As he jumped from the building, he was still thinking: Eighteen floors. That should do it.
When he woke, he was lying inside a living body. Deep in his sea of consciousness was half a flame, along with an old man who couldn't quite remember his own name.
The village was quiet. Something was buried beneath the foundations of the old house. A sixteen-year-old child could tap a stone and say, "There's a hollow space inside." A crack split the foot of a mountain dozens of miles away, and something waited at the bottom of it, waiting for someone who would never return.
The people in gray robes came three times. The first time, they wanted something. The second time, they wanted someone. The last time, all they wanted was a name: who did the name Chen Da really belong to?
He couldn't answer.
Then he would go down there and ask for himself.
Theme: An Emperor of Heaven once lived in this body.
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