Prologue: At the Dawn of Creation

　　We of Huaxia have always been the living root of the world’s civilizations.

　　This time, it is our myths that shall illuminate the entire world.

　　This is not a tale of fiction, but a legend that truly transpired.

　　You are surely familiar with the grandeur of Pangu cleaving heaven and earth, and with the mysterious traditions of the Three Sovereigns.

　　Yet the legend I am about to recount will assuredly strike you as something wholly new.

　　In the year 1942, as the smoke of the Battle of Changsha spread across this ancient land of Huaxia, a group of tomb raiders illegally excavated a Warring States–era wooden chamber tomb at the Changsha Bullet Depot. From it emerged a peerless treasure that had slumbered for more than two millennia—the Chu Silk Manuscript—once more seeing the light of day.

　　Yet the fate of the Chu Silk Manuscript after its discovery was fraught with misfortune.

　　It was first stolen and circulated among antique dealers in Changsha, before coming into the possession of Cai Jixiang. In that turbulent era, with the flames of the War of Resistance still raging, an American named Ke Qiang deceitfully borrowed it under the pretext of photographing it and carried it off to the United States.

　　Thereafter, it passed through many hands and places—from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art—until it was finally housed in the Freer–Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., where it became the museum’s most treasured holding.

　　During this long and tortuous journey, the Chu Silk Manuscript endured repeated trials and damage. Today it is grievously incomplete, reduced to scattered fragments and broken remnants.

　　In ages past, the world suffered earth-shaking upheavals, like raging storms sweeping across the cosmos, burying countless truths and histories beneath the dust of time.

　　It is said that this very Chu Silk Manuscript recorded in detail the myriad events since the Primordial Beginning.

　　Yet time is a reaper and war a consuming flame. What remains now is like a lone star in the night sky—fragmented, isolated, and impossible to restore in full.

　　Do not despair. I shall exert all my strength to gather the precious lore left behind in these remnants, like retrieving pearls from the dust of history, and recount them to you one by one.

　　In the infinitely distant age of the Primordial Beginning, all things lay shrouded in unopened chaos. Only a source beyond description—transcending language and imagination itself—lay dormant in the unseen depths.

　　Later generations called it by many names: some named it Taiyi, praising it as the sole and original source of heaven and earth; others called it the Dao, marveling that though formless and unseen, it gives rise to all things and runs through past and present alike.

　　From this source—whether called Taiyi or Dao—emerged the Primordial Yang and the Primordial Yin.

　　These two original forces of yin and yang were the beings later revered by all creation as the Father God Xi and the Mother God Wa.

　　Xi was the first to complete his manifestation. At that time, the world was murky with chaos, riddled everywhere with hidden dangers, filled with endless unknowns and bone-chilling evils.

　　Xi embarked upon a long journey across the realms, relying on boundless power and extraordinary wisdom to carve a path forward, suppressing countless terrifying entities along the way.

　　While Xi traveled the four directions, Wa too completed her manifestation.

　　After taking form, Wa followed closely at Xi’s side, assisting him in repairing the chaos-ravaged world scarred by ceaseless conflict.

　　During this time, the Primordial Domain came into being, as though a direct creation of the Dao itself.

　　This wondrous realm became the dwelling place of Xi and Wa, as if the Dao had fashioned for them a tranquil home imbued with a special mission and profound significance.

　　Mysterious and ancient, it stood above all worlds—like a towering, indestructible divine sanctuary, or the very core of the cosmos from which the power of all realms flows.

　　Within the Primordial Domain, all conventional concepts lost meaning. Time and space seemed to shed their restraints, becoming distorted and indistinct; any attempt to measure it by common sense appeared pale and absurd.

　　There were no fixed rules here. Everything transcended imagination, much like the all-encompassing Dao itself, containing infinite possibilities and unfathomable mysteries.

　　Yet it was precisely from this seemingly formless Primordial Domain that the laws governing all existence were born, like an inexhaustible spring endlessly pouring forth the power of myriad rules.

　　The laws that governed the operation of every world all originated here, yet none could fully explain the domain’s true wonder and uniqueness.

　　Xi and Wa, the two true gods, were the unshakable foundation of the Primordial Domain. Their will determined all birth and transformation; all rules and order arose from a single thought of theirs.

　　The flow of time, the extension of space, and the laws obeyed by all things were bestowed by the Primordial Domain itself.

　　With its birth, and through the unity of Xi and Wa, the chaotic world at last began to take on the first faint outlines of order.

　　Over endless ages thereafter, Xi and Wa stood side by side, of one heart and one purpose, forging with supreme might a world of incomparable splendor.

　　Together they opened the first universe and created all things: the sun, moon, and stars; mountains and rivers; wondrous beasts and rare creatures—and even immortals and demons were born of their creation.

　　Most notably, the world they created was the original supreme realm, known as the Hongmeng World.

　　This primordial supreme world was like the deep root of an ancient colossal tree, buried within the depths of chaos, mysterious and unfathomable.

　　From it branched out innumerable worlds, like luxuriant boughs and verdant leaves growing from a single root.

　　These myriad realms drew nourishment from the supreme world, flourishing under its sustenance.

　　The power and vitality contained within the supreme world flowed like clear sap through unseen channels, reaching every connected realm.

　　Thus, each world bloomed and swayed within the void—some like tender new leaves, brimming with vitality; others like thick, sturdy branches, tempered by the passage of time.

　　This cosmic tree, rooted in the supreme world, stood unfallen through infinite time and space, witnessing the rise and fall of every realm and painting together a vast and magnificent cosmic panorama.

　　During this long process of creation, love quietly blossomed between Xi and Wa, and from it was conceived the fruit of their union.

　　As ages flowed on, Xi immersed himself alone in profound contemplation of heaven and earth.

　　In the end, he drew forth the trigrams, fully establishing the order of the world and leaving to later generations the arcane art of divination—a means to commune with heaven and earth.

　　In this process, the first Spirit of the world was quietly born within the trigrams.

　　The Spirit originally possessed no gender, yet upon beholding Xi, an unfamiliar emotion arose within its heart.

　　The Spirit fell in love with Xi and thus chose to assume the form of a beautiful woman, modeled after Wa.

　　Again and again she confessed her fervent love to Xi, even humbling herself to say she was willing to share him with Wa.

　　Yet Xi’s gaze, firm and resolute, extinguished her passion each time like icy water.

　　Xi could not respond to such transgressive love. Each rejection was like a sharp blade piercing the Spirit’s heart, cooling her once-burning emotions through repeated disappointment, until unwillingness twisted them into something distorted.

　　She could not understand why her sincerity went unanswered, why Xi’s eyes held only Wa.

　　This unfulfilled love gnawed at her like a parasite on bone, warping her once-pure soul with jealousy and resentment, until she descended into madness, sinking ever deeper into obsession.

　　At last, consumed by warped fixation, she lost all reason.

　　One day, while Xi was away, the Spirit decisively imprisoned the pregnant Wa, confining her within a牢 cage strong enough to hold a true god.

　　When Xi returned, the Spirit threatened him with the lives of Wa and the unborn child, forcing him to shatter his own origin, enter reincarnation, and forget everything.

　　For the sake of Wa and their unborn child, Xi steeled his heart and complied.

　　Imprisoned, Wa’s heart ached for Xi’s immense sacrifice and grieved endlessly at the Spirit’s actions.

　　Looking at the maddened Spirit, she spoke softly, “Ling’er, love is not like this. It cannot be obtained through coercion and harm.”

　　But the Spirit turned a deaf ear, her eyes filled only with possessive desire for Xi.

　　Wa continued, “Xi and I are two aspects of the Dao itself. Because the Dao was too perfect to give rise to all things, it divided itself into Primordial Yang and Primordial Yin—Xi and me. Yin and yang are one; only in the imperfect perfection of their union can all things be born. Thus, in any time, any timeline, any divided soul, Xi and Wa will inevitably meet and love each other. This is an unchangeable truth.”

　　Hearing this, the Spirit trembled, then burst into crazed laughter. “No—I do not believe it! He can belong only to me!”

　　With that, she reinforced Wa’s confinement even further, preventing her from descending to the lower realms in search of Xi.

　　By then, Xi had already begun to forget everything within the cycle of reincarnation.

　　The Spirit also split off part of her true soul to descend and meet Xi, waiting for the day of his return. She believed that without Wa’s interference—or if she met Xi first—she would surely make him love her, and only her.

　　Watching the Spirit’s madness, the imprisoned Wa felt only helplessness and pity.

　　Yet the Spirit was already mired too deeply in obsession to escape, deaf to all words, lost within fantasies of her own making.

　　Time flowed on. The world staggered forward through turmoil and suffering, awaiting a turning point—awaiting someone to break this dreadful deadlock and set all things right once more.

　　But what the future would bring, none could say, as only the endless threads of fate quietly intertwined.