Chapter 19 – The Flower and the Girl
In a poor village, forgotten by maps and sects alike,
a little girl ran barefoot across fields scorched by the wind.
Her name was Lian.
She was eight years old.
She did not cultivate.
She didn't even know what that meant.
But at night, sometimes, she dreamed of lights falling from the sky.
Of star-seeds sprouting beneath her feet.
And of nameless faces… singing in the silence.
People said she was strange.
But no one ever truly understood her.
That day, a stranger passed through the village.
He spoke to no one.
Asked for nothing.
He moved between homes without sound, like a silver shadow drifting on air.
The dogs did not bark.
The elders did not see him.
But Lian… lifted her gaze.
And her heart stopped.
He was beautiful.
Not like the men she'd seen.
Not like the immortals spoken of in bedtime tales.
But like a dream—the kind that fades at dawn,
and leaves a single tear behind on your cheek.
He walked past her.
She said nothing.
He did not look at her.
And yet...
Where his feet touched the earth…
A flower bloomed.
Instantly.
Not an ordinary flower.
A pale golden bloom, rootless, weightless.
It hovered two centimeters above the ground.
And nestled within its petals…
a closed eye shimmered faintly.
Lian fell to her knees.
She cried—without knowing why.
And whispered, as if remembering something from another life:
— "It's… the sky… weeping."
Far in the distance, Shen Mu paused.
Just for a second.
Without turning back.
A breath escaped his lips—barely a whisper:
— "Even the children feel it."
Then, he vanished.
In another world, within a temple of black obsidian,
an ancient voice awakened:
— "Karma spins its web."
— "And even the innocent… can see its threads."