The Tian Li had never needed to think, never needed to choose. It was rooted above the Heavens, untouched, swaying between the breath of Heaven. A gilded cage, where it would remain content forever.
There was no soil, yet it grew. The sky remained bright, even through night. Stars turned like clockwork, every breeze sacred, Heavenly Beasts and Heavenly Flowers bowed, all revolving around the lonely flower.
The Tian Li had never opened its petals—unlike the ones scattered below. It had never needed to. The Heavens loved it as it was, and the world waited without question.
Then the Tian Li felt cut from all of it. Not ripped apart, but separated by a delicate frame.
Then came the hands.
They were soft—unhesitant. Not cruel, but still unwelcome.
The flower, so long left untouched, was lifted. The Heavens did not stop them. The Heavenly Beasts did not stop them. The flower itself could not stop them.
Then the sky changed. The Tian Li immediately shivered, an unfamiliar feeling welled up in its core.
The stars had recoiled and the air folded in. The pressure then settled, and the Tian Li felt another sensation. A foul stench almost—an unfamiliar Qi that repulsed it.
Still, the hands that carried it remained firm. And a voice whispered, "Don't fear, little one…"
The Tian Li did not understand, but it felt warmth from those words. That was enough to shield it from the progressively worsening Qi. It could not help but notice the captor's dimming light. Realms passed in blurs, and then they stopped. The pace was slower now, until the light disappeared.
——
The Underworld.
The Tian Li stirred as it was laid to rest. The trembling hands stopped. The rise and fall of the chest stopped. The woman's breath stopped. Her light had disappeared, her Qi slipping away, her soul unraveling.
Yet her voice remained within the flower.
"Little Hua… survive for a thousand years… and find my gift useful."
The last of her cultivation fractured. Her spiritual sea gathering like mist, embracing the flower with a shrouding veil. Her body turned to dust, the dust fed the poor earth and turned it to soil. All that was left was the silence it was used to.
The flower rooted itself—not by thought, but by instinct. The gentle hands were gone. The warmth was gone. The calming presence of the woman was gone. It left the flower bare to an unfamiliar sea.
The Underworld did not welcome the Tian Li—not as a conscious force like the Heavens—but simply because that was its nature.
The air was not just cold—it was devouring. The Qi was not only absent, it was hollow and in ruins. Nothing remained, and what little could be conjured up was left broken and forgotten.
The flower should have withered, but the barrier held.
A soft glow—left behind by the woman—pressed back the weight of the Underworld. It let the Tian Li breathe, slowly, quietly.
So, it began to grow.
There was no sun, moon, or the stars. No cycle marked the passage of time. But the roots stretched deeper, winding through dead stone and brittle marrow. The flower gathered what little it could get from what was once whole. The flower did not think, but it began to feel.
Most of it, however: loneliness.
——
Time passed.
And then the sky cracked.
The Underworld convulsed. Clouds churned in from nowhere—unnatural, divine. Rain began to fall and thunders gathered. Not to nourish, but to destroy.
The flower stirred.
The Heavens had remembered.
And the first bolt struck like judgment.
It contained a hint of rage—of denial. As if the flower's existence had become intolerable. The Tian Li had raised its own Qi barrier atop the old one—instinctive and thin. The lightning relentless as it crashed onto it.
It was once. Then again. Then again.
Each strike dug deeper. The barrier faltered. A petal blackened, curled in, and fell.
The barrier held for a few breaths longer before faltering again. Another petal scorched.
It was not long before the third turned to ash.
The air screamed. The ground fractured, the sand melting. Above, a bolt began to gather—one final strike. That was enough to erase.
The flower trembled.
The Heavens are unfair… the Heavens have no mercy…
The bolt came, it easily destroyed the barrier the flower had created, but it did not land.
A veil shimmered at the final moment—thin, translucent.
The gift.
The woman's barrier, long forgotten, held before finally fading away.
The clouds began to scatter and the rain ended. The tribulation had come to an end.
And the flower—stripped of everything—remained.
Its petals were gone. Its stem cracked. Its roots scorched.
Then the Underworld swirled. The fractured land rejoining, sand settling, the sky once again empty.
And the Tian Li noticed something. The chains of the Underworld were gone—the chain that absolutely tethered all but Demons to the broken realm.
It sensed a point of hope, faint but present nonetheless. The Tian Li did not want to miss this moment, not before those very chains reformed.
The Tian Li escaped its mortal body, surprisingly easily since it was already halfway there.
It rose and searched, finding faint traces of Qi that should not have remained. The Qi of the woman.
The Tian Li traced that path as fast as it could. It faintly felt the chains reforming, the Underworld slowly recovering.
The flower moved through layers of dust and darkness. It recalled a time long ago—the stone table, the still sky, the fragrant Qi, and voices.
"This lowly one greets the one beloved by the Heavens."
There was the kind voice of someone who would speak to it every morning and evening without fail.
The Heavens did not love as it should have, but the woman did.
The flower moved faster.
Above, a tear in the Underworld wavered—a jagged wound held open by a thinning pillar of Qi.
Behind, the Underworld stirred. Chains, ancient and unseen, lashed forward.
The pillar groaned.
The flower surged through.
The pillar collapsed at the weight of the chains.
The flower had already passed, but it felt a backlash that struck from behind.
The Tian Li was free—but pain split the soul apart.
No root. No body. No voice.
Only a sliver of light, flung into the Mortal Realm.
The Qi and stars no longer recognized her light.
And so, with what little remained, she curled into herself—
and slept.