Work Text:
In his first life, he died unjustly at the hands of his sworn lord.
In his second life, he was a flying creature whose wings were broken early.
In his third, fourth, fifth, and sixth lives, he swam and ran and crawled but never escaped a tragic fate.
In his seventh life he was born without a name. Death came again, and he welcomed it as a friend and closed his eyes in peace.
When he opened them again, all he could see was gold.
“Alert the Jade Emperor! War God is awake!” Silence exploded into the drum of footsteps and slamming doors.
“My lord…?”
He turned his head. A thin, nervous lad hovered at the bedside, hands twisting into sleek robes, worry creasing his pointed face.
Wu Xi cleared his throat.
“Hua Jia, I’m back.”
---------------------
The return of the Heavenly General from his trial in the mortal world was hailed with rejoicing and celebration across the heavens. On the tenth day after War God’s awakening, the Jade Emperor held a banquet more lavish and grand than any in centuries. None were turned away – from the highest immortals to the lowliest sprite, every citizen of the heavenly realms was welcomed at the Palace gates.
The last god to arrive was dressed shabbily in blue, his bearing proud and his face peerlessly fair. Because he arrived alone, and late, many heads turned when he entered and took his place at the lowest and most remote seat in the hall.
“Ah - ah!”
Wu Xi looked up at the exclamation. Hua Jia was on his feet, staring rigidly across the room.
“You - ” he began, but before another word left his mouth the little attendant had already transformed into his creature form and skittered away.
The water immortal on Wu Xi’s left sniffed contemptuously. “Unruly. That sable of yours has gotten worse and worse in the centuries you have been gone.”
“So much has,” sighed the deity at his side. “Never mind the lawlessness of little fairies. Even the demon realm is far bolder than before you left, War God. Every day the incursions grow more cruel. The lower realm was razed entirely fifty years ago.”
The water immortal nodded. “A pity, a pity. Of course those days of enduring the insult is over now – the General has returned, and will lead the heavenly armies to glorious victory against the demon invaders once more. Isn’t that right, War God?”
Wu Xi murmured assent absently. In the far corner of the banquet hall, the blue-robed deity dangled the sable by the scruff of his neck, teasing him languidly. Wu Xi watched the obedient droop of Hua Jia, the deity’s lazy smile, the curve of his eyes.
“Who is the War God watching so intently – eh?” The water immortal followed Wu Xi’s gaze. “Oh, him. They let just any trash in today.”
“Who is he?” Wu Xi asked. His mouth was dry. He clenched his fists; his palms were damp.
“He’s nobody. A little stone deity who only broke through a hundred years ago. Far below the honor of your attention, War God. But about the demon invasion, your grace’s strategy - ”
Wu Xi poured a cup of wine and turned the full intensity of his gaze on the water immortal, who coughed a few times and fell silent.
“It’s a celebration,” Wu Xi said, voice clear and implacable. “I drink this cup in honor of your true heart of loyalty.” A round of toasting neatly silenced the irritating chatter. Somehow Wu Xi knew that he once would have simply told them all to stop speaking. Blunt, blundering. That was him. The toast was not. Cleverness had been grafted onto him, an elegant branch on a plain, stout trunk. But he had no memory of the grafting.
Wu Xi leaned back and stared across the hall. My sable likes him, he thought. My sable hasn’t liked anyone before. I’ll invite him to visit. He should accept a friendly invitation.
He doesn’t look well-off. He should accept a position in my palace if I offer him one.
He should stay.
---------------------
Late in the night, Wu Xi retrieved his attendant and incidentally made the acquaintance of the stone deity. With stiff composure, he extended an invitation to dine. Three seconds later, he crumbled and blurted out a subsequent offer for the stone deity to stay indefinitely. He hung his head immediately, blushing.
Because he was staring at his feet, he missed the crooked smile and only heard the words. They were flawlessly polite, infuriatingly self-effacing, and unnecessarily vague.
They distilled to yes.
---------------------
The stone deity called himself Jing Qi. Wu Xi felt a jolt of surprise at that name; he thought of his own seven lives in the mortal world, and wondered. But Jing Qi offered no details about his background and Wu Xi did not pry.
The stone deity’s writing was impeccable and his mind quick. Wu Xi gave him a post as an adjutant. He quickly learned that day-to-day mundanities were far below the stone deity’s abilities. Jing Qi never seemed to open a book, but his knowledge was vast and deep on almost any conceivable topic, from military strategy to poisons.This was a somewhat unavoidable finding. Despite the difference in their cultivation and status, the self-styled Seventh Lord was neither shy nor retiring and given the slightest opening would pontificate freely for hours.
Wu Xi did not find this habit of his adjutant offensive. On the contrary, since childhood he had always listened patiently and with great seriousness to anyone who could teach him something new, no matter if they were a lofty immortal or a lily sprite by a pond. But he also found a strange and inexplicable comfort in listening to Jing Qi. Even when the lessons were obscure or fanciful, even when they offended his sense of basic morality, they filled him with warmth he did not understand.
“Have we met somewhere before?” he asked one day. Jing Qi looked up from where he lay sprawled on a low couch, one hand stroking the sable curled on his chest. His hair and robes were rumpled from an impromptu nap.
“How could we have met?” Although his voice was rough from sleep, his reply was instant and offered with the curl of a smile. “War God is above 10,000 and below one. The Lord Seventh has been a useless rock by the River of Forgetfulness until only one hundred years ago. How should we two meet, Heavenly General?”
Wu Xi ignored the gentle twist of mocking and considered the question carefully. “I have forgotten much,” he said slowly. “They tell me I was a hostage in the Demon Realm in my youth. I don’t remember anything before returning home. I don’t remember the crime I committed to be cast into the mortal world. We could have met during those times.”
“Yes, your grace’s crime against the skies. The rebellion that caused War God to suffer seven ill-fated lives in the mortal world. What have they told you of this crime?”
Wu Xi recognized the evasion but let it pass. “The Jade Emperor told me I made a mistake. He told me it was in the past. That’s all he would say. Stone Deity, do you know what I did?”
Jing Qi smiled vaguely. “Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Everything has a price, Heavenly General. What the Jade Emperor does not speak of, others will guard. I am going to teach you two tricks. One is coercion -”
“ ‘ – and one is enticement’,” Wu Xi heard himself say. The words welled up from a dark place in the back of his mind. For the first time, he saw shock on Jing Qi’s face - clear and unmistakable for all that it smoothed away in seconds. “ ‘The so-called coercion,’ ” Wu Xi continued, “ ‘is to grasp their weakness and bind them down. It is even easier to entice with promises of gain. Under this sky, there never exists a person who cannot be exploited…‘ ”
Silence fell. Jing Qi met Wu Xi’s gaze calmly, his eyes a closed door.
What are you to me?
When did I forget you?
Why does my heart hurt when I hear your voice?
Wu Xi put away the questions he knew would go unanswered. He pressed his fingers to his temples. “The past is the past. It is far away. Today, the heavenly court sent emissaries demanding to know when I will mobilize the armies. The field reports of the demonic provocations in the lower realms are clear. We have both just cause and military strength.”
“Yet the general’s heart is troubled,” Jing Qi said softly. “And day by day he finds reason to delay. My Lord War God, I think you will find that the past is closer than you think. To solve the knot in your heart, you should find the person who holds your secrets and bargain them back. In the meantime, shall we visit the lower realms to see the devastation caused by demons in person?”
---------------------
They slipped away in disguise, in the middle of the night, telling no one of their tour.
The lower realm was sealed shut. The War God, a prodigy unmatched in the heavens with cultivation above all except for the Jade Emperor himself, broke the seal before daylight.
Inside, they found pristine landscapes untouched by war.
---------------------
“They lied,” Wu Xi said numbly. He stood with Jing Qi at a riverside in the mortal realm, water rushing loud, far away from any listening ears. The sun beat down, and sweat trickled from his temple down his neck. “They faked reports of attacks to justify a war. If they had known I would go to the lower realm in person, would they….”
Desperate, pleading, he searched Jing Qi’s face for no. No , they wouldn’t have burned the land and slaughtered deities to create evidence of demonic aggression. No , they didn’t betray him. No , the heavens weren’t as senseless, brutal, and cruel as the mortal world in which he had suffered through seven mortal lives.
“Yes,” Jing Qi answered. His voice was kind. His eyes were blank. “Yes. In heaven or on earth, whether for wealth, beauty, power, or pleasure, they will always act for gain. There is nothing they dare not do, no matter how despicable. Why concoct a war? Why has any empire ever gone to war? For gain. Only for gain. The demon realm has wealth that comes more easily by conquest than by treaty. The lower realm of the heavens is weak, so it is easy to use. Anyone who is weak will be used. Fortunately for your grace, War God is even stronger than he knows. No one could use him before his banishment, and no one can use him now.”
“How!” Wu Xi cried, anguished. “Unless an edict is issued, the war will go forward. Even without a general they still have armies!”
“Then force the officials to plead for an edict.”
“How is this possible?”
“Enticement,” Jing Qi answered. He reached up to wipe his brow; his sleeve fell down. Wu Xi stared at the slender, finely-formed wrist. “And coercion.”
The stone deity reached into his collar and pulled out a pearl on a chain. It shone in the sunlight with unearthly brilliance.
“What is it?” Wu Xi whispered. Jing Qi stroked the pearl with the tip of his finger. A shiver ran down Wu Xi’s spine.
“Your past. I told you it was closer than you thought.”
“You said I should find that person and bargain with them.” Wu Xi shivered again; he felt cold one second, and burning with heat the next. “Jing Qi, what is it that you want?”
Jing Qi slipped the chain from his neck and pressed the glowing pearl into Wu Xi’s palm.
“You’ve already given it to me,” he said, voice drifting away as Wu Xi’s world exploded into chaos of sound and light.
Memories tumbled past him, loud and urgent. He recalled his youth as a hostage in the demon realm. The demon court was strange and dangerous in ways he was not prepared to counter. He kept to himself in his secluded manor. When he did speak, he often caused great offense with his blunt manner. Later he was less lonely – then not lonely at all – and he learned, he became more wise, because he had ( someone ), a shadowy person in blue robes whose face he could not see…
The memories jumped to his return to the heavenly realm centuries later. He did not return alone. His entourage traveled back with him, of course, but it seemed larger somehow. Wu Xi searched the ranks of attendants in the memory for ( someone ) new faces but saw only blurs.
He was not idle in his newly conferred role as War God, neither in his official duties nor behind the scenes. He knew enough cynicism by now to trust no one and plan for all contingencies. At the urging of ( someone ) his trusted strategists he sent out spies to collect the secrets and desires of all the heavenly court officials, laying the groundwork for enticement. For coercion. It was not his way, he knew this in his bones. It was underhanded and sly. And it would save him where direct action would fail.
Or it would have, if a spy had not been caught. Suspicious, the Jade Emperor demanded that War God attack the Demon Realm immediately or face banishment. Wu Xi did not deploy the wealth of blackmail and bribery fodder that he had amassed. He did not dare. Because they had taken ( someone more important than anything in any realm, beautiful and kind and cruel and infuriating and his, only his, his beloved - ) a hostage of their own .
Without hesitation, the Heavenly General chose to fall.
They tore apart his memories before he was banished. Flinging them away to disperse forever, leaving only the useful parts intact. The powers of the heavenly realm wanted their War God to return from his trials chastened. Purged of insubordinate ideas. Obedient.
He returned chastened and purged.
But in his life Wu Xi would only ever be obedient to ( his someone, as a husband should be ) his ideals. And now the stone deity had returned his memories. He remembered all ( most, the least-important parts ) of it. The hard-earned secrets with which he would threaten and cajole until the gain for inaction was greater to the corrupt heavenly court than the gain of war. An edict would be issued, and Wu Xi would be free.
He opened his eyes. Jing Qi was staring at him. Although he stood motionlessly, Wu Xi felt the illusion of rustling wings, as if the stone deity could take flight at any moment and soar away to a place Wu Xi could not see.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and clasped Jing Qi’s hands in his own.
“I had a teacher,” he said solemnly. “A very wise teacher who sometimes said foolish things. I remember he told me this proverb: ‘Husband and wife are like birds from the same forest, yet they ought to part ways and fly separately in the face of imminent calamity.’ Don’t you think that’s a foolish saying, Jing Qi?”
He didn’t miss the twitch of Jing Qi’s jaw. He stepped closer, pulling Jing Qi forward at the same time until they were nearly touching. Jing Qi looked up. His breath was warm on Wu Xi’s skin. His mouth was a thin, stubborn line.
“I am a warrior, not a strategist,” Wu Xi continued, equally stubborn. “But I am not stupid, and my teacher taught me patiently for hundreds of years. I can make conjectures and draw scenarios. May I make a conjecture now? My memories were originally torn apart, and yet I have them. Someone collected them, repaired them, and sealed them away until I could return. I can guess the cost of this task. Most would consider it impossible. But perhaps, just perhaps - if a very old and crafty god were to give up all his cultivation. If he were to open his spiritual veins and pour all his qi into the seal. If he were to choose to become a waste, something lower than mortal, nothing better than a rock by a river - perhaps that could undo what the Jade Emperor himself decreed. And perhaps that foolish stone would blame himself for a War God’s suffering. Perhaps he would make a foolish choice to return all the memories but one. The one memory that he thought would make the War God weak.”
Jing Qi was struggling in his grasp now. Wu Xi let him go.
When he spoke, the name flowed to his lips as naturally as breathing.
“Beiyuan. How could I ever forget you? Even when you’re gone, the empty spaces are all in the shape of you.”
Jing Beiyuan’s mouth opened slightly. For perhaps the first time in millenia, the slyest, keenest tongue of the Demon Realm was rendered dumb. Wu Xi laughed, light-headed with joy. The river babbled agreement and the sun shone down brightly. In a few light strides he had Jing Beiyuan folded tightly in his arms.
“You fly away all you like,” Wu Xi mumbled into Jing Qi’s hair. “I’ll always fly after you.”