Chapter Text
Yanqing’s eyes widened as he saw the woman jump up, poised to attack from seemingly nowhere, but readied his swords to defend himself.
The woman slashed her blade in a dizzyingly graceful arc, a wave of ice speeding toward him. Yanqing powered up his swords and with all of his might, slashed the middle of the ice so he wouldn’t be affected when it crashed down to the ground. It harmlessly embedded itself into the ground around him, and he gasped for breath, the move requiring a lot of his energy.
“You have the same eyes,” The woman mused, voice only allowing the slightest hint of melancholy to reside in her words. Yanqing froze, eyebrows furrowing. Huh?
“Alas, I don’t think even he himself realized,” The woman continued, at ground level with him. Her eyes were not visible, as they had been covered by a blindfold, and her previous bloodlust had ebbed away to reveal a fragileness he would have never noticed before.
Yanqing knew he shouldn’t have, but his curiosity got the better of him, and he responded. “What?”
The woman snorted. “I suppose he’s only ever told you about my actions, and not what I looked like, so then I myself shall do the honors. Greetings. My name is Jingliu.”
Yanqing’s eyes widened, mouth twitching as the realization hit him hard. This was the woman who had trained the current General of the Cloud Knights, his master, his caretaker, an undefeated force on the battlefield–
“I can see your thoughts running wild. You’re not very good at concealing your emotions through your eyes, and if you’re not careful, that’s going to get you killed.” The edges of her mouth twitched, as if wanting to smirk. “I don’t suppose he told you the story?”
“He did,” Yanqing said quietly, pushing his shock aside. “How are you even…?”
“Life works in mysterious ways. Such as the connection between you and the General himself,” She mused, and Yanqing’s eye twitched. With how vague Jingliu was being, he couldn’t help but be intrigued about what she was trying to say. “What are you trying to say?”
The edges of her mouth twitched as if wanting to twist into a smile. “Have you ever heard of the Cloud Knight named Rina?”
Yanqing frowned. “No?”
Sensing she’d captured his attention, Jingliu continued. “She died during the Calendar Year on May 17th, 8089 on the battlefield even though she had resigned from the force almost two years prior. Do you know why she is relevant at all?”
He blinked. “...Other than the fact she died on the General’s birthday, no?”
Jingliu sighed softly. “So young, and so oblivious. She was a dear friend of your beloved General– at least, that was what the other Cloud Knights thought. Between the two of them, though, it was something more. One night too far was why she resigned during Calendar Year 8086 on June 23rd, and what eventually led to her death.”
As surprising as the news of the General ever having a relationship was, Yanqing still couldn’t comprehend what it had to do with him. Seeing this, an air of triumph appeared around the woman. “You were born during Calendar Year 8087 February 15th, if I’m not mistaken?”
Yanqing flinched back, eyes narrowing and subconsciously charging up another attack. “How do you know my birthday?”
Jingliu scoffed. “Please. That’s easy to find. My point is, think about this carefully. If Jingyuan’s birthday is on May 17th, and Rina resigned on June 23rd of 8086, and you were born February 15th of 8087…”
Yanqing’s heart leapt into his throat, his mind that had been racing a million miles an hour coming to an abrupt stop. “You’re saying…”
Jingliu laughed– a wild, free sound that Yanqing had least expected to come from the strict and unrelenting woman the General had built her image as. “The irony! Even in death, he cannot escape her shadow– the living, breathing form of it. You, Yanqing, are not only the disciple of the esteemed Cloud Knight General, but his illegitimate son. Take a moment, absorb that information, and see if you can still fight, Lieutenant .”
Though he normally would’ve been swept off his feet by such an unexpected revelation in his life, he was still in the middle of a battle. Honing in on the prospect of the woman attacking him again, he let himself focus on preparing his next attack, disregarding the thoughts whirling around in his head.
“Oh? No reaction?” Jingliu inquired, hysteria ceasing to remain in her tone. All that was left of her emotions was a wall shielding them, the one Jingyuan had spoken of before. This was the woman who had trained the General– and he was now unsure if he was even a match for her.
As doubt trickled into his mind, a firm voice shook him out of his hesitance. “In a battle, it is both physical and mental. If you do not believe you can defeat the enemy, you have already lost. Allow yourself to attempt what you may deem the impossible, and see what comes of it. If you truly cannot win the battle, pull back and reevaluate. It is a matter of wit and intelligence.”
Yanqing paused. Why now, of all times, do I remember his advice? Though he did indeed respect the General with every fiber of his being, knowing that they shared a deeper bond other than master and disciple threw him off. So, instead of dwelling on it, he heeded his advice and lunged forward, striking with his swords. Jingliu leapt back, blocking them with her own sword, and swung back.
There commenced a battle consisting of Yanqing dodging more than he was striking if only to preserve his limbs, for Jingliu’s attacks were ruthless and aimed to main and eliminate. She had no apparent care if he was indeed the son of her disciple- she’d kill him anyways.
All of a sudden, though, she faltered when attacking, and Yanqing took the opportunity to swing his blade up to disarm her. As he did, however, the blindfold slipped off of her face, revealing Jingliu’s eyes to be a softer red, almost pink, than what had been described to him. But that gaze was not fixed on him– it was locked onto something above him. Sensing her surprise was genuine, Yanqing turned around to look up as well.
Jingyuan and Jingliu met each other’s gaze for the first time in centuries, seeming to completely forget Yanqing was there as well. Jingyuan was standing on the top of a nearby construct, gazing down at them. That finally gave him an opportunity to process what in the name of the Aeons was going on.
Jingyuan, his mentor, the Cloud Knight General, was his father? As in, biological father? Though he wouldn’t say it out loud, Yanqing did indeed think of Jingyuan as his father– solely because he’d been taken in by him– but to actually be flesh and blood? If it had been a ruse by Jingliu to get him to lose focus on the situation, it was working.
“So we meet again,” Jingyuan said at last, an air of hesitance hanging around him. “Though I didn’t expect you to be fighting my disciple.”
“Look at you, becoming General of the Cloud Knights,” Jingliu mused. “And now you have a trainee. I do hope that you know how close you are to the end, Jingyuan.”
“I am aware, master,” Jingyuan said carefully. “But I still have time.” At that, Jingliu snorted.
“Aeons above, are you really as foolish as you were when you were a fresh recruit, or are you just in denial? Time is not infinite for us, Jingyuan. You know that firsthand. Look at what happened to her . You haven’t figured out the full story after all of these years.”
At the mention of her name, Jingyuan’s gaze hardened, any lingering emotion gone. “How did you know…?”
“I trained her for a bit before I trained you. Then she decided to go off on her own, to do what she wanted. She was a good student.”
Jingyuan’s sharp gaze faltered, and Jingliu redirected her attention over to Yanqing, those oddly soft red eyes studying him. Following her gaze, Jingyuan’s eyebrows furrowed.
“You trained him well.” And in a blink of an eye, she’d disappeared, a wave of cold air wafting toward him from where Jingliu had been moments prior.
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