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The arts of the Longyuan Cabinet are many and varied, the notes intricate and puzzling.
In the days and weeks after his shifu goes up the mountain, after Wen Kexing went after him, after neither of them came back, Zhang Chengling practices his swift-moving steps until his body gives out, and deciphers the manuscripts Long Que bequeathed to him
This, too, is his legacy, even if the shorthand makes his eyes cross, even if he ends up falling asleep on the desk more nights than not.
Ye Baiyi comes by to see him a handful of times, more grey in his hair on each visit, and tells Zhang Chengling what his shifu and shishu have attempted, what the likely consequences will be for each of them. He doesn't tell Zhang Chengling that he's dying, that immortality is falling from him like melting snow off a peaked roof: he doesn't need to say that out loud. Instead Zhang Chengling cooks for them, very badly, imagining Wen Kexing scolding him the whole time. He lets Ye Baiyi slap his shoulder lightly and complain, and goes with him to a tea house and pays for the meal.
The next day, he has a headache from the wine they had shared, but he does his swift-moving steps while the sword immortal watches, and he deciphers more of the notebooks, and then, feeling greatly daring and not at all prepared, he attempts to repair one of the traps guarding Four Seasons Manor.
He is not prepared for his attempt to succeed: when the trap snaps shut suddenly, it nearly catches his fingers. Only Ye Baiyi's uncanny speed saves his hand.
Zhang Chengling looks at him, his hair more gray than black. This is the only remaining member of the family he chose after his family was killed, and he is dying.
He wants to burst into tears. He takes a deep breath, and bows.
"Thank you," he says instead, and wonders what his shifu would do, what his shifu or Gu Xiang or even Cao Weining would say. In the end, though, they aren't here, and he is.
"Thank you," he says again, and then he sets to work fixing the next trap in the row.