[POV: Xue Hai]

  My earliest memory was of falling.

  There had been no sky in the beginning. Only a boundless blaze, a furious brilliance that swallowed everything in white-gold wrath. I remembered the sensation of being torn loose, of plunging through roaring light as if heaven itself had flung me away. I did not understand fear then, but I remembered the heat. It clung to me, bit into me, and branded something deep within my core.

  The next thing I knew, I had limbs.

  Small ones. Fragile. They trembled when I lifted them. My chest rose and fell without my permission, a strange rhythm thudding inside me. A beating heart. A brain that stirred with impulses like hunger, warmth, and the need to cling. Instinct ruled me before language ever did.

  Back then, the world had no names.

  There was only her.

  She was too bright. Not in the way of the blazing fury that had cast me down, but in a softer, unbearable way. Her smile hurt my eyes. Her hands were warm, always warm, and when they wrapped around me, the restless stirring inside my chest quieted.

  She told me she was my mother.

  “I am Zhu Shufen,” she would say, brushing my hair with slow, patient strokes. “And you are my daughter.”

  Daughter. Mother. The words meant nothing at first, but I repeated them because she seemed pleased when I did.

  I stuck to her constantly. Like a shadow. Like a second skin. I did not know why, only that when she moved too far away, something inside me twisted.

  Through her, the world gained shape.

  She taught me how to speak, carefully forming syllables with her lips and encouraging me to follow. She guided my fingers over paper, helping me trace ink into meaning. Words bloomed before me like unfamiliar flowers. I learned to read them, to wield them.

  “You are going to become a beautiful princess when you grow up,” Zhu Shufen once said, cupping my face.

  Her eyes shimmered with expectation.

  I lowered my gaze. Even then, I felt small before her radiance. “Sure, Mother,” I replied shyly.

  I did not know what a princess was. But she seemed happy, so I agreed.

  Then there was him.

  He insisted I call him Father.

  Meng Wu was large, imposing, and loud in a way that filled every room he entered. His laughter shook walls. His temper could slice like a blade when turned on others. Yet when he looked at me, his eyes softened absurdly.

  “Does it taste good?” he would ask whenever he brought me some delicacy pilfered from somewhere far beyond my reach.

  I would nod, cheeks puffed with sweets.

  “Slander!” he would suddenly bellow if anyone dared imply I was anything less than perfect. “My little girl is the cutest!”

  My face would burn hotter than the heavens I once fell from. I would grab at his robe, tugging desperately. “F-Father, please, it’s embarrassing…”

  He only laughed harder.

  As a little girl, I was pelted with adoring glances. Servants cooed. Nobles smiled too widely. Whispers followed wherever I went. My father took it to extremes, proclaiming my virtues before anyone who would listen… and many who would not.

  I liked both of them.

  They were my family.

  And yet…

  Beneath the warmth, beneath the laughter, something cold coiled quietly inside me.

  They called me the Meteor Child.

  I did not understand the title, but I understood the way people’s gazes shifted when they thought I could not see. Awe tangled with unease. Curiosity with dread. It stirred something instinctive within me, an awareness that I carried misfortune like a shadow stitched to my back.

  Bad things began to happen.

  Mother’s siblings grew sharp-tongued and cruel. They cornered her in corridors, their smiles thin as blades. I heard their whispers filled with ambition, shame, and disgrace. Father endured the tyranny of his superiors with clenched fists and lowered head. He bled in ways no one saw.

  I did not understand why.

  In private, Mother and Father’s affection flowed freely. They laughed together. Touched hands. Stole glances heavy with something deeper than I could name.

  But in front of others, they were strangers.

  They passed each other without recognition. Their voices turned distant. Their eyes never met.

  Despite being praised as clever, I was truly very stupid.

  Wisdom eluded me. Insight slipped through my fingers like sand. I saw what was in front of me and nothing more.

  So when the kindly grandfatherly figure who called himself the Tuyin King beckoned me forward during my birthday celebration, I went without suspicion.

  The royal court shimmered with silk and gold. Eyes followed me as I approached, clutching my zither.

  “You play beautifully,” the Tuyin King said, stroking his beard. “Tell me, little one, what do you desire for your birthday?”

  His tone was indulgent. The entire court leaned closer.

  I answered honestly.

  “I want Mom and Dad to be together and become happy.”

  Silence shattered into chaos.

  Gasps rippled through the hall. Sleeves rustled. Eyes widened.

  The Tuyin King blinked, and then burst into booming laughter.

  “Oh! That must mean you should look for a wife already, Meng Wu! Ha ha ha! This child wants a mother!”

  Confusion washed over me. I turned, scanning the court.

  “But I have a mother already?” I said.

  I lifted my small hand and pointed.

  She stood near a pillar, half-hidden behind it. Zhu Shufen’s fingers gripped the stone as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. Her face was pale, eyes lowered.

  The court’s murmurs sharpened.

  That day, I learned something valuable.

  Silence was golden.

  And I had none of it.

  Father lost his standing at court first.

  It happened quietly, without spectacle. His seat grew farther from the throne. His name was called less often. The servants who once bowed deeply now offered shallow gestures, their eyes sliding away as if he were already a relic. The “cozy position” he once occupied cooled into something brittle and temporary before vanishing altogether.

  Mother was disowned soon after.

  The day her family severed ties, she did not weep. She stood straight, spine unyielding, while her brothers recited their grievances in voices thick with false righteousness. They stripped her name from their registry as if scraping ink from parchment. I watched from behind her sleeve, clutching the silk as though it could anchor us to something solid.

  I lost my sparkle.

  The maids stopped calling me radiant. The nobles’ gazes no longer carried indulgent curiosity but veiled calculation. I grew quieter, smaller. Meeker. It dawned on me slowly and painfully that the foolish wish I had uttered in the royal court had not dissolved into laughter as I had once believed.

  It had festered.

  Father and Mother never blamed me. Not once.

  Meng Wu still ruffled my hair and declared me his pride. Zhu Shufen still cupped my cheeks and told me I was her greatest blessing. Yet I knew.

  I had something to do with their suffering.

  After all, I was bad luck. The negative reflection of heaven’s providence. If there existed a force that gathered fortune into one place, then I was its opposite, the vessel meant to collect calamity so that others could live untouched by it.

  How did I know this?

  I could not explain it.

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  No one told me. No scripture spelled it out. I simply knew, in the same instinctive way I had known how to breathe when I first fell from the sky.

  It was etched into me.

  When Mother snuck out of the palace one night, bringing me with her beneath the cover of darkness, we moved like ghosts through corridors that had once felt like home. She held my hand tightly as we boarded an unmarked carriage, her face pale but resolute.

  “We are going to reunite with your father,” she whispered.

  That was when I began to see a new future.

  My eyes were rather special. I did not understand their nature, nor could I command what they showed me. Visions came unbidden from flashes of blood, of fire, of lifeless bodies lying in unnatural stillness. Since the day I met Meng Wu and Zhu Shufen, despairing images of their deaths had plagued me in fragments. Sometimes it was a blade. Sometimes poison. Sometimes faceless figures standing over them as their warmth drained into cold marble floors.

  When I met Yakuza Man, I knew immediately he was the answer to my plight.

  He stood beneath an old gingko tree, robes plain, presence unremarkable to any ordinary observer. Yet when my gaze landed on him, the world shifted. The thread of fate, though I did not yet know to call it that, tightened.

  He was the one I had been waiting for.

  A guardian.

  Someone who could bear my burden.

  That was why, when the opportunity presented itself before gathered witnesses and careful ears, I proudly declared him my father. I spoke the words clearly, staking my claim with childish certainty. If my misfortune required a pillar to divert it, then I would erect one myself.

  It was the only way my doting Meng Wu and caring Zhu Shufen would live.

  I had been glad to rid them of the shadow clinging to me.

  So, why was I crying?

  The smell of blood was thick around the manor.

  Iron and smoke saturated the air, clinging to my throat until each breath burned. The estate I had retreated to, secluded and far from prying eyes, had become a slaughterhouse in the span of a single night.

  I hid beneath the floorboards.

  With all my strength, I had pried one loose earlier, widening the gap just enough for my small frame to slip inside. Dust coated my skin. Splinters bit into my palms. I curled into myself, pressing a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing.

  Footsteps echoed above me.

  It was heavy and unhurried.

  A shadow fell across the thin slits between the boards.

  My heart stopped.

  My visions were random, beyond my control. I could not summon them. I could not dismiss them. Dread filled me not because I had seen this moment before, but because I had not.

  The floorboard was pried open with effortless force.

  Light flooded in.

  I blinked up, and met two familiar faces.

  “Father? Mother?”

  Meng Wu exhaled, relief and exasperation blending in his voice. “I thought you had gotten rid of me, but I see I am still your father.”

  Zhu Shufen crouched and brushed the dust from my hair. “You can call us something more affectionate, you know,” she said softly. “Like ‘Mom.’ Or ‘Mama.’”

  I bit my lip.

  Why were you still here?

  You were supposed to escape.

  They helped me out from beneath the floor, steadying my trembling limbs.

  Meng Wu forced a grin despite the tension in his shoulders. “We should hurry. There is an escape route we can still use. This building is in the far corner of the main residence and connects to a hidden passage that will bring us back to the capital in three days. It was forged with one-time sorcery; once we pass through, it will collapse behind us. There is no need to be afraid. See? Your father is just and perhaps even more reliable than that stupid Yakuza Man—”

  His attempt at humor worked for a heartbeat.

  Then his body was hurled across the room.

  He struck the far wall with a sickening crack, plaster splintering upon impact. The force revealed the figure who had been standing behind him.

  An old man.

  Zhu Shufen pulled me into her embrace and glared at the intruder, fury blazing in her eyes. “Who are you? Do you know who I am?”

  Dark marks began to crawl across her skin, inky tendrils spreading from her collarbone down her arms.

  “D-Do not use it,” Meng Wu rasped from the floor. His limbs were splayed at unnatural angles, and though his bones were likely broken, he forced himself upright through sheer will. “If you want the Meteor Child, I will give her to you. Just spare our family. She is in Pine Wind Book Hall.”

  The old man scoffed, his gaze sharp and ancient. “Unfortunately for you, mortal, such shallow lies will not work on me.” His eyes settled on me, assessing. “So, you are the Meteor Child.”

  His voice was neither warm nor cruel. It was simply certain.

  “Let go of her, woman,” he commanded evenly. “I do not wish to accidentally hurt the Meteor Child.”

  O Heaven, please grant my prayers an answer.

  I did not know to whom I prayed. I did not know whether the blaze that had once cast me down still listened. Yet in that suffocating room, thick with the scent of blood and splintered wood, I lifted my thoughts upward all the same.

  How could I save Mother and Father?

  Silence answered me.

  No divine whisper descended. No revelation bloomed behind my eyes. The world remained terribly, stubbornly mortal.

  Very well, then.

  I would do it myself.

  My fingers slipped into my sleeve and closed around the small knife I had hidden there. It was not ceremonial, not ornate, just a simple blade Father had once given me “for protection,” half in jest. I drew it out and pressed the edge against my throat. The metal felt cold, almost curious, as if wondering what role it was about to play.

  “Take one step closer,” I said evenly, “and I will die.”

  The old man froze.

  Mother’s grip tightened around me. “Hai’er, y-you do not need to—”

  I cut her off without looking at her. “Mother possesses a special curse passed down within the Tuyin royal line. If I fail to take my own life, she could complete the act for me. Who knows? You might suffer the same fate merely by standing too close.”

  The words were uncharacteristic for a child.

  Yet this manner of speaking had once earned me praise within the royal court. It had been called brilliance. Genius. The Tuyin King had favored me for it, however briefly. My parents had regarded it as proof of their careful upbringing, a symbol of their pride. They had delighted in how confidently I spoke, how brightly I seemed to shine.

  Now that same brilliance trembled at the edge of a blade.

  “Go on,” the old man challenged, his eyes narrowing. “Try it.”

  I did not hesitate.

  The knife bit into my skin. A sharp sting followed, and a thin line of red welled up, sliding down to stain the silver edge. The scent of iron joined the already suffocating air.

  Mother seized my wrist. “Hai’er, please do not.”

  “As you can see,” I continued calmly, though my pulse thundered against the blade, “even as a child, I possess the resolve to do it. Of course, with Mother restraining me, I might fail. But can you risk it? Can you subjugate me without triggering her curse? Or subdue her without harming me and granting me the initiative to end my own life?”

  The old man studied me for a long moment.

  Then he laughed.

  It was not loud. It was not warm. It was a thin, scraping sound, like stone dragged across stone.

  “What is your name, child?”

  I straightened despite the blade at my throat. “I am Xue Hai, the Meteor Child, and daughter of Wise Meng Wu and Loving Zhu Shufen.”

  His gaze sharpened at my declaration.

  “And I am Zhong Fu,” the old man replied. “And this is my response.”

  He flicked his fingers in Father’s direction.

  The air itself seemed to compress.

  A violent cracking resounded as Father’s body was slammed downward. The wooden floor splintered beneath him, fragments exploding outward as though crushed by an invisible mountain. He gasped, the sound strangled and wet, his limbs pinned by a force that did not exist yet bore immeasurable weight.

  “Meng Wu!” Mother cried.

  Zhong Fu’s expression did not change.

  “Let us see,” he said coldly, “whether your mortal father dies first, or whether you surrender before he perishes beyond recovery.”

  Father’s fingers clawed against the floorboards, nails snapping as he tried to push himself up. Blood seeped from his mouth, trailing down his chin. The unseen pressure forced him lower still; the sound of wood fracturing echoed again, louder this time.

  “Think carefully,” Zhong Fu continued, his voice steady as still water. “The longer you hesitate, the greater his suffering. The more damage inflicted upon his body, the more irreversible it becomes. Death might be the worst outcome. Being crippled would be the second. Both can still be avoided.”

  He looked directly at me.

  “All of this ends if you relinquish yourself. I swear upon my honor that I will not harm them.”

  “Do not listen to him!” Meng Wu screamed, the words tearing through his throat in a wet, bloody gurgle.

  The sound shattered something inside me.

  Until that moment, I had been composed. Now my mind froze. Fear, unfamiliar and suffocating, engulfed me all at once. It flooded my limbs, turned my fingers numb, and hollowed out my chest.

  A glimpse of the future pierced through me.

  It came without warning, as all my visions did. A flash of cold inevitability. If I agreed now… if I surrendered myself…

  He would still kill them.

  I saw it in fragments: Mother collapsing; Father’s body falling; Zhong Fu’s eyes untouched by remorse.

  I could not let that happen.

  His “honor” meant nothing.

  My fingers loosened.

  The knife slipped from my grasp and clattered against the wooden floor, the metallic ring unnaturally loud amidst Father’s ragged breathing.

  “You chose wisely,” Zhong Fu said.

  The invisible weight crushing Meng Wu vanished. Father collapsed fully onto the splintered floor, gasping, his body trembling from the strain.

  “Come, child,” Zhong Fu beckoned.

  Mother’s arms tightened around me instinctively, but I gently pushed against her hold. I did not dare look into her eyes, afraid my resolve would fracture if I did.

  I stepped forward.

  I was scared.

  I did not want this.

  Each step toward Zhong Fu felt like walking into the mouth of a beast, but not all hope was lost. They could still live. As long as they breathed, there was possibility.

  When I stood before him, close enough to see the fine lines etched into his ancient face, I moved.

  From beneath my robes, I drew the second knife I had hidden.

  I thrust it upward with all my strength.

  The blade struck his abdomen… and produced a dull, hollow sound.

  As if I had stabbed stone.

  The impact numbed my hand. The knife did not pierce. It did not even scratch.

  “A brilliant attempt,” Zhong Fu remarked mildly. “However, I must now teach you a lesson for the mistake of going against me.”

  There was a silent thump behind me.

  I turned.

  Meng Wu and Zhu Shufen stood where they had been… and they were headless. Their bodies remained upright for a fraction of a second before collapsing. Their heads had burst under a pressure too immense to comprehend, blood and bone scattering across shattered wood.

  The world narrowed into a ringing void.

  Zhong Fu’s voice reached me as though from a distance. “Be obedient and come with me. We will collect your senior brother and sister.”

  My feet moved.

  I followed him closely.

  My heart did not break. It did not shatter. It hardened.

  A fiery resolve settled where fear had once been.

  Zhong Fu suddenly stopped walking. His brows furrowed slightly, his ancient gaze turning inward. “Did you do something?”

  A sword descended from above.

  It struck his shoulder and rebounded as though it had hit iron.

  Its wielder appeared from the empty air itself, robes snapping as she landed lightly on her feet. Her features were sharp, familiar in bone structure.

  “Meng Rong,” I breathed.

  Elder sister of Meng Wu.

  “Run,” she commanded.

  Steel clashed against an unseen force behind me as I bolted.

  I ran back into the room I had just left, staring at familiar face I dreaded not seeing ever again. Meng Wu stood upright, bewildered but intact. Zhu Shufen clutched his arm, equally confused. Their heads were still attached.

  It all had been an illusion.

  A powerful deception, one Meng Rong had cast in the instant that Zhong Fu ‘killed’ them. My earlier distraction, my feigned surrender, and my attempt at stabbing Zhong Fu had contributed only a fraction to the shock necessary for her illusion to settle convincingly.

  But it had helped.

  Tears flooded my eyes.

  “Mom! Dad!” I cried. “I did it!”

  Zhu Shufen pulled Meng Wu upright, urgency replacing confusion. There was no time for explanation.

  I swallowed my sobs and ran toward the far corner of the building. My feet carried me unerringly to the hidden mechanism concealed beneath an ornate shelf. I did not remember being told where it was, yet my hands found the latch without hesitation.

  Behind us, the sound of violent impact resounded.

  A monstrous pressure exploded outward.

  The entire building shuddered. Walls tore free from their foundations as a tempestuous wind ripped through the manor, splintering beams and sending tiles spiraling into the night sky.

  Mother caught me before I was thrown off my feet. Father wrapped his arms around both of us as we pressed ourselves into the sturdiest remaining corner, shielded by a load-bearing pillar that groaned under strain.

  Through the chaos, I saw Zhong Fu standing unharmed.

  Before him knelt Meng Rong, her body trembling. Blood streamed from her nose, staining her lips as she struggled to remain conscious.

  His gaze shifted past her.

  It fixed on me.

  “Child,” Zhong Fu called, his voice cutting cleanly through the roaring wind. “Come with me.”

  For the second time, I prayed.

  I did not know whether Heaven listened.

  “Please,” I whispered within my heart. “Save me.”

  The sky answered.

  A streak of light tore across the heavens.

  A shooting star in broad daylight.

  It was descending too fast and it was coming toward us.

  I strained my unusually clear eyes, focusing through wind and debris.

  The shape within the blazing trail became clearer.

  My breath hitched.

  “T-that is Yakuza Man… right?”