The stars wheel, the seasons turn.
Underground, Shen Wei sleeps.
Above him, a war ends. An alliance disperses. Barren land is tilled and nurtured. Discarded weapons rust.
Shen Wei sleeps, and dreams.
At first, even his dreams are deep and heavy, like the earth around him. Like the mountain of grief that weighs on his heart.
Something stirs, though. Sound rings through the dark, and there is movement in the stillness. A girl appears. Her eyes are curious, and her laughter is loud.
Her goats provide milk and meat to the growing settlement. It lies where Shen Wei remembers a bustling military headquarter. In his dreams, though, the alliance's caves are old and abandoned—a place of history and ghosts.
Underground, Shen Wei is less than a ghost, his place in history lost. He drifts, and sleeps.
Then there is a viper. The girl is a woman now, and the snake is on the path ahead of her.
For the first time since falling, and falling asleep, Shen Wei feels the stirring of an emotion other than sorrow.
Fear.
The viper should not be here, in his dream of the woman. She carries a young goat in her arms, scolding it with a smile.
She has not seen the snake.
Voiceless, Shen Wei cries out in warning. The woman stops. The way she frowns is so familiar, somehow—but now she sees the viper. Steps slowly backwards. The snake slithers away, and the dream fades around it.
Sinking back into deep stillness, Shen Wei sees the woman continue down the path. Her children are with her, and her children's children. The lines around her old eyes are deep, but her loud laughter echoes long after she is gone.
The stars wheel, and seeds grow to saplings, and saplings to trees.
In his dream, Shen Wei hears the wind whistle through them. Hears the sound of an axe.
The wind is getting louder. The clouds are dark and low. A storm is coming in, but a young man Shen Wei almost thinks he knows is working in the forest instead of returning home.
The tree he stands below is tall.
Lightning flashes.
In his dream, Shen Wei is afraid for the young man, who should not be standing under this tree in this storm. If he does, the dream will end.
Everything that matters will end.
Shen Wei knows this, in the way of dreams. His dormant powers flare. The young man jumps in fright, his senses stunned for a few moments. Then he runs.
In Shen Wei's dream, the wind calms. The skies brighten. The tall tree has burned, and those around it have been turned into a cabin where the young man—now old—bounces a bright-eyed child on his lap.
The stars wheel, the seasons turn. Trees are felled, and villages and temples grow up in their stead. A spider's web of paths and roads connect them, all running further than any single living person has traveled.
If Shen Wei could do anything but sleep, he would long for Kunlun. Would be torn between faith and despair. Kunlun promised they would meet again, but—how? How can they ever meet again, when he is forever under the earth, and Kunlun was taken by the sky?
His longing fills his dreams. Time after time, he thinks he sees kind eyes looking past his mask, and hears warm laughter that speaks of companionship. But it's never Kunlun. It's a man with Kunlun's eyes, a woman with Kunlun's laugh, a child who loves sweets growing into an adult who shares treats and freely embraces their friends.
In Shen Wei's dreams, the world is vast, and the sky is ever-changing. Even if he could wake and search, he could never find all of those he dreams of. And even if he could find them, they would not be Kunlun.
The stars wheel, the seasons turn, and a great river changes its course.
Shen Wei dreams of a boy asleep with his young siblings. They sprawl comfortably—familiarly—together. A cat is curled up on their patched blankets, and for a moment Shen Wei thinks—but no. He cannot wait and see. Although time has no meaning for one who sleeps under the earth, a river has broken its banks, and a flood wave is coming. Even now, it is swallowing a temple and spitting out timber and bones. The children will all die if they stay. They must flee—Shen Wei tells them so in their dreams, all of them.
They wake, and look at each other, and run. The young man and an older girl carry the smallest siblings, and the middle one takes the cat.
Together they make it to high ground. Dawn rises red and gold, the sun reflected in water and devastation. But when that dream fades, they are all still alive. Still together.
Shen Wei sleeps as the river carves out a new riverbed in rich soil and hard rock. Sleeps as comets come and go in the sky, and cannot wake even when the Hallows in Dixing are stolen and scattered. His dreams are restless, formless. There is still a thread of laughter through it, but so fragile—Shen Wei's longing blends with fear. He cannot wake, cannot search, cannot save everyone whose lives blink out too early, swallowed by time like Kunlun was by the sky.
Stone takes the place of wood, and the sky never truly darkens enough for those below to see the wheeling stars. Buildings cast long shadows, and glitter with glass and steel.
Shen Wei dreams of a man with Kunlun's steady hands and quick mind. Of a woman with Kunlun's warm laugh and brave heart. They don't need him to whisper warnings in their dreams. They live, they grow—they meet.
A newborn child wails.
The stars stop wheeling. The earth exhales.
Shen Wei wakes.
He rises under a warm sun, thinking of his people, of all he has to do. He rises slowly, his heart so full of longing that it is threatening to break.
In his dreams under the earth, Shen Wei looked for Kunlun. Now when he sleeps in this new Haixing, Kunlun's face is all he sees. But no matter how hard he searches in the waking world, there is nobody with those bright eyes, with that warm smile.
It doesn't matter. Shen Wei will keep looking. No matter how long it takes, he will keep looking.
Kunlun is worth it.