Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Four: Xiwei Asks the Heavens — Yuanji Asks the Earth

Volume Five: Body-Perish Dao-Transformation — Myriad Realms First Born

When Xiwei saw Pangu sit down, she froze in the sky.

She had kept watch upon the Celestial Dome for many years now, tending the light of day. She had seen Pangu standing, seen Pangu battling Mingdun, seen Pangu slowly turning in the Heaven-Earth Interlayer. But she had never seen him sit. In her memory, Pangu had only ever held one posture — feet planted, spine straight, arms slightly spread, a bridge growing from earth to sky.

Now that bridge was bent.

She descended from the heights, her light drawing inward so as not to dazzle. The closer she came, the more she could not believe her eyes — his back was curved; those arms that had never lowered in Eternal Ages now hung limp across his knees; his head drooped low, like an old tree bent by the wind.

'Pangu?' Her voice was very soft, as if afraid of waking someone.

Pangu slowly lifted his head. His movements were far slower than before — each shift of his neck seemed to require deliberation. But when his eyes found Xiwei, a faint warmth passed through them.

'You have come down,' he said. His voice, too, had changed — no longer the deep resonance of a creator, but the soft rasp of one who had not spoken in a very long time.

'You sat down,' Xiwei said. She hovered before him, her light pulsing with an uneven rhythm. 'You never sit down.'

'I am tired,' Pangu said.

Those three words struck Xiwei harder than any blow she had ever received. Pangu — who had stood for eighteen thousand years, who had wrestled Chaos itself, who had borne the weight of the heavens without complaint — had said he was tired.

She drifted closer and settled on his shoulder, her light dimming to the softest glow. She did not speak. She simply stayed there, a warm presence against his cooling skin.

Far below, in the depths of the earth, Yuanji stirred. It, too, had sensed the change. Its stillness — usually so deep and calm — now carried a tremor of unease. It did not ask questions, not in words. But Pangu felt its silent inquiry pressing up through the earth: What is happening to you?

Xiwei asks the heavens; Yuanji asks the earth. Both of them, in their own ways, were asking the same question. And Pangu, between them, prepared to answer.