Chapter 4 — The God of Light's Swapped Bride

That night, when Y Nhi fell asleep after a long and tiring day, Da Vu quietly walked out to the small yard behind the warehouse, where a few wild bushes grew between broken bricks. He sat down on the cold stone steps, holding the moon tree in his arms, his eyes looking up at the star-studded night sky.

Twenty years. It's been twenty years since the night he stood in the collapsing halo of the Great Light, watching the punishing fire from heaven descend on the small village along the Lam Giang river, where innocent people were trembling and hugging each other, waiting to die.

He still clearly remembers the Heavenly Emperor's order that day, his voice resounding throughout the Light Realm like thunder: humans on earth have raised up armies and slaughtered each other to compete for the sacred jade mine, polluting the land that the light of the Twelve Gods of Light once blessed, so they must endure a Great Light of Extinction to purify everything, erase all traces of sin, so that the land can rest and be reborn clean.

He, then the youngest of the Twelve Gods of Light - the god of the Morning Light, the one who carries within him the first ray of light that shines at dawn - stood silently watching that scene from above, and an unprecedented doubt arose in his heart: whether the children crying in their mother's arms, the old men trembling on their knees and begging, really deserved to suffer the same fate as those who wielded weapons of war?

He couldn't hold back. As soon as the first pillar of punishing fire fell, he rushed down, using all his divine power to build a dome of light that surrounded that small village, resisting the will of the Heavenly Emperor throughout a long night, until the wrath from heaven subsided, and the village - along with hundreds of lives inside - was left intact.

The price he had to pay was to be summoned before the Heavenly Emperor, to be charged with resisting orders and arbitrarily intervening in human destiny - the two heaviest crimes in the laws of Quang Gioi. The Heavenly Emperor took away most of his divine power, leaving only enough to keep him from being completely destroyed, then banished him to the human world in the guise of a mortal, forbade him to use his divine powers unless pushed to the limit of life and death, and pronounced a verdict that still rings in his ears every night:

"You believe that the compassion of a god is more precious than the laws of heaven and earth. So go down there and live as a mortal, fully experiencing the weakness and suffering that you have risked your life to protect. Only when you find the truest light - the one that does not come from innate power, but from a human heart willing to love you unconditionally, not for status, not for power, not for anything other than who you truly are - the divine power of Only then will I be able to fully revive. Only then will I consider whether you are still worthy of standing in the ranks of the Twelve Light Gods."

From then on, he took on the name Tham Da Vu, wandering around the cities of Lam Thanh and neighboring lands, making a living as a busker. The moon harp he brought with him was not an ordinary musical instrument - it was carved from a piece of wood from an ancient tree growing in the sacred garden of Quang Gioi, where he had personally carved ancient light patterns on the body of the instrument before being banished, as a way to retain a bit of the spirit of his homeland so as not to completely lose himself in the mortal world.

During twenty years, he went through countless cities, met countless people, and witnessed both the best and worst things in humanity. There were kind people who gave him a meal without asking for anything, and there were also people who scornfully chased him away like a dirty animal. But no one, no matter how kind, had made him feel the kind of love that Heavenly Emperor mentioned - a heart willing to love him unconditionally, for no other reason than who he was.

Until tonight.

He tightened the moonlight in his hand, recalling Y Nhi's eyes when she said respectful words to him, a poor person without an inch of land to support himself, without a title worth mentioning. She did not know his true identity, did not know that he was the god who saved the village that had now become the capital Lam Thanh - the cradle where the ancestors of the Lang family were also one of the people protected by that dome of light. She simply saw him as a human being, and chose to treat him kindly no matter how grim the situation was.

That's what made his heart that had been cold for twenty years begin to warm again.

He remembered the moment the Red Thread burst into bright light last night, stronger than any witness he had ever seen during his twenty years of wandering. It wasn't simply a miracle from the Temple of Light — it was a sign that the remaining divine power in his body had reacted to something, a resonance that he didn't fully understand. Perhaps fate, no matter how ironic, is showing him a path.

He looked down at his hands in the moonlight, attentively observing each familiar fingerprint of this mortal body. Nothing had changed. He was still just a poor man, his strength was far less than that of a normal healthy mortal, easily hurt by the smallest things - cold, hunger, a knife from a thug on the street. Only sometimes, when his emotions reached their peak, did he feel a small spark of old power flash through his veins, the power that he had to suppress tightly so as not to reveal it to others.

He thought about the days ahead. The Lang family abandoned them, forcing them into a difficult life in a society full of powerful people willing to trample on the weak. He did not have the divine power to protect Y Nhi as completely as he wanted, but he had an oath to himself: no matter how much pain it cost, he would not let the woman who had treated him kindly in his time of greatest need suffer any more harm that he could prevent.

He remembered the years of wandering before, when he had witnessed countless miserable scenes of life but he could not help because he was afraid of violating the limits of the curse. One time he saw an orphan huddled together on a rainy night. He could only quietly play a warm song nearby, hoping that some fragile aura could help that child get through the cold night, then quietly left without daring to do anything more. Once he witnessed a group of robbers plundering a group of poor merchants. He had to grit his teeth and watch, because directly intervening meant accepting the risk of being discovered by the Heavenly Emperor, prolonging his exile, or worse, being completely stripped of the last remaining divine power.

That helplessness has been deeply ingrained in his mind for twenty years, turning him into a person who always keeps his distance from the world, not daring to get too deeply attached to anyone, because he knows his own limits, knows that he cannot fully protect anyone without paying the price. But tonight, for the first time, he felt a different, powerful urge — not a fear of limitations, but a determination to face any consequences, as long as he could keep Y Nhi safe.

The sound of the lute resounded softly under his fingers, an ancient melody that he often played when he remembered his hometown Quang Gioi, gentle like moonlight, warm like the first rays of sunlight. He didn't realize that, when the sound of the piano rang out in that quiet night, a thin stream of spiritual energy spread throughout the warehouse, passing through the door into the room where Y Nhi was sleeping, soothing her anxious dreams, causing her face to gradually relax in sleep, a gentle smile flickering at the corner of her lips.

He sat there for a long time, until the moonlight turned to the west, wondering whether the road ahead, no matter how thorny, would really lead him to the light that the Emperor had mentioned. I don't know the answer. But for the first time after twenty years of wandering, he felt a small ray of hope in his heart, fragile but steadfast, like the first rays of dawn filtering through the thickest night.

"Y Nhi," he whispered that name softly, like a silent promise to himself, "no matter who I am, no matter what I have lost, I will not let you suffer because of me anymore."

The night wind blew past, carrying the gentle scent of wildflowers growing around the yard, and in that moment, the small light in the bottom of Da Vu's eyes flickered once more, then turned off, hiding, waiting for the day to be fully awakened.