Chapter Text
Wu Xi.
She hasn’t seen her since, well. Since Beiyuan.
She wouldn’t say that they were close, not in the way she was with Beiyuan. And certainly not in the way Beiyuan was close to Wu Xi. Wu Xi and Beiyuan. Maybe, in different circumstances, those two would have been meant to be.
She recalls the way Wu Xi used to look at Beiyuan, the way the tips of her fingers lingered a bit too long on hers as their fingers brushed, how her eyes crinkled just the tiniest bit when Beiyuan spoke. She was always so composed, aloof and cold. Dismissive, with walls that kept practically everyone out. Yet, looking back, with how she gazed at her, her lips twisted in baffled adoration, it was different for Wu Xi, when it came to her best friend. In a way? Beiyuan was one of Wu Xi’s exceptions.
It just.. They just... made sense. It wasn't any of her business, it was just one of those things.
A lost foreign girl and a brilliant pampered heiress tangled in circumstances they had no choice in.
Wu Xi had been taken hostage all those years ago by Helian Pei (Helian Yi’s father) as insurance and leverage against his rival, a powerful, well-connected businessman and philanthropist, respected and feared by all back then. This was Wu Xi’s adopted father, whose name now eludes Zishu’s memory.
This man may have never been a threat to Helian Pei’s plans to begin with, but Helian Pei was a paranoid man, even more so than his own son. So, after a year of back and forth attacks and covert goings-on, due to unfortunate circumstances and rotten luck on his end, Helian Pei had Lurhal (that’s his name!) where he wanted him. Zishu wasn’t exactly sure what Helian Pei had on this man, but Lurhal would never be able to say no to anything and everything Helian Pei asked. To make matters worse, Helian Pei had demanded to “take care” of Wu Xi for a couple of years. It was a blatant kidnapping disguised as an act of friendship.
For an all-mystifying reason, Wu Xi hadn’t left the moment she turned 20. Zishu supposes that she had unfinished business here, or maybe she had gotten too used to life in this place. Maybe she has something planned, or-
She doesn’t know. In the ten years she’s known her, all the times they sparred together and went around with Beiyuan, Zishu was never always quite sure what went on in her mind.
Maybe Beiyuan knew, but it wasn’t as if she could ask her now, could she?
She stops her bike at the gate of a secluded, simple-yet-modern house just a couple of miles out from the city. She takes off her helmet, the gentle breeze combing through her hair. It was nice. She could understand why Wu Xi would love this place, seeing as she had all sorts of exotic plants and animals that prefer a more open and peaceful environment than the loud frenzy of the city.
There were no lights in the house, which made sense, as it was nearly three a.m. . Being the only house for miles, the place felt strangely eerie, and the thought that no one would hear her if she ever screamed did nothing to help with the situation.
She moves to knock, but she hesitates. This was a stupid idea. She knew it, and Wu Xi would agree. What, did she really have the face to walk in here and visit Wu Xi like nothing had happened? Did she really expect her to open the door, let her in, and have a simple chat over tea? As if everything with Beiyuan was just a fever dream and that Zishu hadn’t killed one of the people I she cared about most?
She killed her best friend. She murdered her best friend. I warned her, she justifies. So what? What of that warning? Did she even try? What kind of a human being could just calmly walk into a room and shoot their closest friend point-blank in the head and have the gall to indulge in self-justification? There was a choice- there’s always a choice.
I had chosen.
Zishu almost lurches in surprise as the gate suddenly swings opens- it’s Ashinlae.
“Zhou Zishu?”, he asks, disapproval coloring his tone. He frowns. “You’ve been pacing at our front gate for the last fifteen minutes.”
“It’s a free country.”, she huffs.
“I- I was just leaving.”
She looks toward the window briefly, for the very last time. For a second, she thinks she sees a familiar silhouette looking through the window.
She gets on her motorcycle and speeds away, even as Ashinlae calls from behind her.
What are you doing, Zishu?, the Beiyuan in her head asks.
I’m running away.
Why?
What does she mean, why? I’m done. I'm sorry.
Correction- She’s running away, like she has been this entire time. But now she’s done running away from the consequences, done with the “greater good”. She’s a dead girl walking, but in truth, this is the most alive she’s been in years. She’s been so lucky, and all it took for her to realize that was for everything to come crashing and burning in a ruinous shipwreck of her own making.
She started this, now she would end it herself.
She hadn’t really needed to see Wu Xi, she had just been looking for forgiveness closure in all the wrong places.
It was an irrational urge. Zishu didn’t do irrational. Until now, apparently
Maybe she just missed her best friend so much. She needed familiarity, a comforting expression, afternoon tea and rationality with one of the few people she treasured most in this world. It was a short list, and everyone was gone-
-Her mind flashes to Han Ying.-
Almost, she corrects.
Maybe she’s cursed. Everyone she’s ever loved and cared for has just been slipping from her fingers in the last years. Maybe this is her fate.
She rises from the chair she had been contemplating on, peeking out the window for the 20th time in the last 10 mins to make sure that no one had followed her.
She hadn’t dared come back to her apartment, she knew that he or his guards would be there waiting for her by the time she came back. This was a safe house that she had secretly purchased a five years ago. It was always better to have a place to run to that no one had knowledge of.
When she had left her apartment tonight, the supposed ache that should be present when a person says goodbye to a place they have resided in for the last decade wasn’t there. It was a façade, and she felt no loss leaving it as it was.
All Helian Yi and his lackeys would see at her place was the rundown furniture, the fridge that only contained assorted bottles of cheap beer and half-eaten take out, and her bedroom that she had taken initiative to empty the day after Han Ying had shown up at her door. A bed stripped of its sheets, an empty closet that only contained her work clothes, and all the papers, records, and photographs shredded and burned.
She eyed the book that she had taken from that night, unable to find it in herself to destroy it.
/Pictures of her with Jiuxiao, Uncle and Aunt Qin, Beiyuan & Wu Xi. She, Jiuxiao, and their Sect brothers and sisters smiling brightly at the camera. These she kept in a small box./
Everything else that was essential was where she needed it to be.
It was a small abode, about as big as a cheap hotel room, complete with a single twin-sized bed, a generic closet, and a small bathroom. She takes a breath, opening the closet and moving the clothes on the rack to the side. She feels for a small wooden panel that she pulls. The closet had a false wall where she stored her firearms, the Baiyi sword, and other essential items. She reaches for a small wooden box in the hidden nook, the clinking of its metal contents reassuring her that it was still there.
The nails. They’d found it together. She and Wu Xi.
7 thick copper nails, each imbued with a certain amount of poison, thrust into the seven orifices of the body. For three years, its victim is condemned to a vegetative state. They are unable to move, seemingly comatose- yet in truth, they are very much alive and well aware of their surroundings as their senses are taken one by one. Three years of torture and agony, only ending in death. These were the Nails of Seven Torments.
She’d found a way, she’d told Han Ying, a way to mitigate and alter the effect somehow. She’d found this loophole years ago, when she had been looking into old cultivation and medical tomes + scriptures from the old manor with Wu Xi. Her mindset had been 'How can I make the human body suffer so much, that no one would dare betray or leave Helian Yi?'. Both she and Wu Xi has been at their wit’s end when they had found an old, almost unreadable scroll detailing the specifics of a punishment called “The Nails of Seven Torments”.
There was no name for the author, which had been unfortunate at the time, Zishu and Wu Xi were so thankful, they had joked about offering incense for this long-dead person. (Now, Zishu wanted nothing more than to curse them).
It was the perfect punishment. Once taken, there was no going back.
There is only a shadow with no trace. You can only come in, but never leave. All-knowing and ever-present. [1]
She herself has said that, hadn’t she? You can only come in, but never leave. No one leaves because leaving is a fate worse than death.
Nevertheless, there have been a good number who have left them.
/Such as Uncle Bi/
She still remembered the peace and acceptance in his eyes, despite being fated to suffer this hell. He was tired. I am tired. She hadn’t understood then, when she asked, “Why?”.
What was so bad about this life that you would rather endure a three autumns of excruciating torment?
I am tired, Zishu.
At that time she had been in denial, too consumed by her own pride and ambition to see the truth in his words.
Now, as she polishes the seven nails, she thinks of how her past self would stare at her in horror.
Why?
How could you condemn yourself to a fate like this?!
An ominous grin stretches involuntarily across her face. She’d answer her with the same words that Uncle Bi had said I am so tired.
I am so tired is ambiguous and subject to scrutiny, but these four words resonate with everything within her at this moment.
The author had also detailed that another way to administer the nails. This method would not render you confined to a bed, and you would still have half of your martial ability. Instead of taking all the nails at once, put one nail every 3 months. The end would still be the same. Death in three years. This was the method Zishu had chosen.
She’s a coward, isn’t she?
She didn’t want to take it the hard way, like her comrades have done so. She couldn’t end it right here, right now. She wanted to use the last three years of her life to live before meeting punishment in the netherworld.
A-jie, do you have a bucket list?
Pfft, what’s that nonsense?
It’s a list of all the things you want to make sure to experience or accomplish before you die. Cool, right??
What would I need that for?
Don’t be such a killjoy! ... I have a bucketlist.
...
Jie, let’s travel the world! I want to see all sorts of cities, and try these new things! I’ll be happy as long as you’re with me!
Hmmm. Someday.
---
In the empty apartment, there was a letter. Helian Yi picked it up, scanning it, the words on the page making his expression turn dark.
It's done. I’ve taken the nails. I’m a dead already. You can’t stop me. Have Duan Pengju replace me. He’s been itching for the promotion. May you find success in all your endeavors.