Taiyi led them out into the rear courtyard—a place once consecrated for rites, now surrendered to dew and quiet neglect. The night's grief had not lifted; it clung like pale mist curling low over cracked stone tiles. Each breath tasted of incense and unshed tears.
With a small motion of his hand, Taiyi drew golden sparks from the still air. They drifted from his fingertips, gathering into a circle of light above the ground—lines crossing, weaving, folding into a sacred formation.
It was not grand.
It did not roar with divine pressure.
It was small. Quiet. Intimate.
A resurrection born not from supremacy—but from love.
The lotus seed floated from his palm to the center of the circle. As it settled upon the luminous threads, it began to unfurl—a young lotus emerging, petals pale and trembling, as if uncertain the world would permit its existence.
Then the Red Armillary Sash stirred.
It rose from Taiyi's sleeve slowly, almost reverently—the only remnant of Nezha's first life. The only thing that had been truly his since the moment of his birth. Not a weapon given. Not a treasure bestowed. Something that had come into existence alongside him, woven from the same primordial thread.
It was why the sash alone had survived.
Everything else—body, bone, breath—had burned away. But this single piece of him had endured, because it had never belonged to Heaven. Never belonged to fate. Never belonged to anyone but the boy himself.
Now it coiled around the lotus like something long separated finally remembering where it belonged.
Madam Yin held her breath until her lungs ached.
Li Jing's hands trembled at his sides—the hands of a general, steady through a hundred battles, now unsteady before a single flower.
Taiyi began.
---
He spoke.
Not the sanctioned chants of gods or temple priests. Not the polished doctrines of Heaven's halls.
An old, forbidden sutra flowed from his tongue—one taught to him long ago by a teacher whose name no longer appeared in any heavenly register. A sutra meant for souls that refused to scatter. For spirits too stubborn, too wounded, or too loved to dissolve into nothing.
Light gathered around the lotus.
Its petals opened, one by one—but instead of revealing a simple core, they unfolded *inward*—into a space, a cradle shaped by the Dao itself. A pocket of beginning, hidden within the bloom.
And within that cradle shimmered something faint:
A spark.
A pulse.
A boy's laugh, threaded with pain.
Bare feet on temple stones, running too fast for the world to catch.
*Nezha's spirit imprint.*
Madam Yin's hand flew to her mouth, a sob catching in her throat.
Li Jing exhaled—a breath he seemed to have been holding since the moment his son fell.
Taiyi's voice deepened.
"The world will say this is defiance," he said quietly. "Let them speak."
The formation brightened, rippling outward like distant tides answering a storm no mortal could see.
"This child has already paid the price for being born." His voice was low, absolute. "I refuse to let him pay it twice."
---
The spark inside the lotus quivered.
Then it stretched—just barely. Just enough to show that the imprint could still answer when called.
But the vessel—the body Nezha would return in—remained unformed. Light without flesh. Intention without shape.
Madam Yin's voice came out fractured. "Daoren… he isn't taking form."
Taiyi nodded slowly. "It must choose him."
Li Jing's brow furrowed. "Choose?"
Taiyi raised his hand. The lotus light split into two overlapping forms: one of *Spirit*, one of *Matter*. They rotated around each other like twin moons circling an invisible center—bound, yet distinct.
"This lotus was grown from a seed of pure origin," Taiyi explained. "It does not create a body the way Heaven does."
His gaze sharpened.
"It creates a body the way *truth* does."
Madam Yin's throat worked. "Then what is it waiting for?"
Taiyi's eyes turned back to the trembling spark.
"It waits," he said softly, "for *his* will."
The spark flickered.
And then—
A faint child's voice, distant, like sound heard through deep water, echoed through the formation:
*"Master… what am I allowed to be now?"*
Madam Yin broke. The sound that escaped her was not quite a sob—something rawer, something that had been locked behind her ribs for too long.
Li Jing closed his eyes, his jaw tight, his hands curling into fists not from anger but from the effort of staying upright.
Taiyi was still for a single heartbeat. Then he answered.
"You," he said softly, "are allowed to be reborn."
The spark pulsed—waiting.
"Not as Heaven intended."
Another pulse—brighter.
"But as *you* intend."
And then—
---
Petals rose, transforming into runes.
Runes unraveled into threads of life.
Within the swirling light, a silhouette appeared: small, childlike—but not identical to the body he once had. This was no mere restoration of what was lost.
This body did not belong to Heaven.
It carried no celestial seals. No marks of divine appointment. No chains of inherited fate.
It was woven from:
—A freed will, choosing to return
—A mother's grief, given form
—A father's silence, finally broken
—And the lotus's unclaimed potential
Taiyi watched the outline stabilize, every line of his face taut with concentration.
"He will awaken soon," he murmured.
Madam Yin stepped forward before she could stop herself. "Can we hold him?"
"Not yet." The words were gentle, but firm. "His soul must fuse fully with the vessel. If the process is disturbed—even by love—he will remain incomplete. Half-formed. Lost between worlds."
Li Jing straightened his spine. "What can we do?"
"Wait," Taiyi answered. "And witness."
---
The lotus folded slightly inward, cradling the forming child.
Within its glow, the spark descended—sinking into the vessel's chest, into the place where a heart would beat.
A soft breath escaped the lotus.
Feather-light.
Not yet drawn by lungs.
Not yet exhaled by will.
But *there*.
Nezha's first breath of his second life.
Madam Yin wept without shame.
Li Jing turned his face to the side, one hand rising to press against his eyes—not to hide the tears, but to feel them. To know they were real.
Taiyi's shoulders eased. Some deep, coiled tension that had lived in his frame for three years quietly unwound.
"It is done," he said softly.
And then he stopped.
Because the lotus trembled again.
Not with instability.
Not with failure.
But with *choice*.
The Red Armillary Sash blazed suddenly—crimson light flaring against the pale formation. Its threads began to unspool, drifting toward the forming body like silk caught in a windless current.
Then it wove itself in.
Not as a weapon being added.
Not as armor being donned.
But as a piece of self returning.
The sash sank beneath the nascent skin, threading through new-made bones, settling into the spaces between breath and heartbeat. Becoming part of him in a way it had never fully been before—no longer worn, but *integrated*. No longer carried, but *embodied*.
As if saying: *You were never whole without me. Now you will be.*
Taiyi's eyes widened.
"He's shaping himself," he breathed.
Madam Yin looked at him, fear flickering beneath the hope. "Is that dangerous?"
"No." Taiyi's voice cracked—just slightly. "It is *miraculous*."
The petals folded inward one final time, sealing the process in soft golden light.
When they opened—
The lotus body lay there, complete.
Small. New. Warm with life.
A child carved from freedom and refusal. From love and defiance. From everything Heaven had tried to deny him—and the one piece of himself that had never been Heaven's to take.
A heartbeat ago, the world had been without him.
Now, it waited—patient, trembling, hopeful—for his eyes to open.
And the story held its breath alongside the parents, suspended in the final sacred moment before Nezha wakes.
---