To Return To Where You Belong To

Yuan Ji's mind was an incoherent mess. Ringing sounds filled his ears and head.

Pieces of memories were scattered in his head, some could be arranged back, while the other couldn't be retrieved. The pain it caused distracted him from noticing that he was falling. From the highest sky to the ground far beneath him.

And when his mind had been cleared, it was too late.

He crashed hard, into the supposedly rough surface of the pavement. Yuan Ji closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the pain that never came. A few moments passed, yet nothing came. Yuan Ji's mind blanked at once.

Why didn't he feel pain? Did he die already?

Those two questions popped up in his head. The Deity scrutinized his surrounding. To find nothing but a vast, empty darkness. Yuan Ji's heart sunk.

Wait—don't tell me that Heavens punished me to solitary confinement?

Of all the worst things that could happen to him, Yuan Ji would rather a decade of straying in the world and begging, than confinement for a day. He despised being constrained.

Much to his relief, a voice rang out. "Ow!"

The owner of said voice seemingly not older than fifteen, a young lad in the beginning of his adolescence's voice. However, he still couldn't see the owner of the voice, only darkness ahead.

Yuan Ji reflexively asked, ["Are you okay?"]

"I'm fine! Don't wo—" The boy lifted his head to the source of the voice, only to find no one was there.

'Am I hearing voices? Like, hallucinating?' thought the boy as he gathered his scattered belongings. 'Did I hit my head so hard that I began hearing things?'

["Perhaps not, your head is fine."]

And the boy screamed.

It was supposed to be another normal day for him. Tripping over a rock or hit his head was certainly normal. It happened at least twice a day, caused by his clumsy nature. But he never expected that his clumsiness would be so...

Now he had a voice speaking to him from the deepest void in his mind.

Truthfully, he didn't even know why he screamed. If it wasn't for fact that he was the only person there, he would lose face.

["You can stop screaming."] The voice said distastefully. And he obeyed.

He was glancing the surrounding nervously, until a question popped in his mind.

"Who are you?"

Yuan Ji, upon hearing this question, considered whether to tell the youngling his real name or not. He didn't give it, instead asking the boy, ["What's your name?"]

"Yue... YueChen. My surname is Yang."

["A good name. Mine is...."] a pause.

["Yuan Ji. The Water Deity of Eastern World, China."]

"Pfft." YueChen stifled a laugh. "Seriously? Dong Shi Shui Shen*?"

["Got a word to it?"] Yuan Ji threatened. He swore, if this kid started to laugh for real, he'd smite him right away—powerless or not.

"No. No. It's just, sounded cool. But it's like a name in RP games."

["Shut up."]

"Okay, okay. I'll just shut up." YueChen stood up and dusted his school uniform. He glanced at the slightly darkening sky and left.

As they went back home, an unsettling thought crossed the god's mind. YueChen was... different, and everything about him made Yuan Ji feeling uneasy.

Not every mortal could be possessed by a deity. But, Yang YueChen wasn't one of them.