Work Text:
Fang Duobing searches.
He travels around in the Lotus Tower, walks through crowded streets with Fox Spirit at his heels, asks around for a sliver of hope, for any traces Li Lianhua might have left behind, anything that could tell him Li Lianhua didn’t die. That could show him that Li Lianhua beat the odds yet again, and is simply waiting somewhere for him, for them, to find him, to bring him home.
People tell him it’s foolish to hope. Foolish to think even the great Li Xiangyi would be able to cheat death more than once. Foolish to believe Li Lianhua might still be out there somewhere, alive and healing, like he’s never allowed himself to before. Foolish to think he hasn’t already passed. Fang Duobing drowns the words out, builds a shield around his heart that’s as strong as steel, impossible to pierce through even with the sharpest of words.
He's not dead until I find a body, he tells himself, and everyone who doubts him. He averts his eyes from his mother’s sad smile, his aunt’s teary eyes and his father’s stoic frown. He pretends he doesn’t hear how the people who still look for Li Xiangyi never ask about a living man, but only about the whereabouts of a lonely corpse.
But sometimes, his walls break down. Sometimes, it’s too painful to keep his shield steady, to pretend he is blind and deaf to everyone’s dwindling hope. And when his shield threatens to crumble, Fang Duobing draws his sword.
Bit by bit, he learns the swordplay Li Lianhua has left him, learns the moves that Li Xiangyi was once famous for. Little by little, he learns the steps that Li Lianhua – even when pretending Li Xiangyi was long dead – has never forgotten, never thrown away, never let go of. He learns the thing that has accompanied his shifu through the worst of his illness, a steady companion that time hasn’t been able to touch. And he starts to understand.
He understands the power a sword wields, understands its grace, its danger. He understands the beauty of following no set of rigid rules, but only the rhythm of the wind and the sharp sounds of cutting air. He understands the comfort of holding such a power in one’s hand, using it not to kill, not to harm. Simply to be.
And when he finishes, when he lets his sword drop heavily to his side, he falls to his knees, sobs tearing out of his throat. Fox Spirit runs to him then, and Fang Duobing clings to him, watching the fire through his blurry vision, the Lotus Tower just a few steps away, hoping, praying, that he’s mourning in vain.