The sun rose above indigo mountains, bleeding gold through the lattice windows of the Heavenly Sect's highest pavilion. Autumn leaves drifted like silent snowflakes, catching light before they vanished into the courtyard below.
Inside the chamber, silk sheets rustled with each labored breath.
Zhung Hang lay dying.
His body—once a fortress of tempered Chi and iron will—was now a ruin. Skin paper-thin over protruding bones. Veins mapped in faded gold. His hair, once midnight black, now snow-white and unbound, spilled across the pillow like a funeral shroud.
Around him, twenty-three disciples knelt in a perfect circle.
Some wept openly.
Others stared, hollow-eyed, as if denial could stitch time back together.
The air was thick with camellia incense, medicinal herbs, and the copper tang of blood from Zhung Hang's cracked lips.
Outside, rain tapped the paper windows in mournful rhythm: *drip—drip—drip*.
Life and death flowed like a quiet river.
Today, the current carried him.
Little Chen—barely sixteen, face streaked with tears—leaned forward. His voice cracked like thin ice.
"Master… did you have any regrets?"
Zhung Hang's eyes, clouded with age and Chi depletion, struggled to focus.
He smiled.
A smile both tender and broken, like sunrise through cracked glass.
He nodded once.
The room grew heavier, as if the mountain itself leaned in to listen.
Another disciple—Jing Mei, the prodigy who had once shattered a boulder with a single palm strike—gripped the edge of the bed. Her knuckles were white.
"Tell us," she begged. "Whatever it is, we'll make it real. We *swear* it."
Zhung Hang's gaze softened.
His voice came thin, yet steady as a mountain stream.
"Two regrets."
He paused.
A cough rattled his chest. Blood flecked the silk.
"First…" His fingers trembled against the sheets. "I will not see you grow. I will not watch you become grandmasters, prodigies, legends beneath the heavens. I will not see Little Chen's first tribulation lightning… or Jing Mei's wedding under the peach blossoms."
Little Chen sobbed harder.
Jing Mei bit her lip until it bled.
"Second…" Zhung Hang's eyes drifted to the window, where rain streaked the glass like tears. "I could not shield my wife from the Heavenly Demon."
A collective gasp.
Few knew the story.
He had never spoken her name since the war.
"Her name was Lian," he whispered. "She died in my arms on the Ashen Plains. I was too weak. My Flame Burst… barely singed his shadow. After her, he took Master Luo. I failed them both."
Silence.
Only rain and ragged breathing.
Then, with the last of his strength:
"But you—*be strong.* Be responsible. Be kind. Carry the heart of the Heavenly Sect: unyielding, burning, true."
He drew a final breath.
Tasted iron and camellia smoke.
His eyes sharpened—focused, for one heartbeat, on every tear-streaked face.
Little Chen's trembling hand.
Jing Mei's clenched fist.
The youngest disciple clutching a wooden sword he'd carved himself.
Then the light behind his eyes went out.
Zhung Hang died at three hundred, peaceful, surrounded by love.
Yet in the final flicker of thought, a memory clawed its way up from the dark.
*Eleven years ago.*
A dusty corner of the sect library.
A book with no title, bound in black leather, pages brittle as dead leaves.
He had opened it on a whim.
The words had burned themselves into his mind:
> *Everything is an Illusion.*
> *None of it is Real.*
> *Heaven was Playing you.*
> *NOTHING MORE THAN A DAYDREAM.*
He had laughed then.
*Superstition. A madman's ramblings.*
Now, as his soul slipped into the void, the words returned—mocking, merciless.
Darkness swallowed him.
A robotic *beep-beep-beep* pierced the silence.
His eyes snapped open.
White ceiling.
Fluorescent glare.
The sting of plastic tubing down his throat.
The antiseptic smell hit like a slap—sharp, chemical, *wrong*.
He tried to sit up.
Couldn't.
His arms were restrained—soft cuffs, hospital policy.
A monitor screamed.
Nurses rushed in.
"Mr. Zhung! You're awake!"
He stared at the IV dripping into his vein.
Two years.
Three hundred years of swords, thunder, love, war—*gone*.
A dream inside a cracked skull.
The doctor entered, clipboard in hand, voice gentle but clinical.
"Severe concussion. Massive blood loss. You've been in a coma for two years."
Zhung Hang didn't speak.
He couldn't.
The tube in his throat choked every word.
Something inside him hollowed.
No warmth.
No spark.
Just the cold drip of saline and the beep of a machine that didn't care if he lived or died.
Days later, they wheeled him out in a plastic chair.
Hospital slippers.
A plastic bag with his old clothes—still stained with two-year-old blood.
His savings: gone.
Apartment: evicted.
Rent due yesterday.
He walked the streets in a daze.
The city was louder than he remembered.
Horns.
Shouts.
The stench of exhaust and fried dough.
His feet carried him to a gated villa.
Marble lions flanked the entrance.
Childhood laughter echoed in the hedges—ghosts of birthday parties, scraped knees, his mother's rare smile.
He stood at the curb, cap pulled low.
They walked past.
Mrs. Hang in pearls and a tailored coat.
Mr. Hang scrolling his phone, jaw tight.
They didn't recognize the ghost of their son.
A voice boomed across the street.
"Mr. Zhung! You're back!"
Uncle Zhou, the old grocer, waved from his shop—same red awning, same faded sign.
Zhung Hang turned.
And the world slowed.
*Smack.*
His mother's palm cracked across his cheek.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
"You *dare* show your face, you useless thing?"
Blood filled his mouth.
He bit down harder—tasted copper and rain.
"I gave you life," she hissed, eyes wild with contempt. "And you wasted it. Wishing you were born is like begging a rabid dog to be our pet."
His father watched, stone-faced.
"Mrs. Hang," he began, "we're in public—"
*Crack.*
A fist to the jaw.
Zhung Hang hit the pavement, cheek scraping concrete.
Stars exploded behind his eyes.
Something snapped.
He rose slowly.
Voice raw.
Every grievance spilling like floodwater.
"I'm *glad* you disowned me."
"Glad I escaped two parasites in human skin who only ever wanted profit."
"My brother stayed—'family,' he said. You tormented him until he hanged himself in the garage with his own belt."
"Now your company's bankrupt. *Karma's here.*"
He walked away.
Their shouts faded behind him—shrill, desperate, meaningless.
Rain soaked him to the bone.
No umbrella.
No destination.
Across the street, beneath one umbrella, stood his ex.
Mei Ling.
The girl who had promised forever in high school.
Who had left the night before his accident for a richer man.
She kissed him now—slow, deliberate.
Her eyes flicked to Zhung Hang.
A flash of obsession.
Then gone.
He kept walking.
His apartment: peeling paint, flickering bulb, fridge humming like a dying beast.
One bottle of cheap liquor left.
He drank straight from the bottle.
The burn was real.
The only real thing left.
He laughed—sharp, broken.
Then sobbed.
Then laughed again.
The knife sat on the counter.
Clean.
Sharp.
The blade caught the light—same glint as the Flame Burst that once saved Master Luo.
His hand trembled.
In the steel, he saw Little Chen's tear-streaked face.
*Be kind,* the boy had begged.
Zhung Hang pressed the edge to his throat.
"Next life," he whispered, "I'll be the demon."
The cut was clean.
Warmth spilled—real blood, no Chi.
He chuckled once, softly, as the world faded.
Freed.
> *Treat others well,* the saying goes.
> But who treats you?
In the space between heartbeats—between worlds—Zhung Hang made a vow.
No more kindness.
No more sacrifice.
No more illusions.
Next life, he would follow his heart.
Even if Heaven and Earth stood against him.
Even if Life and Death barred the way.
Let humanity be the price.
The diary's words echoed one final time:
> *Everything is an Illusion.*
> *None of it is Real.*
> *Heaven was Playing you.*
This time, he would play back.
**Epilogue: The Mark**
When the paramedics found him, the knife was still in his hand.
His eyes were open.
A faint smile on his lips.
On his chest, over his heart, a burn mark had appeared—perfectly circular, glowing faintly gold.
The shape of a flame.
The coroner noted it.
Dismissed it as a chemical burn from the alcohol.
But in the morgue, under fluorescent lights, the mark pulsed once.
Then vanished.
Somewhere, a new world stirred.