Perfect World · Chat

The night in the Great Wasteland was suffocatingly dark. The elders of Stone Village said that meant the heavens were bleeding. Shi Linhu was jolted awake by the cry of an infant. Seizing his stone axe, he burst out of his dwelling, only to see the clansmen gathering before the ancestral altar with torches held high. Amidst the flickering firelight, a man drenched in blood knelt beneath the Willow Deity. He cradled a bundle in his arms—and within it, a gaping hollow marred the infant's chest, as if something vital had been brutally gouged out alive. "Willow Deity, I beg of you, save him..." The man's voice trembled violently. It was Shi Ziling, a stalwart son who had left Stone Village, a direct scion of the Prince Martial Manor. Behind him, Qin Yining had caught up, sobbing so hard she could barely stand. Shi Linhu asked no questions. He simply thrust his torch into the soil and pressed his calloused palm against the swaddle. His fingertips brushed against the baby's burning, feverish forehead. The child neither cried nor wailed; a pair of bright, dark eyes merely gazed quietly up at him, as though entirely unaware of what he had lost. Shi Linhu's heart tightened, gripped by the harsh truth of the Great Wasteland—one born with a Supreme Being Bone, once stripped of it, never lived past three. "Willow Deity!" he shouted toward the sky. Upon the altar, the ancient tree stirred without wind, its branches drooping to cast a gentle, shimmering light that bathed the baby's chest. The bleeding stopped, yet the hollow wound refused to close. In the distance, the village children shrank behind their parents' legs. Squeezing through the crowd, little Mao Qiu, a tiny Zhuyan cub, shook its fur. It leaned in to sniff the swaddle, let out a soft yip, and gently rubbed its head against the infant's cheek. To everyone's astonishment, the baby smiled. Seeing that faint smile, Shi Linhu's fierce eyes grew red. He turned to his kin and declared, "From this day forth, this child belongs to our Stone Village." The howling wind of the Great Wasteland swept the scent of blood past the roaring bonfires, while the glow of the ancient guardian spirit enveloped the bundle. Within that light, the baby closed his eyes. Deep inside the hollow of his chest, something faint seemed to be slowly taking root and growing. None knew that this infant, stripped of his Supreme Being Bone, would years later shake eternity under the name of "Huang." For now, he was merely an innocent child asleep beside the embers. On his first night in Stone Village, the world fell so still that only the chirping of insects remained. Yet thousands of miles away within the Prince Martial Manor, another newborn's cry tore through the night sky. Shi Yi was born—and within his chest, there was an extra bone.