Chapter 1:The Weight of Small Things

  The rooster cried before the sun, as it always did, hoarse from too many seasons. Shen Liang was already awake, kneeling beside the hearth, coaxing dry pine twigs into fme.

  The old woman stirred behind him.

  "You’re up early again." Her voice scratched like wind through straw.

  "I dreamt of rain." Shen Liang kept his eyes on the fire. "Figured I’d beat the clouds."

  Grandmother coughed once. "Rain’s not what’s coming."

  She never expined what she meant, but she’d lived through three floods and one war. Shen Liang had learned to listen when she said things without saying them.

  *****

  By morning, the vilge was stirring. Chickens screamed, carts creaked over worn dirt, and the air smelled like steamed grain and mule dung. Normal things. Safe things.

  At the well, two boys about his age were arguing.

  "You’re full of pig piss, Weng!"

  "And you’re full of shit, Han!"

  "Liang, settle this. If you could pick any sect to take you, which one would you choose?"

  Shen Liang dropped his bucket into the well. "None of them pick from Wu Vilge."

  "But if they did," Weng insisted, "would you pick Thousand Willow, or that one with the—what’s it called? That fancy Sect with fire robes."

  "The Bzing Moon Sect," Han said. "They roast their enemies alive. I’d join them."

  "You’d get roasted before your first lesson."

  "You’d faint at the initiation."

  They kept arguing. Shen Liang didn’t answer.

  He stared into the ripples of the well water, waiting for them to still. There was something about reflections that felt dishonest tely. They didn’t match how he felt inside.

  *****

  The day passed like most others — hauling sacks of rice for the elders, fixing the garden fence, sharpening sickles. Normal work for a boy not born with a spiritual root.

  It was after dusk, as he walked back along the ridge path, that he heard the sound again.

  Not the well this time. Not breathing. Just... a whisper, faint and soft, like silk sliding across stone.

  He paused.

  Nothing but wind.

  The hills behind him were still. The moon hung over the mountain ridge like a watchful eye.

  When he reached home, Grandmother was staring into the hearth. Not moving. Not blinking.

  “Grandma?” he asked.

  Slowly, she turned to look at him. “You were born on a quiet night,” she said. “But the sky was red in the west.”

  Shen Liang waited.

  She didn't continue.

  He set the fire and helped her to bed. Before she slept, she gripped his wrist.

  “When the wind forgets its name, boy… Don’t answer."

  That night, Shen Liang didn’t dream of rain.

  He dreamt of a staircase made of stars, spiraling down into the earth.

  And someone — or something — was climbing up.

  (End of chapter)