark, but glinting with reddish undertones in the light. And eyes — amber, bright and unsettling. Villagers avoided looking too long, as if they feared the gaze might burn them.
Gers already lived at the bottom rung, below even women. Considered useful only for their strange ability to bear children, yet treated as unlucky, lesser, incomplete. And Li Rong — orphan, outsider, different in blood and appearance — had been cast even lower. The village tolerated his presence only because his parents had left him this hut, too far from the square to trouble anyone.
Li Rong pressed his palm into the soil near his hut. The earth crumbled between his fingers, cool and damp, smelling faintly of iron. It struck him that this soil was more honest than people: it did not care if he was man, woman, or ger. If he sowed, it would feed him. If he tended it, it would grow.
At the well, voices floated toward him.
"Laba Festival is coming soon," one woman said, shaking water from her sleeves.
"Mm. We'll cook porridge with beans and dried persimmons. Offer it to the ancestors, so next year's harvest will be smooth."
The words stirred something in Li Rong. Festivals were binding threads — between family, neighbors, even between the living and the dead. Yet the memory he inherited was bitter: during every festival, the body's former self had stood apart, told to stay home so his "unlucky shadow" wouldn't stain the joy.
He closed his eyes. This time, he would not be crushed under silence. If the village would not allow him a place at their fire, he would make his own flame. If they refused him porridge, he would cook his own pot and offer it to the mountains instead.
The wind shifted, carrying the cry of a hawk circling high above. The Cangyun peaks loomed like ancient guardians, indifferent to gossip, unshaken by scorn. Li Rong straightened his back. He was taller than most gers — once a curse, now perhaps a strength.
The soil beneath his feet was real. The mountains behind him were eternal. The villagers' judgment was fleeting.
If I am to live in this body, I will not repeat its despair. I will learn the soil, follow the seasons, make the festivals mine. Even if the village never accepts me, the earth will.
And with that thought, Li Rong bent down and began pulling at the weeds near his hut, his fingers sure, his heart steadier than it had been since his first breath in this world.