In the West, when rain falls, it is often the temper of a god—Zeus roaring with thunder, Poseidon thrashing the seas, the heavens split by wrath.
But in the East, the rain is not fury. It is remembrance. It falls when heaven recalls the pain of the earth.
There was once an age when the sky forgot. The sun blazed without rest, rivers sank into dust, and mountains cracked open like dry bone. Crops shriveled, animals died where they stood, and the cries of the people reached the heavens—only to vanish into silence.
Among the clouds, Yu Shi heard them. He was not a god of fire or vengeance, but one of quiet resolve. His home was the shifting mist between heaven and earth, where unfallen rain waited in slumber. Seeing the desolation below, he took up his staff of crystal dew and descended through the still air.
The mortals saw a shimmer forming above the horizon, a man stepping from light into sky. He walked barefoot across the clouds, and with each step, thunder followed like the echo of a heartbeat. "Who will remember you, if the heavens do not?" he whispered.
He lifted his staff. A single drop trembled on its tip, bright as a tear. The clouds shuddered. Then came the sound—first a murmur, then a roar—as rain poured forth, fierce and endless. Fields drank greedily, rivers leapt from their beds, and laughter rose where prayers had once been sobs.
But years passed, and gratitude faded. The people built walls to keep the floods at bay, cursed the storms that ruined their festivals, and mocked the old who still left offerings in the rain.
So Yu Shi turned away. He climbed back into the clouds and sealed his staff. The sky cleared; the earth began once more to crack. Only then did the people understand that mercy withheld is not cruelty—but lesson.
When at last they prayed again, their voices were humble, and the first drop of rain that answered fell soft as forgiveness.
To this day, when thunder rumbles in the east, the old ones say it is Yu Shi walking the skies again—measuring the hearts below, deciding whether they have remembered how to ask.