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The sight of that small place always brought memories to the surface, as if they had happened just a short time ago, months, days. Sometimes as if they were still happening, again and again.
Shen Wei circled the garden that was still growing around the old hut. That garden should have died and been taken over by weeds, and then by stronger plants, bushes, entire trees growing there, continuing the forest that had formed at the foot of the mountain.
But instead, a clearing lay there, letting a little sun shine through and warm the earth and the flowers planted in that place, enriching the quiet, untouched little world that seemed frozen in time.
Although old, the hut did not look a day older or less well-kept than when Shen Wei had lived there. How many millennia ago was it?
At the end of summer, the surrounding forest was shining with the pleasant sun and the cooler winds that were beginning to blow. In the beautiful garden, the flowers, plants and even vegetables that Shen Wei had once tended with his own hands were still growing. No weeds dared to sneak in there. No pests that could mow down the showy plants entirely, although small butterflies and bees still landed occasionally, just taking the tiny portion they needed and carrying some of that timeless life beyond the clearing. Just like little birds all the time were feeding on seeds, collecting things for their nests, especially those many that lived on the roof of the hut and in the strong branches of the plum tree.
Shen Wei would have taken care of that place with all his heart and with his own hands again for all the time up until then, but that was not needed, he just wasn't sure why nothing changed. Nothing decayed there.
What he could do was continue month after month, festival after festival, year after year, uninterruptedly, bringing incense and paying his respects to the one who had once been there with him.
If someone hadn't seen him with Shen San, hadn't understood the depth of their relationship, they would have said that Shen Wei's actions now were due to the corrosion that guilt had caused him, rather than incorruptible love.
He walked along the narrow stone path he had once made to cross the hut garden to the plum tree, and his heart sank every time his feet repeated those steps.
He understood why the tomb in the shadow of the Merit Tree remained intact, as did everything around it, even though no body was actually there. It was the supposed final resting place of the Mountain God, after all, and whatever was left to be buried was there.
But Shen San was just a man. Under the plum tree, his tombstone told a little story that perhaps only a broken-hearted poet and an enlightened-hearted monk could decipher. The characters engraved next to his name were in a shape as beautiful as Shen Wei's calligraphy flowing from brush to paper.
This was the first time that Shen Wei had come here with a different appearance than Shen San had known. Maybe Shen San found the modern clothes interesting because they outlined Shen Wei's body, but he would definitely lament the short hair.
Shen Wei left the bag aside as he entered under the shade of the plum tree and began to clean up a few leaves that lay on the tombstone.
He could still feel Shen San's smile and eyes on him every time he was there. He knew that this was not possible, that soul was reincarnated and, even if it wasn't, would no longer remember him.
He had committed to doing everything as a human would do, so there he was, taking out the incense sticks from his bag after having walked all the way from the nearest village to there.
Avoiding using his powers, he lit the incense sticks with a match and placed them before the tombstone, bowing as he paid respect to the one he still loved immensely.
"I miss you every day," he said as he sat before the stone, the smoke from the incense circling it. "I wish I could ask you if I'm doing the right thing, but since I can't, I try to imagine what you would say to me. You, specifically you, among all the other versions that your soul has ever experienced in the flesh.”
He looked up at the little birds chirping in the branches above. "I would have loved you in each of your incarnations, because your heart never changed, was never corrupted. But having observed them all, I am ambiguously grateful and miserable to have lived precisely with you. Your way of living shaped ways of thinking and seeing life that were unique to you, although you always maintained your values no matter where you were born and how you were raised. I still think that the things Shen San could say to me, the other versions of you wouldn't say the same way.”
If Shen San could have been right there, in front of Shen Wei and understood what he was referring to, he would have laughed, he would have found it very interesting that such a carefree wandering warrior had something that seemed to Yao-xiong to be of more value than the things of men far better born and educated than himself.
And therein lay exactly the reason Shen Wei wanted to be able to talk to him and not others.
"I always come and go from the world of men. I don't spend much time among them. The longest I've ever done it, two or three decades. I decided to start another life in the human world, it's been a while since the last time. In your time, you said to me 'you are young but completely adult, so what?' before you were sure that I was much older than you had imagined.”
At that time, and for most of the time since civilizations had formed, a fully grown man meant around eighteen to twenty years old. This had only changed in the last century, where men of twenty-five or even thirty were too young for this or that, and boys of sixteen or eighteen were old enough to die in wars.
Shen Wei was not there to question this. He already had his own conclusions.
"I haven't changed a bit since you met me. I haven't aged a single day. The last time I lived among humans, no one could tell my age, the guesses were always between eighteen-twenty years old until early thirty. It seems very trivial, doesn't it? It turns out that I saw you a little while ago - or who you are now, in this time. You - he - is about to turn nineteen and we don't seem to differ in age at all. You're going to college next month. Well... him. I didn't dare get too close, I know I can never do that again... that I should never have done.”
From afar, Shen Wei had watched and admired him as he slowly began to become an adult again, closer and closer to the face Shen Wei had once known. Not there yet, but it was always more painful to have to watch Kunlun when he was already an adult.
"You know I've always liked books, studies and the arts. There are only two types of life in the human world that attract me: that of the simple man, like when we live here, and that of scholars and academics. I have always experienced the former, I have never experienced the latter.”
A gust of wind shook the branches above, leaves falling off and being carried away, Shen Wei's short hair was a little messy, which he didn't pay much attention to fixing, and the incense embers burned faster.
"My existence is tied to the Seal. And I have felt the pillars wavering. It means that I have little time left.” That was what this was, Shen Wei had known it from the moment he had agreed with Shennong. It was a fate he had never tried to escape and it was supposed to happen to all the ones of his time. All that was left was him, a cat and a broken bowl. But the cat and the bowl were not doomed to anything, they could continue for a long time yet.
“I don't know how long this little time is. In our time, when we were really young, 'a little time' sometimes meant centuries. So even if everything feels like it's about to collapse, it doesn't mean it's the end for everything else, because other deities that came after you exist, I don't know what their plans are, I don't know what will become of this world. All I know is what will become of me. I will fade back into chaos. And no one who really knew me will be left to remember me. But it would be useless anyway, there isn't a soul here to burn incense for. I hope there is always someone who remembers to burn incense for you, whatever name they call out when paying respect. I'm sorry if the incense for Shen San will only last as long as I last.”
The sting of pain that truth brought when said out loud finally made Shen Wei's eyes burn with tears.
“I wish you would never be forgotten in the history of the world, but someday perhaps nature will take this place, and your name, already unknown, will be completely erased, just as mine will be. We promised each other another life that we could never have.”
I hope you still have a long existence, though.
Above him, the sunny day was slowly darkening, clouds slowly gathering in what had just been a clear sky. As if the contained crying of the entity there, in the form of a young man, needed some more form to manifest itself, to finally fall.
“So I'm staying away from you even more this time. Because when I see you, it's very difficult to move forward. It is very difficult to walk in the human world without you and remember what I caused you. I'm still selfish and I want a life of my own one last time. Even when the lie starts with the fact that I'm not human. I still want to do things as humanly as possible. So I thought, if I still look as young or as indecipherable in age as I did before, why not start at the beginning?"
Shen Wei had never gone to any school, not formally, but he had studied in many at the same time, from afar, in the shadows, in silence. He had listened to many teachers, those few who would become famous and those many who would be forgotten, and he had seen many theories and philosophies rise and fall or shape themselves with the times. He had seen the languages of men begin, develop, disappear with entire tribes and peoples, or continue beyond generations.
Nothing, perhaps other than modern science in which he had little interest, was new to him. He could start at the top. But this was far from experiencing a nuanced human life.
“I thought maybe I should go to college. That would be good and maybe one day, I too can be a professor or a researcher. There are many things I know that I don't want to disappear with me. Although the truth about what is truly dear to me is exactly the one that I will take into oblivion when I am gone.”
He reached into his bag and took out a sketchbook, opening it to a page and turning the graphite drawing towards the tombstone. "There weren't any buildings like this before. This is one of the buildings in the place where I thought about studying. It's Western architecture, it was built here a little over a century ago. It's beautiful too. Not as beautiful as our temples, but it's beautiful."
He brought the drawing back to him and looked at it for a while.
"Every time I come back here, I talk a little more. I didn't talk much when you were actually with me. Forgive me for that. I regret so much not having talked to you much more. I loved hearing your stories, but rarely did I talk as much as I went on to do at your tombstone. I should have talked to you more..." Holding the sketchbook against his chest, Shen Wei stopped swallowing the tears that were hurting his eyes, letting them run abundantly down his face, his body shaking slightly with his low sobs.
The clouds above turning gray, the wind starting to blow stronger, colder.
Shen Wei wished he could have loved Shen San more. For longer, with more words, with more kisses, with more laughter. With more than his restricted self had known how to love.
"Is it useless to do for others what I didn't do for you? If I one day have friends, if I talk to them and learn to laugh with them? Is it still worth something if you can't be the one by my side anymore? If you won't hear me talking, you won't see me laughing…”
If the drawing had been ink, it would have been stained with the small circles of tears, just like countless pieces of art that Shen Wei had made in his life. The imperfections in those arts were another part of the silent history that no person would ever know existed, although perhaps love like that had never happened.
“I don't know if another life in the human world will be fulfilling for me, but I won't have another chance to find out what this life could be if I let time pass just a little longer, it will be too late for me.” Wiping his face with the sleeve of his sweater, he glanced briefly at the drawing before closing the sketchbook and putting it back in his bag. The first distant thunder could be heard.
“You live in Longcheng now. Him. And he goes to the university there.” Shen Wei had seen him on the streets around Longcheng University when he had taken the necessary tests and interviews. Zhao Yunlan . Shen Wei thought his name was beautiful, but had never tried to say it out loud, just as he had no intention of saying it even if they met again in the near future, as each of their duties required them to meet. With the distance also required, that which the Ghost Slayer's very presence alone maintained.
“To stay away from him, I chose to go to Hangzhou, to Zhejiang University. I'm going to live there for a while. I don't know if I'll be able to let people in and have friends. Nothing attracted me other than the idea of studying at college. But I still want to try to get a fragment of the feeling of being alive that I experienced with you.” The sweet and incomparable feeling, but such a high price. That tombstone was proof of how much.
Shen Wei looked up at the dark skies that promised rain soon. He would like to get a little wet on the walk back, to feel the clean water coming from above. Doing things as humanly as possible started there, when he hadn't brought an umbrella and couldn't tell if the rain about to fall was perhaps a little his fault.
Getting on his feet, he bowed once more to the tombstone.
"I will always come back to visit you. The day I don't come anymore, let it go, because I will be nowhere to be found."
When Shen Wei began to descend the foot of the mountain along the path between the trees and the hut could no longer be seen, the first drops of rain began to fall, slowly, sparsely.
Of all the times he had cried for Kunlun, he couldn't say how many had been much more for Shen San, in some way. Even if they were the same person.
Somehow, deep down there was a small comfort in knowing that he would end, that he would fade away: if he existed much longer, how many more ages would he live knowing nothing but mourning for the love he could never touch again?
That little time in his new human life might be a comfort too, if he could find a way to feel just a little bit of joy. Even if everything was incomplete in him.
Incomplete when living without love and dying without a soul.
If just one more sincere smile could appear on his face in this new life, it would have been worth it.
…