"Lady of Light, help me."

With tremendous effort, she brought her hand to her heart in spite of her wounds and uttered under her lips. A fast, quick invocation. One that should've been lost to time long ago. The new age came thousands of years ago, and all of mankind forgot the sacred words. None had use for prayers. Or deities, for that matter.

Overhead, the godless immortals watched. Cultivators patrolled the grounds on their flying swords. Mere humans, bearing the mark of the gods. Daring to climb Heaven.

"Queen of All, have mercy on them,"

she spoke again,

"And bring your hallowed revelation to their twisted souls."

A baby's cry cut her prayer short. Swaddled in rough linen, tears burst forth from the infant's small eyes. She rushed to take him from the basket and cradle him in her arms, hurriedly shushing him. Crying was a luxury. Crying would get them caught and slaughtered.

"Hush," She coaxed, "Be still, still. Mother is here." She managed, trying to keep her voice down. Upon seeing no change in the infant's disposition, her expression turned stony. "Sleep." She commanded, and the infant's head bobbed before falling limp, caught by a sleep akin to death.

She sighed in relief. But all was not done. There was still work to do. There always was.

She cast a glance over her shoulder, and looked left and right before standing up from her crouch and taking off into the night.

She walked, old wounds splitting open with a dull ache and a furious scarlet spilling down her, her footsteps resounding painfully on the cobblestone ground. Holding the woven basket that held the sleeping infant close to her bosom, she stumbled on the steps of the courtyard house.

She hummed. "My son, my song, my sun," She sang, "My light that never fades. You are very safe now, safe may you stay. Deliver yourself from doom, uplift us all. Grow up so you may cast those fiends from Heaven's halls."

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With these words, she set the basket down firmly at the entrance of the courtyard house and fled.

Her lithe limbs scrambled as she ran down the street. Tears spilled forth from her blue eyes, which reflected light even when there was none around.

"Good Mother, blessed be thou. Blessed be thy eyes, thy womb, thy heart. O Merciful One, grant me good love, good hope," She breathed shakily through her pants as her pace quickened, her hood pulled tight against her head so as to not let a single lock of gold show, "And a good death."

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Lin Pengfei dabbled in no sorcery. As the son of a cultivator, he lacked nothing; he had tasted the highest level of wealth the world had to offer an ordinary mortal. He had enough wives to be satisfied, and all of his children were sweet and clever little things.

It should not have been a surprise that one day, misfortune would come knocking upon his door.

It was raining in Hunan Prefecture, Nanshan City, 2168 BCE when he met his fate. He was in his study, sleeping among his files, woken by the incessant knocks upon the door of his house.

Swearing under his breath in annoyance, he opened the door to his courtyard house. His breath startled in his throat, his stomach weighing down like a stone at the sight of it.

Inside the swaddles, golden hair flashed. He almost forgot to breathe, but gasped for air, shock and panic swirling in his mind. Clearly, it was abandoned. Someone couldn't dispose of it, but he would. Such an inauspicious thing in his house!

But something stopped him. A letter, tucked in the swathes and folds of the baby's cloth.

He had been told stories of this. His father's words resounded like a temple gong inside his mind; People like them may be repelled from households and even killed, but misfortune will befall those who do not take care to listen to what they say.

With shaky hands, so as to not wake the devil, he retrieved the letter from the cloth. Clumsy words greeted him; the handiwork of the uncivilized people who simply didn't need language.

5 years. For 5 years you will take my son in, and then you may expel him from your house as you wish. He is lacking a guardian, and I know well that you are not lacking in resources. I am aware that good people do not shelter the traveling folk, but will you risk not taking him in? You may be doubtful of what I can do, but everyone in the world has heard of the tales surrounding people like us.

Of children bewitched to throw themselves off the cliffs, of men struck with poverty, of wives that grow sickly; how many of them are true, do you think?

Lin Pengfei, are you willing to find out?

The letter crumpled, crushed inside of Pengfei's hands. He drew a trembling breath.

"You. Take this basket in." He commanded to his servant.