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There was a body a few meters away.
Han Wenqing squinted at it, trying to discern anything familiar, but the man’s face was bloody and misshapen. The mud didn’t help, nor did the generic armor.
Just another soldier, left for dead in the dirt. There were dozens more exactly like him, scattered across the battlefield like fallen leaves.
Han Wenqing would have been among their number if not for sheer luck.
From above the ravine, the sounds of metal striking metal grew fainter and fainter. Now and then a scream would echo forth, the last roar of a dying tiger, only to cut off with the abruptness of all doomed things.
Han Wenqing closed his eyes. He was covered in blood and who knew what else, debris sticking to him as if the earth had already deemed him a corpse. His limbs were heavy with exhaustion and defeat. Moving was so hard.
Still, he moved. Little by little he crawled across the dirt, inching uphill toward the bright expanse of the sky. It was a beautiful day. Deep blue, verdant green, crimson red—the world shone in fervent, dreamlike colors, mocking him, mocking death.
Something stung his palm. Han Wenqing lifted his hand and found it weeping red. He was honestly surprised he still had blood to spill.
He continued. If he survived this, his knees would be bruised for a week. At least his shins had the benefit of armor, for all that it was cumbersome and stifling.
He was nearly there. Grasping onto a rock, he heaved one more time, and suddenly he had rejoined the battle.
The ravine was bearably gruesome. Shadows distorted the perception of death, distancing it, making it more unknowable. Outside of it, where there was only grass and gentle hills, the bodies covered everything, stretching as far as the eye could see. Gore stained the ground around them, mixing and collecting and flowing. Discarded weapons, severed limbs, and fallen horses meshed into a lively scene of absolute desolation.
But it was such a beautiful day. There was no refuting that.
A red banner scrawled with black characters caught his eye. Han Wenqing looked at it carefully. On his hands and knees, he had no vantage point, no way to actually read those characters, but he knew the shape of them. It was the banner of his army, trampled over and smudged with filth, and he wanted to go to it.
He made it only a short distance. The dirt called to him, the earth demanding its due. The faraway moans of departing souls and the cries of carrion birds coalesced into a nightmarish din that accompanied him into unconsciousness.
Then, as if he had only nodded off for a second, his eyes snapped open. A face hovered above his, fantastically pale against the twilight sky.
Han Wenqing greeted Death with a slow blink.
“What an indignity,” said Death, “fading away like this. Why did you come here despite knowing it was likely an ambush?”
“Duty,” Han Wenqing replied, his voice a croak.
“Duty? To an emperor that suspects you, a court that despises you?”
“Commoners…safety…my duty.”
“Oh?” Death studied him like he’d just said something profound.
Han Wenqing merely lay there, helpless and confused. He didn’t recall turning on his back. He didn’t recall the encroachment of night. His mind was full of blank space he had no intention of filling. He was going to die; what would be the point?
“How tedious.”
Han Wenqing furrowed his brow.
“Loved by the commoners, worshiped by the soldiers, hated by the ministers. Your life is not an easy one, is it?”
“I—” His voice failed him. I didn’t choose an easy life.
“You’d have been better off losing a few skirmishes here and there. It’s only because of your ceaseless victories that so many people want to see you broken.”
But I have lost. I have sacrificed.
“That’s the problem with heroes: their flaws and pains are swept aside and forgotten until they’re no longer human. You’re not a man, you’re a monolith.”
You talk a lot.
“So I’m told. How would you like your story to end?”
It’s already over.
“It would have been.” Death smiled at him. “Do you know people pray for you? Do you know they rest their hopes on you?”
How could he know? What did it matter?
Death’s smile faded. He sighed. “Forget it. I’m no good with endings.”
Han Wenqing tried to move. Groaned. He wished this dying business could go a little quicker so he could stop listening to this nonsense.
“What would you say to a new start?”
Han Wenqing froze. Death’s eyes were an inhuman gold, unnaturally beautiful. His face was nondescript, but there was an elegance and vitality to him despite his deathly pallor.
He shone like the colors of a beautiful day: precious gold, gleaming silver, crimson red.
Memories flooded the empty plains of Han Wenqing’s mind. Lauded triumphs and celebrations. The cheers of men after a battle and their cries of exertion when they trained. The sensation of coming home after months on the front, welcomed by servants and friends and greeted by the townspeople. The pomp of the capital, where he was received with eagerness and honored by his superiors.
The general, the hero, the savior of the empire.
If it were easy to give any of that up, would Han Wenqing fight half as hard as he did?
Death seemed to understand. His smile returned, gentle and significant. Stars blurred behind him as he leaned forward.
Han Wenqing closed his eyes.
* * *
Sunlight greeted him, accompanied by a natural silence that wasn’t silence at all but birdsong, chirping, and the susurrus of branches swaying in the wind.
Han Wenqing was…indoors. It was the third thing he noticed, after the light and the silence. The walls of the room were crude and the single door within view looked too flimsy to keep anyone out. Or in, for that matter.
He levered himself upright with unexpected poise. His body did not ache, and he was clean of blood and muck and other battlefield filth. He looked at his hands, and the cut he remembered wasn’t there.
What happened?
There wasn’t much to the room. His bed was just a pile of furs on a cot. His weapons and armor were nowhere to be found, and there was no food. Not even tea leaves. The only furniture was the cot, and the window was a tiny, pitiful thing.
Why was it so bright in here, then?
Unease stirring in his gut, Han Wenqing opened the door.
Outside was woodland. With meandering steps, he walked to the closest tree and looked around. Lots of woodland.
He turned, expectant. Frowned at the tiny hut he’d walked out of. Wondered who on earth would leave him in such a place, in the middle of the wilderness.
He needed to search for clues.
Han Wenqing glanced down at himself. No shoes, but he was clad in a bright red outer robe with yellow trimmings and soft inner robes. He fingered the material, unease growing. Whoever brought him here gave him quality clothes but no shoes?
A face flashed across his mind’s eye. Could he have—
No, that was ridiculous. A final, death-blessed dream.
He started searching.
As the sun rose, Han Wenqing discovered the forest was not untouched. He found signs of human occupation in a small stone ruin and an abandoned well. Eager for answers, the first wagon trail he came across was the one he followed.
The village it led to was sleepy and quaint, the very definition of common. Its inhabitants were hard at work, tending to chores and scolding their children.
Han Wenqing hovered in the safety of the trees, observing. When he came to the tentative conclusion that it appeared safe enough, he made himself known.
The villagers overlooked him at first. Then, when they became aware of his presence, they did so all at once.
Somebody dropped a bucket. Another gasped and clutched at their companion. The children froze, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
Han Wenqing stopped in his tracks, baffled, and watched in stunned silence as everyone within sight prostrated.
* * *
Life only got stranger from there.
The villagers made offerings, enough that Han Wenqing’s hut was transformed into a home. Strong, skilled men came and expanded upon the building. Women planted flowers and vegetables around it. Han Wenqing received furniture. He received food and drink and clothing. He received trinkets and paper and ink.
Most of all, he received wishes.
They asked for his protection. Sometimes they even begged for it. Nobody met his eyes; they did not want or need to be seen. They only wanted him to hear their pleas.
Han Wenqing was happy to give back however he could, but so far, there was nothing to protect the village from. Their location was remote, the closest road an hour’s walk away. His vision—his awareness—his light—whatever it was called barely stretched that far.
He hadn’t yet figured out what he could do with it other than see. And seeing this way? It wasn’t normal. It involved all his senses, as well as something new he was sure he’d never possessed before. Something as new as this body, this self, this life.
The connection was obvious. Han Wenqing was alive when he should have been dead. He was saved when he should have been doomed. He was strong when he should have been weak.
Nobody recovered from such severe injuries overnight, if they recovered at all. No man, anyway.
By all accounts, the battle that killed him hadn’t happened. Han Wenqing had thought himself mad, but in reality, he was only impatient. The story arrived eventually, trickled in with the village’s few visitors. Yet it took on a new form: General Han Wenqing, defeated and declared dead. His soldiers, killed to the last. The enemies responsible for the massacre were on the run from reinforcements that came too late.
What misfortune.
Han Wenqing pondered it carefully. The man he met—Death—must have been real. His offer must have been genuine. Somehow, he delivered Han Wenqing from the callous hands of fate. He changed the story.
His relocation, his exemplary state of health, these strange abilities that he was only just beginning to understand, all of it pointed to the impossible.
All of it pointed to divine intervention.
All of it indicated that he was divine, too.
It took time to accept it. Han Wenqing didn’t know how to be anything other than mortal. People might have treated him like a heaven-sent savior, but he was only human. He bled and bruised and even cried. He failed.
Call it curiosity, call it the instincts of a newborn god, but Han Wenqing learned quickly once he got past the disbelief. The prayers of the villagers whispered in the back of his mind wherever he went. The fervor of their worship washed over his skin like cool spring water.
Sooner, there was no more desire to return to what he lost. There was no sense of loss: there was only his land, his people, his power.
Months went by. Divinity burgeoned within him.
It was at the tail-end of summer that the bandits came. Han Wenqing was at his house in a state that passed for sleep. Then a thread of danger wiggled at the edges of his awareness, and he was abruptly alert.
Pain, fear, dizzying need—Han Wenqing felt it all, deeper than any agony he ever faced as a human. But there was a degree of separation, like the touch of a hand through a glove, and this was a boon because it allowed him to think before he acted.
When he arrived at the village, his people were in a panic. Rather than get swept away by the chaos, he dampened his presence, heading straight for whatever they were fleeing.
He heard shouts. The occasional burst of laughter.
His eyes narrowed.
The bandits were near the entrance to the village. They were gathering things, standing over people. A few had horses, most had weapons.
None of that would help them.
Han Wenqing made himself visible. To the bandits, it was as if a predator had stalked out of nowhere, but when their shock subsided, they saw only a man.
“Another one! Capture him, quick, he’ll sell easy.”
Ignorance upon ignorance. Were they so sure of their strength that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them?
Han Wenqing let them come.
The first to try to touch him fell to the ground, writhing and screeching. The next clutched his head and backtracked rapidly, whimpers scraping out of his throat. The one after that started bleeding from every orifice.
Scowling, arms crossed over his chest, Han Wenqing stood there. He felt no shock, no dismay. Nothing else could have happened.
It took too long for them to realize that. Realization then led to retreat. The bandits backed away, quietly terrified.
“Free these people,” Han Wenqing demanded, his voice shaking their bones. “Leave this place.”
They did as ordered. Picked up their fallen comrades and made themselves scarce. The horses left a cloud of dust in their wake, but if not for the mess, the teary faces, and the minor injuries, they could have pretended there was no attack at all.
Han Wenqing sighed and accepted his people’s reverence. He couldn’t heal their wounds, but he could make sure they didn’t die from them. The bandits—slavers, scum, whatever—wouldn’t be so lucky. Escaping alive was just a telltale mercy.
It wouldn’t do to make the villagers bury them.
* * *
His return home was not weary or triumphant. Han Wenqing had simply done what his nature demanded he do for his followers. He provided no rewards and bestowed no favors; he only gave them their due.
But maybe this divinity business was making him arrogant. He didn’t notice the interloper until he was almost on top of him.
A man leaned against a tree just outside his house. He wore mostly white, silver vambraces and shin guards attached to his limbs. A red scarf wrapped around his neck, so long that the ends nearly brushed the forest floor. He looked like he was ready for battle despite the minimal plate armor and casual posture.
His eyes turned Han Wenqing’s way. He caught his breath. Familiar face, golden gaze… Precious gold, gleaming silver, crimson red.
It was him. Death.
“That’s all circumstantial,” Death said, apropos of nothing. “Just because I appeared when you had one foot in the grave doesn’t make me a god of death.”
Han Wenqing corralled his thoughts. His mouth opened on its own. “What are you a god of, then?”
A challenging smile. “To some, luck. To others, misfortune. But generally, I’m a god of rebirth. Of beginnings.”
“You made me this way.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The god of rebirth tilted his head. “Why ask? Look into your heart.”
His heart? Or his desires? His regrets? None of that was even relevant. A mortal’s whims had nothing to do with a god’s generosity. Take it from a god: they weren’t a generous sort.
“You know what is true.” With a shrug, the god took a few steps closer.
Han Wenqing only had to tense for him to stop. They exchanged narrow-eyed glances.
“Would I remake you only to condemn you now?”
Han Wenqing grudgingly subsided. The god approached again, halting an arms-breadth away.
Those golden eyes bore into him. Han Wenqing stood still and glared back. He wasn’t sure what was so fascinating about his visage, what the god might be searching for. He wasn’t even sure why he must yield to such scrutiny.
“You’ve done well for yourself,” the god said finally. “Most wouldn’t have come this far in so short a time. It’s remarkable. You’re remarkable.”
The god smiled. Han Wenqing’s lips parted.
“My name is Ye Xiu.”
“Han Wenqing.”
“I know.” Telegraphing the movement, Ye Xiu reached out and skimmed his fingers from the hollow above Han Wenqing’s collarbones down to his navel. “Mm. Remarkable.”
Han Wenqing blushed.
Ye Xiu laughed and leaned in. The touch of his lips was twilight and blurry stars and beaming, precious gold. A kiss like no other—it shouldn’t have been familiar.
It was.
Power bloomed on Han Wenqing’s tongue, in his mouth. It slid down his throat and burned all the way to the center of him. His core lit up with red-gold-silver. The mix of energies were waves cracking against the shore before quickly receding. His godly components realigned.
Han Wenqing opened his eyes. He didn’t remember closing them, didn’t remember what he wanted to say. Ye Xiu was drawing back, smirking, absolutely aglow with divinity. Everything around him was bright and vivid.
“Just a parting gift. Or a reunion gift. Depends on how you look at it.”
Han Wenqing couldn’t stop staring at Ye Xiu. He licked his lips, hungry.
Ye Xiu winked at him. He spun around with a wave, his steps soundless like he walked on air rather than earth, and disappeared between one shadow and the next.
The rest of eternity was bound to be interesting, wasn’t it?
* * *
Perhaps he spoke too soon.
Han Wenqing whiled the years away with careful indifference. It was easier to let go of things when you knew your lifetime would far exceed any mortal’s.
The pain of human existence still perturbed him, though—how could it not? His followers shared their joys and triumphs and small, daily wonders, but they also shared the worst things that ever happened to them. They searched for ways to alleviate their suffering, and gods like him appeared like easy solutions, receptacles for their woes. Something to put their trust in.
He wasn’t convinced he was worthy of that trust, but Han Wenqing did his best. His godly name spread across the land, encompassing more and more of the empire, and his influence grew. His power grew with it.
Inside him, the traces of Ye Xiu’s gift bolstered his strength. He was sure that helped him along, but in what ways, not even other gods could say.
And he did meet other gods; several of them. Their “real” names rarely matched the names their followers prayed to, which made distinguishing them difficult. But names were a formality compared to the touch of a particular divinity. Every god had their own temperature, their own texture. Even the most minor of deities was unique, never mind that their powers were generic.
Of course, he never tasted anyone’s power like he did Ye Xiu’s. That, apparently, was a gift rarely bestowed. Zhang Xinjie made sure to inform him—in detail.
“Ye Xiu is a famous figure in our circles,” he told Han Wenqing. “If gods are legends, he is a legend among legends. You were fortunate to meet him.”
“The matter of luck did come up during our last encounter.”
Zhang Xinjie nodded understandingly. “He’s not fickle like other gods with luck-related powers, though. His gift will serve you well.”
Han Wenqing knew that. It had already served him well, but that shining star was burning its last. The years reduced it to fine particles floating on the surface of the pool of his divinity. And soon, even that would dissolve into nothingness.
He dreaded it. He wanted to meet Ye Xiu again before that happened.
It had been nearly a century since they’d crossed paths. He knew Ye Xiu was still out there; rumors of his deeds always found Han Wenqing eventually. He was always far away when they did.
But he never stopped hoping, not even when that stardust finally vanished, the particles dissipating one by one, leaving only darkness.
* * *
As his believers spread across the mortal world, Han Wenqing saw farther and truer, deeper and darker.
Centuries after divinity first bloomed within him, the empire he knew was so changed as to be unrecognizable. New borders and a new dynasty meant the great General Han Wenqing was barely a footnote in the history books. Tales of his heroism and superhuman skills still gasped their last breaths in the settlements that had most often observed his army’s march. Otherwise, the truth of his life—and death—was suppressed.
No bother. Han Wenqing, god of war, punisher of the unjust, was far removed from that great general.
What did bother him? The memories, mostly. He thought becoming a god would make his mortal life inconsequential in comparison. He thought the passage of years would blunt the blade of that last, lethal betrayal. Yet, when he cast his mind back to his divine origin, there was no escaping that on the other side of the coin was simple, human Han Wenqing, who was bleeding out in the dirt when Rebirth found him.
The great general. The god of war. The difference between the two wasn’t as distinct as he hoped.
Han Wenqing, against all advice to the contrary, returned to that place. The dirt where he supposedly died—where he did die, just not forever.
It was mostly sand now. Rolling dunes and half-familiar rocky outcroppings. So much blood on the earth and this arid wasteland was all that remained.
Han Wenqing stood at the top of a yellow dune and scoffed at himself.
Unsure of what he looked for, he roamed, and eventually he came to a mountain. It was peppered with scraggly trees and grayish plants clinging to life, ugly in appearance yet beautiful in their endurance.
Still he wandered, and an oasis came into view, nearly hidden behind the wall of a steep cliff. Han Wenqing walked to the edge of the small pool and peered into the water. It had an unusual quality to it; something almost magical. Maybe it was the transparency of its surface, the clarity of the reflected greenery, but for a moment, he was spellbound.
A sound drew his gaze upward, and there, on a rock in the middle of the pool, sat Ye Xiu.
They stared at each other.
Han Wenqing didn’t have a heart, technically: his body was just power given form. But he did have a core, and it pulsed brighter with the proximity of this exceptional presence.
“This is a strange place to meet,” Han Wenqing said into the silence.
When Ye Xiu spoke, his voice was hoarse like he hadn’t spoken in decades. “Indeed.”
Han Wenqing waited for more, a quip or a sly observation, perhaps even flirtation. But Ye Xiu said nothing else. His golden eyes were almost the same shade as the desert sand and twice as desolate.
“What brings you here?” Han Wenqing asked finally.
“Nothing. Yourself?”
“I died not far from here.”
At last, that stony face cracked. It was just a tiny quirk of the lips, but it relieved Han Wenqing to see it. “You didn’t really die. You’re here.”
“You know what I mean. I was reborn here, if you prefer.”
“Hmm. And that’s cause to return? Most gods who are born on the precipice of mortality avoid the reminders.”
“How were you born?”
Ye Xiu blinked. The faint smile was gone. “It wasn’t what you experienced, but it was similar. I was betrayed, doomed to die.”
“Who saved you?”
“I saved myself.”
Han Wenqing had to look down at the water. “That must have been…challenging.”
Ye Xiu huffed out something approximating a laugh. “I can’t complain. But I understand—that urge to face what happened. To ask yourself what it means.”
He glanced up. “Did you arrive at an answer?”
“No,” Ye Xiu said bluntly. “There is nothing in this world or the next that can answer for my pain. I’ve no doubt the same goes for you.”
True enough. “Where have you been, all these years?”
Ye Xiu shrugged. “Here and there. Existence is vast. There are many remarkable people to know.”
Inadvertently, Han Wenqing straightened.
Humor colored Ye Xiu’s pale face in warm hues, softened the cut of his gaze. “Don’t worry, old friend. I’ve never known anyone quite like you.”
“Is that what we are?” Han Wenqing mused to distract himself. “Friends?”
A pause, long enough for Han Wenqing to regret asking. But then Ye Xiu held out his hand in a beckoning gesture, and Han Wenqing waded through the water and climbed onto the rock beside him.
They sat together, arms brushing. It was impossible not to revel in the familiarity.
But familiarity wasn’t all of it. There was hunger, too, stirring at the intimate memory of Ye Xiu’s twilight flavor.
It didn’t escape Ye Xiu’s notice, unfortunately. He smirked and watched Han Wenqing out of the corner of his eye. “Want something?”
“I want,” Han Wenqing confirmed in a low voice, “but I won’t take.”
“I have to offer first, do I?”
“You don’t have to do anything. However, I have a question.”
Ye Xiu faced him fully. “What is it?”
“Why?”
He knew Ye Xiu wouldn’t misunderstand. It wasn’t the first time Han Wenqing had asked, after all.
“I didn’t lie back then,” Ye Xiu said after a contemplative minute. “A great injustice was done, yet you held true to your duty, and you’d have died a tedious death for it.”
“And you took issue with that?”
Ye Xiu leaned against him. “You are the answer to your own question.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“Didn’t you?” Ye Xiu hummed. “I used to think I didn’t, either. But here I am, and here you are.”
Han Wenqing stared into Ye Xiu’s eyes and saw no hint of dishonesty.
“Disappointed, old friend?”
He didn’t know what he was feeling. Gratitude? Awe? Grief? Longing? Whatever it was, disappointment had no part in it.
“I don’t think we’re friends,” Han Wenqing whispered and tipped closer.
Ye Xiu was cool against him at first, but in seconds he was simmering. He was a dying star that suddenly found another reason to burn, another sky to inhabit. His hands wrapped around Han Wenqing’s neck. Open-mouthed and demanding, awareness snapped into place between them.
This was a god’s desire: when it was returned, it doubled.
Red-gold-silver light poured into Han Wenqing. He lapped it up like he’d perish without it, humbled by Ye Xiu’s generosity, and gave back as much as he could spare. His core sang with exhilaration and pure, uncomplicated love. There was no weakness, no emptiness. Giving and taking, like mortality and divinity, were two sides of the same coin. But this symmetry Han Wenqing could accept without issue.
When they broke apart, Ye Xiu was infused with life. The separation of centuries had dulled Han Wenqing’s image of him: he hadn’t realized just how statue-like Ye Xiu was until now. Like he could have become one with the stone if Han Wenqing hadn’t come across him.
“Were you…fading?” Han Wenqing said, horror sharpening his tone.
Ye Xiu just smiled, tender and fatally gorgeous. Not at all diminished despite everything.
The reality of how close he’d come to never seeing Ye Xiu again hit hard. Han Wenqing pulled him in, embraced him. Ye Xiu smelled like metal and water. His scarf was nearly as soft as his lips.
Han Wenqing held on for as long as he dared. When they separated again, he beheld Ye Xiu with gladness, with devotion. Not unlike a follower looking at their god.
“Let me stay with you.”
Ye Xiu didn’t have to say anything. It was not a beautiful day, but he shone, nonetheless: precious gold, gleaming silver, crimson red.
And once again, Han Wenqing shone with him.