Ren Zu lay in the dust of his own magnificent hall, a ruin within a ruin.
The furs of the nine-colored tigers he had hunted were now moth-eaten and tattered. The great hearth, once home to a fire that rivaled the sun, was now a grave of cold, gray ash. The sturdy roof of ironwood, which he had engineered with the precise calculations of Wisdom, groaned under the weight of the years, threatening to collapse and bury its creator.
He was a king without a crown, a master without a domain, reduced to a trembling heap of brittle bones and decaying flesh. His breath came in shallow, rattling gasps, each one a struggle against the crushing weight of his own mortality.
As the crimson sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, twisted shadows across the floor, the darkness in the corners of the room began to stir.
The Predicaments had returned.
They had been waiting for this moment for an epoch. For years, they had been held back by the iron fist of Strength and the sharp, dissecting blade of Wisdom. They had lurked in the periphery, starving and hateful. Now, sensing the vacuum of power, they flooded back with a vengeance that shook the very air.
These were not the small, clumsy mud-monsters of his youth. These were ancient, towering horrors that had grown fat on the despair of the world.
From the shadows emerged the Predicament of Regret. It took the form of a weeping black mist, swirling with faces of the past—opportunities missed, words left unspoken, and the vibrant days of youth that would never return. It whispered into Ren Zu's ear, "You traded your life for a house of wood. Was it worth it, human? Was it worth the emptiness?"
From the floorboards seeped the Predicament of Pain. It was a creature of jagged glass and rusting iron, grinding against itself. "Your joints burn," it hissed. "Your lungs fail. I will be your only companion for your final hours. I will hold your hand until the light dies."
Blocking the door stood the Predicament of Death. It was a towering silence, a void in the shape of a wolf that swallowed all light. It did not speak; it merely waited with an infinite, terrifying patience.
They surrounded him, their laughter sounding like the grinding of millstones crushing bone.
"Look at him," they sneered, their voices dripping with ancient malice. "He borrowed power from heaven and earth to play god. But the Great Dao is fair! All debts must be paid! He traded his life for glory, and now he has neither."
"He is just a piece of old, rotting meat," another hissed, its drool sizzling on the floor. "Let us feast before he turns to dust."
Ren Zu watched them approach with dim, cloudy eyes. He tried to summon the will to fight, to roar one last time, to command the heavens as he once had. But his spirit was as broken as his spine. He could not lift a stone. He could not think of a plan. The walls of his achievements were crumbling, and the despair was absolute.
"It ends here," Ren Zu thought, a single tear cutting a track through the dirt on his cheek. "I was born in the sea, and I will die in the dark."
He closed his eyes, preparing for the tear of fangs.
It was then, in the suffocating silence of the end, that a tiny, insignificant presence made itself known.
It was the third Gu. The one he had ignored. The one that looked like a dying ember in a pile of cold ash, so faint it was almost invisible against the gathering night.
"Human," it whispered.
Its voice was not a boom like Strength, nor a chime like Wisdom. It was faint, fragile, easily drowned out by the howling wind outside and the mocking laughter inside. It sounded like the first heartbeat of a newborn.
"Do not close your eyes."
Ren Zu cracked one crusted eyelid open, looking at the pathetic little bug with bitter resentment.
"Go away," he rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves being crushed. "I have nothing left for you. Do you not see? Strength took my Youth and left me withered. Wisdom took my Prime and left me senile. I am old. I am dying. I have no time left to give you. Go find another fool to drain."
The small Gu did not leave. It hovered closer, its light pulsing with a stubborn, weak rhythm, refusing to be extinguished by the darkness of the room.
"I do not eat time," it said softly. "I do not need the explosive, reckless vigor of youth. Nor do I need the stable, cold calculation of your prime. I have no use for your muscles, and I have no use for your brain."
"Then what?" Ren Zu coughed, blood staining his cracked lips. "What could I possibly have that is of value to you? I am empty. I am a husk."
The Gu hovered directly over his chest. "You have one thing left. The most important thing. I need your Heart."
Ren Zu paused. The Predicaments were inches away; he could smell their foul, rotting breath. The Predicament of Pain was already reaching out a claw to caress his face.
"My heart?" Ren Zu laid a trembling, spotted hand on his withered chest. Beneath the fragile cage of his ribs, his heart beat weakly—thump... thump... thump... It was a tired drum, beating a funeral march for a life spent in struggle.
"My heart is full of fear," Ren Zu whispered, his voice trembling. "It is heavy with regret. It is broken by loss. It is stained with the blood of beasts and the tears of loneliness. Why would you want such a broken thing?"
"If you do not give it to me, you will surely die here, eaten by despair and regret," the Gu replied, its voice firm. "But if you give it to me... you might find a way to live."
Ren Zu looked at the darkness closing in. He looked at the useless wealth around him—the cold hearth, the silent walls. He looked at the inevitability of death.
He smiled a toothless, sad smile.
"Take it," he whispered into the void. "It is of no use to me anymore. It hurts too much to keep it."
With the last reserve of his spiritual energy, Ren Zu reached into his chest. He did not use his hands; he used his will. He offered the very core of his being, the seat of his emotions, to the tiny, dim Gu.
VII. The Light of Hope
The moment the Gu touched Ren Zu's heart, the laws of the world seemed to suspend.
The wind stopped howling. The laughter of the Predicaments froze in their throats. Even the dust motes dancing in the air seemed to hang suspended in time, caught in a breathless pause.
The tiny, dim speck suddenly erupted.
It did not explode with the violent, destructive heat of Strength, which burned forests and shattered mountains.
It did not shine with the cold, detached, crystalline calculation of Wisdom, which froze the world into logic and patterns.
It burned with a brilliant, pure, white light.
It was a light that defied description. It was warm, yet piercing. It was soft as a mother's touch, yet harder than diamond. It was the light of the first sunrise after a long, dark winter, promising that the night was not eternal. It was infinite. It was blinding.
The light flooded the wilderness.
It blasted through the roof of the shelter, piercing the heavy storm clouds and connecting the earth to the heaven. It swept through the windows, illuminating the darkest caves where monsters bred and the shadowy forests where fear grew. It turned the night instantly into day.
When the white light touched the Predicaments, they did not fight. They did not attack. They screamed.
"Aiiieee!"
The sound was wretched, a chorus of absolute agony.
"It burns! It burns worse than fire!" screamed the Predicament of Pain, its glass body shattering under the gentle warmth.
"It is Hope! It is Hope Gu!" shrieked the Predicament of Regret, dissolving like smoke in a gale.
The Predicament of Death recoiled, covering its face, unable to bear the brilliance. For in the face of true Hope, the fear of death loses its grip.
"Retreat!" they shrieked, scrambling over each other in absolute panic, clawing at the floorboards to escape. "We can fight Strength, for Strength can be exhausted! We can corrupt Wisdom, for Wisdom can be tricked and twisted! But we cannot touch Hope! Hope denies us! Hope creates a path where there is none!"
The Predicaments fled, disappearing into the darkest cracks of the world, terrified of the light that refused to acknowledge their power. They scurried back to the abyss, driven away not by force, but by a spirit that refused to break.
Ren Zu stood up.
His back was still hunched. His skin was still wrinkled. His muscles were still withered, and his hair was still white. The Hope Gu did not return his youth, nor did it return his physical power. The laws of nature were not broken; he was still an old, dying man.
But his eyes...
His eyes burned with a fire that was brighter than the sun, deeper than the sea, and stronger than all the steel in the world.
He stood amidst the ruins of his life, holding the Hope Gu in his chest, right where his heart used to be. The fear was gone. The regret was silenced. The loneliness was washed away. In their place was a limitless, bounding energy that transcended the physical body—a luminous power that whispered that tomorrow could be better than today.
He looked at the vast, dangerous world before him—a world of suffering, old age, sickness, and death—and he did not tremble. He saw the cold wind, and he felt the warmth within. He saw the long road, and he felt the strength to walk it.
He realized then the first and greatest truth of humanity, the legacy that he would pass down to all his descendants, flowing through their blood for eternity:
Strength may fade into exhaustion, turning kings into beggars.
Wisdom may fail in the face of chaos, turning geniuses into madmen.
But as long as a human has Hope in their heart, they can face any Predicament in this heaven and earth and survive.
Ren Zu took his first step forward.
He walked out of his shelter, stepping over the threshold of his past glory. He walked into the wind, his white hair blowing behind him like a banner of defiance.
He walked toward the unknown horizon, no longer afraid.