The Quiet Village

Far from the echoes of that ancient war, on a quiet, forgotten world called Xianyu, there was a small village, hidden deep within the cradle of endless mountains. The village was called Qinghe—so remote, so insignificant, that few maps even bothered to mark its name.

Surrounded by a sea of dark pines, the village sat like a lone ember in a vast wilderness. In spring, wildflowers bloomed along the rocky paths, their colors soft against the cracked gray stones. Clear, cold streams cut through the village, their gentle murmurs the only sound in the stillness.

Qinghe was peaceful. Ordinary. A place untouched by the storms of the outside world.

The villagers farmed, fished, and passed their days sharing stories—tales of mighty cultivators, immortal sects, and ancient wars that had long since faded into legend. Yet cultivators never came here. Sects never sent envoys. To Qinghe, those stories were nothing more than dreams from a distant sky.

But one boy believed otherwise.

His name was Chen Yu.

An orphan raised by his frail grandmother, Chen Yu lived in a crooked wooden house at the edge of the village, where the trees grew thick and the morning mist refused to leave.

Chen Yu was tall for his age, but thin—almost sickly. His skin was pale from wandering the shaded forests, his black hair always unkempt, hanging just above sharp, stubborn eyes that seemed to burn with something no one else could see.

There was a quiet coldness about him, a distance that kept the other children away.

While they sparred with wooden sticks or chased each other through the fields, Chen Yu roamed alone—climbing rocks, tracing forgotten animal paths, staring at the sky for hours as if waiting for something to fall from it.

The villagers called him strange. Aimless.

Some pitied him. Most simply ignored him.

Even his grandmother would sometimes sigh and call him foolish—but every night, she would still run her trembling fingers through his hair and whisper the old tales of heaven-defying heroes and ancient, forgotten powers.

Chen Yu never argued. He just listened. But deep inside, he knew those stories were real. He could feel them—like distant thunder waiting to break.

The days passed, each the same as the last.

Chen Yu gathered herbs in the morning. In the afternoon, he sat alone by the riverbank, watching the sky with silent, restless eyes.

The elders shook their heads. They said he was wasting his life.

But Chen Yu knew—this village could not hold him forever.

And then, one evening, as the sun sank behind the mountains and painted the sky in molten gold and violet, something inside him moved.

A pull.

A whisper.

Not from the village. Not from the people he knew.

But from somewhere beyond.

Beyond the streams. Beyond the hunting paths. Beyond the forests he had walked a hundred times.

His feet moved before his thoughts.

Step by step, he crossed into the unknown—past the trails, through the thick mists, into the deep woods where no villager dared to tread.

There, hidden beneath the shadow of ancient trees, he found it.

A crumbling stone archway.

Old. Half-buried. Wrapped in creeping vines.

The air was cold, the ground heavy with silence.

Chen Yu's heart pounded.

He didn't know why—but he stepped forward.

And in that step, he left the life he had known far behind.