The crackling firelight painted flickering shadows across Qin Hong's face as he stared into the fmes, the scent of burning cedar transporting him back through time. The isnd's nocturnal chorus—the distant cries of unknown creatures, the whispering leaves—faded into the background as memory cimed him...
---
**Fifteen Years Earlier - City Apartment**
The afternoon sun snted through grimy apartment windows as ten-year-old Qin Hong burst through the door, his schoolbag bouncing wildly against his thin frame. "Mom! Teacher said there might be meteors tonight! We're supposed to watch them with our parents!" His voice trembled with barely contained excitement.
On the sagging couch, a woman with smudged eyeliner barely gnced up from her reality show. She took a long drag from her cigarette before responding, the smoke curling around her face like a shroud. "Don't be ridiculous. You can't see stars in the city."
The light in Qin Hong's eyes dimmed, but he clutched at hope like a lifeline. "Just for a little while? Please? If we don't see any, we'll come right back—"
The bathroom door swung open with a creak, cutting him off. A man Qin Hong had never seen before stepped out, a threadbare towel clinging precariously to his hips. Water dripped from his chest hair onto the linoleum.
"Babe, your showerhead needs—" The stranger's eyes nded on Qin Hong. "Who's the kid?"
Qin Hong's mother sprang up with a sudden energy she'd never shown her son, draping herself over the man's damp shoulders. "Just my son. Ignore him." She pnted a kiss on the stranger's cheek before shooting Qin Hong a dismissive gnce. "Go do your homework."
Shouldering his bag higher, Qin Hong trudged to his room—a cramped space that smelled of mildew and old textbooks. This wasn't the first "uncle" his mother had brought home, nor would it be the st. They always left eventually, usually bming his presence for ruining the retionship.
At his tiny desk beneath the window, Qin Hong wiped his eyes and gazed upward. Thick clouds obscured most of the sky, just as his mother had predicted. Yet he kept watching, straining to hear nothing beyond his own breathing, determined not to disturb the ughter now echoing from the living room.
Then—a miracle.
A single streak of light pierced the gloom, there and gone in a heartbeat. Qin Hong's breath caught. For that fleeting moment, the universe had acknowledged his existence.
With renewed determination, he opened his composition notebook and began writing: *"Today, my mom and I watched shooting stars together..."*
---
**Present Day - Hedel Isle**
A log colpsed in the fire with a shower of sparks, jolting Qin Hong back to the present. He added more wood and y back, the memory's bittersweet ache lingering as sleep cimed him.
---
**Four Years Earlier - Venos Headquarters**
Guann sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, surrounded by a sea of pying cards. His brow furrowed in concentration as he carefully pced the seventh-level card onto his trembling pyramid structure. Across the room, Bayun the door-cat and Sutton the wolf-dog watched with varying degrees of skepticism.
"It's going to fall again," Sutton predicted, his tail thumping against the floorboards.
Bayun flicked an ear. "Twelve decks is too much for anyone, meow~"
As if on cue, Guann's pinky twitched. The entire structure colpsed in a paper avanche.
"Damn it!" Guann flopped onto his back, staring at the ceiling in frustration. "The evaluation is in two days! Everyone else has this mastered—even Illya built two perfect pyramids!"
The door slid open without warning. In the doorway stood Skywalker Boros, his silver hair catching the afternoon light like a halo. "Ah, good. You're here. Come walk with me."
---
**Moonlit Lake**
Borros's gold-rimmed gsses reflected the calm ke surface as they strolled. "I hear you've been locked up with pying cards for days. Any success?"
Guann kicked at a pebble. "None. I get close, then... disaster."
Borros's ughter rang across the water. "Do you know why the final evaluation tests card pyramids?"
"Patience? Perseverance?" Guann muttered.
"No." Borros's voice grew serious. "It tests your retionship with outcomes." He gestured to the stars. "When your mind is consumed by success or failure, you lose sight of the act itself. The tighter you clutch at results, the more they slip through your fingers."
Guann blinked as the truth settled over him. Without another word, he y back in the grass, letting the night sky fill his vision. Borros smiled and walked away, knowing his student had understood.
In the days following, Guann didn't touch a single pying card.
---
**Present Day - Guann's Cabin**
A smile pyed across Guann's lips as he recalled that night—until a sharp elbow to his ribs shattered the memory.
"Ow! You're on my hair!" Illya grumbled, half-asleep in his arms.
With a sigh, Guann closed his eyes, letting the past fade once more.
---
**Dawn - Day Three**
Qin Hong awoke with a start, the morning sun painting the isnd in gold. After a quick breakfast of dried meat and a spsh in the river, he summoned Voidbde and stepped through a spatial rift—emerging near the site of his first dinosaur encounter.
"If this is Rex territory..." he mused, setting off along a game trail.
Hours ter, he crested a ridge and froze. Below, an entire herd of... something grazed by a keshore. From this distance, they resembled ordinary buffalo—until one lifted its head, revealing proportions that would make an elephant seem petite.
A ground-shaking bellow announced the arrival of the real prize—a Tyrannosaurus rex that dwarfed Guann's kill. It stalked to the water's edge, surveying the now-fleeing herd with predatory disinterest.
"Not a buffet, buddy," Qin Hong muttered as the beast began drinking.
A pn formed. With a silent spatial ssh, Qin Hong appeared beside the dinosaur's tree-trunk leg. "Holy—this foot is bigger than my old apartment!"
He raised Voidbde—only to be sent flying by a whip-like tail. The ke swallowed him whole, its icy waters stealing his breath. By the time he dragged himself ashore, the Rex was already leaving.
"Not this time," Qin Hong growled, reopening a portal.
He emerged standing on the dinosaur's back, the scales rough beneath his boots. "I've officially lost my mind," he whispered before plunging Voidbde into the beast's hide.
What followed was less a battle than a macabre dance—the Rex bucking and roaring as Qin Hong carved a crimson path down its spine. When finally thrown clear, he barely avoided spttering against a tree by slicing open an escape portal.
The Rex's charge became a stumbling, blood-drenched stagger. It colpsed before him, breaths growing bored. Qin Hong approached cautiously—only to nearly lose his head to a st-gasp snap of those bone-crushing jaws.
"Almost got me," he breathed, circling to survey his handiwork. The dinosaur's back was a ruined ndscape of flesh and exposed vertebrae.
As life faded from the creature's eyes, Qin Hong did something unexpected—he knelt and pced a hand on its massive brow, murmuring words of respect before granting a merciful end.
---
**The Upgraded Cabin**
A spatial rift deposited Qin Hong before a structure that bore little resembnce to the original hut. The new cabin was easily three times rger, with proper shingles and—bizarrely—cheerful green paint.
Inside, Guann lounged before a holographic screen. "Mission complete?"
Qin Hong gaped at the interior—real furniture, an actual kitchenette, even what appeared to be indoor plumbing. "You did all this yourself?"
Guann's eye twitched. "No, the forest fairies redecorated. Of course it was me!"
"Right, stupid question," Qin Hong ughed nervously. "So... what's next?"
