The storm raged on for hours, but the child did not sink.
The current carried him, softly at first…then violently..then softly again, as if the river itself bent around his tiny form, protecting him. His twelve glowing tails dimmed to a flicker, the divine energy slipping into slumber. The horns upon his head faded from obsidian to bone, dulling just enough to seem human in passing moonlight.
The child would not drown.
He would be found.
At the base of Mount Qianlan, a bamboo forest stirred.
Liang Wu had been meditating beneath the ancient waterfall, shirtless despite the cold, with scars like calligraphy carved across his chest. His hair was tied in a high warrior's knot, his blindfold wrapped tight over his eyes…yet his mind saw everything.
The water shifted.
The earth trembled.
And the wind whispered.
"It has arrived."
Down by the river, a woman in red stood still, unmoving, as the rain battered her skin and her parasol lay forgotten at her feet. Huo Mei was beautiful in a way that felt almost dangerous…like fire trapped inside porcelain. Her eyes were sharp, slanted, violet. Her long black hair clung to her back like ink.
She didn't blink as the basket washed onto the rocks.
She walked forward, slowly, like approaching a spirit.
Inside the basket, the child still breathed.
The horns. The tails. The glow.
Her throat tightened. "Oh gods…"
Then a voice behind her.
"Take him."
She turned.
Liang Wu stood beneath the trees, water running down his broad frame like falling blades. He was older than he looked. Stronger than he showed. And he did not flinch at the sight of the child.
"He's divine," she whispered.
"No." His voice was low. Steady. "He's dangerous."
"But we're keeping him?" she asked, picking up the basket carefully, holding it close.
Liang Wu nodded once. "He belongs to the heavens. But now he walks among men."
Huo Mei looked down into the boy's sleeping face. She felt… strange. As if the air bent around the child. As if he was more than a vessel. More than a god.
A bridge between what was, what is, and what's to come.
"What should we call him?" she murmured.
Liang Wu turned back toward the mountain path, wrapping his robe around his shoulders.
"Xin Ren," he said. "Because the world will carve him into a new man… or a new monster."
Seven Years Later
The Sanctuary of Qianlan
The child grew in silence and steel.
He did not cry much. Did not laugh often. But when he trained, he moved like he remembered something the body never should. He could balance on narrow bamboo poles before he could read. He could mimic the flow of the river, dodge falling rocks, and silence his heartbeat at will.
He was not normal. But he was not feared…not here.
Here, he was watched.
"Again."
Liang Wu's voice cracked through the courtyard like a blade.
Xin Ren, now seven, gritted his teeth and raised his arms. The wooden staff in his hand trembled under the weight of muscle he hadn't yet grown.
Liang Wu struck.
Ren blocked.
Sparks flew as wood cracked against wood.
"You're hesitating again," Liang snapped, stepping forward. "Strength without clarity is useless. You cannot flinch."
"I'm not…" Xin Ren growled, swinging again.
The blow missed.
Liang Wu kicked his legs out from under him, sending him flat onto his back.
The boy didn't cry. He didn't even wince. He stared up at the clouds instead, chest heaving.
"You fight like you're scared of yourself."
Xin Ren looked away. "Maybe I am."
That night, he sat on the edge of the sanctuary roof, watching the stars alone.
Huo Mei approached, soft as wind.
"You're not like the other children," she said.
"There are no other children," he muttered.
She smiled. "Exactly."
She sat beside him, her long sleeves brushing his. "There's something in you. Something… ancient."
"Am I a demon?" he asked, not looking at her.
She blinked, startled. "No."
"A god?"
"No."
"Then what am I?"
Huo Mei didn't answer. She looked out at the mountains, the forests below, the curve of the moon cradling the world.
"You are a storm that hasn't decided whether to destroy or save," she finally said.
And Xin Ren sat in silence, his tails hidden beneath his robe, his horns still faint…sealed by the charms she and Liang placed on him every month.
But inside, something was shifting.
He had started to dream.
Of fire.
Of beasts.
Of voices that spoke his name.
In the heavens above, the first tail twitched.
The Dragon stirred.
And far beneath the earth, in a forgotten hell, something darker opened its eyes… and smiled.
The stars trembled.
High above the mortal realm, in a plane unseen by man but tethered to Xin Ren's soul, a gate of obsidian flame cracked open within the boy's spirit.
Inside was not flesh, nor dream, nor bone.
It was memory.
It was punishment.
And at its center, chained to a throne of scorched cloud and rusted gold, lay the once-mighty Zhenlong, Dragon of the East, now bound within the first of twelve tails.
His long, leonine body curled through pillars of fire, his scales dulled from starlight to coal. His once-proud eyes were closed…sealed by divine law, sentenced to slumber until the mortal child could bear the weight of his presence.
But something had shifted.
A tremor. A crack. A flicker of awareness.
The chains groaned.
Then…
A spark.
Golden, sharp, and rising from the depths of the boy's soul. It was Xin Ren…his essence brushing against the sealed gate of the first tail. Not fully aware… but enough.
Zhenlong's eyes opened.
And when they did, the flames around him roared to life once more.
"It's not time yet."
The voice came from the void above.
A ripple of pale light descended in the form of a woman, her figure fluid, her skin like silver water.
Baixue, the Rabbit Guardian, stepped out of the spiritual mist. Graceful. Cold. Watching.
Zhenlong snarled low. "He touched the gate. I felt it. The seal is weakening."
"You would break free the moment he stirs," Baixue said, folding her arms. "Typical of your pride."
"The boy is growing. Faster than expected. He's already questioning his origin."
Baixue looked away. "We are not meant to interfere until the trial begins."
"Then why are you here?" he growled, standing from the throne, his massive claws thundering against the ether.
"I was assigned to observe. Guide his heart gently. Keep him from awakening you too soon."
"Gently?" Zhenlong laughed, a deep, echoing sound like rocks splitting through sky. "You coddle him while demons sharpen their blades. While the Hells rise. You think gently will save him?"
Baixue's gaze sharpened. "If you speak to him now, you'll break his mind."
"I won't speak," the dragon said. "I'll show."
In the waking world…
Xin Ren gasped in the dark.
He bolted upright in bed, sweat soaking his robe, breath sharp. His fingers twitched. His eyes glowed faintly…so faint it could have been the moonlight through the paper window.
He stumbled to his feet and staggered outside, past the sleeping guardians of the sanctuary, past the sealed courtyard gates, until he stood beneath the stars.
And then he dropped to his knees.
Because something inside him was burning.
Not pain. Not illness.
Something older.
A voice…no, not a voice..a vision.
He saw fire.
Mountains erupting. Skies blackening.
He stood at the heart of it, older than he was now…his twelve tails ablaze, his sword clashing against a demon with wings of bone.
In the shadows behind him, twelve beasts circled. Watching. Waiting.
And from above, a dragon fell from the sky..blazing gold and red, roaring the name:
"XIN REN!"
Then… silence.
In the spiritual plane, Zhenlong curled back onto his throne, the glow in his chest dimming.
"He saw what's coming," he said.
"He's not ready," Baixue replied.
Zhenlong closed his eyes.
"Then make him ready. Because the war will not wait."
Far beneath the mortal world…
A fissure split open in the ninth circle of Hell.
Rakuzen, the exiled god of slaughter, peeled his cracked eyes open from centuries of sleep. Bones shifted beneath his throne. Black flames hissed like snakes.
"The boy dreams," he rasped.
From the darkness behind him, a whisper answered:
"And the gods begin to move."