Chapter Text
And what was left, at the end of all things?
Tianlang-jun gathered up the miserable remains of his body and spirit. He gathered up the broken body of his nephew, metaphorically speaking. At Zhao Hua Monastery, he sat with the grief. His flesh began to knit itself back together, slowly, even if his heart could not do the same.
Perhaps he should be happy about his recent turn of fortune. He was no longer trapped under the mountain, choking and starved like a hungry ghost. He woke up every morning to the sun streaming in through his window. At any point he might, if he wanted to, go outside and fill his lungs to bursting with air so sharp and fresh that every breath felt like it left something bleeding.
The monks were as patient and gracious as could be expected. A few of them even still tried to strike up conversation with him, even when he deliberately antagonised them.
But there was no exorcising the ichor from his mind. The way it would bubble up every so often, coating everything with rot.
After all, what did he have left?
Only his wits and his body. Only a dead nephew and a son he might have loved in some other life, if things had been different between them.
And, of course, the library.
-
The Zhao Hua library was filled with religious texts and cultivation theory. Really, there was very little of interest to him on the shelves.
But the room had an air to it. A silence that seemed to fill his brain, leaving it quieter than it was anywhere else. He had never enjoyed silence too much before, and even less after the mountain, but somehow the library was different. The walls were plain, yellow-white stone, with no decorations, but the windows really let the light in. There were people around almost constantly, too, brushing soundlessly between the shelves.
Tianlang-jun liked to sit in a corner and read. After a while, most of the monks stopped visibly startling at his presence.
He had even managed to coerce some of the newer disciples to sneak in some yellow books for him.
-
When he first saw the head of Cang Qiong again, it took all his strength not to attempt to kill him right then and there. It was a fine spring day, and the scent of jasmine and whispering green lilies wafted in through the open windows of the library. Until the moment Tianlang-jun heard Yue Qingyuan’s bland pleasantries cutting through the stacks, as potent as any cursed or poisoned sword, it had been a perfectly nice morning.
Now his nails dug sharp into the pages of the book he had been reading, pressing crescent moons into the paper.
He found, suddenly, that he didn’t have much of an appetite for reading.
A shame. He sighed, put-upon, and set the book down. It had been very promising up until this point: the mermaid Hai Shuilian had sacrificed her voice to a siren witch in return for a human body in which she could experience the pleasures of the flesh, only to immediately be kidnapped and forced to marry the roguish Zhang Jianfeng, which led to a number of increasingly suggestive scenarios with increasingly pornographic outcomes. The Tale of an Ocean Pearl may not be on the level of Resentment of Chunshan , but it more than passed the time.
Yue Qingyuan and Wu Chen turned the corner. Tianlang-jun smiled at them, tasting blood.
“Wu-dashi,” he said, and then, with nearly the same amount of politeness, “Yue Qingyuan.”
Yue Qingyuan gave him a bland smile. Funny, how different he looked now from the man who had been instrumental in sealing him down under Bailu Mountain. His features were still worthy of any classical hero, of course. As distasteful as Tianlang-jun found it, it was easy enough even to imagine him as the face of one of the leads in a classical romance.
Now, his expression - well. It certainly looked serene enough at first glance, as watery and devoid of flavour as any poorly made porridge.
All flavour improves with salt, Tianlang-jun mused. Perhaps Yue Qingyuan could use some, in whatever sense of metaphor one might imagine.
“Tianlang-jun,” Yue Qingyuan said, with an impeccably polite bow. There was something about it - about the man’s whole being, the more he gave himself the time to study it - that sat strangely with Tianlang-jun. A lonely, threadbare feeling. It stuck out in the way the shadows almost formed beneath his eyes; the careful set of his shoulders, as though they were being held up by invisible strings. “This one hopes your time at Zhao Hua has been treating him well.”
“So polite,” Tianlang-jun said, leaning forward with a smirk. “This lowly one is impressed that Yue Qingyuan has finally come to care about such things.”
It was petty, but Tianlang-jun was under the firm belief that indulging pettiness could be imperative for one’s health.
Besides, he was hardly awash with other outlets in this particular case.
Yue Qingyuan’s face didn’t change, but he couldn’t quite hide the slightest suggestion of a flinch. Tianlang-jun blithely pretended to ignore it, continuing on.
“Zhao Hua has treated me very well,” he said, “though their librarians refuse to even look at most of my book requests.”
Wu Chen did not seem to take offence. He never did, or if he did, he had long ago learned to hide it. A wonderful quality in a man, for sure, though it did make him much less fun to tease.
“What books does Tianlang-jun seek?” Yue Qingyuan asked, with something that almost passed for eagerness. It was as though someone had plastered a sign on his forehead that read “I am more comfortable with problem solving than I am with any kind of genuine display of emotion”.
Tianlang-jun grinned at him, letting his canines show. “Yellow books, mostly.”
Something in Yue Qingyuan’s gaze sharpened just a little. It wasn’t offended, but Tianlang-jun could not pin down the feeling behind it.
Interesting.
“I see,” Yue Qingyuan said, in the same even tone as he had said everything else.
“Perhaps Sect Leader Yue would like some suggestions,” Tianlang-jun suggested easily. When Yue Qingyuan only kept on smiling vaguely, he took it as a sign to press further. Perhaps revenge was out of the question, (and besides, he was tired,) but there were other ways of needling a man until he broke under his own embarrassment.
Besides, it was as good a reason as any to talk about The Tale of an Ocean Pearl .
“Recently, for example, I have been quite taken with this particular work,” he said, pushing the book into Yue Qingyuan’s hands. Yue Qingyuan did not seem to know how not to take it.
When Tianlang-jun explained, in vivid detail, the ins and outs (and in-and-outs) of the plot, he did not seem to know how to give it back, either. (Wu Chen, who had gotten used to Tianlang-jun at this point, had long since excused himself from the conversation.) He stood there, awkwardly clutching at the book as Tianlang-jun told him about the way Zhang Jianfeng had just been enthusiastically excavating Hai Shuilian’s, ah, ocean pearl.
By the end of it, the tips of his ears were very slightly pink.
-
Yue Qingyuan left with the book.
Tianlang-jun might be declawed and recovering. He might be without much in terms of reading material (and even less, now that Yue Qingyuan had left with part of it). Still, the thought of the upright, professional Yue Qingyuan getting caught out with pornographic materials did give him a stronger sense of satisfaction than he might have expected.
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Would his ears turn pink, if someone pressed him on it?
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If he ended up reading it, alone in his home at night?
-
Tianlang-jun let himself think about it, and blew out the candle by his bedside.
-
And in his dreams, as always:
Su Xiyan, watching him across the marketplace with a near-imperceptible smile.
Su Xiyan, drinking poison.
Su Xiyan, collapsing in the snow on the bank of the Luo River, bleeding.
Su Xiyan -
-
Like many things in life, the first letter Tianlang-jun wrote to Yue Qingyuan was motivated by pettiness.
-
He was in a foul mood. Autumn had already overstayed its welcome; the bright red and yellow leaves had browned and tarnished, clumping together into wet paste on the ground. The trees were left bare, their branches stretching out like skeleton fingers, grasping. The sky was a grey smear of waterlogged cloud.
How depressing!
Not even in the moody, artistic way, which he could certainly appreciate. No, instead there was a terrible flatness to everything that made his chest feel tight and his joints ache. He could feel his bones move with every shift of his body, a dull twisting beneath the skin.
It had made his daily exercises harder to complete than they had been for months.
Now he was back in his room, bent over his writing desk.
Perhaps Zhuzhi-lang would have called this hiding.
But Zhuzhi-lang was not here.
Not anymore.
As usual: That heavy, dreadful feeling threatened to suffocate him.
It did not weigh as much as a mountain.
On some days, perhaps it came close.
Today, Tianlang-jun stared wistfully at his little shelf of books. He had already finished the three he had at hand (a classical romance, a historical narrative that had its moments but was mostly tedious, and a delightfully racy little collection of poems he had managed to get hold of with a significant amount of bribery), and did not feel like rereading any of them. Idly, he wondered how Tale of an Ocean Pearl had ended.
Perhaps letting Yue Qingyuan run off with it really had been a mistake. Tianlang-jun frowned at the space on the shelf where the book might have been if he hadn’t. Idly, he wondered what Yue Qingyuan had done with it.
Well.
Perhaps he could get some entertainment out of it yet.
He reached for a quill and a blank sheet of paper.
-
Most Honourable Sect Leader Yue of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect,
This Tianlang-jun hopes this letter finds you well.
In Zhao Hua Monastery, the autumn trees stretch their leafless fingers towards the sky, begging the heavens for rain. Perhaps Sect Leader Yue knows this feeling as well?
I write to you because this feeling is no stranger to me, either. When we last spoke, I mentioned my love of books to you, but sadly, I have been unable to find any new volume that speaks to my particular interests lately. The rain reminded me again of that wondrous story, The Tale of an Ocean Pearl . Yue Qingyuan is surely too occupied to visit Zhao Hua Monastery solely to return a book to a demon such as myself, but perhaps he could write back with a summary of the plot? Perhaps he might even include some of his own reflections, if he is amenable.
Take care,
Tianlang-jun, who longs for rain
-
Of course, he never expected Yue Qingyuan to answer.