The Moon God and the Night God

The Federation was still reeling from the earthquake of the Moon God's return when news of the Sun God and Star God's return came crashing down.

One shock followed another, leaving everyone numb.

After a brief outage, a group of red-eyed code monkeys dragged the Star Network back from the brink of collapse. Then people discovered that everyone's reaction was a little different this time.

The last time, when the Moon God returned, the Star Network had been flooded with screams, exclamation marks, incoherent outpourings of passion... and preorder links for Moon God merchandise rushed out overnight.

This time, when the names of the Sun God and the Star God appeared together at the top of the trending list, people reacted differently from the way they had made such a fuss before.

[Yeah, yeah, we know. The Sun God and Star God are back, that's all.]

[Oh.]

[Okay. All right. Glad they're here.]

[That makes three. Three gods. Any more? If there are, can you let us know all at once? My heart can't take the excitement of having them delivered in batches.]

[Give it a rest, commenter above. Those are gods. Not packages.]

[What's the difference? Either way, the Federation is the recipient. Right now I'm the recipient who's been knocked senseless by a package, lying in the doorway with no desire to move.]

[So, to sum up: the Moon God woke up, the Sun God woke up, and the Star God woke up. That's it?]

[That's it.]

[Okay. Let's leave it at that. Everyone, get back to whatever you were doing.]

[I have a strong feeling that no matter what god pops up next, I won't be surprised. Really. Even if you told me right now that the guy selling Star Cups next door was actually the Night God, I'd calmly say, "Oh, one cup, less sugar."]

[Wait, now that you mention it, those Star Cups really are unnaturally good?]

[??? Don't do this to me, commenter above. I'm going to Canghai Star to line up and buy one right now. What if it really is a god's special blend?]

The people of the Federation called their state of mind "giving-up-style shock."

There had been too much information, and their brains' shock modules had been working at high intensity for days on end.

At last, they had burned out, just as everyone expected.

After burning out, all that remained was a sense of peace that said, "Okay, then."

They were all gods anyway, and they were all going to return anyway.

And if the sky fell, the tall ones would hold it up.

So, after the initial explosion, the mood on the Star Network shifted back toward everyday life at an astonishing speed.

Top trending topic: the Sun God and Star God return.

Second trending topic: when will the new Moon God merchandise come out?

Third trending topic: Star Cups on Canghai Star suddenly flooded with orders; owner Sun Qing says, "I don't know why either."

The gods returned to their places, and mortals carried on as usual.

Just as the sun in the sky still rose in the east and set in the west, the moon appeared at night, and stars dotted the sky around it.

That was what mortals imagined.

In mortal astronomy textbooks, the sun and moon took turns on duty, the stars shone brightly at night, and everything was in perfect order.

The three gods of the sun, moon, and stars also led wonderful lives every day.

Wuma Xiu: As if.

Wonderful?

That was true for his two brothers.

The first thing the Sun God did every morning was run to the Moon God Palace to mooch breakfast. The last thing the Star God did before bed every night was linger at the Moon God Palace and refuse to leave. In front of him, the two gods were like a pair of cats competing for affection; even an extra glance at either one could trigger a childish quarrel over "Big brother/Little brother just looked at me. Jealous?"

One day, Wuma Xiu finally managed to steal half a day of leisure from his busy life.

He closed his eyes beside the Moonlight Pool, intending only to rest them for a moment, but before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.

And, unusually, he had a dream.

The Night God was the Moon God's closest friend.

That was no secret in the Age of the Gods.

Just as the sun was always accompanied by day, and the stars always traveled with night,

the Night God's and Moon God's names were always mentioned together.

Mention the Night God, and one would think of the Moon God.

Mention the Moon God, and the Night God would appear in the next sentence.

They were like two sides of a coin, the two halves of a melody, two lights shining together in a single night sky.

One was a clear silver-white, the other a deep, dark blue.

However, when those idle poets of the Age of the Gods sang the praises of the two gods' friendship, they always added a sigh whose meaning was unclear:

What a pity that the two gods met a little too late.

The Night God had been born before the Moon God—not a day or two earlier, but ten thousand years earlier.

He was a consciousness formed from eternal darkness, the sum of all places that no light could reach.

No one knew he had been born, not even he himself.

For when he opened his eyes, all he saw was darkness, so complete that he could not see his own hand before his face, with not even a faint glimmer of light to be found. He tried reaching out, tried making a sound, tried feeling his surroundings.

There was nothing.

No light, no sound, no warmth, no boundaries. He did not know who he was, where he was, or why he existed.

All he knew was that he was very lonely.

When humans felt lonely, they at least knew why: because there was no one beside them.

But from the moment the Night God was born, he had no concept of "someone being there." He did not know what he lacked, what he needed, or what it felt like not to be lonely.

He only felt empty.

His whole body, his whole consciousness, his entire existence was empty.

The Night God wandered in that darkness for a long time.

So long that he had learned how to mold darkness into shapes, how to weave sounds from silence, and how to fill time with nothingness.

The Night God made himself a palace.

Pitch-black.

A palace no light could penetrate.

He sat in it alone, walked in it alone, and spoke to the shadows he had molded himself.

The Night God said to a shadow, "Hello."

The shadow could not answer.

So the Night God changed places, stood where the shadow was, and answered for it.

"Hello. Who are you?"

"I don't know."

"Where do you come from?"

"I don't know."

"Where are you going?"

The Night God could not answer.

He did not even know where he came from, so how could he know where he was going?

So he returned to his original position and said to the shadow:

"That's not a good question. Ask another."

He played alone for a very, very long time.

One day, he stopped and sat on the steps in the deepest part of the palace, curling himself into a small ball.

Darkness pressed close to him, and silence enveloped him.

The Night God felt a heaviness in his chest, but he did not know that feeling was called loneliness. At the time, all he felt was that his very existence was utterly meaningless.

Just then, a light appeared a short distance in front of him.