Crossing the Water

Three thousand years had passed.

The gate to Guixu was still letting in a draft.

On the other side crowded countless things born from chaos. They had no names or bodies, only hunger: a hunger that had endured for thirty million years.

On this side, generation after generation stood guard.

The Xuanyuan clan had passed down the World-Guarding Seal for thirty-five generations.

The Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise stood guard at the four extremes of the Nine Provinces, their blades aimed at that restless sea.

Chong had driven his blade into the crack in the gate and held it there for three thousand years.

At the foot of Mount Tai, Li had built a tomb with no bones in it and waited for him for three thousand years.

Yuan Chu had buried its heart in the deepest part of Guixu. Sealed inside it was the thirty million years of humanity it could not swallow.

Love, hate, joy, sorrow, hope, despair, creation, destruction.

It had waited for three thousand years.

Waiting for someone to come.

And swallow it in its place.

Mu Sijie had no idea he was the one they were waiting for.

When he was seventeen, the Si River flooded for the first time in sixty-one years. He fought his way out of the whirlpool, the green jade token in his arms hot as a branding iron.

Two characters were carved into it: Jiashen.

Before his mother died, she pressed the token into his palm and said, “The Mu family has guarded this river for generations. As long as the jade remains, so do we.”

What she didn't say was: as long as the jade remains, so does the debt.

The Mu family had guarded the Si River for three hundred years. The Bai family had guarded the Western Abyss for three thousand. The Zhang family had guarded the ley lines of the Central Land for sixty years. The Xuanyuan clan had guarded that gate for three thousand years. By his generation, only he remained.

He had no idea what fate meant.

He had simply spent ten years hauling cargo at the Si River docks, saving up ten