“Hold it.” Eli surged forward like a hawk stooping, fist knotted in the man’s collar. “What do you mean?”

“You think crossing into another world and weaving yourself into its causality is a game?” the man said, his tone thin as worn water.

“I’m sorry. But for at least three generations, you’ll be a keystone in the world’s workings, a knot in the loom. Your children’s ends won’t be bright,” he added, remorse a shadow in his eyes.

He knew it was a hard demand, a bitter herb to swallow. Yet these weren’t his edicts, but the universe’s millstones; everything turned along its track.

“No… I’ll change it.” Eli’s brow tightened; his breath steadied like dusk settling over a lake.

Birand’s memories had already proved true, a map etched on jade. If he wanted a good end, he had to carve the future anew.

Then what this man said would change with it, like a river forced to bend.

At that thought, Eli let his anger cool to embers and found his usual calm.

The man only watched his shift, smiling like a moon behind thin cloud.

“One more thing. The world beyond the universe?” Eli exhaled, then pressed on, voice like rain on stone.

“Hmm… I don’t remember anything of that. Since birth, I’ve only tended the universe’s growth, like a gardener in a boundless field,” the man said, thoughtful and clear.

“But you said your future self might be swayed by something outside. You don’t know what lies beyond?” Eli asked, puzzled, as if staring at mist past the mountains.

“I don’t,” the man replied, plain as bare rock.

“You…” Eli stared, words dried up like a creek in heat.

“It’s just a possibility. After the first creation, our power turned into ballast. We drop into regular sleep, like whales sinking into deep currents; if something higher touches us then, who knows. Things like that…” He shrugged, breeze-light.

It was hard to say, a fog that wouldn’t lift; still, it was the only thought that fit, or else who could reach someone like him?

“You’re awfully unbothered,” Eli sighed, the sound soft as wind leaving a flute.

“Because it’s the future. If I did nothing before sleep and slid into a long winter, what’s there for me to fear now?” the man said, calm as an autumn river.

“Then… is there a way to defeat you?” Eli asked quickly, clutching the question like a rope over a cliff.

“Uh… from my memory, likely not.” He shrugged, then glanced at Eli. “Transmigrant, I know what you want. You’re trying to change the future, aren’t you? For yourself?”

“Yes.” Eli answered plainly, blade-clean.

Otherwise, why ask so much?

“Well… I won’t stop you.” He drew a sphere of water from the air, let a flame bloom in his palm, and produced a tea set from nowhere, then boiled and steeped, serene as dawn over a pond.

Everything hovered as if gravity had dozed off, utensils steady like stars in still night.

“What are you…” Eli stared, eyes wide as lanterns.

“Oh? A nod to your world’s creator. These are fine lines of culture,” the man said, smiling like tea steam.

“Do you know why I won’t stop you?” He turned his words like a boat at a bend.

“No.” Eli’s brow knotted, cloud-dark.

He sipped, then slid a cup through the air; it floated to Eli, bead-smooth. “Because this is also ordained.”

“If you weren’t so obsessed, you wouldn’t hunger for truth. Without that hunger, I wouldn’t speak. Without my words, how would you carry them, a conduit through reeds? It sounds harsh, but it’s real. The line’s already carved into jade.”

Eli’s fingers tightened around the cup; his face stayed calm as frost. “So what. Sooner or later, I’ll cut that line,” he said, like a blade promising to sever a knot.

The man only shook his head with a smile, knowing more words would fall like rain on stone.

“Last question. Do your kind all look like this? I mean… a human shell.” Eli pointed at himself, then at the man, gesture stark as a branch.

The man tilted his head. “No. This is a mimic. I’m a strand of conscious energy, changing shape by taste. I thought you’d prefer talking to a human. Don’t you?” He peered at himself, ripples in a mirror.

“Or do you prefer I speak like this?” He wiped his face; height shrank, hair grew long and white, and his eyes split—amber on one side, green on the other. He smiled, and a small tiger tooth flashed.

Eli’s face went stone-dark; cold pooled in his gaze like winter river ice.

He had turned into Edlyn.

The man smiled again, wiped his face, frame rising tall; his figure grew flawless, water-blue hair falling like a cascade, deep black eyes weighing Eli.

“How about this?”

Eli’s eyes narrowed; killing intent spread like frost across grass.

He had turned into Liqianyu.

He wiped his face once more, body changing again, taking Eli’s own shape, smiling like a mirror with a crack. “How’s this?”

Eli said nothing, only held that winter-cold stare.

Seeing how sour Eli looked, the man chuckled and returned to his original guise, plain as noon.

“Alright, no more jokes.”

“Fine… you’ve got a nasty sense of humor,” Eli said, his look knife-cold.

“So. Done with your questions, transmigrant?” the man asked, voice even as a plumb line.

“For now,” Eli said after a beat, thought settling like dust.

“Then my turn.” He set the tea down; the cup drifted, steady as a moth on still air.

“What time period are you from?”

“…How should I tell you that? I can’t even pin when our calendar began,” Eli said, a fog draped over dates.

“Emmm, then tell me how you crossed back,” the man mused, realizing this one was too weak to show any era’s special stamp.

“So… like this, and like that.” Eli explained in pieces, a sketch in charcoal.

…

The scene was still that special isle adrift in the cosmic Balance, a quiet plate of land floating in the universe’s middle breath.

Liqianyu sat cross-legged beneath a tree, breathing like a lake at dawn.

“Heart like still water…” Her closed eyes snapped open; aura rolled out like a tide lifting reeds.

Beasts around her trembled and bowed, backs low as stalks in wind.

A faint dragon’s chant rang through the air, thin as silk yet sharp as steel.

Colors flowed over Liqianyu, red to blue to red, her aura flickering like stormlight.

Strange as it was, even with power flaring like a comet, the world stayed unmoved, not a leaf stirred, not a thread of air roughened.

She stood in a heartbeat and looked at the pool before her, its surface plain as a mirror.

When her aura spread into the water, the pool opened countless eyes, lids of liquid lifting like scales.

A colossal beast rose slowly from the pool, its whole body a lattice of eyes, its flesh only water. Inside, fish swam, still alive, glints like silver knives.

Liqianyu drew a deep breath, then stamped, lifting into the air like a crane; her hands pressed together, eyes closed, mind clear as glass.

“Flower Rain,” she said, a whisper like petals. Her aura drew tight; blue power burst outward, draping the sky. She herself vanished, a trace gone like dew.

The beast searched the air, gaze combing clouds like comb teeth. It couldn’t find the woman whose breath had locked upon it.

It roared at the sky, voice like thunder breaking cliffs, and split off a giant arm, reaching for the cloud layer like a hand for fog.

The clouds flashed. Azure energy fell in countless strands, like rain washing stone, soaking into the beast’s liquid body.

The beast convulsed, standing and twisting, movements crooked as a warped tree.

The blue flowed to its heart and bloomed into a lotus, a flower of clear water blazing with light.

The beast thrust its hand inside its own chest, trying to wrench the lotus free, fingers groping currents like roots in mud.

The lotus shifted in a blink, dodging that grasp, then flew to another place within, wrapping something hidden. Its petals closed, a box made of bloom.

Liqianyu’s voice rang from the air; her hair streamed like river silk.

Her left hand became a blade; her right stayed at her back. She fell like a sword from the sky, straight into the beast’s body, a streak through blue.

Her hand reached the water-blue lotus before the beast’s fingers, a grip sure as iron.

She brought out the hand behind her and cradled the flower, gentle as moonlight. The lotus flashed, and the beast’s howl ripped the air like torn cloth.

Holding the lotus, Liqianyu ran a simple taiji form, arcs smooth as flowing ink. Then she pushed the flower away, a breath sending it off.

The beast dissolved at once, melting into ordinary lake water, its bulk collapsing like a sand tower.

The lotus vanished, no ripple left behind.

Liqianyu climbed from the water; red energy flared like a kiln and dried her clothes in a blink. She smiled and nodded. “A bit tedious, but that’s progress at last.”