Chapter Text
Yanqing sighed heavily as the general went back into one of his tirades about how he was too young and should focus on his work in Luofu and training, not wandering around other planets.
"You're only fourteen, believe me, you'll have time to travel this world until you've had enough—"
It was about the hundredth time that Yanqing listened to similar lecture, it happened every time he started this topic. He could recite it from memory.
Yanqing thought it was only a matter of time until the general gives in. He knew he wasn't usually stubborn, at least not with him. With the right combination of complaining, begging, and sulking, he was able to make the general succumb to any of his requests.
Like when he ordered that one expensive sword for him from the best armorer in Xianzhou. Or when Yanqing had spent all his money that month on the Belobog dagger Stelle had agreed to fetch for him, the general funded food not only for him but also for Sushang, with whom he usually went out to eat.
Sushang complained that her mother always told her that they had food at home and never gave money for going out, so she envies him that General Jing Yuan is "so cool". Yanqing knew the truth was much simpler, there just was no food in their house, apart from the occasional leftovers from orders or gifts the general sometimes received. Usually except for some fruit (sometimes spoiled) and bottles of water, there was absolutely nothing in their fridge. The general didn't cook and wasn't going to start, Yanqing wasn't sure if he even could.
He had never been able to convince him about going on missions, not even with his merits during the attack on Luofu. And even when he came to him with an essay written on a piece of paper, in which he included many strong arguments. He had Ms. Tingyun read it for a test, and she said that any reasonable person would agree with his thesis.
However, General Jing Yuan laughed at him as Yanqing glanced at the paper every now and then and quickly brushed him off, saying something about being hungry and that they could have a late lunch, which Yanqing immediately went for because his pocket money was melting like snow in spring.
This time Yanqing left the general's office grumpy before he could finish his monologue. Perhaps it was some kind of disrespect, but he just couldn't fight the immense disappointment he felt.
Sushang was waiting for him at the exit and jumped to her feet as soon as she saw him.
"How was it?"
Yanqing just shook his head, biting his lip.
“Damn it! So the general didn't agree? And you told him that—”
"I didn't have time, Sushang, I barely had time to start the subject, and the general went into this tirade of his. I'm supposed to focus on defending the city.”
"Defending the city? But literally nothing happens here. Look, not that I'm complaining, I'm all for peace after all the stellaron stuff, but it's a knight's duty to fight!”
“I also think so!”
"We've got to do something about it!"
"We have to!"
"But first, let's go eat," she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Yanqing rolled his eyes.
"You only ever think about food in these situations."
Sushang nudged him with her arm.
"Do you know why? Because it's best to think when you eat. That's when my best ideas come to me.”
Yanqing, usually scrolled the marketplace during meals, and often ended up spending a lot of money on much-needed items like colorful thread pompoms for his swords, new shoulder pads, a phone case, toys for Mimi. Practically things he couldn't function without.
"True, true," he nodded.
"So what are we waiting for?"
Together they rushed to the main street, stopping at one of their favorite food stalls that sold blackberry skewers and the best fried chicken ever.
"Let's think, then," Sushang said, shoving the entire stick of candied fruit into her mouth until syrup ran down her chin.
Yanqing looked at her expectantly.
"I said let's think, not that I'm the only one thinking, so you try too."
Yanqing put a piece of chicken in his mouth and chewed slowly, shrugging his shoulders, he was tempted to pull out his phone and do something useless on it as he usually did at mealtimes, but since they were going to confer, he decided to keep up appearances.
"Okay," Sushang said, sighing, "let's start listing our options, and maybe we'll come up with something like that."
"Let's lie down at the general's feet and beg him very loudly until he has a headache and agrees to send us on a mission for peace of mind," suggested Yanqing.
"Let's start with something more mundane," Sushang said, "that could be our plan... Hmm, let's say plan D."
Yanqing frowned.
“First option. Go!”
“We're sitting politely in Luofu, as the general said, and we're defending the city, read it, we're catching courier thieves and pickpockets. Occasionally, some rogue Aurumaton will come along," Yanqing recited, "until we're old enough to go on real missions."
“Blah. Next.”
“Next? Can we go off the rails a little bit?”
"Yeah, I got bored.”
"We quit our jobs and become intergalactic couriers, explore new civilizations, forget about life in the military and... leave our vast collection of swords... and Mimi - and everyone we love - at home to..." He trailed off, horrified by this preposterous plan he had devised.
"When you said you wanted to leave, I thought you meant let's steal a starskiff and fly by night to the planet they're going to explore on their next expedition, be there when they land and join them undetected."
Yanqing looked at her surprised.
“That’s… that’s…”
"Hey, that’s not a bad idea!"
Yanqing nodded, delighted.
From the meetings he attended with the general, he knew that the Jiro-XCV planet was completely abandoned, the only reason the mission was organized was due to disturbing energy fluctuations that could belong to those affected by the Curse of Immortality, which in turn contradicted the data that the last bearers of the Curse were defeated on this planet by the Xianzhou Alliance a decade ago.
This could mean that a part of the Cursed population had been overlooked, which was beyond anyone's imagination, because it was hard to doubt the competence of the Generals, including General of Luofu, who had spent hundreds of years in war to rid that corner of the world of the curse once and for all.
There remained the possibility that the infected had somehow returned to the planet, and there was much speculation as to why. There was also a chance that there was something completely different on the planet.
The first expedition was supposed to be a reconnaissance one that Yanqing was desperate to take part in. He knew that not so long ago there had been a military expedition on which the general had spent more than three hundred years of his life. He wanted to see at least a portion or remnant of what he and many others had to face.
Yanqing had to admit that the very idea of three centuries away from home terrified him. The general, however, had lived so long that time did not pass the same for him.
He wanted to see the world beyond Xianzhou's ships, part of him was also curious about the destruction that Yaoshi's curse brings. Until now, he had only read about it and studied it in history class.
The recent crisis in Luofu had terrified many with its scale, but it was true that against the backdrop of Xianzhou's history and the Curse of Immortality, this episode ended quickly and efficiently, thanks to the foresight of the general and the arrival of the Astral Express at the perfect time.
Such a struggle was not even comparable to the destruction of entire civilizations, the sea of beings afflicted with the curse, and the wars that lasted for centuries.
Yanqing himself was from a similar planet. Though few in Luofu knew about it (no one but the General himself and Master Diviner Fu Xuan). The general had brought Yanqing with him on his way back from one of his expeditions, violating every law of war that was binding on him. His true parentage was never revealed publicly, but his lineage was not known even by the general himself, who claimed that he found him alone and crying in one of the abandoned houses and did not have the heart to leave him.
Trying to get more information on which expedition it was, or asking for the name of the planet, he was refused. The general said he would reveal the truth when Yanqing was ready.
Wanting to find out on his own from Yukong, he was sent back empty-handed. Even Tingyun, who was usually on his side in these matters, refused to say anything, claiming that he should listen to the general on this matter and wait for the right time.
For Yanqing, this subject quickly lost its priority, and his mind was again absorbed by studying with the general, training and auctions of antique weapons on the marketplace. His inquisitiveness, however, made the question of his origins re-emerge to him whenever the opportunity arose to explore it more closely.
According to his own calculations, the end of the general's expedition to Jiro-XCV fell several years after his birth. The general's resistance to being sent there on a mission also struck him as suspicious. Although for some time the general, for reasons incomprehensible to Yanqing, had decided to remove him from all major missions, the reconnaissance on Jiro-XCV was not of an offensive nature, but of an exploratory nature. Yanqing would make a perfect knight protecting the expedition, he was sure of it.
He had to investigate why the general wouldn't send him to this planet.
They arranged with Sushang to meet at midnight at the barracks. Yanqing was about to sneak out of his room through the window when it struck 10 pm, which was difficult because of the weight of Mimi who, like every night, lay down on his bed and rested her heavy muzzle on his chest.
Yanqing had almost completely given up on the whole escapade, because it seemed cruel to him to wake the sleeping Mimi. He tried to slip out as quietly as he could, trying to shove a pillow where he had been lying a moment ago to avoid waking the big cat.
But Mimi looked up and blinked at him a couple of long times. The lion watched Yanqing as he stuffed his backpack with pre-purchased food and a thick sleeping bag.
He snatched the phone charger from his nightstand and opened the first drawer to retrieve the compass the general had given him on his eighth birthday.
As Yanqing threw the dark cloak over himself, he noticed that the lion had gone back to sleep, ignoring its master preparing to flee.
Yanqing opened the window and jumped out quickly, landing smoothly on the grass. He crossed the small garden and in no time was on the street leading to the knights' barracks.
He stopped at the place he and Sushang had arranged under the tree, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, he heard a soft whistle and looked up, Sushang waved to him from above, sitting on one of the larger branches. Yanqing gestured for her to come down, which she did after a while
"Sorry, I think the guards saw me, I had to hide. What about the general?”
"Even a herd of elephants can't wake him when he's asleep," Yanqing said.
Suhang smiled.
"Then the first phase is done," she said, puffing out her chest. "Now all we have to do is steal my brother's boat."
"You said it was your boat," Yanqing said in surprise.
Sushang didn't answer him, but started running towards the port. After a while, Yanqing started to run after her, deciding to ask questions later.
They ran through a small side street that ran two blocks across, leading to the main street where the haven was located.
The main street of Luofu was filled with a buzz of conversation and starskiffs moving along the highways, no matter what time you went there. Most of the food stalls and teahouses were still open, and there were plenty of customers. Intergalactic couriers called and departed from the port, leaving behind only the loud roar of the engine and a mass of parcels from all corners of the universe, which will be delivered to their recipients the next morning.
“Stop looking and hurry along,” Sushang said, and pulled him by the hand into another smaller alley.
"Sushang," Yanqing began as she rummaged through the pockets of her jacket for her keys, "is this your starskiff?"
"Practically," she said, and gave a slightly goofy laugh, "in theory, its my brother's, but he won't need it anymore. You see? He left me the keys.”
She waved the key in front of his face.
"Relax," she continued, seeing that Yanqing was unconvinced, "he left it here for good, I was going to start using it when I turned eighteen and passed my driving license."
Yanqing sighed and let her lead him. Breaking a few rules didn't bother him as long as it wasn't stealing.
Waiting for them at the end of a short bridge was a small, worn-out skiff that looked like it could barely hold two people. Sushang pressed the button on the key and the car door swung open with a slight jerk.
"Are you sure we can make it through this?"
Sushang got behind the wheel, swung her backpack onto the cramped backseat. She fiddled with the steering wheel and mirrors.
“Hmm…” she muttered to herself, “how you turned on the lights?”
Yanqing watched as he pressed and moved all possible levers on the steering wheel and next to the dashboard. He heard a loud squeak, followed by the screech of wipers on a dry windshield.
“I see!” she exclaimed finally as the two LEDs in front blazed with cold silver light. "I don't know if these are long lights or what, but they'll do."
He was still standing to the side, watching her with slight horror.
"Can you control it at all?"
"Pff," she waved her hand, "of course I can. Don’t sweat it.”
They looked at each other in silence for a moment, Sushang with unusual excitement and Yanqing with apprehension.
"What, Yanqing?" she raised an eyebrow and patted the leather passenger seat next to her until it started to dust, “I'm telling you, this skiff has been through a lot, I can assure you it's reliable. Such a distance is a stone's throw for this beauty.”
Unconvinced, but with no other choice, Yanqing finally opened the passenger door and took a seat next to Sushang. She smiled at him and took the backpack from him to toss it backwards onto the seat as well.
"It'll be fine, believe me," she said, then focused her gaze on her legs, mumbling again. “Which one is for speed? And what about the brake?... Come on, why is it not working… Oh! First I should turn the key!”
Yanqing was about to start arguing with her because what was that supposed to be? She said she knew how to drive. But the sudden momentum with which they moved took his breath away.
“That’s it!” Sushang shouted as she turned the steering wheel and circled in the air. "Hold on tight, Yanqing!"
Yanqing clung to the seat so tightly that his knuckles turned white and watched in horror as all the scenery of Luofu flashed before his eyes.
"Do you know which way the portal is?" Sushang asked when the speed had settled down a bit.
"Look at the signs and you'll find it."
"Thanks, that helped me a lot," Sushang said, rolling her eyes. "Can you read the signs for me if I'm driving?"
Yanqing closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
"Okay," he replied in a monotone voice, "I'll turn on the GPS."
"Oh? take a picture of me if you've got your phone out." She smiled as if she hadn't heard what he was saying. "It's my first trip like this."
"Turn left," he said suddenly, because Sushang didn't seem to really know how to read signs. "Seriously, how hard can it be to follow the arrows?"
Sushang made an unpleasant face.
"Very hard, when you're driving for the first time."
"Are you driving for the first time?!"
"Yes, so take a picture of me!" Yanqing!
Ignoring the rapid beating of his heart and the shaking of his hand, he set the phone sideways and started taking pictures of Sushang.
"Watch the road," he chided her as she posed and turned to face him, "and turn left!"
"Left again?"
Yanqing groaned.
"This is some kind of joke," he mumbled.
He leaned his head back and stared resignedly at the road, reading directions for Sushang, who was apparently driving a starskiff for the first time in her life.
His heart had never pounded as hard as it did now. He faced so many powerful beings and monsters, but Sushang's driving was the scariest of them all.
“Where now?” Sushang asked after a while, at the intersection.
"Go straight," he said, on the verge of fainting, "there's a portal ahead of us."
The portal was nothing more than a small gap in space-time, there were many of them on Luofu, this one had been opened recently to facilitate the movement of all expeditions, and it led straight to the orbit of Jiro-XCV.
Sushang and Yanqing both stared spellbound at the deep blue whirlpool with stars floating on its surface. It got bigger the closer they got. When there was no doubt that they were about to fly into it, Yanqing squeezed his eyes shut because he preferred not to see what would happen to them.
Suddenly all noise ceased, and the speed at which they were traveling ceased to be felt. He opened his eyes and almost sighed as he saw the stars and nebulae pass by. Sushang stared open-mouthed as he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
"My mother will kill me," she whispered as she watched the constellations pass by, taking the shape of huge animals.
Their boat seemed to be eternally still while the whole universe was moving. The sounds were muffled, as if they were deep underwater.
They looked at each other with star-shining eyes and smiled like madmen.
"Oh my Aeon, Yanqing! Do you see what I see?”
Yanqing only laughed, and she echoed him.
Then everything happened very quickly. With the same momentum they came in, they burst out of the portal. Sounds and speed worked like a strong hit. Sushang rushed to control the steering wheel, Yanqing clutched the backrest, breathing rapidly.
"Oh, damn it," she cursed as their boat refused to slow down on its way down too fast.
Down below, the planet Jiro-XCV glowed a beautiful ocean blue and pink. They were approaching it too fast to survive.
"Come on! Come on!!" yelled Sushang, pressing the brake with all her might and pulling the steering wheel upwards, "push something Yanqing!"
"What should I push?!" he yelled.
"Anything but a catapult!"
Yanqing looked at the small control panel next to the steering wheel. He spotted the big red button and immediately decided never to press it. There was another one of the same size, but blue. He bit his lip and looked at it. All the manuals that could once describe individual buttons and levers have been worn away from years of use.
He reached out his finger and closed his eyes and pressed the blue button. Suddenly he felt a huge force pulling him up, only the seat belt digging into his shoulders made him stay where he was. There was one more jolt, this time pulling his body down, and then balance.
"I'm going to puke," he hears Sushang say, opening his eyes to look at her.
She rested her head on the steering wheel and looked so exhausted that Yanqing feared she would pass out.
"It's all right now, Sushang. We're alive,” he said, his voice shaking with fear and excitement. “Landing will be a piece of cake now.”
"Oh," she said, face pressed into the steering wheel, "we'll see."
The landing was indeed not the smoothest, despite Sushang's best efforts. They flew the boat as low as they could before the Sushang landed, but their craft still clattered to the ground until their bones vibrated.
Sushang made a dull guttural sound and immediately dashed for the door, not even getting out well before she began to vomit painfully.
Yanqing looked at her sympathetically and patted her back several times.
"Fix my hair," she croaked.
He did as she said, pushing both of her long ponytails over her back. Sushang just moaned sadly before another wave of nausea hit her.
Yanqing grimaced and looked away, looking instead at the scenery around them. They were at the edge of the forest.
In Luofu, which was one hundred percent man-made, you could not see such trees, their trunks were as thick as the circumference of the largest starskiff Yanqing had ever seen, and the crowns were high in the clouds, so that it was difficult to see the unusual color of their leaves. They were green, but Yanqing had never seen such green before. The trunks of some trees were completely overgrown with small pink flowers. You could see the grass turning into soft dark moss the deeper you looked into the woods.
Yanqing couldn't resist the sight. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to take a few photos and keep the memory alive. It wasn't the first time he'd been on an alien planet, but it happened so sporadically that each time he was deeply impressed by the grandeur of the untamed nature, the trees and rocks that were even older than the general himself.
There was something else, an unnamed feeling rising in his chest as he stared at this forest, or even earlier when they had seen the ruins of a huge city as they landed. Sushang felt it too, judging by the way she shifted uneasily in her seat.
"There's definitely something wrong here," she said quietly. "We'll land a little farther from the city, we can't let anyone or anything know our situation in advance."
"You don't think that tragic near-crash didn't make enough noise?" Yanqing asked.
"The more we have to be careful," she said.
After taking a few photos of the huge trees, Yanqing turned to Sushang, who was still hanging upside down from the seat, looking as if all will to live had left her.
He walked a little closer and took a picture of her.
“What are you doing?” she lifted her head up and furrowed her brow.
“I want to remember this important moment.”
Sushang straightened up and tried to get up, but instead she tumbled out of her seat onto the grass with a soft grunt. Yanqing approached her with a malicious smile.
“Delate it!”.
"Come on, I'm not going to show this to anyone."
Sushang sighed and sat down on the grass with a scowl, but accepted Yanqing's help to get up.
"Have a drink of water," he said, pulling both of their backpacks out of the backseat of the boat.
After a short rest, they set out together through the forest, leaving the starskiff behind, though Yanqing had his doubts.
"No one will find it here, I'm telling you, it would be worse to make a noise driving into the city ... if something is out here, it's definitely there," said Sushang, adjusting the leather belt on which she carried her huge sword.
It was almost as long as she was tall, Yanqing couldn't imagine fighting with such a weapon, but Sushang handled it admirably. It was her family's ancestral sword, so as heir, she had learned to wield it since she was a child.
Sushang would stop at flowering tree trunks and take pictures against them, laughing that her friends would die when they saw them.
"It's so beautiful here," she said. "I've never been outside of Xianzhou."
"It's completely different than on a ship," Yanqing admitted, suddenly feeling strange melancholy, frowning because he really rarely felt that way. "I used to fly with the general on expeditions, but recently he stopped taking me with him. And yet everything was going great for me, I was never a hindrance! But one day he left without me anyway and then continued like this… I don't know what I did wrong.”
Sushang looked at him sympathetically.
"You know, Yanqing, I don't think you've done anything wrong," she said after a moment, "it must be something else."
“But, what? He just keeps saying I'm too young, that I'm a kid. I was younger, and I fought, and now all of a sudden I can't.”
" That… I don’t know," she said, sighing and stopping, "let's rest a while, I need a drink of water."
Yanqing nodded and fell silent. Something strange was going on with his head. He knew this because he had never been so full of fear and uncertainty.
Sushang unbuckled her sword belt and fell to the ground, leaning against a trunk. Yanqing sat next to her and handed her a water bottle from her backpack.
"Do you feel it too?" he asked after a moment, after she wiped her mouth and handed him back the bottle she had emptied.
“You, at least you have General Jing Yuan, Yanqing. You also already have many missions under your belt” she said after a moment “your military career is practically set. Sooner or later you'll start going on a mission again. Ha! You will get your squad and become a captain. And I?”
He looked at her questioningly.
"I'm not sure I'll ever be able to leave Xianzhou. Even though I know I'm good, even better than most of the knights currently serving on Luofu. I left Yaoqing because I wanted to develop somewhere where my brother's shadow wouldn't fall over me forever, but now…”
She bit her lower lip and paused, staring at the ground and frowning. Yanqing stared at her with his mouth open. He had never seen her so torn.
"Hey," she said after a moment, her voice changed, "Something's really up. I never feel so embarrassing.”
“Told you! I feel the same.”
Suhang shuddered.
“This is terrible.”
“It must be whatever is in the city.”
"But it doesn't look like a normal curse to me."
"Whatever it is," Sushang said, rising suddenly to her feet and raising her sword to sling it over her back again, "we need to investigate. I want to kick that thing's ass.”
Yanqing slung both packs over his shoulders and followed her with a more agile and sure footstep.
The day was beginning to break when they reached the ruined white walls of the city. They stopped in front of a huge but dilapidated gate. In its glory days, Yanqing suspected that it must have been really beautiful. The columns and the upper part were covered with engraved bas-reliefs and letters, the meaning of which time and ruin had lost forever.
Sushang moved forward, but Yanqing hesitated, unable to take his eyes off the carved face that stared down at the newcomers. Its features were human, but the pathetically contorted, wide-open mouth and bulging, wide-set eyes made Yanqing shudder.
Who would like to be greeted with a view like this every time they cross the walls? Whose idea was that unfortunate stone face?
He watched it carefully, feeling a growing uneasiness. The longer he looked at it, the more terrifying it seemed. And perhaps it had something to do with the growing weight he felt on his soul, as if it would suffocate him. The closer he got to the city, the more he felt it.
"Are you coming, Yanqing?" Sushang turned to face him, standing in the gate and flipping one of her braids over her back. "We'll go in and take a break for food, what do you say?"
Yanqing had to force his legs to work together to take a single step, and each step felt heavier than the one before.
"I'm not hungry," he said quietly.
“What did you say?” he heard her ask, but it came to him from a distance, as if suddenly an eerie space separated them.
Yanqing reached out his hand towards her blurred figure and tried to repeat himself, but no words left his mouth. Something was pulling his body to the ground with incredible force.