The world did not roar after Nezha's sacrifice.
It did not thunder, crack, or split open.
It fell silent.
Hours after the light had faded, the floodwaters receded slowly, leaving wreckage in their wake.
The river that had churned with divine fury now lay still, as if even the water understood what had just happened, and mourned.
Madam Yin knelt in the wet courtyard where her son had stood.
Her hands trembled as they reached for the red sash lying on the ground—Nezha's divine silk, once radiant, now drained of its glow.
Burned at the edges.
Still warm.
She lifted it carefully, as if it were made of glass, and pressed it to her heart.
For a moment, she simply held it.
Then a sound escaped her—small, thin, breaking open from the deepest part of the heart.
Not grief.
Grief comes later.
This was disbelief, the moment when the body still insists the child is just hiding somewhere nearby.
"Nezha… Nezha, my son… darling, please—"
Her voice cracked in the middle, the pieces falling like rain.
Li Jing stood rooted behind her, face pale, eyes hollow.
He looked like a man who had been gutted and left standing only out of habit.
He had seen soldiers fall.
He had buried comrades.
He had watched kingdoms burn.
But nothing—nothing—had prepared him for the sight of his son offering his life with calm acceptance, as if death were simply a duty to be fulfilled.
"Yin… come back," Li Jing whispered, but he couldn't move toward her.
He couldn't cross the space where his son had died.
His feet refused, as if stepping forward meant acknowledging that Nezha was truly gone.
And he wasn't ready.
He wasn't built to accept this.
He clenched his fists hard enough to draw blood.
Clouds gathered above Chentang Pass—heavy, dark, rolling.
Heaven itself felt swollen, as if even the sky hovered on the brink of mourning but could not quite give in.
Ao Guang had retreated, but not in triumph.
His fury had broken against the sight of Nezha's self-sacrifice like waves hitting stone.
Even he, a dragon king of unbreakable pride, had faltered.
It was not victory.
It was not vengeance.
It was the shock of witnessing something dragons, gods, and mortals alike rarely see—the moment a child chooses death over his parents' suffering.
In the drenched courtyard, Li Jing finally forced himself to move.
Slowly, as if lifting a mountain with each step, he approached his wife and knelt beside her.
He did not touch her immediately.
He didn't know how to touch a grief like that.
But he sat there, shoulder touching her shoulder, letting the silence settle between them, letting the weight of what their child had chosen settle like cold ash.
"We failed him," she whispered.
Li Jing's breath caught.
He wanted to tell her no, that Nezha had simply been too bright for this world, too fierce, too alive.
But the truth stabbed through his ribs.
"No," he whispered hoarsely.
"We failed to protect him from fate."
They both stared at the space where their son had last stood—empty now, holding nothing but absence.
Madam Yin looked down at the red silk in her hands.
The fabric was still warm.
She folded it carefully, as if handling something sacred, and pressed it to her face.
For a moment—a brief, knife-sharp moment—she smiled through her tears, because she could still imagine the feeling of Nezha running into her arms, face bright, voice loud with excitement, too wild to be contained.
The smile broke apart instantly.
Li Jing closed his eyes.
He remembered the last look Nezha gave him—fearless, wild, guilty, determined.
He replayed it again and again, searching for a moment he could have stopped, a breath where he could have reached out—
—but he hadn't.
He had frozen.
And now the weight of that stillness would follow him for the rest of his life.
Word spread.
Chentang Pass did not cry out or erupt in chaos.
The citizens stepped out of their homes, saw the receding water, saw the silence of their commander and his wife, and understood.
People lowered their heads.
Women covered their mouths with trembling hands.
Old men bowed.
Children asked questions in hushed whispers their parents couldn't answer.
The entire city felt like a held breath.
Nezha had been a storm, a miracle, a troublemaker, a child of fire and thunder.
Now he was gone.
And the city felt dimmer for it.
End of Part I — The Weight of Silence
The flood withdrew.
The child was gone.
And the living learned to breathe through grief.