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Zhou Zishu’s fingers wrap around the hilt of White Cloth, unsheathing it slight to admire its form and shape while his thoughts become more and more clouded. What could have prepared him to feel this amount of despair again? Was it the years he spent watching those around him crumble and pass beneath the grips of power? Was it the reminder that came stumbling through his door during the Chinese New Year? Was it being called back into Prince Jin’s palace? Stepping into the dragon’s lair to be burned and charred by memories unwanted? Was it the tenderness his soulmate shared with him against a bronze mirror, only days prior?
His sword has never felt more toxic between his fingers, the poison licking at his fingertips like a carcinogenic oil. Zishu can taste the grief on his tongue and notices the silent trembling inching up his arms, through his muscles to his clenched jaw. The pain of losing someone has never been easy, and it would never get easier. Zishu had seen people fall in and out of his life, all while clinging to some intangible force of power. Who needed power anyways? What use did it have and why did people kill and die for it?
Power was one thing, a force that had a manipulative power. But Zishu found himself discovering a terrifying force: vengeance. The nails are already pried from his body, but the pain of forcing the scraps of metal and iron from his chest still couldn’t dull the itch of vengeance in his chest. The raging fear, anger, pain, and sadness are sitting in his throat, building into a hard lump.
Today is the day the Heroes Conference was to be held, where those who enacted such injustice would pander to one another and celebrate the passing of his soulmate. How could it be worth it? How could any of this be worth the life of the man he cared for the most? Nothing is worth removing him from the world. Wen Kexing, Zhen Yan, his shidi. His soulmate.
Zishu can’t tell if it is the tears brimming his eyes that blur his vision, or if it is the rage that boils under his skin. A dry swallow gives him no reprieve as he shakily sheaths White Cloth again. Staring down to the inscriptions, Zishu’s eyes blink away the first set of hot tears down the frame of his cheeks. Master would be more than disappointed in the unjust death of his shidi. No one would have defended Wen Kexing more than his master. His master knew right from wrong, just, and unjust conduct.
Ye Baiyi’s words linger through Zishu’s mind like an open sore, throbbing across his skull and leading Zishu to walk straight to the door. He didn’t care for a disguise, didn’t even care to fix his hair. He let the rage, let the pain, let the sadness permeate through his chest as his breathing became laboured. Zishu’s hands grip along the door as he goes to rip them open.
He stops.
He turns to look directly at the white hairpin resting on the mantle of his desk.
Zishu could not bear to take it. He couldn’t bear to stain it with the blood of his enemies as he fought tooth and nail to get Wen Kexing the vengeance he’d always wanted. The vengeance Zishu has also discovered he wanted. This fight was not one he would play unfairly, and it isn’t one he would give in to. Zishu knew he was going to take Zhao Jing and everyone along with him. He was going to participate in Wen Kexing’s honour, as the Four Seasons Manor Lord. He was going to channel this pain, this anger, this sadness as a force to propel him into the hands of the cruel god who took his soulmate from him too soon. No, it wasn’t any god who took him away…
Zishu was going to take his fate back into his own hands, bending it to his will and allowing himself to leave this world in a way that suited him best: on the hilt of another’s blade. Zishu is not afraid of death. Knowing that his death was imminent for many years provided him a new zest for life and gave him a peaceful life for many months. The cruelest game fate played on him was giving him a second chance at redemption, a life that suddenly became worth living.
Having another to spend his days with, seeing another person who cared for him unconditionally was unlike any other feeling Zishu had experienced. The warm glee and love that radiated from Wen Kexing in the beginning of their relationship had been clouded by shadows of doubt, deceit, and caution. Oh, how foolish Zishu had been to allow his shidi to weasel his way into every aspect of his life.
No. Zishu didn’t regret a single moment of it.
Many would regret putting so much time and effort into a relationship that would be cut too short, but Zishu couldn’t imagine a better circumstance. Wen Kexing came into his life at the most perfect time. Zishu had removed himself from every restraint in life, cutting most of his ties with the Window of Heaven and exploring the world as a free man. Wen Kexing’s arrival into his life was everything he could have hoped for, looking back. Someone who would challenge his way of thinking, give him a reason to live, and give him a reason to love again. Wen Kexing helped Zhou Zishu love life and living in general. But it wasn’t just life, but love for others around him. Chengling, Xiang, even Weining, and Han Ying come to mind as those Zishu loves and had loved. I can not even deny the love I once had for Prince Jin.
Zishu’s life was altered, changed, and grown from all the experiences Wen Kexing provided for him. Had he not met his shidi again, he imagines his life would not be like it is now. He knew he would be buried deep in the ground, feeling that loneliness clawing at his soul and begging him to open his eyes to those around him.
Now, Zishu felt loneliness, but how could it be compared at all? Zishu learned what it means to love, and how good it could be to care for someone so unconditionally, without asking for more than a drink in the moonlight. Nothing could compare. And nothing would ever compare.
Zishu steps out from the doorway and into the hall. Light pierces through the paper-thin walls as he takes back his life again, rid of all remorse and filled with only determination to finish what had been started. To give one last thing to his shidi. Vengeance.