(Feng Lian's POV)
The first time I saw him, I thought he looked too fragile to last the winter.
A small figure wrapped in worn linen, wrists thin as reed stems, eyes the color of rain on river stones—clear but distant, as though they belonged somewhere else.
When they delivered him to my door, I expected another villager's castoff: someone lazy, fearful, or quick to complain. That was what I had paid for—a body to keep the house, to tend to the children, nothing more.
But the ger who bowed before me that morning did not fit the shape of the rumours.
He didn't cry or curse his fate. He simply looked around the house, then at the children, and said softly, "May I start with cleaning?"
Something in that voice made me pause.
For years I had lived on the edges of this village—half hidden, half forgotten. The mountains had become my walls, the wind my company. I had buried enough blood and memory to fill a small valley. All I wanted was quiet. Stability. No more attachments that could bleed.
And yet…
From the moment Liang Yu entered, silence changed its taste.
---
He moved differently from the people here. Every motion deliberate, careful, as if he was listening to the air itself. When he worked, he hummed tunes none of us knew—soft, strange melodies that made the children stop and listen.
He did not ask questions about me, but I caught him watching when he thought I wasn't looking—studying, learning. Not with fear, but with the quiet curiosity of someone trying to piece together a dream.
At first, I kept my distance. I told him his duties plainly:
"You were bought to fulfill some responsibilities. I don't ask for more—just care for the children and the house."
He had only nodded, eyes calm. "I'll do that."
I expected resentment or tears. I got neither.
Instead, he began to laugh with the children. He fixed the broken fence post. He started planting herbs near the kitchen wall, saying the soil "felt lonely." The words were nonsense to me then, but the herbs thrived.
Soon the house didn't feel like an empty shell anymore. The air warmed. The children began to smile again. Even the nights seemed quieter.
I told myself it was coincidence. Just the calm of routine.
But sometimes, when he brushed his hair by the firelight and the glow caught the faint cyan streak in it, I found my eyes lingering longer than I meant to.
---
Then came that day in the forest.
I hadn't meant to take him along, but the children had been sick, and he insisted. "I should learn what keeps them well," he said, and there was no argument that could bend such sincerity.
The forest was wet from rain, the air thick with mist. We walked without speaking, our breaths steaming in the cold.
When the earth gave way beneath his step, my body moved before thought. My hand caught his wrist—slender, warm, trembling.
For a moment, I saw his face close to mine, lashes damp, lips parted in surprise. And something sharp twisted in my chest, unfamiliar and dangerous.
Afterward, I said only, "Be careful. The ground here eats mana."
He nodded, murmuring an apology.
I should have left it at that. But then I saw the way he knelt, touching the dead roots like they were living things. And when the faintest green light shimmered from his palm, I forgot to breathe.
A power that gentle should not exist here—not in this barren eastern range.
He caught me watching and smiled, uncertain. I said nothing, but every step home afterward felt heavier with thought.
---
In the days that followed, I began to see what I had ignored.
The way the withered herbs revived under his fingers. How the children's cuts closed faster when he bandaged them. How the wooden beams seemed to breathe easier where he swept.
Even the air around him carried a faint hum, like spring before it blooms.
I had fought cultivators before, long ago. I knew power when I saw it. But his was different—quiet, rooted, harmless only by choice.
And that frightened me more than strength ever could.
I told myself to watch. To be careful. Power drew trouble, and trouble had no place here.
But the more I watched, the more my caution softened into something I didn't have a name for.
When he smiled, I wanted to keep it safe.
When he laughed, I found myself listening.
When he touched the children's hair, my chest tightened with a warmth I had forgotten how to hold.
This home had once been silent because silence was easy. Now it was quiet because I wanted to hear him breathe.
---
Then came the storm.
Thunder tore across the mountain that night. The children huddled around him, and I sat by the doorway, sharpening a blade that no longer needed sharpening—just something to do with my hands while I watched.
He told them stories. Ridiculous, bright things that made no sense—moons that sang, rivers that glowed—but the fear faded from their faces. Even I found myself listening.
When the fire dimmed, he looked at me, his face soft with candlelight.
"I only do what I would've wanted someone to do for me," he said.
The words sank deep. Too deep.
I thought of the years I had spent surviving by taking, by killing, by forgetting. And here was this fragile being teaching me how to give again—without asking for anything.
Later, when I saw him shiver, I placed my cloak around his shoulders. The act was small. His reaction wasn't.
He looked up at me like I had handed him something more than warmth.
And that look followed me into my dreams that night.
---
After that, I stopped pretending he was just a helper.
I began to wait for his footsteps in the morning, to find small reasons to linger near the kitchen when he cooked, to listen to the rhythm of his voice when he talked to the children.
He carried a sadness I didn't understand, but he wore it with grace.
There were moments when I caught him staring at the twin moons, expression far away—as if he belonged to another world entirely.
And perhaps he did.
I'd heard tales of souls reborn, of spirits falling through the cracks between realms. But those were just stories… until he asked me one night, "What do you know about mana users?"
I remember setting down my hammer and studying him. His tone was too calm for curiosity; it carried the tremor of confession.
I told him what I knew—little more than rumours. How mana was thin here, how only the central cities still held true cultivators. I wanted to see what he'd do with that.
Then he said it.
"I can make things grow. Heal. I think it's part of who I was before."
Before.
"What do you mean—before?" I asked, though I already sensed the truth.
His eyes lifted to mine, filled with that same quiet clarity from the day he arrived.
"I'm not from this world."
The fire between us cracked. I heard the children shift in sleep behind the door. For a long moment, I couldn't speak.
Not because I didn't believe him. But because some deep, buried instinct in me whispered of course.
He was too gentle for this world, too soft in a land that chewed softness into dust. He moved like someone learning gravity for the first time. He spoke of things no one here could imagine.
And I… believed.
"Then perhaps this world called you for a reason," I said finally.
His eyes widened. "You believe me?"
"I've seen stranger things than a gentle soul with power in his hands," I told him. "You've never given me a reason to doubt."
He smiled—small, trembling, beautiful. I felt something in my chest unclench.
When he promised to use his gift carefully, I nodded. But inside, something else shifted.
Not suspicion. Not wariness.
Possession.
Not the kind that chains, but the kind that guards.
I told myself it was protection, that I only wanted to keep him safe from the greed of others. But that night, as I lay awake listening to his soft breathing through the thin wall, I knew the truth.
I liked his presence. I liked how his voice filled the hollow spaces.
I liked the warmth he brought into the air I'd thought too cold for life.
And I wanted to keep it.
---
Days passed. The forest grew greener where he walked. The house smelled of herbs and sunlight again. The children laughed louder.
Sometimes he'd glance at me while stirring a pot, and I'd find myself looking away too quickly. Once, Weiwei asked, "Papa, do you like Yu-gege?"
I almost choked on my tea. "He's… helpful," I muttered.
Yu only laughed softly from the hearth, though his cheeks turned faintly red.
Helpful. That was the word I hid behind. But when I caught sight of him later that night, moonlight falling over his hair, I thought—no, beautiful is the word I meant.
---
Then came the night of his confession.
He stood outside beneath the moons, hands glowing faintly green. I could feel the mana pulse even through the walls. It was alive, pure, not tainted like the powers I once knew.
I stepped out quietly, the air cold enough to sting.
He didn't notice me at first, too lost in the shimmer of his own light.
When I asked, "Can't sleep?" he turned, startled, then smiled that soft, forgiving smile.
I walked closer, drawn despite myself. The mana in the air bent toward him like plants to sunlight. I'd seen many cultivators—some strong enough to split mountains—but none so gentle in their strength.
I told him we'd go to the stream tomorrow, that the children would like the glowing herbs. He agreed, voice calm, but I could see the nervous energy in his hands—the way they trembled faintly, as if afraid I'd still turn him away.
I almost reached out to steady them. Almost.
When I turned to go inside, I stopped halfway and looked back.
"Liang Yu," I said.
He raised his head, moonlight caught in his eyes.
"Whatever world you came from…" I paused, feeling the words weigh heavy, "…I'm glad you ended up in mine."
His lips parted, as though to speak, but I didn't wait. I walked back inside before my chest could betray what my face could not.
---
That night, I didn't sleep.
I watched the ceiling until dawn and thought of the strange, quiet boy who had come to my door with nothing but sorrow and managed to fill the emptiness I thought I needed.
The forest outside rustled softly, alive again. The children mumbled in their dreams. The air tasted clean.
Maybe this was what peace truly was—not silence, but someone to share it with.
I turned my head toward the faint sound of his breathing in the next room and allowed myself a small, unguarded thought:
He's mine now.
Not as property. Not as possession.
But as someone fate had sent across worlds to stand beside me.
I didn't know if he would stay, or if his power would draw storms one day.
But for now, for this fragile, beautiful now, Liang Yu belonged here.
And I would make sure the world never took him away again.