The first time Tianzuo stepped into the mortal world, the clouds recoiled.
He descended not in a blaze of divine thunder, but quietly, like a man stepping out of a storm and into the eye of it. His white robes shimmered faintly under the sun, woven from starlight and dragon silk, though now caked in the dust of the human realm. On his back, a blade sheathed in silence, forged from the bones of a dead phoenix. His face, sharp and cruel in war, now softened by a strange weariness that had no place in a god.
He walked.
Past farmers who bowed instinctively, past children who stared with wide eyes, sensing something ancient beneath his mortal mask. Past a dead ox by the road, its soul still hovering, confused and frightened. Tianzuo touched its forehead. The spirit vanished into peace.
In the distance, a village.
It was a simple place: thatched roofs, wooden carts, incense curling into air. Life clung to it like moss on stone. Here, the gods had long stopped listening, and the demons had not yet begun to care.
He found her in a grove of plum blossoms.
She was kneeling beside a wounded crane, whispering to it as if her words were bandages. Her hands glowed faintly—not with magic, but with a warmth gods could not manufacture. She looked up when he approached, and for the first time in a thousand years, Tianzuo forgot how to speak.
"You're not from here," she said.
Her voice was soft, but there was iron beneath it. Her eyes did not flinch from his. A mortal, yes. But not an ordinary one.
"No," Tianzuo replied. "But I think I was meant to come."
She smiled. "Then help me."
And so he did.
---
Her name was Lianhua. She was a healer, the only one for many li. She lived in a modest hut surrounded by herbs and carved talismans, remnants of a mother who had once whispered to the wind and walked barefoot in rain without getting wet.
Tianzuo stayed. Days became weeks. The world did not end, though the skies trembled above. He mended fences, gathered herbs, listened to the stories of old men who claimed to remember dragons. At night, he sat beside her fire, and she told him about grief, about joy, about what it meant to bleed for someone who might never thank you.
He told her nothing of war. Nothing of the throne that had been stolen, nor the brothers who had turned against him. Not even of the sword that called to him in dreams, asking why he slept while the heavens burned.
Instead, he told her of flowers that only bloomed on mountaintops, and stars that sang when no one listened.
One night, during the red moon festival, they kissed beneath falling lanterns. The village sang drunken songs. Fireworks cracked like laughter. And in the quiet after, she led him into her home, into her room, and into something that neither war nor divinity had ever given him: peace.
She whispered his name like a prayer. He held her like a man desperate not to break.
And when they became one, the stars did not fall. They watched.
---
Far above, in the Celestial Court, the Goddess of Creation stirred.
Nüxi, First Flame of Existence, sat upon her moonstone throne, watching a pool of still water ripple with forbidden light. She saw the god she had once named Tianzuo wrapped in the arms of a mortal girl. She saw the spark forming in her womb—an abomination, a child of god and human blood.
Such a thing was not written.
"Summon the Spirits of Unmaking," she said.
Her voice echoed across the palace like a chime struck too hard. The jade towers trembled. The other gods looked away.
Below, Lianhua woke with a scream.
---
The spirits came the next morning.
Three of them. Cloaked in wind, faces hidden behind cracked porcelain masks. They did not knock. They did not speak. They drifted like cold smoke into the village, unseen by the eyes of men, though dogs whimpered and children cried.
Tianzuo felt them before he saw them.
He stepped into the sunlight, eyes burning gold. His blade unsheathed itself, fire singing along its edge.
"Go inside," he told Lianhua. "Hide."
But she did not move. "What are they?"
"Punishment," he said. "For loving you."
The spirits attacked.
They moved like broken time. One struck with claws of ice, another with threads of shadow, the last with a scream that unraveled sound. Tianzuo met them with fury. His sword cleaved through silence, his voice summoned thunder. The village shook. Carts shattered. Plum trees burst into flame.
But one slipped past him.
Into the house. Toward Lianhua.
She screamed as it touched her belly. The child within her pulsed once. Then again. And then the air turned red.
A wave of force erupted from her body, tearing the spirit into ash. Tianzuo fell to his knees, blood pouring from his ears. The other spirits fled, whispering in fear.
In her womb, the god-child had awakened.
---
She gave birth three nights later, under a sky torn by lightning.
The labor was agony, her body cracked and bent by powers no mortal was meant to carry. Tianzuo held her hand, whispering old god-tongue blessings. He offered his divine blood, his strength, his memories—anything to keep her alive.
When the baby came, the world paused.
He did not cry. He opened his eyes—and the heavens blinked.
Tianzuo named him Mingyao.
Light in darkness. Hope in despair.
But Lianhua, pale and fading, smiled only once more before her eyes closed forever.
The sky wept.
Tianzuo buried her beneath the plum trees.
He held his son to his chest, and swore vengeance upon gods and demons alike.
---
Far above, in the Celestial Court, Nüxi watched the child survive.
Her hand trembled.
"Then fate shall choose," she whispered.
"Let the god-child grow. Let him suffer. And when the throne of Heaven is empty and the last war comes... let him decide who he becomes."
The stars watched.
And the wind whispered his name.
To be continued