Work Text:
Child of the Mountain
Shuanghua remembered clear as day when he came to be.
He did not know then what waking up was—like rocks and mountains and rivers and all things born of the heaven and the earth, he existed without breathing, endured without hurting, witnessed without watching. Then he was waking up, responding to a name he did not know he had, hearing and seeing and feeling, experiencing the world with a refined sentience bestowed upon him and blending with his own—that of ores from deep within the earth that were smelted in man-made heat and forged into a sword. Like most others of his kind, silver was his blade, with patterns of frost carved on both faces, and he was filled with nought but the qi of the earth—until he was chosen to be wielded and his blade was turned into a crucible, tempered and imbued with the spiritual energy of his wielder, engendering life and form anew for what was once mere steel.
Before Shuanghua sat a child with legs bent into the lotus position, garbed in the yang colour reminiscent of both blistering ice and nascent flames, of the bright moon and the blinding snow, of a newborn soul. The youthful age was embedded in the features of the child: his raven hair was pulled into a simple bun, the gossamer-thin strands turning lighter when shone upon by the morning sun yet showing no signs of greying; his strong eyebrows and delicate lashes lay over his sun-kissed skin; his emerging jawline was still concealed by plump cheeks. Calloused were the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, but straight were the bones and flexible were the joints, never been broken nor worn down. With iron-hard muscles over his still broadening chest and shoulders, the boy was almost but not yet quite a man.
The deep, gentle gaze betrayed his age.
Willow leaf eyes that swept upwards opened and revealed obsidian orbs dusted with mica, like the night graced by Chang’e’s muted light. Folds were yet to flank them, yet they had the look of eyes that had seen but had not been worn down by the world, with an understanding and solemnity akin to those of a thousand-year spirit than of a mortal child of the mountain raised in seclusion.
At the sight of Shuanghua, the mountain child smiled, the upturn of his lips puffing up the peaches of his cheeks. It was juvenile and contagious, almost audible in the way the undisguised affection lit up the entirety of his small face.
Xiao Xingchen, introduced the boy of himself in a surprisingly sonorous voice, and the wielder bowed deep before the image he himself conjured of his own sword. His eyes seemed to twinkle even more, just like his namesake—
Xiao Xingchen: the dust of stars at dawn. A beacon of the night, beautiful and ephemeral. A distant guiding light burning brightly in the sky.
—yet Shuanghua could not help but catch the seemingly perpetual melancholic sheen over the honest, soulful gaze.
Xiao Xingchen was not born into the discipleship of his esteemed master. He was found by older disciples, by accident or by fate, by the forest at the foot of the Celestial Mountain, starving and speaking no known language, without a name, let alone even a mere estimation of his age. Remnants remained of his memories of the society past the wards that protected the sacred mountain of his master, and, in direct violation of the teachings— let oneself hold nothing and be held by nothing— he longed to know whatever secrets they might hold about who and what and why he was.
Shuanghua learned of it not through words spoken or thought. Once he had become a part and extension of his wielder, they shared a bond and sentience as though they were one being once and still, like the body and the soul; and the yin and the yang; and the hun and the po; and the sun and the day; and the moon and the night; and the heaven and the earth.
Like a fierce contraction at his core, Shuanghua felt in his being Xiao Xingchen’s joy at the thought of finally seeing the world beyond the mountain and Xiao Xingchen’s grief when he bid farewell to the only home and family he had known all his life. Leaving was as hard as entering was not, for there was no turning back.
Severing ties to one’s home meant ridding oneself of their greatest attachments, which would allow them to embrace non-attachment before there could be attachment.
Shuanghua saw what Xiao Xingchen saw before the descent and haunted him in recurring dreams: a remote mountain covered in clouds and fog, wood and clay huts that seemed to float above misty ponds forming a courtyard inside caves, temples and halls carved and embedded against the rock face of the mountain itself.
Shuanghua heard what Xiao Xingchen heard before the descent and haunted him in recurring dreams: the ringing of the last words Xiao Xingchen heard from his master—that once he descended to join mortal society, he must never look back and all his feelings should cease to be about himself and must be about others and the world.
At night—and only at night—when the moon hid behind the clouds and let its light shine through the filter of the veil of the sky, the seemingly perpetual melancholic sheen would disappear, albeit along with the obsidian orbs dusted with mica, swallowed by shadows into the guise of gaunt, hollowed orbits.
But, Shuanghua thought, the dark is never empty.
Mounds After Mounds of Qi and Spirits and Bones
One common belief of people that followed the whims and guidance of the Great River was that life of humanity and nature sprung on the banks of lakes and rivers. Mountains came after, much much later, yet there were as many superstitions by the roaring bodies of water as there were by the foot, along the slope, and on top of the rooted mounds of earth.
Ever-changing were the forests, for when winds blew and rains came down trees could bow and bend and take a fall. But what was even more ever-changing were forests that grew on and around old mountains, for the trees would bow and bend and sometimes even walk on their own. The floor earth itself of mountain forests would plant the souls wandering and lost and willing to become one with it, indiscriminate of whether they were flora or fauna or human, giving birth to more trees that would bow and bend and sometimes even walk on their own.
No forests covered the Burial Mounds; they were bare heaps of earth that were neither natural hills nor mountains. True to its name, they were mounds after mounds after mounds of burial sites formed by accident or by fate, and not in peace nor respect, all uncontrolled qi and savage spirits and dirtied white bones.
People were right to believe and follow to never call one’s full name on a mountain, for that could bring about a blessing or a curse, acknowledging that not every creature with soul and qi meant to do good, that they had reasonings different from those in the mortal plane. It was even more important to respect when entering the Burial Mounds, a place too crowded with ghosts but always hungry for more. Abandoned on the outskirts of Yiling, the area was fed plenty of darkness but not plenty of light, filling it with putrid air that breathed and disembodied voices that whispered and unseen forces that touched, their purposes and goals as whimsical as the world and as unpredictable as the Dao itself.
After all, Shuanghua thought, the dark is never empty.
A Sword Unwielded
Human words could only mock humans—beings that chose to be shallow in spite of all the sentience bestowed upon them by the Dao. Names were of utmost importance and they gave them not only to and for themselves but to and for those things they cherished as well. But names did not mean anything to ores or to hammered steel or even to a sentient sword; it could, after all, understand beyond words.
And so, even when Suibian was named as such, it understood that the whimsical decision was not out of neglect or disregard.
Suibian was like any blade—two sharp edges and three points, excellent in and of itself—and became even more than that when its wielder shared and bestowed upon it his own sentience. Born of the earth deep beneath the surface, Suibian could penetrate and reach through dimensions where its human wielder could not, drawing and delivering energies according to the commands or requests of its wielder in their endeavour to purify beings and restore some semblance of balance to the Dao.
When the gold that once filled the core and flowed through the meridians of its wielder was wiped clean, given up both by choice and not by choice, it was left without anyone to realise its true power, sitting unused and fated to rust and wither without making a mark in the world, people looking at it as though it seemingly waiting for desiccation back into the earth whence it came. But Suibian understood that its blade was left unwielded not out of neglect nor disregard; that it simply became too heavy for someone that was deprived of the power that once conjured it, that was necessary for it to be used for its purpose, to its full potential.
When its wielder died, consumed by what became of his way of survival and, later, of life, Suibian shut itself close with a force and conviction and sentience uncommon even for a sword of a once-powerful cultivator, never allowing anyone to wield it, no matter how worthy they were deemed by its peers. It was almost as though it knew its wielder still existed somewhere and would one day come back.
Because, Shuanghua thought, all those born of the earth knew that the dark is never empty.
Almost But Not Yet Quite a Man
They heard many terrible tales about the Yiling Patriarch long before they met him, and those stories and naysayers could never be more wrong.
Wei Wuxian was alive not simply because of the darkness that flowed through his meridians and pooled in his core, but also in spite of it.
The Burial Mounds were true to the legends surrounding them, not much different from the Celestial Mountain in the shallowest sense: leaving was as hard as entering was not, for there was no turning back. Xiao Xingchen faced his master’s trials, and Wei Wuxian braved the tribulations of his tormentors.
Wei Wuxian’s almond-shaped eyes had a swarthy gaze about them, the look of a person who had seen and been worn down by the world, but with an understanding and empathy of someone who had no intention to unleash horrors into the world, who was merely saying that this is what I am now—what I live with; what I overcame.
People looked at him as though they had forgotten or were too afraid to admit the fact that there was darkness in every soul.
There was darkness in every soul, and to subdue that darkness was the essence of cultivation.
After all, darkness was part of what made up, and what made one, a human being. It was present the moment a second heartbeat was heard from the pulse of a mother, long before the child was born into the vicious world. Hidden deep within, it only waited to be woken, to take over the soul where it was nurtured and join with the darkness prowling outside, on the edges of its vessel, tugging at it and always eager to seep through the fissures.
Living had always been a constant struggle against that darkness within and without. Wei Wuxian knew this all too well. It was beyond the hunger that growled inside him, the freezing ground and cold wind that bit at his skin, the intrusive thoughts that crept up on him. In the Burial Mounds, with his body essentially an empty vessel without his golden lifeforce, the darkness was far more sinister and insidious, threatening to overflow and break through at the faintest doubt, at slightest temptation. The colours he wore seemingly became a mirror of his soul, a reminder that he was marred by mud, by ink, by blood.
Just like his martial uncle, Wei Wuxian was not born into the discipleship of Baoshan Sanren, and unlike his martial uncle, he grew up in mortal society, long after his mother left the embrace of the Celestial Mountain.
There were nights he wished he was born or raised there, away from the world he knew and came to love and hate and love. He told his martial uncle as much, with a soft gaze and solemn smile.
At that moment, Shuanghua saw clearly beyond his austere and worn-down facade his age that was not much older than Xiao Xingchen: he was still a boy, almost but not yet quite a man.
Yet Wei Wuxian stood like an ancient tree, the single flora in the Burial Mounds devoid of forests—with aspirations that reached for the sky and roots that remained grounded because he needed to, regardless of whether or not he wanted to. He could feed the barren heaps of soil the darkness they craved or the light they needed, and he chose to do both whether one was right and the other was wrong because that was what needed to be done.
His fall came about for refusing to choose between the forking paths, blinded by the light he turned his back to but kept in his heart; and consumed by those that dwelled in the darkness, those that he used to summon and command.
That night, Xiao Xingchen tasted what the society he longed for had to offer, but he did not descend the mountain with bleeding palms and knees and feet to give up after witnessing it simply for what it was.
After all, light cast shadows, and the dark was never empty.
Mettle of Shattered Jade
Like most that came to lay siege to the Burial Mounds and subdue the Yiling Patriarch, Lan Wangji held himself as what was expected of someone born into tradition, privilege, and duty.
Only that the mettle of polished jade he wore was cracked from all directions, seemingly ready to shatter on its own, reduced to a brittle stone no different from delicate rice paper that would tear apart upon the slightest touch.
Amidst the bloodbath, when he failed Wei Wuxian, letting him stand all alone against the world and watching him be consumed to his death, Lan Wangji broke in the wake of the futility of his own making, his mettle of jade shattering into tiny little pieces. It left him not merely a shadow of his former self, but someone even weaker; someone who had not come far from when he was but a child. The title bequeathed upon him when he was still but a wise head on young shoulders heavily weighed him down, impeding his growth and evolution, dirty, stagnant water waiting to burst and gush down from the top of the mountains, from behind the clouds.
He was naive and lost without knowing that he was then, and he was still naive and lost now.
But at least he knew now that what lay underneath the pristine robes of the Lan of Gusu and the thick layers of the scarred and callused skin that he wore, was an illness worse than rotting blood and flesh, rooted deep into his core. Beneath iron-hard bones and muscles and behind an imposing, powerful figure overflowing with seemingly endless streams of gold was nothing but the weak, puny soul of a man who could not stand by his own beliefs yet basked in the majestic glory he did not deserve.
Wei Wuxian used to tell everyone that Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun was what humans ought to be, but the shattered jade was but a facade.
You were what humans ought to be, Shuanghua heard Lan Wangji whisper among broken bones and mangled corpses, and I let you disappear into the dark.
But Lord Wielder of Bichen, Shuanghua thought, the dark is never empty.
Relief Until It Was Not
Shuanghua sat by the bedside of Xiao Xingchen where the adepts of the temple had placed him, watching over him through his long slumber, through the treatment of the injuries he sustained during the siege. At every groan that signified the onset of a nightmare, Shuanghua would push an image to Xiao Xingchen—a remote mountain covered in clouds and fog, wood and clay huts that seemed to float above misty ponds forming a courtyard inside caves, temples and halls carved and embedded against the rock face of the mountain itself—a dream that was once haunting him was now a memory of better times.
The temple that came to their help and accommodated them was both alien and familiar. Its ideals were nearly identical to those of the Celestial Mountain whence they came, except the temple never shunned and turned its back to the world, withstanding the vicissitudes of time. From time to time, Xiao Xingchen would think back then that his master’s mountain was unforgiving like a cage, and even though a cage could be turned into a fortress, it was still a cage in the end. The temple was more akin to a tree, and for its adepts who were as free as a bird, it was a home to come back to, a branch to perch upon.
Similar to what was once Xiao Xingchen’s home, the temple was embedded into the clutch of a mountainside, carved and built against the boulder and perched on a ledge cradled between columns of rock crawling with moss and vines and towering over the encasing lush, sprawling forest from tremendous heights. With natural protection from violent winds and raging storms and insulation from the heat of summer and cold of winter, inside its halls and rooms was a soothing embrace of silence and darkness, disturbed only by the crackling braziers and flickering lamps and candles lit at dusk for warmth once sunlight had started to dwindle and the crisp mountain air had turned colder, unbearable. In the veil of the night, its stone-white walls were a beacon amidst the pitch-black sky, seemingly shining under Chang’e’s light.
At dawn, measured footsteps and hushed voices of the disciples would fill the temple, and the darkness would be cut by a range of colours as beams of gold started to seep and pour through the lattice panels and open doors. The corridors and passageways formed a maze that began and ended in front of the main hall where a wide stone stairway lay, leading down to a courtyard decked at the centre with symbols unmissable in their size; the taijitu and the eight trigrams etched and painted directly on the stone floor. While partly covered by the canopy of giant, looming trees, the courtyard was otherwise unhindered by walls; the tall arched gate that was perched on its edge, flanked by a pair of guardian statues and facing the vast eastern horizon, signified an ingress rather than a barrier, welcoming whoever found their way deep into the forest and up that part of the mountain.
Upon waking up, the temple that sat atop the mountain did remind Xiao Xingchen of what was once his home, and Shuanghua felt the pang of painful longing and sincerest gratitude, like a hammer hitting steel.
They left once Xiao Xingchen was strong enough to carry and wield Shuanghua. Accompanying them through the descent and the embrace of the mountain was an adept that went by the name Song Zichen. He was garbed in robes with billowy sleeves dyed in black and deep azure pigments that were similar to the stormy colour of his eyes. A sword called Fuxue was slung on his back, and by his arm he carried a black horsetail whisk.
The descent began beyond the arched gate where a stairway lay with mud and stone steps snaking down the mountain, its path lined with low rock walls that had long been taken over by the aggressive roots of ancient duck foot trees that rained gold in autumn and buried the earth under thick layers of bright saffron leaves. The steps and slopes of the mountain pass were steep, even hindered in some parts by tangled vegetation and sharp rocks thrusting up to meet and wear thin the soles of passing boots. They became gentler the farther the descent, with the dense flora growing sparse as they shied away from the banks of rapids with cascades of water splashing harsh against slick rocks covered in moss. Over the river hung a narrow bridge made of coarse ropes and planks of woods, leading them to the other side of the banks.
Up and down the jagged foothills and towards flat land, the sea of foliage began to thin. The ground started to seem even with fewer gnarly roots underfoot, and patches of clearings became a frequent sight. The reverberating sounds of scrabbling and humming and churring fauna dispersed and grew quiet, turning into a distant memory. From the thinning and scattered layers of duff, a clear-cut, well-trodden dirt path emerged, widening as the soil changed and the forest opened to a resplendent mosaic of rice paddies and grasslands, of bamboo groves and fields of flowers.
With the morning fog scattered and descending, the temple was a tiny white patch floating against the grey of the mountain, appearing to be engraved entirely right into the rock face; the distance concealing its terracotta roof tiles, the lush moss and dark water stains on its stone-white walls, the thick wooden pillars and beams painted black serving as its fortifications. It was an unblemished ivory carving even in the middle of autumn, without the cover of the snow and frost of winter where it seemed to have gotten its name.
Baixue.
In the lowland, the conditions were much more forgiving as the air was thicker and warmer and easier to breathe. But while the breeze sweeping through might be gentler, it also carried a heavy miasma of yin energy that higher grounds were naturally protected from, just like the temple that sat beyond the woodland and up the crag. White as snow even at night, it really was like a beacon in the dark.
A day had elapsed by the time they went beyond the embrace, and it had nearly been a moon since the Great Clans of the Cultivation World had laid siege to the Burial Mounds in Yiling, but it seemed that even the tiny market streets of far-flung villages were still energised by storytellers commencing their day with news of Wei Wuxian’s downfall.
‘REJOICE! WEI WUXIAN IS DEAD!’
Shuanghua looked at Xiao Xingchen. Song Zichen kept his gaze forward, but Shuanghua saw his jaw tense; he did not need eyes to see, to know. Up until that moment, Xiao Xingchen did not think of it, let alone bring it up. There was no noticeable change in his demeanour, no falter or pause, but Shuanghua felt a squeeze around his handle and in his core.
Xiao Xingchen had not shed a single tear since he descended the Celestial Mountains, and Shuanghua felt that he should, even behind Song Zichen’s back, even on his blade, or even alone when he washed his face by the river.
After all, Xiao Xingchen was a survivor, whether he wanted to be or not, whether he thought he deserved to be or not, whether Wei Wuxian still lingered in the dark that was never empty.
Child of the Mountain
Shuanghua remembered clear as day when he came to be.
He did not know then what waking up was—like rocks and mountains and rivers and all things born of the heaven and the earth, he existed without breathing, endured without hurting, witnessed without watching. Then he was waking up, responding to a name he did not know he had, hearing and seeing and feeling, experiencing the world with a refined sentience bestowed upon him and blending with his own—that of ores from deep within the earth that were smelted in man-made heat and forged into a sword. Like most others of his kind, silver was his blade, with patterns of frost carved on both faces, and he was filled with nought but the qi of the earth—until he was chosen to be wielded and his blade was turned into a crucible, tempered and imbued with the spiritual energy of his wielder, engendering life and form anew for what was once mere steel.
Before Shuanghua sat a child with legs bent into the lotus position, garbed in the yang colour reminiscent of both blistering ice and nascent flames, of the bright moon and the blinding snow, of a newborn soul. The youthful age was embedded in the features of the child: his raven hair was pulled into a simple bun, the gossamer-thin strands turning lighter when shone upon by the morning sun yet showing no signs of greying; his strong eyebrows and delicate lashes lay over his sun-kissed skin; his emerging jawline was still concealed by plump cheeks. Calloused were the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, but straight were the bones and flexible were the joints, never been broken nor worn down. With iron-hard muscles over his still broadening chest and shoulders, the boy was almost but not yet quite a man.
The deep, gentle gaze betrayed his age.
Willow leaf eyes that swept upwards opened and revealed obsidian orbs dusted with mica, like the night graced by Chang’e’s muted light. Folds were yet to flank them, yet they had the look of eyes that had seen but had not been worn down by the world, with an understanding and solemnity akin to those of a thousand-year spirit than of a mortal child of the mountain raised in seclusion.
At the sight of Shuanghua, the mountain child smiled, the upturn of his lips puffing up the peaches of his cheeks. It was juvenile and contagious, almost audible in the way the undisguised affection lit up the entirety of his small face.
Xiao Xingchen, introduced the boy of himself in a surprisingly sonorous voice, and the wielder bowed deep before the image he himself conjured of his own sword. His eyes seemed to twinkle even more, just like his namesake—
Xiao Xingchen: the dust of stars at dawn. A beacon of the night, beautiful and ephemeral. A distant guiding light burning brightly in the sky.
—yet Shuanghua could not help but catch the seemingly perpetual melancholic sheen over the honest, soulful gaze.
Xiao Xingchen was not born into the discipleship of his esteemed master. He was found by older disciples, by accident or by fate, by the forest at the foot of the Celestial Mountain, starving and speaking no known language, without a name, let alone even a mere estimation of his age. Remnants remained of his memories of the society past the wards that protected the sacred mountain of his master, and, in direct violation of the teachings— let oneself hold nothing and be held by nothing— he longed to know whatever secrets they might hold about who and what and why he was.
Shuanghua learned of it not through words spoken or thought. Once he had become a part and extension of his wielder, they shared a bond and sentience as though they were one being once and still, like the body and the soul; and the yin and the yang; and the hun and the po; and the sun and the day; and the moon and the night; and the heaven and the earth.
Like a fierce contraction at his core, Shuanghua felt in his being Xiao Xingchen’s joy at the thought of finally seeing the world beyond the mountain and Xiao Xingchen’s grief when he bid farewell to the only home and family he had known all his life. Leaving was as hard as entering was not, for there was no turning back.
Severing ties to one’s home meant ridding oneself of their greatest attachments, which would allow them to embrace non-attachment before there could be attachment.
Shuanghua saw what Xiao Xingchen saw before the descent and haunted him in recurring dreams: a remote mountain covered in clouds and fog, wood and clay huts that seemed to float above misty ponds forming a courtyard inside caves, temples and halls carved and embedded against the rock face of the mountain itself.
Shuanghua heard what Xiao Xingchen heard before the descent and haunted him in recurring dreams: the ringing of the last words Xiao Xingchen heard from his master—that once he descended to join mortal society, he must never look back and all his feelings should cease to be about himself and must be about others and the world.
At night—and only at night—when the moon hid behind the clouds and let its light shine through the filter of the veil of the sky, the seemingly perpetual melancholic sheen would disappear, albeit along with the obsidian orbs dusted with mica, swallowed by shadows into the guise of gaunt, hollowed orbits.
And, Shuanghua thought, the dark is never empty.
But Xiao Xingchen was of Baoshan Sanren: as Yanling Daoren who died by a thousand swords, consumed by darkness; as Cangse Sanren and Wei Wuxian, mother and child, for and by their duty, devoured by darkness.
He was Xiao Xingchen: the dust of stars at dawn. A beacon of the night, beautiful and ephemeral. A guiding light burning brightly in the sky.
Swallowed by the horizon the shade of the blood that filled the empty sockets of his eyes.
Still, Shuanghua thought as he watched over the mountain child, the dark is never empty.