Ren Zu stood amidst the silence of the valley, the rejection of the Rules and Regulation Gu echoing in his mind. We will not repeatedly catch the same Gu for you.
For a lesser man, this refusal might have been a crushing blow. It meant that his youth was finite, that the clock he had just reset was already ticking down again. But Ren Zu was the First Human. His spirit was a bottomless abyss of desire. If the door to Eternal Life was temporarily barred, he would simply kick down the door to Absolute Power.
"Ambition," Ren Zu realized, "is like a fire. If you cannot feed it the wood of Time, you must feed it the oil of Power."
His eyes, shining with the reckless light of a twenty-year-old, swept across the savage wilderness. He saw the mountains that touched the clouds; he saw the rivers that carved the earth; he saw the forests teeming with danger. In this world, there were ten thousand types of Gu. There were Gu that controlled fire, Gu that summoned rain, Gu that granted flight, and Gu that commanded lightning.
Currently, these powers ran wild. They belonged to chaos.
"If I cannot live forever," Ren Zu declared, his voice trembling with a terrifying greed, "then I will own everything while I am alive. I will hold every power under the heavens in the palm of my hand."
He looked down at the two artifacts in his hands. He did not ask; he commanded.
"Fine," Ren Zu shouted, his voice booming like thunder. "If you cannot catch Longevity Gu again, then I have a new order! Capture all the other Gu in the world for me! I want the flying ones, the swimming ones, the burning ones, and the freezing ones. I want the ten thousand beings of the Great Dao to bow before me!"
The command was given. The logic was set.
Rules Gu and Regulation Gu accepted the order without hesitation. To them, the scale of the request did not matter. Whether it was catching a single firefly or capturing the stars, it was all just a matter of applying the correct formula.
Suddenly, the world began to tremble.
Rules Gu shot out of Ren Zu's right hand. It did not fly like a bird; it ascended like a god. It pierced the cloud layer, rising higher and higher until it reached the zenith of the firmament. There, it exploded into a blinding brilliance.
WHIRRR—
The small white sphere expanded. It grew larger than a mountain, larger than an ocean. It transformed into a gigantic, perfect Circle of White Light. It stretched from the eastern horizon to the western sunset. It became a halo for the planet itself.
This was the Round Sky. It represented the infinite possibilities, the turning of the seasons, the cycle of the stars. It whispered to the world: "Everything that moves must follow the Cycle."
Simultaneously, Regulation Gu shot out of Ren Zu's left hand. It plunged downward, burying itself deep into the bedrock of the continent. It did not vanish; it erupted.
BOOM—
A profound, abyssal darkness spread out from the ground. The black cube expanded, flattening and stretching. It turned into a colossal Square of Black Light, covering the four corners of the world—North, South, East, and West. It locked the tectonic plates in place.
This was the Square Earth. It represented the boundaries, the stability, the unmovable foundation. It whispered to the world: "Everything that stands must stay within the Limit."
Ren Zu stood between them, a speck of flesh caught between the geometry of the divine. He witnessed the Primordial Art: The Round Sky and the Square Earth.
The two lights moved to merge. The White Circle descended, and the Black Square rose.
CLANG!
They locked together. The warp and the weft of the universe collided. The giant net was formed.
It enveloped the entire world. It was a mesh of absolute law.
No mountain was high enough to pierce the net.
No ocean was deep enough to hide beneath the net.
No cave was dark enough to obscure the net.
The Net of Heaven and Earth began to shrink.
It dredged the world. It passed through the volcanoes, scooping up the raging Fire Gu. It passed through the storm clouds, snagging the elusive Lightning Gu. It swept through the deepest trenches of the sea, collecting the silent Water Gu.
The wind howled as the Wind Gu were stripped from the air. The forests went silent as the Strength Gu and Beast Skin Gu were pulled from the beasts.
With a massive swoosh that sounded like the world inhaling a breath, the net shrunk rapidly. It collapsed from the size of a continent to the size of a city, then a house, and finally, a small bundle.
It returned to Ren Zu's hands.
The weight was immense. It was not the weight of mass; it was the weight of Authority. Inside the shimmering mesh of law, a chaotic, swirling galaxy of light trapped thousands upon thousands of Gu worms.
Ren Zu's eyes widened, reflecting the dazzling colors of his prize.
"I have done it," he whispered, his voice shaking with ecstasy.
He saw the Invisibility Gu, shimmering like a mirage.
He saw the Flying Gu, fluttering with wings of light.
He saw the Reputation Gu, glowing with a golden halo.
He saw Gu of emotion: Love, Hate, Joy, and Sorrow, all tangled together.
"With this, all the Gu belong to me!" Ren Zu roared, raising the net high above his head. "I control the elements! I control the emotions! From now on, I am not just a human; I am the Ruler of the World!"
Overwhelmed by his triumph, Ren Zu forgot the nature of the creatures he held. He forgot that these were living spirits of the Great Dao, wild and untamed. He only saw them as loot.
With greedy, trembling fingers, he pulled open the drawstring of the Net of Law to inspect his kingdom.
"Come out," Ren Zu commanded. "Let me see my subjects."
But he did not unleash a parade. He unleashed a catastrophe.
BUZZ—!
The sound was deafening, like a million hornets waking up at once.
Disaster struck instantly.
The Gu worms inside the net had been captured, but they had not been tamed. They were wild. They were angry. And suddenly, they saw the open sky.
A massive cloud of insects erupted from the opening of the net. It was an explosion of color and chaos.
Fire Gu shot out like meteors, scorching Ren Zu's hair as they fled into the volcanoes.
Water Gu dissolved into mist, soaking his clothes before flowing back to the rivers.
Wind Gu tore out of his grip, creating a hurricane that nearly knocked him off his feet.
Poison Gu hissed, releasing toxic clouds that forced Ren Zu to cough and stumble back.
They did not obey him. They trampled him in their rush for freedom.
"No! Stop!" Ren Zu screamed, frantically trying to grab them with his bare hands.
He grabbed a Thunder Gu, but it shocked him, turning his hand numb, and flew away.
He grabbed a Blade Gu, but it cut his palm, drawing blood, and spun into the distance.
They scattered into the wind, burrowing into the ground, hiding in the clouds, and diving into the sea. The treasure trove of the world vanished in the blink of an eye, returning to the wild from whence they came.
Ren Zu fell to his knees, frantically pulling the drawstrings of the net. "Close! Close, damn you!"
When he finally sealed the mesh, the massive galaxy of lights was gone. The net was limp and light.
He peeked inside with a sinking heart.
Only five Gu worms were left inside.
Ren Zu stared at the empty net, his chest heaving with rage and confusion. He felt like a man who had held the sun, only to be left with a handful of ash.
"Why is this?" Ren Zu shouted at the two artifacts, his voice cracking with fury. "You are Rules and Regulations! You are the Law! Why did they run? Why did they not obey me?"
The two Gu worms hovered calmly, their lights dim but steady. They were unaffected by the chaos. To them, the outcome was logically inevitable.
"Human," Rules Gu answered, its voice cool and detached. "You are confused by your own greed. The world has over ten thousand Gu, each with different tempers, different diets, and different wills. Some eat wind, some drink dew, some feed on desire."
Regulation Gu continued, its tone heavy with instruction. "You have no strength to suppress them. You have no wisdom to scheme against them. You have no heart to move them. You have no knowledge to understand them."
"We can only capture Gu for you," Rules Gu explained. "Capturing is merely the act of confinement. It is a physical state."
"But to subdue them," Regulation Gu added, "is a spiritual act. You have to rely on yourself to refine them, to feed them, and to break their wills. We provided the cage, but you left the door open before putting on the chains."
"A net can hold a fish," Regulation Gu concluded with a proverb that would echo through history, "but it cannot make the fish obey the fisherman."
Ren Zu slumped on the ground, the truth washing over him. He had tried to skip the path of cultivation. He had tried to cheat the heavens by hoarding power he did not understand.
The two Gu worms then began to glow with a new, restrictive light. The precedent had been set. The lesson had been learned.
"This was your second order," Rules Gu declared. "The failure was caused by excess. Therefore, to preserve the balance of the world, we must write a new Law."
"We will add a second rule and regulation," Regulation Gu intoned, sealing Ren Zu's fate. "From now on, we can only catch one Gu for you at a time."
"Greed leads to loss," they spoke in unison. "Precision leads to gain."
Ren Zu looked at the limp net in his hands. He had wanted everything, and because of that, he had almost nothing. He nodded slowly, accepting the bitter medicine of reality.
"One at a time," Ren Zu whispered. "So be it."