at midnight without moon [FIC]
Aug. 17th, 2020 12:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
notturnito"I'm sorry. It's not your fault."
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Xiao Xingchen awakes, eyes wide, breathing, and alive.
When Xiao Xingchen opens his eyes again, it is to a time where he is eighteen years old once more, just recently descending his shifu’s mountain, just about to enter the nighthunt competition that had helped him make a mark in the cultivation world in previous life. To say that it’s a blessing—Xiao Xingchen would rather not. How laughable it is, to give second chances to someone who once chose to discard his own life. And now, to expect him to return to the time when he had been so naively trusting of the world?
He doesn’t even know why he’s returned again. Whether there is a price to pay for it, or not. Whether this is dictated by Heavens, or not.
He ends up not going to the nighthunt competition. Something of that scale, it is only useful to Xiao Xingchen for its competition prize—as a rogue cultivator, especially—and to attract the top of cultivation world’s attention. In previous lifetime, Xiao Xingchen had wanted to save the world. This momentum was needed to move the four families to his cause.
What did it give him? In the end, he achieved nothing. That dream of saving the world is just what it is—a dream. A simpleton’s dream.
So, yes, he doesn’t go.
Xiao Xingchen spends some time traveling around by foot, familiarizing himself with places he’s known and seen. Occasionally he helps with exorcisms—he’s still a cultivator, after all—cleansing houses and whatnot. With his sight returned, it helps him assure that he kills the right creatures, and not villagers-turned-living corpses.
The nighthunt comes and goes. In a rare day Xiao Xingchen stops by an inn, he learns of the nighthunt’s victors’ names from the fervent mouth-to-mouth discussion. They talk about the possibilities of those people being invited by the four families—especially Lanling Jin—as guest students, as though they were the ones in that nighthunt instead.
There is no Song Zichen in their mention.
It is… odd.
But Xiao Xingchen has returned to the past. Curtly summed: things must have changed ever since that day he’s returned, and not everything will be as exactly the same as the past.
Or… Song Zichen has remembered their previous lives as well, and is trying to avoid Xiao Xingchen.
Well, or maybe, not everything will be as exactly the same as the past.
(He remembers a sword clashing with Shuanghua, and remembers how a certain sword’s dents were unique only to Fuxue. He remembers Xue Yang laughing and the words that spilled out afterwards, which were of the most horrifying truth in Xiao Xingchen’s entire life.
He does not want to remember.)
Xiao Xingchen doesn’t think much of it—or rather, he tries not to. Song Zichen is a good cultivator—a wonderful person. Given what Xiao Xingchen has known of his former shixiong and shijie’s fates, the ones who also went down the mountains, it would not be surprising if Xiao Xingchen’s fate would be similar. It would do Song Zichen no good to mingle with someone with a luck as bad as him; worse comes to worst, Xiao Xingchen would end up dragging him down with himself.
It is the truth Xiao Xingchen tries to convince himself everyday.
The creature slinks before him, black and inked, smog-like. When it speaks, there are as though three voices speaking at once.
“That is your wish?”
With the souls pulsing gently by his chest, Fuxue slung with Shuanghua on his back, Song Lan gazes back at the creature.
He silently nods.
Two eyelids emerge from the shadowy figure, blinking open to reveal twin eyes. They roll at different points, not stopping even as the creature starts again. “There will be a huge price. It will be yours to pay, of course.” A semblance of tongue flicks out, to lick its idea of a paw. “After all, patching up a soul needs another soul.”
I am willing.
The creature forms a tail, which swishes languidly and with ease. “Very well.” It understands Song Lan without even having to hear his voice. “Your heart says the truth, so I would do it for you.”
Were Song Lan alive, he would heave a breath of relief.
Instead, he reaches into the folds of his robes, and—
At first, they seemed as though merely byproducts of tiredness, or figments of imagination, or maybe both—as nebulous as they are. Suddenly there are things Xiao Xingchen feels familiar around, yet he knows as unfamiliar. There are odd memories that Xiao Xingchen did not experience in both lifetimes. Of those moments, Xiao Xingchen manages to come up only with one explanation for it—one he dismisses immediately as soon as the thought forms. But then more come, of both seemingly-displaced memories and familiarity, that the initial conjecture seems to be infallible instead.
Somehow, he has Song Zichen’s memories.
Not all of them, of course, he still has his own memories, still knows which one is whose even while experiencing it firsthand. But sometimes, when his mind wanders, he will be reliving Song Zichen’s memories as the owner himself.
Xiao Xingchen does not know what to feel about that.
He is already a listless wanderer, idling his days around without exact purpose. In some days, he is a ghost, something trapped in a cycle of terrible, dark memories. Now he can’t decide what to do with this knowledge, with Song Zichen. One day he misses Song Zichen so much he spends until dawn thinking about the next steps that involve him—going to Baixue Temple, asking him to build a sect together. One day he wants nothing to do with that man—he has said it himself, at the remains of Baixue Temple. From now on, we won't need to meet again. But then another part of Xiao Xingchen will insist that Xiao Xingchen should still find him, to stay with him, to repay a debt of gratitude. Even if Song Lan’s arrival had ended tragic at Yi City, he still tried to find Xiao Xingchen again.
But all those are negligible. Of utmost importance, in truth, has always been about Song Zichen's fate in this lifetime.
What has happened to him…?
….
Ah, Xiao Xingchen feels it himself—he has fallen into madness.
This cannot continue. At best, he would eventually find a path he can be content with, whether it involves chasing his past or not. At worst, his cultivation would fall into a certain path of qi deviation in the future, what with his many plaguing heart demons.
When it comes down to it, Xiao Xingchen is after all just a mortal. The affairs of the heart, his own heart, are simply too many, too overwhelming, and too hurtful. Especially when they are about Song Zichen.
It’s truly lonely… It’s too lonely without you, Zichen.
The cold wind blows, the swans have gone flying to the south. And a certain weary, white-robed rogue cultivator gazes at the high moon in the night sky. Perhaps at the same time, someone will lift up his head to look at that same moon, by chance of fate.
“Xingchen… I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”
And then,
The wheels of fate suddenly fall into motion.
It begins like this:
Xiao Xingchen has suddenly wandered into a bustling marketplace during the day. The area seems prosperous, with good fengshui. It is unlikely that he can find an exorcism job for him here. Though, Xiao Xingchen thinks as he eyes the fresh peaches on the stall, it wouldn't hurt to stop by.
He hears her first before he sees her.
A series of tappings on the ground, and then a stumble, and—
Someone crashes onto Xiao Xingchen's waist. "Ah! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I can't see. I'm sorry!"
It is a familiar voice.
At the same time Xiao Xingchen looks down, a young girl's face looks up to him as well. Her eyes are milky white and without pupils. On her clutch, is a bamboo pole at the height of her shoulders.
Xiao Xingchen's mouth moves without knowing first.
"A-Qing…?"
Any previous expression in the girl's face has been wiped out, replaced with a blatant look of surprise.
Xiao Xingchen realizes his mistake when A-Qing squints her eyes in suspicion. “Does gege know me?” she asks.
“No,” Xiao Xingchen finally says, after a beat of hesitation. “I don’t know you.”
He knows that A-Qing doesn’t believe him—she is too smart for his mere words. “From your tone, gege sounds like you’re trying to hide that you know me.”
“We haven’t met before. How would I know you?” While he insists, Xiao Xingchen slowly backs away from her. Next to him is a bun stall, the owner having just opened up his bamboo steamer which reveals fresh buns lining neatly in it. Xiao Xingchen plucks out one, shoving it into A-Qing’s outstretched hands seeking to grasp his robes. There. He tosses a coin to the protesting stall-owner, who catches it in amazement. “Maiden, I will be taking my leave. Over there is a less-crowded street. Please be more careful next time.”
With his lightwork skills, he escapes to a nearby alley.
After criss-crossing the alleys nearby the main market street, Xiao Xingchen finally comes to a stop, leaning against the sidewall of a local’s house. It was a close call; he is not proficient in lying, even now, and he wants to avoid doing so against A-Qing, even at the expense of raising suspicion against him. It’s… an unexpected reunion. As though fate has delivered A-Qing directly to his doorstep.
He recalls her face, looking up to him, and his chest burns from a sudden, aching sadness.
Someone suddenly makes their way to the mouth of the alley, and when Xiao Xingchen looks—
… It’s A-Qing.
He is about to turn away when A-Qing suddenly calls out, her voice innocent.
“Eh? Is someone here?”
Seeing her tapping her way forward with her bamboo pole, Xiao Xingchen has one thought flashing in his mind: This girl can really act. It’s very admirable.
“I can hear you, I warn you. If you don’t say anything, I will shout! You scum thinking of bullying a young, defenseless blind girl!”
Xiao Xingchen feels helpless. This girl is the one clearly bullying him, yet the situation has become like this….
And that is how Xiao Xingchen has been roped to buy her lunch.
While A-Qing eats her way through three buns, Xiao Xingchen carefully explains that no, he is not following her nor planning to bully her. Please don’t call him gege anymore, she should call him daozhang instead. Satisfied by her questioning, A-Qing turns quiet as she wolfs down her last bao—its filling being roasted pork.
Xiao Xingchen finds something out of his own end as well from this.
A-Qing, just as smart as the person he has known from his previous lifetime, doesn’t seem to remember him.
Xiao Xingchen does not know what to feel about that, uneasy as he is.
“Daozhang still hasn’t told me though,” A-Qing says, after finishing her lunch. “How does daozhang know me?”
She still hasn’t let that go? Xiao Xingchen doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I don’t know you.”
“Then how does daozhang know my name?”
Xiao Xingchen pauses at that. That slip of mouth…. “Nothing, truly. You just reminded me of someone, so unconsciously….”
“Someone? Who looks like me? And is also blind like me?”
“She is. Why the curiosity, maiden?”
A-Qing is practically sparkling. “A blind person can be a cultivator too?”
They can. Blindness in most humans leads to more reliance on their other senses, thus making them more aware—even seeming to compensate for their lack of sight. However, being a cultivator means developing those senses beyond normal human means. After Xiao Xingchen gave his eyes to Song Lan, such was the case for himself. In other cases he’s heard before, some blind cultivators could even “see” the qi of living beings.
Before Xiao Xingchen can properly answer, a middle-aged man appears at the mouth of their little alleyway. Hurried and haggard, he makes way immediately after seeing both of them, cursing up a storm with his eyes glued on A-Qing.
“Give me back my money!”
The words jog Xiao Xingchen’s memories.
The man raises his hand, and Xiao Xingchen moves faster than he can think. He catches the swing before it can hit A-Qing.
A sudden realization hits him, that the scene playing in front of his eyes is the exact reenactment of how he met A-Qing, in previous life.
He wants to laugh, suddenly, to laugh and cry. An indescribable feeling fills his chest, one at a time, nearly making him miss the man’s outrage. “What are you doing? Don’t meddle in others’ business— or, you’re this bitch’s accomplice?! Huh?!”
Calmly, Xiao Xingchen moves A-Qing behind him by her shoulder shielding her. Even as A-Qing struggles in his hold, he doesn’t let go. “Sir, please calm down for a moment. You’re being impolite to a young girl.”
“Young girl or not, she’s a thief!” With his free hand, he points a finger towards Xiao Xingchen’s face. “If you protect this bitch, then you’re also a thief! Dammit!”
He won’t be able to do anything so long Xiao Xingchen is still holding his hand. With that in mind, Xiao Xingchen turns around, catching A-Qing peeking at them. Meeting his gaze, she jerks in surprise.
“You hear him,” Xiao Xingchen says, softly. “Please give the man his money back.”
Perhaps due to embarrassment from being caught, and also from an unwillingness to escalate the situation, she hands it over obediently. Xiao Xingchen lets go of the man’s hand to let him count his money, and while the man does so, A-Qing refuses to look back at Xiao Xingchen.
The man leaves them be, not too long after, and only after that Xiao Xingchen turns to look at A-Qing.
He couldn’t tolerate A-Qing’s behavior in previous lifetime. But that initial judgement was driven from his own privilege at that time. At Xiao Xingchen’s current level of cultivation, hunger is not something that is able to reach him. When he traveled with A-Qing before, he thinks… he’s managed to understand the world a little better. Something like hunger and living on the streets like non-cultivators—Xiao Xingchen could only imagine A-Qing’s previous living conditions. It is circumstances that led her to lie and steal, and hopefully a good guidance and a way out would be able to remedy that.
“What?” A-Qing suddenly asks.
Blinking out of his stupor, and suddenly meeting A-Qing’s eyes, Xiao Xingchen realizes himself that he has stayed silent for a while. He smiles.
“What now?”
Xiao Xingchen shakes his head, still smiling. “I don’t have that much money in that pouch, but you can have it.” She stole his pouch when he was preoccupied with dealing with that man. Sure enough, she steps back in alarm after he mentioned it. “Maiden, hear me out—don’t steal again. Though pretending to be blind has its advantages, I would suggest for you to stop pretending, lest karma makes its way.”
A-Qing’s voice trembles when she replies, defiant. “I don’t believe in karma.”
Xiao Xingchen laughs a bit. “I do, though. For example, if nobody was here, since you have stolen from the man, he could’ve settled the matter in a way much worse than this.”
“Well it’s his own fault! He pinched my butt and it hurt so much, so what’s wrong with me taking some of his money?”
Aggravated, A-Qing keeps cursing at that man with her typical vocabulary. Xiao Xingchen knows her too well now—she is most likely trying to justify her action even when she clearly wants to steal from him in the first place. That part about harassing her, though… still, that is a despicable action. Xiao Xingchen remembers that his grip earlier will most likely bruise for two weeks—and is pleased.
Sweetly, Xiao Xingchen is reminded of the past.
He knows now that he can ask A-Qing to follow him, just to care for her and keep her safe in front of his eyes. But he fears so much, so, so much that by staying around her, he will drag her into the same path they both have walked… that same tragic ending….
Xiao Xingchen can’t risk it.
“Well then,” he smiles, hoping that it won’t look sad to her, hoping that the tremble in his voice can be mistaken as something else. “I’ve taken up your time. Spend wisely the money in that pouch, don’t steal and pretend again.”
Before he can hesitate, he speaks out the words in his heart-
“Farewell, A-Qing.”
Take care. This daozhang wishes you well… and that you have a happy future. It is for the best. Really. It really is for the best.
He leaves without a second glance, heart heavy. This is where they will diverge paths, and a new future will bloom for A-Qing. Just as he chose not to attend that nighthunt competition, and just as he continuously chooses not to seek out Song Zichen.
A-Qing needs guidance, and a way out. But he can't risk being the person to give that to her.
Xiao Xingchen is getting closer now to the marketplace he first wandered into. In a while, A-Qing will not be able to find him among the thick crowd.
“DAOZHANG!”
Several peddlers and stall-owners nearby crane their necks to look behind him, but Xiao Xingchen stands still, his feet rooted to the ground just as his heart is tugged still by the shout.
He hears her first, her bamboo pole, then the stomps of her feet—
A-Qing crashes onto his back. “Daozhang!”
Something lodges inside Xiao Xingchen’s throat, as well as his chest and the back of his eyes.
“… Is there something else…?” He asks with difficulty, he’s not even sure A-Qing hears him.
A-Qing’s clutch on the back of his robes tightens. “Please let me follow you, daozhang!”
Xiao Xingchen feels as though unable to breathe.
“You…,” he says, as though speaking with cotton in his mouth.
“Please let me follow you, daozhang!”
Something thaws inside Xiao Xingchen’s chest, spreading warmth yet also deep-set bitterness. His eyelids feel hot with oncoming tears—he tries to blink them away.
“Alright,” Xiao Xingchen’s voice breaks. “Alright.”
The scene of the bustling market overlaps with a scene from a previous lifetime. His own memory. Of a brave girl, clutching to his robes throughout the way, quick-witted and so young. The same girl asking the same thing of him from a lifetime back.
He can’t change this. But Xiao Xingchen promises, he promises that he will take care of A-Qing—even at the cost of his own life, this time.
The rest is merely falling back into old habits.
Xiao Xingchen has traveled with A-Qing for some time, after all, and by now, her habits are as well-known to him as he knows the back of his hand. He makes sure to always have sweets by him, to always buy the sweetest fruits at the market were there no sugary treats. He lets A-Qing follow him during exorcisms—she’s never deterred by it anyway.
Instead, she perks up with interest as he utters his spells. She peeks from behind his shoulders as he scrawls seal scripts on his talismans. When she asks about the characters, Xiao Xingchen takes it upon himself to teach her how to read and write.
She pretends to be blind, still, while they are on the road and whenever she tags along during Xiao Xingchen’s exorcism. It has become her source of amusement; usually by helping Xiao Xingchen sticking talismans where he asks her to, while keeping his gaze and head straight ahead, as though truly blind. The villagers don’t know any better, and they are mystified when the girl they thought as blind could identify so accurately.
Whenever A-Qing breaks character after they’ve gotten far enough from the villagers, bursting into cheerful and free laughter, the tautness within Xiao Xingchen unravels. It’s as though the heaviness he carries dissipates at the sound, and is carried by the wind.
While Xiao Xingchen himself? Xiao Xingchen is no longer alone.
(But Song Zichen’s memories always catch him unprepared.
He remembers—
As Song Zichen he remembers a blind girl by the street, playing rashly. He remembers guiding her to a lesser crowded street to keep her safe.
He remembers—as Song Zichen he had died.
Then he was revived, his limbs no longer his own, furthermore his thoughts. A smidge of his previous humanity might have survived in the furthest back of his mind. But whatever Xue Yang had willed him, it would then snuff out that smidge, and Song Zichen was back one more to being an extension of that man’s will.
For quite a while he had lived that way, subject to the wills of that person.
And then the group of cultivators from Gusu came, along with Hanguang-jun and the incarnated Yiling Patriarch.
Before they set Song Zichen free, he saw what had become of that blind girl he had met—a restless ghost, blood streaming from her empty sockets and tongue-less mouth.)
“A-Qing, would you like to learn how to fight?”
If somewhere in the world, Xue Yang is still alive….
A-Qing jumps to her feet in excitement, her eyes shining.
“When do we start? Daozhang, daozhang, when do we start?!”
And so A-Qing learns.
She is stubborn, which means that she soaks whatever she finds interesting at a frightening speed and is repelled by everything she finds the opposite. But whenever she throws away her brush in frustration, she will always pick it back up, though not without her own share of grumbles. Xiao Xingchen appreciates that about her.
For her next birthday, Xiao Xingchen carves her a sword from peach tree wood. She never lets the blade out her sight.
“Aah!” Again, A-Qing throws her brush away. It rolls and stops by the root of the tree, whose shade they’ve taken refuge at. “Daozhang, this stroke order is so complicated I could die! I’m done with this one!” She kicks the scroll she uses to write and fails, stumbling. “Aaah! Daozhang, teach me something else today! Or better—tell me a story. Exorcism stories!”
Xiao Xingchen stares at her in amusement. “The last time you asked me to tell you stories, you complained that I didn’t tell them with ‘WAAH’ or ‘woosh.’”
A-Qing rolls on the bed of grass, sniffing in contempt. “Because daozhang didn’t tell them with ‘WAAH’ or ‘woosh,’ they got boring.” She then rolls to her stomach, chin leaning on her palms. “Are all cultivators like this? Daozhang’s teacher as well?”
Ah.
“Shifu’s teachings are vast and her words profound.” Xiao Xingchen considers his words. “She has lived beyond mortal years—she is terribly wise.”
A-Qing busies her hands by plucking a tall grass blade from the ground. “Then she is very powerful?”
“Shifu is very skilled,” Xiao Xingchen agrees, the bubble of pride softly emerging within him. “Even the blind could see again under her care.”
At this, A-Qing perks up, eyes shining in admiration. “Then where is she now?”
Xiao Xingchen pauses.
“She remains secluded in the mountain,” Xiao Xingchen says. “For her cultivation, and for her students.”
“Then she never goes down? From there?”
Xiao Xingchen smiles, looking down at A-Qing. She returns his gaze with a questioning stare, resting one side of her face on her arm. He answers no to her question.
A-Qing scrunches her face. “Why so?”
Why so indeed?
Xiao Xingchen remembers this time a memory of his own past, not too long before he decided to leave his shifu. He was so young, too young, perhaps, when the seeds of his original intention began to be planted in his mind. First when he’d questioned what lies beyond the mountain, second when he’d began to ponder the stories of human history his senior martial siblings told him, and the third and fourth and many more until he had asked his shifu himself why she would never go down the mountain again, while terror and the evils of the world still plague and roam about.
Her answer had been brief, and to him at that time, was unsatisfying.
“This immortal is tired, Little Xingchen,” she smiles. “Too tired.”
Now, having experienced both the rise and fall of one’s fate, Xiao Xinghen can somewhat understand that. This tiredness that washes over his bones and clings to him; from trying to get up and fix the world yet having the world knock him back over and over again.
Looking back at it, perhaps her seclusion stems from her unwillingness to be hurt for trying, again and again.
Xiao Xingchen cannot help but smile again. His hand comes to rest upon A-Qing’s head.
“She does not understand, nor wish to understand the chaotic world.”
For a while, A-Qing is silent, her eyebrows furrowed in contemplation.
“I don’t get it,” she admits, and Xiao Xingchen laughs, removing his hand from her head.
“You don’t have to understand that. You’re still very young. What is important for you now is to learn what I have taught you.”
As expected, A-Qing groans and rolls over, arms and legs splayed apart—playing dead. After a while, her voice drifts in the air, clear and unusually quiet.
“Then why does daozhang leave?” She asks again. “Has daozhang understood the world, then?”
Xiao Xingchen stills.
Why did he leave?
In truth, he went down the mountain without understanding the world. He only hoped that he could save it, and give people good lives.
Back then, only Song Zichen was foolish enough to stand by his side.
From him, Xiao Xingchen learned more of the world—the facets of it. He reformed some aspects of his small goals in pursuit of his grandest one.
And now, there is no Song Zichen.
“Why indeed?” Xiao Xingchen wonders, his voice too faint to be picked up by the wind, and only loud enough for A-Qing’s ears.
Then again, it’s good that A-Qing asks this to Xiao Xingchen of the present, and not that Xiao Xingchen who found out he had just returned to a time where he was still hopeful and senselessly naive. That Xiao Xingchen had nothing. Not even a nebulous answer to that question. That Xiao Xingchen was terribly angry at the world and himself.
Now though….
Xiao Xingchen catches A-Qing’s gaze. He smiles.
“You have crossed the four oceans and withstood the four winds. You have traveled through all four corners of the Divine Land. I know what you seek, traveler. Come closer, let me listen to the deepest voice of your heart. For you have traveled until you are but rot and decay, and the gods shall reward you for it.”
Spring comes again. A-Qing and him pass by a place of beautiful lakes whereupon lotus scatter along the surface. It’s a place Song Zichen as the undead once traversed by—A-Qing’s healing soul and Xiao Xingchen’s broken one kept close in his folds.
“Daozhang, daozhang!” A-Qing skips in excitement, bamboo pole in one hand. “Are we going to look for ghosts here?”
“No,” Xiao Xingchen answers idly, to A-Qing’s whoops. “We are just passing by. This is already Yunmeng territory.”
“What does that mean?”
A breeze sweeps past, carrying with it the scent of blossoms and sun. A-Qing balances herself on one foot as Xiao Xingchen walks beside her. “The Yunmeng territory belongs to the Jiang clan,” he explains. “They are quick in resolving cases in their territory, and their sect leader is formidable. In the future, if A-Qing wishes, you can become a guest disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. Aplenty can be learned from them.”
Wei Wuxian, after all, was from Yunmeng Jiang.
A-Qing stops in her tracks.
Xiao Xingchen blinks and turns to her puzzlement. “A-Qing…?” He is cut off when A-Qing slams onto his waist, clinging, her wooden sword digging into his thigh.
“No!” Her clutch on him tightens. “I only want to be taught by daozhang!”
A pause. Then sweetness spreads through Xiao Xingchen’s chest, warm and almost unbearable—from how long he has gone without. Oh, you.
Xiao Xingchen’s hand comes to rest on A-Qing’s head, out of habit. The gentle tug of smile on his lips as well. He speaks again, trying to persuade her. “This poor daozhang is only a rogue cultivator. If A-Qing wishes to improve in her cultivation, joining a sect ensures a faster process. Besides that, we haven’t done the teacher-student ceremony, so A-Qing is not—”
“No!” A-Qing wails, obstinately refusing. She buries her face further into Xiao Xingchen’s robes. “A teacher for a day is a parent for a lifetime. A-Qing has decided to follow daozhang and daozhang has taught A-Qing. Didn’t daozhang teach A-Qing of filial piety? Daozhang has always been my teacher! What ceremony? Should A-Qing start calling daozhang shifu then? Then A-Qing will start. Shifu! Shifu! Shifu!”
With each ‘shifu’ A-Qing calls him, Xiao Xingchen feels his chest swelling from the heavy force of his feelings, whereas there was cavity once. How sweet it is. He doesn't even know if he deserves it. He doesn’t deserve it.
He wonders if this is what his own shifu felt, when her first student calls her teacher.
“Oh, you,” Xiao Xingchen says so fondly. “This shifu will never drive his students away. Aren’t you supposed to be smarter than this?”
Slowly, A-Qing unburies her face and looks up to him, her eyes and nose red. “Shifu,” she calls out again.
Xiao Xingchen smiles at her.
“Well, we should get a tea set, then. To commence the tea ceremony—and to officially become teacher and students.”
Long time ago, the Divine Land was still wrought in chaos. The Age of Gods had not passed in its entirety, as both cataclysm and remains of old divinity roamed the world and reshaped it in their pathways. The record of their ancestors’ fight against the Qiongqi is one of the many proofs of it.
By this time, everyone had known the rest of the story. Wen Mao emerged victorious against the beast. He became the progenitor of bloodline-based sects, followed by Lan An and the rest of his peers. The foundation Wen Mao had laid gave rise to the currents clans—the Jin clan, the Lan clan, Jiang clan, Nie clan.
Of Wen Mao’s peers, only Baoshan-sanren was the exception to that.
“I could never understand,” Xiao Xingchen says. “All resources under the sky should be distributed fairly by everyone who deserves it. There are no rules dictated by Heavens, as for which sort of individual shall be allowed to cultivate.”
By his side, Song Zichen remains silent. Xiao Xingchen is not bothered by that. In the time that they have known each other, Xiao Xingchen knows the meaning of his silence—his agreement to Xiao Xingchen’s words.
When he speaks, his words are careful, thoughtful. “A hero sets example to his peers and to the people. It’s common for a man to want to protect his blood relatives. Elder Wen might just want to protect his bloodline and ancestry.”
Xiao Xingchen shakes his head. “I personally do not agree with it. Blood ties are important, but that shouldn’t be set precedence to the path of cultivation. I understand there is a reason behind doing so—it is a bliss to be able to draw your family closer to the Dao through cultivation. But that path is not meant for everyone. And Song-daozhang knows what happens to families who wield too much power in history.”
The Sunshot Campaign is the perfect example for that.
Song Zichen, again, does not reply immediately; pondering over Xiao Xingchen’s words first.
“True,” he acknowledges, and Xiao Xingchen feels his own tenseness ebb away. “A guest disciple, no matter how gifted nor how fitting they are to the sect’s cultivation method, won’t get a second look from the clan’s elders.”
“Song-daozhang understands,” Xiao Xingchen smiles.
Then Song Zichen turns to him so suddenly, catching him off-guard, as his cool grey eyes search into Xiao Xingchen’s own. He looks more… warm, this way, as the distant light of sunset soften his jade-like profile, catching in his eyes. Very handsome, a thought fleets past Xiao Xingchen’s mind.
“Then… when Xiao-daozhang takes in a student, you will only focus on their roots and their desire for cultivation.”
Faced with such a gaze, Xiao Xingchen’s cheeks and neck cannot help but heat up. “I—this Xiao Xingchen is not so capable yet…,” he lets out a small, shy chuckle, feeling breathless. “But that would be ideal, yes. Though having a good heart will also suffice, and having more of a desire to seek the Dao than merely cultivating. That is the way done by my shifu as well.”
Song Zichen looks contemplative again. To Xiao Xingchen’s relief and disappointment both, he is not looking at Xiao Xingchen this time. He adds, almost as though an afterthought. “Baixue Temple does not enforce its successor to be of the same bloodline as well… and I am of the same mind as Xiao-daozhang.”
Xiao Xingchen smiles at that, giddy at heart. He looks straight ahead.
“This Xiao Xingchen is glad to hear that.”
Especially when it is said by Song Zichen—he truly is glad.
“Xingchen, build a sect with me.”
“Yes—yes. Zichen, I would love to.”
Seasons change, slowly yet surely, signing the passage of time.
Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing wander aplenty. Though A-Qing doesn’t know, Xiao Xingchen lets his feet traverse the path of Song Zichen’s memories. He familiarizes himself with the rows of loquat trees by Gusu’s riverside; the rocky paths of Unclean Realm. With A-Qing, he watches the rainfall in Jiangnan, the city soft and misty in its afterwake.
There is no news, still, of him.
After Song Zichen became a fierce corpse, those were the places he used to pass by, his journey even lonelier than Xiao Xingchen's. In a way, Xiao Xingchen wants to know what he had seen, what he had experienced. A lifetime as fierce corpse is terribly long. Especially when he did it for Xiao Xingchen as well….
And Xiao Xingchen too, no longer only has A-Qing by his side. He isn't as famous in the cultivation world as he was in previous lifetime, but he is quite known by the common people. While A-Qing improves, in both cultivation and swordfighting, Xiao Xingchen gains more students—all orphaned, they do not have anywhere else to go.
At some point, it will not do to have all of them following in his footsteps as vagabond. He decides to settle in a place by a valley, where river flows and sunset settles by an arching hilltop, before the sun gets swallowed by the night. It is—it was Zichen's choice of place, when they used to travel together, for where they would build their sect later.
Xiao Xingchen has never tried his hands on infrastructure before. On this matter, they received help from the villagers nearby, as repayment for Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing's exorcism on the curse that plagued the village.
When the construction is finished, Xiao Xingchen and his students fill the place with the bustle of life—sword practice, cultivation learning, and most frequently, of laughter. Every time he tracks their progress—especially A-Qing's—and finds improvement, he feels as though his heart beats along their happiness. Every time he sends them out on a mission and they come back in the bright flush of pride, he thinks he can't smile any bigger.
They call him a-thousand-year-old immortal daozhang. He receives it from the times he keeps spacing out and gazing into distance, as the memories of Song Zichen sweetly beckon, calling him away from reality.
Zichen, he thinks. You would have loved them.
From A-Qing, who becomes their Da-shijie, even though she is the youngest of all of them; Wang Zihan, a village orphan who followed Xiao Xingchen when she no longer had anywhere to go; Gou Yunjie, who tried to steal from them, to buy medicine for her friend; You Ruibin, whom the medicine was for; and Cai Lanyun, who nearly became a human cauldron to a demonic cultivator. (“And our money bank, Hua Wenrou-jiejie, who’s from a huge merchant family-” “Hush, A-Qing.”)
The proof of his and Song Zichen’s dream lies within them all—his students. Xiao Xingchen only wishes that Song Zichen could have been here to see it too.
In his previous lifetime, Xiao Xingchen had learned many things from him. Of dreams, the world, and even of goodbyes. But even then, though farewells were exchanged, hearts were hardened, and people were left behind, not to be seen again—
Song Zichen had never truly left his life.
He has left his touch in Xiao Xingchen’s soul; his hopes, his dreams, his despair— all carried by Xiao Xingchen into this lifetime. Xiao Xingchen would know. These memories that cause him so much heartache and pain, that at times he loathes having to live with them. But in the end, as the wounds and the cracks in his soul slowly scab and conjoin again, he grasps onto those memories, wildly, reviewing them with the thirst of a wanderer who had just tasted his first sip of water in a long, long time.
Having wandered for so long yet never hearing anything about him, these memories are all that is left—they are the only proof of Song Zichen’s existence, in Xiao Xingchen’s life.
Thinking of it, perhaps it is natural that it does not come as surprise at all to Xiao Xingchen, when he realizes the true nature of his feelings toward Song Zichen.
He does not even realize it himself—when exactly does it start. When they have foregone calling each other with titles, and simply decide to use Zichen and Xingchen instead. When Song Zichen’s gentle words seem to weigh more to him in comparison to all others; when the initially casual touches they exchange suddenly become lingering, heavy and cloying; and when he raises his head and meets Song Zichen’s gaze, he realizes that he never wants to look away.
Xiao Xingchen doubts that Song Zichen knows either—the start of it. This. Everything they have between them that seems unspeakable, yet unbearable if not spoken.
Song Zichen’s respect to him as a cultivator is mutually reciprocated, though sometimes Xiao Xingchen suspects his teacher’s reputation gives him an air of refinement and a sense of being untouchable that he does not deserve. In the early period when they had just begun to know each other, Song Zichen used to be very respectful of their boundaries. Now, they have passed all seasons together. They have seen the facets of each other that might remain hidden were they not together all the time. Xiao Xingchen likes it, knowing more of Zichen. He only wishes to see more of Song Zichen’s imperfections, his capacity of goodness, his everything.
At some point, Song Zichen has reverted back to being mindful of their boundaries, to Xiao Xingchen’s displeasure. Even worse, he seems to treat him even more carefully than before—which would make the new, yet pleasant feeling within Xiao Xingchen’s chest flutter, if it isn’t accompanied by a sense that Song Zichen is treating him as though with one touch, he could shatter away.
Before he can corner Song Zichen about it, though, the man asks to speak with him first.
Song Zichen, pale-faced, reveals his intention to hunt separately from Xiao Xingchen from now on. Xiao Xingchen swallows back the thought of Xingchen, build a sect with me , and listens.
Song Zichen fumbles with his words and his explanation, nearly incoherent with each added word. By the time he is finished, he is beautifully red-faced, and is resolutely not looking at Xiao Xingchen's wide-eyed stare. The conclusion that Xiao Xingchen manages to gain is that Song Zichen is confessing that he has improper thoughts towards him, and the reason that they should separate is because Song Zichen is afraid to interfere with Xiao Xingchen's cultivation.
"To ascend, to become an immortal just as Baoshan-sanren, it means cutting off your mortal roots in the material world," Song Zichen tries to explain, and in another occasion, Xiao Xingchen might only feel fondness at this. Now, he is only astonished. "Xingchen, I… do not wish to drag you down to the world when you can ascend instead."
Xiao Xingchen stares.
A dam of feelings suddenly bursts open within him, flooding him, urging him to take Song Zichen's hand before it is too late. So he does. That flooding feeling urges him to speak of the longing, the urge within him that reaches out to Song Zichen—as though a flower seeking the sun. So Xiao Xingchen speaks. He tells Song Zichen that, in fact, his feelings are just as mutual. In fact, Xiao Xingchen also wishes to be by Song Zichen's side, to hold him close, to be allowed to stay as long as Song Zichen wishes.
Now, it is Song Zichen's turn to look astonished. "We—but, do you…?" He is staring at Xiao Xingchen, wide-eyed. "As cultivators, with mortal desires…?"
Xiao Xingchen answers. "Ascension, becoming an immortal is all the very dream of cultivators.
"But, Song-daozhang… Zichen. I am very much a mortal." Xiao Xingchen approaches him, the distance between becoming lesser and lesser until both their knees are touching, and until their breaths intermingle. When Xiao Xingchen speaks again, his voice comes out low, as though a caress. "Just a mortal."
If Xiao Xingchen wished to ascend, then he would have stayed in the mountain. He wishes nothing more than being dragged to face the chaos of the world, and if it means being with Song Zichen facing it all.
"Song Zichen," Xiao Xingchen whispers. "May I kiss you?"
Song Zichen remains wide-eyed, though his breathing has sped up. He nods- nearly imperceptibly.
It comes naturally to Xiao Xingchen to slot his fingers by Song Zichen's jaw, on Song Zichen's nape, to let his thumb brush the skin under Song Zichen's eye.
Xiao Xingchen leans forward, meeting Song Zichen—and they have never gone back from that, ever since.
“You have crossed the four oceans and withstood the four winds. You have traveled through all four corners of the Divine Land. I know what you seek, traveler. Come closer, let me listen to the deepest voice of your heart. For you have traveled until you are but rot and decay, and the gods shall reward you for it.”
The Yueyang Chang clan is massacred.
After hearing of how they had died, Xiao Xingchen decides to take matters into his own hands. He pursues Xue Yang across the Divine Land, until their paths finally converge in the place where it had ended for Xiao Xingchen—Yi City.
He corners him at last.
“Let me guess,” Xue Yang grimly smirks. “Revenge?”
Xiao Xingchen lifts up Shuanghua abovehead, his mind driven into a white, pure country, and he sees a flash of fear in Xue Yang’s eyes.
“You don’t need to know,” Xiao Xingchen says, before he brings Shuanghua down. “All you need to do is die.”
He’s avenged Zichen.
The seasons come and go, the swans have gone flying south for winter.
Of Song Zichen's memories, only one remains that Xiao Xingchen does not dare touch. The one with a dark creature as ancient as the Divine Land itself, whereupon Xiao Xingchen knows he will find all the answers he has been seeking ever since returning back in time.
He knows not if he will ever be ready for that, to know the extent of Song Zichen's sacrifice and love for him.
The seasons come and go again, the autumn moon reflected in the valley's river ripples.
"Shifu, shifu! There is someone looking for you!"
Black robes, hair adorned with simple head crown. Song Zichen once pointed out how to differentiate the members of his Baixue Temple with other rogue cultivators who also wear black robes. First, the material of the clothes worn by the disciples of Baixue Temple tend to be thicker in comparison to other fabrics. It is to keep them warm during winter. Second, look at the shoes. For the same reason, the shoes worn by Baixue Temple's disciples tend to be thicker than other cultivators' shoes.
Another thing Xiao Xingchen manages to pinpoint by himself, from his observation of other Baixue Temple's disciples during one of his visits there, is the wintry disposition most of them carry, as though they bring with them the cold nature that surrounds the temple.
The young disciple in front of him has such characteristics of a disciple of Baixue Temple. But he is not Song Zichen.
Xiao Xingchen knows him, though, from a lifetime ago. The Great Master of Baixue Temple often calls this youngest disciple of them A-Shan , and praises him as one with natural divining talents. In the aftermath of Baixue Temple's massacre, they found his body by the Great Master's own body, face covered by the tangle of hair.
Hou Shan, Song Zichen's youngest disciple brother.
After so long not meeting anyone from Baixue Temple and now having one drop by his place, a speculation begins to form in Xiao Xingchen's mind.
Just as he thought, when Hou Shan catches sight of him, his eyes brighten. They exchange formal greetings, before Hou Shan immediately delves into his purpose of visit. Ah, this straightforwardness is also similar to Song Zichen.
"Sect Leader Xiao, if you would, please hold onto this item."
Motioning to A-Qing as reassurance, Xiao Xingchen turns to look at Hou Shan's outstretched palm. Upon it, is an item Xiao Xingchen recognizes at once. Song Zichen's token.
Xiao Xingchen does not understand the purpose, yet he still takes it from Hou Shan's palm. The token, upon being touched by him, begins to emit a silvery glow—just as what happened when Song Zichen touched it. An inkling begins to form then, furthermore when he sees Hou Shan's brightening eyes.
Xiao Xingchen's fist closes on the token, his heart beating a cascadic mess. "Would you explain what truly is the matter here?"
"Of course, Sect Leader Xiao."
The Baixue Temple, some time ago, falls into an uproar when the second direct disciple of the Great Master suddenly falls unconscious, unable to wake up even after many days pass. After rigorous checking, the Great Master declares that the disciple has suffered from damage upon his three hun and seven po, his ten souls . What remains a mystery is the reason for damage, as the disciple had been cultivating finely within the walls of Baixue Temple.
Through divination done by Hou Shan and an elder of the temple, they find out that the damage is done as a result of an action from this disciple's past life.
In an attempt to save someone else's soul, the disciple in his past life made a pact with a fallen deity. He would sacrifice bits of his own soul to be mended to that person's scattered soul, as though breakage of pottery melded with lacquer, therefore that person could heal and be able to reincarnate. In turn, the disciple shall live with damaged three hun and seven po, a life of the undead.
And he will remain that way, unless they manage to find the person whose soul is melded with this disciple's soul.
"My senior martial disciples have looked around for a long time, as well as this Hou Shan. Through divination, I lucked out and managed to arrive here and meet with Sect Leader Xiao. That token in Sect Leader Xiao's hand, has proved it all." Hou Shan points at Xiao Xingchen's hand, to which Xiao Xingchen looks down, to look at said token. "As a young disciple, we are all given a special token which will only recognize our soul mark. With my Er-shixiong's token recognizing Sect Leader Xiao, it can't be clearer than this—Sect Leader Xiao has my Er-shixiong's soul."
And with that, silence fills the dining hall, Hou Shan's words as though ringing in the air.
It all makes sense. Song Zichen's memories that Xiao Xingchen has—it is from having Song Zichen's own soul with him. It all makes sense now.
After the ensuing silence, Xiao Xingchen speaks first. "Song Zichen… will he be alright?" When he sees that Hou Shan looks at him in surprise, Xiao Xingchen presses. "Will he be able to heal?"
He feels his students’ stares boring onto him, in disbelief, in confusion. Xiao Xingchen only keeps his stare at Hou Shan, watching his reaction. He watches as Hou Shan finally regains his bearing after his surprise, possibly from Xiao Xingchen knowing who his Er-shixiong is, and Hou Shan nods.
"Yes, ah- a damage to the three hun and seven po can be alleviated as long as the other person carrying said their other part of soul remains by their side. My senior martial aunt has also been researching about how to reverse the damage… but as long as Sect Leader Xiao remains in our Baixue Temple until Song-shixiong wakes up…."
Xiao Xingchen agrees at once. "I will set off by tomorrow morning. Hou Shan needs not to worry."
The look of gratefulness in Hou Shan's face is nothing he deserves. For Song Zichen, of course… Xiao Xingchen would do anything. For the foolish Song Zichen, who sacrifices his own soul for this undeserving Xiao Xingchen—
This is after all, the love language they both share and understand well.
The land is barren.
Everything is lifeless as far as the eyes can see, with no crops, no animals, and no signs of human life in the land. The black clouds that converge abovehead roll turbulently across the sky, as wind sweeps against hair and clothes. Judging by how his sleeves billow restlessly along the wind, it must be quite strong.
Song Lan trudges on, hand hovering protectively over the pouches that contain A-Qing and Xiao Xingchen’s souls.
The passage of time moves on, and though he no longer keeps track of time, he notices the changing seasons along his journey. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. They do not affect him—as fierce corpse, he is not restricted by time, and no longer is restricted by normal conventions of the mortal world. He tries making use of it in the only way he knows best—by exorcising evil beings.
Roaming the world, he wanders to places. Gusu, with the row of loquat trees by the riverside. The Unclean Realm with its rocky paths. Yunmeng’s lake which reflects the limpid autumn moon. Jiangnan, with the rain that colors the city soft and misty. These were the places he wished he could visit with Xingchen, one day. And now “one day” is no more.
Song Lan thinks about that place he found by a valley, with flowing river and a hilltop with beautiful sunset. He disposes of that thought.
Ever since Yi City, Song Lan has thought of ways to revive Xiao Xingchen again. The only one that seems possible is going to Baoshan-sanren’s mountain, and asking for her help. But Song Lan no longer remembers the pathway to go back there. It is as though his memories in that mountain have dissipated into nothingness.
All he can do now is wait—for Xiao Xingchen to wake again, though he knows not when that is.
After a while, Song Lan notices something in afar. A rocky mountain. It is shaped oddly, obscured by the thick swirling clouds on the sky. When he approaches, he notices an opening by its side—gaping open as though a lion’s jaw. Above the opening are seal scripts, scrawled in bright red letters.
Somehow, the place beckons to him, to enter.
“Come closer.”
So Song Lan does. He enters the mountain.
It is where he meets the creature, as dark as the blackest ink, smog-like in its manners. It seems as though it is unable to get out from the mountain. Despite that, it still entices him with the sweetest, most compelling words.
“You have crossed the four oceans and withstood the four winds. You have traveled through all four corners of the Divine Land. I know what you seek, traveler. Come closer, let me listen to the deepest voice of your heart. For you have traveled until you are but rot and decay, and the gods shall reward you for it.
“Tell me,” it croons. “What is your wish? We shall be able to grant it. Of course, only if you did not lie.”
Song Lan’s wish? He has nothing to wish for himself. This resentment that fuels him will eventually dissipate, and he shall eventually return to the earth and to the great flow.
But, as for Xiao Xingchen….
The creature chuckles.
“That is your wish? Very well. We shall grant it for you.”
Something reaches into the depths of Song Lan—and he plunges into an all-encompassing darkness.
For a long time, Song Lan settles within the darkness.
He does not remember anything, he is only thought and soul and the soft pulse of living. A concept by the name of Song Lan. He had thought of going—but where would he go? All else is darkness. It will make no difference.
Song Lan remains still. There is nothing else to do.
But… there are things, though. Flashes—that perhaps mean something to Song Lan, or perhaps they mean nothing. Of a temple, a landscape of snow. Of gentle breeze, and a bright moon. Of an empty city.
Then of a youth—smiling at him, clad in white. The gentle moonlight glows on his skin, catching on the lashes of his eyes.
Who is he? Who might that be?
Of all flashes, Song Lan folds that image close to him, keeping it and stitching it close to the linings of his beings. He feels… that person might be important to him. Yes. He must be.
A light flickers in the distance, after so, so long.
Reluctance brushes within Song Lan, being accustomed to the dark for so long, it is rather frightening to see such brightness.
But then, Song Lan begins to move towards the light, until it gets brighter and brighter, until finally—
.
.
.
Song Lan awakes.
He takes a deep breath and frowns when he finds his body rather weak, his arms feeble. When he turns to look, he finds someone by his bedside, staring at him in a mixture of wonder and surprise.
“Song Zichen?” The person says—a man with fine features and clad in white. A pang of nostalgia suddenly burns inside Song Lan, catching him nearly off-guard. Bright moon, gentle breeze.
Do I know you…? He does not ask, he feels that he has already known the answer to that.
Instead, he opens his mouth, staring into the man’s gentle, brown eyes.
“I’m back.”
I’m home now. Thank you for waiting for me.
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