Ren Zu turned his back on the safety of the Blue Sea's shore and ventured deep into the savage heart of the wilderness. He walked with trepidation, his pale skin stark against the dark, rugged earth.
He quickly discovered that he was not the only master of this land. In fact, he was an intruder in a world dominated by ancient, malicious forces. The wilderness was not merely populated by wolves and tigers; it was infested with strange, shapeless monstrosities known as Predicaments.
The Predicaments were not beasts of simple flesh and blood. They were the physical manifestations of difficulty, suffering, and obstruction. They possessed no fixed form, for trouble comes in ten thousand shapes.
Some appeared as churning swamps of rotting mud that bubbled with a foul stench, waiting to swallow Ren Zu whole the moment he took a careless step. Others manifested as dark, brooding clouds that hung low over his head, raining down acid that burned his skin and chilled his bones. There were even Predicaments that disguised themselves as jagged rocks, remaining perfectly still until Ren Zu passed, only to shift and strike when he was not looking.
They were everywhere. They were the cliff that was too high to climb, the river that was too wide to cross, and the night that was too dark to navigate.
As Ren Zu stumbled through this hostile world, the air around him grew thick with malicious whispers. The Predicaments spoke to one another in a language made of grinding stones, rustling dead leaves, and the howling of hollow winds:
"A human... a new thing called a human has appeared..."
"Look at him. He has no shell. He has no poison. He is soft."
"He smells of naivety. He looks delicious. Let us eat him. Let us consume his struggle and feast on his despair."
Fear, cold and sharp, pierced Ren Zu's heart. He ran.
He ran until his lungs burned like fire and his feet were cut to ribbons by the unforgiving terrain. He sprinted through forests of thorny ironwood, leaving trails of red blood on the black bark. He scrambled up steep mountains, his fingernails cracking against the stone.
He sought refuge in the deepest caves, hoping the darkness would hide him. But the Dampness Predicaments seeped through the cracks in the stone, soaking him to the marrow and threatening to rot his flesh.
He climbed the highest ancient trees, hoping to stay above the danger. But the Wind Predicaments gathered around the branches, shaking the trees violently, trying to hurl him to his death.
For days that bled into nights, and nights that stretched into eternities, Ren Zu lived in a state of absolute, suffocating terror.
He dared not sleep, for fear of being eaten. He dared not stop, for fear of being trapped. He dug into the mud to find bitter grass roots to eat; he knelt by stagnant puddles to drink muddy, foul-tasting water. He was the weakest existence in the entire world, a singular, fragile life constantly bullied, mocked, and hunted by the environment itself.