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It’s a night like any other when Dan Heng realises he’s dying.
There’s fire in his veins as he keels over the ground, a trembling hand hovering over the gaping wound in his abdomen. He’s acutely aware of the blade that’s punctured through his flesh, but he can do nothing more than to watch as his body succumbs to his agony. His vision blurs as tears gather in his eyes, reducing the world into a mess of colours. Dan Heng feels something build in his throat as the monster pulls its blade right out of it, peppering his wounds with stray gingko leaves.
Instantly, he bends over the lake in front of him, coughing blood and bile into the water. He spits out what chewed up remnants of Yaoshi’s fruit he can force out of his throat. The corners of his mouth are caked with the sour juice of fruit, leaving his mouth with an unpleasantly acidic taste. In the reflection of the water surface, he notices the moon hanging over his head like a silent spectator of his demise. He notices life leave his eyes like the withering of a flower, and he thinks—what a pity it is to die.
Behind him, the monster howls like an insatiable beast. Dan Heng can no longer hear it over the ringing in his ears. There’s no corner of his body that doesn’t torture him with grief, and it’s as though the claws of death itself is trying to pull him into the depths of hell. He’s burning. There’s heat in every inch of his body, like he’s in the heart of the sun, and he can’t save himself. He listens, briefly, as the sounds of the growling monster soften and all that surrounds him are the sounds of the night wind.
Dan Heng looks up at the moon. Would it quell the heat that tortures him?
At some point, even his knees can’t manage his weight and he falls to his side. He lies in a puddle of crimson-stained gingko leaves, waiting for the ground to consume him. He shifts his hand over his stomach in a shaken attempt to stop the bleeding, even if he knows it won’t work. At a time like this, he can’t help but think about everything that went wrong. He shouldn’t have left at night when he has always known the kind of unconquerable evil that lurks amidst the shadows. He shouldn’t have told Yingxing to stay in his room, instead of letting him follow. He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have.
Dan Heng wishes Yingxing was here. He would’ve liked to see it—his death.
There are many faults along the ridge that he couldn’t mend. It was only a matter of time before something large enough, something unrepairable enough, made it an abyss. They were never good for each other. Yingxing pushed his limits as a pastime, and Dan Heng never liked him very much. They fought often, only occasionally in good faith, and it never ended well. But Yingxing was different. He was one of a kind. Dan Heng was infuriated with him, but he wanted to keep him around.
Yingxing would’ve liked to see him defeated. Even though he wins most of their spars, he takes sadistic pleasure out of seeing Dan Heng writhing beneath him. He isn’t entirely heartless, but a good portion of him is. He isn’t certain that Yingxing would’ve liked to see him like this, though maybe Dan Heng wants him here for another reason altogether.
───────
Dan Heng wakes to the sound of dripping water.
It’s a hollow sound, and almost unheard. He stirs in his sleep until he feels an unearthly pain in his back, like his spine is shattering under the weight of the gravity. He grimaces, wiping tears of exhaustion from his eyes as he musters the strength to sit up. It doesn’t dawn on him just yet, but some part of him fears that everything he has ever known will be brought to ruin when it does. Through his faltering vision, he notices blurry silhouettes of gingko leaves, glowing faintly like they’re infused with magic. The wind peels one of the leaves off the branches and dances it through the air.
In a matter of moments, it lands on Dan Heng’s face and tickles him awake. He takes his first breath, and it hits him instantly that something is severely out of place. He pushes himself up with alarming speed, making his bones crack in the process. He makes a raspy sound of panic as he eyes the surrounding cave, feeling like a fish out of water. Dan Heng wraps a hand around his aching throat, as though trying to coax the words out of himself to understand where he is.
His clothes are ripped and soaked with his own blood. His wound is bandaged, and from what he can tell, there’s some kind of ointment healing him. Dan Heng touches his body like it’s foreign to him, exploring crevices of his body that tatter with his soft touch. Something is wrong. Something is horribly wrong. He feels distant from his body, like a soul stuck in the wrong place. He crawls to his side where, beside him, is a narrow stream of water. Dan Heng reaches a hand into his hair—it’s white. His skin is pale and almost translucent, a system of capillaries visible just beneath the thin layer of his epidermis.
Is he alive? Or is this some illusion of living?
His eyes are blood red and shimmer with undead glory. The rims of his eyes are crimson, though it’s impossible to determine whether they’re natural or as a result of being revived. Revival—he remembers it then. He was dead. He was killed at the hands of a monster, yet he’s perfectly awake. His chest is hollow because the thing which used to beat within it died with the rest of his body.
Dan Heng’s hands tremble. Perhaps something has gone horribly wrong. He makes a strained sound as he buries his face in his palms, not knowing what he can do from here. He’s utterly stranded and helplessly alone. There is a thing that exists within him and has taken over his body, and he struggles to hold onto the feeble personhood he had before his demise.
Beside him, a man is fast asleep. Dan Heng snaps his head towards him when he hears a snore, and goosebumps erupt all over his skin. His eyes widen at the unfamiliar face. Threatened, he reaches for a sharp stone by the stream and wields it as a weapon. He stumbles onto his feet and looms over the stranger, still trying to see his face through the hair that covers it. “Who are you?” he hisses, holding the rock like it’s any good against the man who has an unsheathed blade beside him.
The man lifts his eyes, and like him, his eyes are red. Dan Heng falters. He lowers his hand like he’s been struck, and somehow seeing himself in the stranger’s eyes sends an indescribable feeling rippling through his chest. Like the unfurling of a helix, the rage he felt of being alive dissolves like sand in a running hourglass. Dan Heng remains completely still as the stranger rises, massaging the small of his back like he had been sitting by that cave corner for a long time. “That’s one way to thank someone for saving your life,” he says, closing the distance between them. For some reason, Dan Heng doesn’t feel the need to run away.
The man has horns—a Vidyadhara. They’re red like the colour of his eyes, with gold veins running through them. Even from this distance away, it’s like Dan Heng can feel the rhythmic beats of a heart pulsating in them. His pupils are slits like that of a serpent, and his hair is tied in a fashion that perfectly frames his face. Dan Heng feels fragments of hostility crystallise with each moment he spends in the stranger’s presence.
“I do not even know you,” Dan Heng retorts. “What reason do you have to save me?”
The man’s eyes widen visibly in shock. He pulls back like he’d been stung, an unnamed feeling washing over his eyes and taking the colour with it. Any hint of harshness they carried is instead replaced with something like pity, something like confusion, something like yearning. Dan Heng gets the feeling that he doesn’t find himself as lost for words as he is now. The man steps back, eyes glistening beneath the faint illumination of the moon-bathed leaves. “You don’t remember me?” he asks, soft. “Or anything?”
Dan Heng gulps, like the truth suddenly feels like the wrong answer. “Yes.” The man who appeared so fierce even in his sleep softened, like a blade with chipped edges. “Do I know you?”
He looks defeated. It’s an odd enough look on a man of his stature. He has scars on every inch of his body that meets the eye, and he carries himself with a level of intimidation that could send even the greatest of warriors falling to their knees. When Dan Heng looks at him, there is familiarity. There is nostalgia. There is something like a mix of the two nestled in the chambers of his chest, fighting to escape its clasps like a flightless bird. Dan Heng can’t help but feel like he has scorned the stranger.
The man pulls his sleeves down to cover a wound on his wrist. He shakes his head. “No,” he says ruefully, rubbing his bloody hands against his robes. “Yingxing,” he introduces, extending a hand.
“Dan Heng—” he reciprocates, taking his hand in greeting. His hand fits perfectly in Yingxing’s, like they’ve done this many times before. There is a swollen wound on Yingxing’s palm that he expects to feel when they hold hands, like he knew it would be there. His eyes fall on his wrists, where there is a trail of dry blood around a split wound, almost like he knew to look there.
“I know,” Yingxing says, cutting him off. “I know everything about you already.”
Dan Heng narrows his eyes, trying to decipher the look in Yingxing’s eyes. “Did you lie?”
“Does it matter?” Yingxing laughs. It’s a sad sound. He’s bitter, though Dan Heng can’t place his finger on the right reasons. There is so much to assume, so much yet to know, but when he looks at the way Yingxing yearns, he can’t help but feel like he knows the answers already. His words sit at the base of his throat like a parasite; wholly unwelcome. “Nothing remains of the us before.”
No, Dan Heng supposes, it doesn’t matter.
───────
When Yingxing holds him, it feels like he’ll shatter.
He’s awfully gentle with his touches, so much so that Dan Heng feels undeserving of it. He isn’t receptive towards the kindness that’s offered so generously to him—when Yingxing grazes his fingertips over his wounds to heal them, he flinches; when he presses his finger over the vein in his wrist to search for his heart, he thinks about squirming out of his grasp; when Yingxing brings his face too close, he feels tingles in his spine like a desperate, desperate need to move away.
“You do not have to be so fearful,” Yingxing tells him as he bandages his wounds. They’ve moved to an empty field outside of the cave, where the moon accompanies them during their silent rendezvous. The wind is pleasant in the way it ruffles his hair, breathing the life that Dan Heng lost. He looks up when Yingxing speaks to him, tensing up out of habit. He hears a sigh. “I won’t hurt you. Be at ease.”
“I cannot help it,” Dan Heng frowns. “I do not know a thing about you.”
Yingxing continues to bandage his wounds with nimble fingers. “Not many do.”
“But I am not them,” Dan Heng retorts, staring right at him. “And I want to know you.” It comes out more direct than it would like, and it’s obvious in the way that Yingxing’s hands come to an abrupt shock that he’s stunned by the confession. He looks up, in awe of the presence in front of him. Dan Heng fears what will come after the silence. He swallows. Then he hears it—
Yingxing laughs.
A gust of wind blows at that very moment, picking up fallen leaves from the ground. Flowers cascade through the air to the cadence of a heart beating wildly out of pace. Something is wrong. Dan Heng looks at Yingxing’s flushed cheeks, the perfect curve of his jaw, the veins in his slender hands, and something is horribly wrong. All at once, he feels anguish over what he lost and ecstasy for what he has now—did he love Yingxing like this in his past life? Did Yingxing hold him so kindly?
“And you will, wholly.”
Dan Heng is undeniably alive.
───────
Yingxing is a culmination of dreams.
When they lie under the moon that night, Dan Heng can’t help but feel like they’ve done this many times before. He feels electricity between their hands when they’re placed next to each other, like a desperate desire to intertwine them. He feels longing when he looks at Yingxing’s face and finds his eyes falling to his lips, as though out of instinct—out of habit. Yingxing is beautiful. He’s tender, and warm, and soft in Dan Heng’s hands. He’s marked with the scars of every mistake, and yet, unbelievably gentle.
He imagines they would’ve drunk tea beneath the night sky, or danced by the lake. Yingxing would’ve held his waist so he wouldn’t fall into the water with a misstep, and run his hands through his hair when he’s especially enchanted by the way it looks under the moon. They would’ve found quiet places behind overgrown shrubs and kissed each other lovingly through the night.
Dan Heng can’t imagine what they could’ve been in his past life. Someone worth waiting for. Someone worth saving. He could’ve been many things, but he wonders if he was ever Yingxing’s.
───────
Yingxing doesn’t tell him who he was, even when Dan Heng asks.
It’s something he does his best to keep a secret. He doesn’t give a reason for it, nor acknowledges the question when it’s asked. It becomes an unspoken norm between them to not mention a word of what happened. But Dan Heng doesn’t listen—how could he, when he has a whole life he left behind? A month passes but they still spend their days in the cave, as though there’s nowhere for them to call home. Yingxing doesn’t utter a word about what they left behind.
One night, Dan Heng joins Yingxing by the lake. He dips his legs into the water, letting the chill of the night air ease the sting of his drying wounds. He looks at Yingxing, who despite knowing him so well, never seemed to step beyond the invisible line between them. There are faults in the ridge between them, but neither of them are ready to deal with the mess that will come of it when the lines become cracks. “Yingxing,” he says, staring at their reflections in the lake. His companion hums in response. “Can we go home?”
Yingxing answers instantly, “There is no home.” He fidgets with the flower in his hands, ripping its petals off with a calculated pace.
“But we came from somewhere,” Dan Heng argues, pushing the limits of the line he mustn’t cross. “There are people waiting for us there. People from my past life.” His stomach churns as soon as the words leave his mouth, like he placed themselves at the mouth of an uncomfortable conversation. He has learned, over the past few days, that his body has a natural reception towards Yingxing’s feelings. It seems to know when he’s disturbed, when he’s amused, when he’s lying, when he’s not.
“No,” Yingxing refuses. “There is no home. No people.”
“But—”
“No,” he insists.
“—you can’t hide me from my past forever,” Dan Heng argues. “I deserve to know.”
“Dan Heng,” Yingxing says firmly, snapping his head towards him. He clenches his jaw, consumed by inexplicable rage over something as trivial as this. It should be trivial to him. This is not his life, nor his fate to control, yet he acts as though it’s his own. “Things happen for a reason. Such is the will of the world. We have no right to interfere with our fates, and when we do, the consequences are a blessing to forget. Let yourself move on. Let us move on.”
“You don’t wish for me to move on,” Dan Heng scoffs, making a bitter face. He pushes himself onto his feet and brushes the dirt off his robes. “You wish to free yourself from your own regret. I have done nothing wrong. If my ignorance is a price you have to pay to save yourself, I have nothing to say.” Before Yingxing can stop the tangle in their fates from the inevitable unravelling, Dan Heng leaves to take his fate back in his own hands.
───────
There is a city about a day away from the field named the Xianzhou Luofu.
Dan Heng leaves at the peak of dawn, leaving Yingxing only a memory to remember him by. The path to the city is a long one, but he knows exactly how to get there. His muscles seem to recall what his mind can’t, and while it makes him wish he was strong enough to keep his memories, he’s grateful that he isn’t completely foreign to the world that raised him.
Dan Heng sees a vision when Yingxing wakes up—he panics.
He puts it past himself and presses on.
───────
By the time he reaches the city, his clothes are dishevelled and soaked with sweat.
There are hundreds of looking eyes pinned to the back of his head the moment he steps foot through the gates, whispering among themselves. Some pause, some pick up pace, but they are all strangers nonetheless. Dan Heng doesn’t spare them so much as a glance, save for the few times he reaches for his pale hair when he grows exceedingly self-conscious about their stares.
At some point, he’s captured by guards who claim he’s trespassing in his own land and whisked off down a path he has gone down many times before. The road to the General’s office is short but painstaking, given the way the guards drag him by both arms down the path like he’s a fugitive who could do any harm. The General rises to meet him when he enters the office, his face coloured with shock. Dan Heng brushes the guards away as soon as they’re given the instruction to step away, shooting them a disgruntled look before they leave.
From what he hears, The General goes by many names. He’s Jing Yuan. He’s also a friend. Dan Heng recognises his toothy grin the moment he sees it, and it brings an affectionate smile to his own face. Though, he doesn’t expect it when his old friend pulls him into a tight embrace. “I thought I lost you for good,” he says, holding him with a kind of firmness that shows he was scared he had lost him. Dan Heng smiles into his touch, wrapping his arms around him gingerly. Jing Yuan pulls away only some time later, during which he adds, “Sorry for getting the guards to pull you in here like that. I needed to make sure it was you. You know, with the new look and all, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming.”
Dan Heng touches his hair again. “Oh, yes.”
Jing Yuan leans his palm against his hip. “You know, I tried to stop him when he said he wanted to save you, but now that you’re here, I guess I can’t be too mad about it,” he says wistfully. “No one could have lived without you. Especially not him.”
“Who?” Dan Heng questions, drawing his eyebrows together in confusion.
“He’s not here with you, is he?” Jing Yuan confirms. “He shouldn’t be, especially after what he did.”
Dan Heng can’t discern who he’s talking about. “I don’t know who you’re referring to,” he elaborates, then watches as Jing Yuan’s face lapse into yet another expression of surprise. It takes him a bit of time to understand the matter at hand, before it dawns on him that Dan Heng doesn’t have any of his old memories. He gasps, wondering whether he said too much. “What is it? Are you going to tell me?”
“You… don’t remember?” Jing Yuan repeats. “Yingxing saved you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Dan Heng, he brought you back to life,” he puts it plainly. “Listen, we all tried to stop him because he knew that he would be committing a sin by resurrecting you but he—”
“He committed a sin?” Dan Heng blurts. “To save me?”
“None of us could have stopped him,” Jing Yuan argues, holding Dan Heng in place. “He loved you, Dan Heng, and you never saw it. He tried so hard to get your attention, but you always looked away. Put yourself in his shoes. He kept waiting for the time he could tell you he loved you. How could he have let you die like that, before he could say any of it? A piece of him would’ve died with you.”
Dan Heng’s chest feels heavy when he inhales his next breath, and after that, his cheeks feel warm. He blinks in utter confusion, though from the looks of the tears streaming down his face, it would seem like he has already understood Jing Yuan’s words. “So, he—” he gulps. “He’ll be banished? Forever?”
Jing Yuan doesn’t answer, but Dan Heng already knows he’ll say.
───────
“Is this what you meant?!” Dan Heng yells as he grabs Yingxing by the collar of his robes. It takes him another day to get back to the field, but Yingxing is still there; waiting. He raises his head as soon as he hears footsteps, bracing himself to scream, or shout, or scold Dan Heng for leaving him when he was told to stay. His words become a small, fickle thing as soon as Dan Heng yanks him closer with force he hasn’t seen before he died. “We have no right to interfere with our fates, you said, yet you interfered with mine? Are you foolish? You are a fugitive in your own home because you chose to save me.”
“Yes! Yes, I am,” Yingxing yells. “You make it sound like a regrettable thing.” Dan Heng has him pinned to the ground, trapped in his grasp with no room to run from this confrontation. He had seen this coming from the moment he made the decision to save him. He knew, some way or another, even with their temporary bliss, they would fall back on fighting. They’re nothing without it—the two of them.
“Because it is,” Dan Heng fights, clenching the fabric so tightly it might rip. There are tears in his eyes, and it’s only a matter of moments before they start running. Dan Heng looks betrayed; defeated; as though he has anything to lose now that he has his life. “How could you commit a sin for me when it was my fate to die? How do I shoulder the burden of knowing you sinned for me?”
“It is not your burden to bear.”
“But it is!” Dan Heng groans. “You have lost your life just as much as I have lost mine!”
Yingxing pushes Dan Heng off him and pulls him down on the ground. He climbs on top of him, holding him by the shirt. He leaves no room for him to fight—no room for thinking that they would end up any way apart from this. He would’ve chosen to save Dan Heng in every circumstance, whether they were sworn enemies or lovers, or the way that they are now. “What could I have done?” Yingxing shouts, his voice cracking. “Let you die? After I spent years waiting for the day that we could be friends, acquaintances, anything but what we were back then, only for you to die right in front of my eyes? When you returned to me with no memories, I—I believed, truly, that I could save you. That I could save us. I could not have lived without you—”
Dan Heng has heard enough. Holding Yingxing’s jaw, he reaches into a kiss. Yingxing’s words melt at the tip of his tongue as he stiffens at the unfamiliar softness on his lips. The world stops. The birds stop chirping and the fish stop swimming in the lake. The sun falters for a second and everything exists, for a second, on the axis of equilibrium. “Things should not have turned out this way,” Dan Heng says when he pulls away, cheeks red like the evening sun. A picture of forever paints itself in his eyes.
Everything that had once been broken starts to mend. “I would do it again,” Yingxing says, brutally. “For you, I would do it a million times.” And with another kiss, he cements the ridge that was once unconquerable.