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Speared by the very same sword he had once forged, the echoes of his name crashed into the rising barricade enclosing his mind.
“Yingxing!” – the sound of the dragon's voice was distant and dampened, yet remained a shrill reminder of his folly.
As he fell, flashes of long-buried memories flooded his mind; the howling of beasts, gnashing and gnawing – grinding flesh and bone like a mill, spilling blood on his homeland; the crackle of fire and the shrill strike of metal – like bells, surrounded by people who treated him like a ghost; the sound of battle; the sound of rolling waves – held in the embrace of the moon and clouds; the sight of an arrow piercing the Sanguinary Abyss.
Like boulders in the surf, his state remained unaltered by the dragon's desperate plea. Instead, he became enraptured by the embrace of another – it grew from the center of his chest, a seedling germinating underneath his skin, drinking his blood like water. It grew tangling, flowering vines that shot from the earth, surrounding him like a woven basket, upturned and poised like a trap. The moment his body fell to the ground, the trap snapped shut, and all that remained was the tranquil rain of golden leaves and the sound of humming. Gentle and solemn, a choir hidden within the hollow of a tree – their voice was akin to the rustle of leaves, the rhythmic buzz of bees, the flapping of a heron's wings. Inviting him to rest below their undying branches, to give in to the lull of eternity. He almost did, in his delirium. Taking one, then another step toward the source of this comfort before another wild wave caused the boulders to shift, and suddenly the rifts in his mind were filled with recognition – it brought with it the scent of petrichor and distant rolls of thunder.
He faltered for but a moment, hesitant against the draw of their temptation, but it was enough – the silk string which had reared him in snapped like incense smoke and air filled his lungs, stale and rotten. The pleasant hum faded away at the same moment and was replaced by shrieking discordance: the frustrated call of a beast half-devoured, writhing in a bed of its own innards and kicking its broken legs. A cacophony of a thousand voices screamed with rage and then despair, calling out to him, but he did not move, he dared not even look their way again – and then there was nothing. All sound vanished, fading into obscurity, and for a moment, Yingxing dared to hope this to be the last of it.
The silence stretched into oblivion, erasing time and meaning. Until, at the end of this darkened tunnel, the light of a candle caught his eyes. It flickered and twitched like a worm on a hook, curling like a finger beckoning him to come over. The candle was speared onto the pricket of a brass candlestick held at the loop by the spectral image of an old man dressed in Zhuming regalia.
“Yingxing,” his master said, his voice underlined by the crackling of flames, “you have work left unfinished.”
As if caught in a vice, his chest constricted and stung; at the same time, something was crawling up the back of his throat, slimy and firm, pressing against his soft palate. It was the size of a fist, constricting his airflow. He doubled over, coughing and grabbing his neck – the image of his master flickered in tandem with the candle flame. His response is lodged between his shaking fingers; he wants to cry out, but his body is no longer his alone.
“Yingxing,” his master said, and was somehow right in front of him when moments before he stood at least a stone's throw away, “you disappoint me.”
Another fierce cough wracked through his body, stealing the strength in his legs and forcing him to kneel. His one trembling hand pressed into the ground below, the other clawed bright red canyons into the skin of his throat. Then, as he looked up through tear-blurred eyes, the light of the candle extinguished.
“Yingxing…” The sonorous voice of the dragon accompanied the lighting of another candle, cradled in the dragon's open palms. “Will you promise me you’ll stay?” The inky cascade of his hair obscured the pearlescent sheen of his skin, but he did not need to see the dragon's eyes to know tears were falling from them like rain.
“Yingxing,” the dragon said his name like he was confessing his guilt, “come back to me.” One of his raindrop tears fell against the wick of the candle, extinguishing the flame.
Desperate, he reached out his hand toward where moments ago the dragon had called out his name. Like a man drowning, he fought against suffocation – like a man drowning, he swallowed down the foreign mass inside his throat, gasping, wrenching, and fighting for his life. It slid along his esophagus like tar, sticky and unpleasant. Bile rose around it, sputtering from his mouth like venom, and smelled faintly of rotten sap.
“Yingxing.” This time, the candle came to life right before his crumbled body. The ground below him turned transparent, revealing the crescent smile of a fox. Her voice reminded him of a funeral bell. “Don’t succumb – the Hunt has never served you.”
His eyes opened wide, and once again recognition waltzed over him like a deluge – he could hear the distant roll of waves. As if shot, he fell backward and dragged himself across the ground away from where the fox gazed at him with lifeless eyes. The motion jostled the foreign mass now firmly lodged just below his sternum, and a strangled sound fell from his mouth, followed by more sap-stinking bile he spat out to his feet.
“You–” he tried to say, but his words faded into a string of violent coughs, “get out–”
The mass inside his throat ruptured like shrapnel, and like the basket trap enshrouding his mind, flowering vines burst from their cocoon, puncturing the muscle and biting into his flesh, sitting unbudging at the center of his chest.
“Suit yourself.” The terrible echo of the cacophony returned from all around him, blanketing him in a fragrant mist. “But I am not allowing your departure.”
“I'm not–” his words whistle like wind through dense forests, “I will not fall for your tricks, Emanator.”
The Emanator regarded him with nothing but the rustle of leaves and the lighting of another candle. This time, the flame illuminated the golden bark covering a taloned hand. The wax dripped onto their fingers, adhering to their wooden skin.
“You have dug this grave for yourself, Yingxing,” they said with their thousand voices, “but you must not lie in it.” They drew one finger through the flame, wrapping the dancing fire around the tip of their claw-like nail. He could not see them beyond that single hand but could feel their gaze on him as he wallowed there, scrutinizing and full of sympathy. It was the kind of look a passerby would afford roadkill – pointless and self-serving.
Exhausted, he hung his head low. With every gasp for air, the vines in his chest coiled and dug deeper into his flesh. Sap now dripped from his lips in rivulets, filling in the marks he had carved into his skin and mingling with the blossoming droplets of his blood. He gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, seething, balling his fists while the Emanator began to hum again – deep in thought, lost in the sensation of a living pulse.
“You do not get to make that choice for me,” he spat and carelessly swiped his hand at the foul residue on his face. The Emanator replied with a low, rumbling titter, and he could feel the cold caress of their wooden hand following his own. At the same time, the candle the Emanator had held flickered, then extinguished.
“Choose then,” they said in the darkness, and the echoes of their myriad voices faded as if they moved.
Startled, he opened his eyes, seeking out the illumination of another candle – his heart lurched when what he was met with was the salt-crusted stone floors of the Dragonvista Rain Hall and the tentative murmur of the sea. His vision blurred and tilted; he was quite sure he must have hit his head when he had fainted earlier. The ocean breeze tugged at the damp strands of hair stuck to his forehead. He blinked rapidly to dispel the lingering vertigo, and slowly he began to make out the shape of the dragon, slumped on his knees and wrapped loosely in bloodstained silk, haloed by the setting sun. The dragon held his arms like a cradle, enraptured with whatever lay in them, and Yingxing was spellbound by the sight of him.
“Danfeng,” he whispered, near reverently, and inched forward, reaching out with one trembling hand. The dragon reacted belatedly, loath to avert his eyes from what he held in his arms.
“Yingxing,” the dragon replied, his voice was faint, and his gemstone eyes shone with an entirely new kind of light. Yingxings fingers brushed over the bundled silk draped over Danfeng's lap, then he lifted his hand to the dragon's face, where he tenderly caught silent tears spilling from his eyes. “Don’t look at me,” Danfeng said, “look at her.”
Oh, but how could he do such a thing? How could he expect him to allow anyone to steal his gaze away from this most precious sight? When it felt like it had been years since he last saw his husband cry, not from sorrow but relief. All the times he had stolen glances in his youth, silently revering from far across the Commission walls, too ensnared by awe to approach or dare to even hope to hold. To him, the dragon had been a god whose image he wished to carve into the finest moonstone a million times until his likeness remained in his thoughts for eternity. He witnessed what the dragon was capable of, witnessed battlefields be swallowed by roaring waves and rain, the effortless extermination of life – He witnessed the dragon shed tears for his fallen kin in the sanctuary of solitude, drunk from wine, and sorrow no other had yet seen and he had finally extended his hand for the dragon to confide in him. Decades spent in the comfortable proximity of companionship became intrigued encounters born from curious wonder and hopes for affection rarely offered to this dragon without a price attached to every touch, every word, and every pair of eyes to look his way. But he never cared for what the dragon could offer him in return; he wished only to bask in the radiant light of the moon for as long as his short life would last. And when the sun accompanied the morning-red, he would close his eyes and never once look its way for his gaze belonged to the moon. So how could his love ask him to turn away now? What could there possibly be that would be capable of stealing his gaze away from him?
“Yingxing…” the dragon hummed into the salted air, a little peeved but no less fond.
Reluctantly, Yingxing lowered his eyes, for in the end, who was he to deny his love? Then he saw her. The smallest little hands grasping for flying strands of hair, and the brightest aquamarine eyes reflecting the golden sunlight passing through Danfeng's veil of hair, were curious and full of joy. They crinkled at the corners from how big the smile on her peach-fuzzed face was. Tenderly, Danfeng pressed the silk sheets to the infant's cheek, wiping away blood that still clung to her skin. She cooed at the attention, squirming and leaning into her father's touch.
“Only just born,” Danfeng spoke reverently, “yet so full of life.” Yingxing could hear the joy in his voice, no longer shamefully tugged away for no one to see, but escaping through the cracks in his skin. So boundless within Danfeng’s heart, there was nowhere else for that joy to go but out, and Yingxing was awestruck once more by the radiance of this sight, and he knew that he would trade the world to see his husband like this for the rest of his life. It had come at such a high cost.
He remembered the years of fruitless experimentation. Remembered how, year after year, with every failure, his husband became more and more listless and despondent. Hollowed out and devoured – a lifeless shell, bleached by salt and sun and left behind by the shore. The very first time Danfeng came to him, asking for help, grief and loss had already permeated every fiber of his being, and he had already spent years trapped in this folly. Yingxing had long noticed the difference in his love's appearance, noticed how exhaustion clung to him like a shroud, causing his eyes to dull and his gait to waver ever so slightly when the wind chill became too harsh or the way to go too far but Danfeng had been groomed to hide reality since the day he came to be. Yingxing had worried himself sick when he realized how little he saw of the dragon those days and how every time he did catch a glimpse of him, he appeared one step closer to the grave. So when Danfeng came knocking on his door, dressed down in only a light robe that hung from his narrow frame like the drapes of a ghost – the stark white linens causing his pale face to appear ashen and sickly – Yingxing would have agreed to anything Danfeng could have asked of him, no matter what.
Danfeng had insisted on trying to reach the preceptors' goals without the use of the Abundance. Had fought to make sure that no one would go behind his back and jeopardize their principles. But his body lacked everything the Abundance could offer with ease, and by remaining stubborn, he continued to sacrifice himself for nothing. Up until one day, wracked by the pain of another non-viable lump of cells having to be cut from his body to stop the imminent spread of infection, Danfeng dragged himself across the Commission grounds in the middle of the night, on unsteady legs and with tears in his eyes. When Yingxing had opened his door, and Danfeng had fallen into his arms and only begged for the pain to stop, Yingxing was left without a doubt and without a choice. Even when Danfeng became bedridden from the overwhelming amount of strange medicine Yingxing couldn't name, that was supposed to prevent his proximity to the Permanence from interfering with the flesh of the Abundance Emanator grafted to his innards. Not when Danfeng's appearance changed again. Neither of them had been proud of their decision, but Danfeng had already long passed the point of no return, and Yingxing was nothing if not his devoted husband. Had he gone any further without the aid of Abundance, Danfeng would have died. Any further, and he would have never met his daughter.
Yingxing always expected his husband to outlive him, knew in his heart that it would be so, and it became a fact he never questioned. Sometimes, in his nightmares, he saw the day his body would fail him and crumble away like dry, unfired clay. Everything was a reminder of his impending death, the smooth-faced disciples twice his age, the whispers and gossip, his husband's pitying eyes on him. But then Baiheng – the woman who treated him as her own – died before him, and suddenly that certainty was brought into question, and then Danfeng – the man he had always thought of as eternal – almost slipped through his fingers too. The Abundance had saved Danfeng's life, and it saved the child so desperately craved.
“Isn't she perfect?” Danfeng sobbed, relief and joy, and love pouring from him like shattered clouds, drawing Yingxing in like spellwork. A tingling spread from the tips of his fingers into his arms, and he itched to place his pinky into the tiny hand, still grasping for inky hair. Then he looked up again, and into his husband's eyes,
“You are perfect,” he said, and his voice was like the breeze. “Finally, you can rest.”
At last, the sun concluded its path below the horizon and vanished into the softest shades of purple and royal blue as stars began to light the sky, yet somehow the baby's eyes continued to reflect golden, as if a flame burned within them. Yingxing remained awestruck, mesmerized by the gentle outline of his beloved. Both of them.
“What a precious sprout,” a gentle voice cooed from within his mind, soft like the graze of a butterfly's wing and myriad like a choir. “You chose well,” they said, “you saved his life when you stole me from my prison.”
“Shuhu…” Yingxing's voice quivered, threatening to break. Tears welled up in his eyes as shame rose in his throat like bile.
“You chose well,” they said, “you chose right.”
“It should never have come to this…” He placed his face into his palms and wept. “The Abundance should not be relied upon…” he said, but the words felt hollow and unpleasant on his tongue, “The Abundance is never a blessing, all it creates is abominations.”
Yingxing heard the Emanator sigh in his mind. Long and pitiful. “Aren't you righteous… What would the alternative have been? Hm? You knew his suffering would have been only prolonged, never concluded. You chose to save him from the cruelty of the Xianzhou’s awful laws. You knew the Abundance was the only cure to his suffering.”
“The Abundance only creates abominations.”
“You say that with such certainty…” The Emanator mused.
“All it creates is abominations,” Yingxing repeated like a desperate mantra. He felt faint, hot, and clammy, and he could feel the parasite's frustration come to a spike. “All the Abundance creates is abominations, all of it… never a blessing… all it creates is–”
“Stubborn old dog! Fine then!” They screeched, and the sound made his vision blur as he choked on his words. The image of Danfeng dispersed like smoke and was replaced by that of a finely carved wooden crib, the bars were in the image of rolling waves, and a mobile of sea-birds spun in leisurely circles overhead. A figure shrouded in darkness stood behind the crib, illuminated from behind by a full moon. Its silhouette resembled that of a wispy tree, and its head was crowned with winding branches curling around it in a wreath.
“You claim all beings of Abundance are abominations by nature. Yet you revere the sprout born from nacre and golden sap.” The Emanator's voices hissed and rattled like a rousing beast. “Look at you – Pathetic and old, confused and dement. Wasn't it truly so easy to abandon your principles for that worthless excuse of a god? You spat in the face of those sycophantic lunatics, and you did it with pride. You are as much her father as that moon-drunken failure.”
Their words rained down on Yingxing like wild hail. Barely registering as anything but painful stabs to his skull. He gasped helplessly as he stumbled toward the crib. Grasping the railing, he bent over the side as if staring off a cliff. There, wrapped loosely into a thin silken blanket, was the infant Danfeng had held in his arms. She was sleeping, holding one corner of the blanket in her tiny fist just as she had held onto Danfeng's hair. Twin bumps at the edge of her hairline, as well as the stubby beginnings of a lavender-scaled tail, identified the little girl as possessing the blood of a high elder vidyadhara. Her face was rosy and plump as an infant's face was supposed to be, soft and petal-like. She looked the most peaceful Yingxing had ever seen any being in his life appear.
Helplessly, he sobbed, reaching out with his calloused hand to run a single finger over the soft bridge of her button nose. She stirred, rubbing her nubby fists against her closed eyes as she squealed, and when she opened her big, bright eyes, the light of a candle shone from within them. Foreboding spread through him, the edges of his vision blurring as droplets of tears trickled onto the soft sheets.
“Don't– Please, don't do this…” Yingxing sagged to his knees. His arm hung limp over the crib's rail, and tiny hands reached up toward him.
“She will grow to embody everything you revile and revere. All that devotion – a testament to your greatness and ultimate undoing.” The Emanator chuckled, an unhinged timber in the layers of their voice. “I'm not doing anything.”
“Please…” Yingxing begged a second time, wrung out and scared.
“I was but a pawn in this scheme. You stole me from my prison, desecrated my remains, and used me like tilapia skin on fresh burns. Am I not simply a helpless mandrake, and you the foolish dog pulling me from the earth?”
“Please….”
“I'm not doing anything I'm not entitled to.” The Emanator hummed into the space between them, then they leaned forward over the crib, with their back straight. “But you… You have much to do.”
“Please…” Yingxing couldn't seem to say anything else.
“You insisted on having a choice – very well,” the Emanator rumbled, gesturing to the infant, “Choose then,” they repeated their words from before, it echoed off the walls of his skull, each syllable like the sound of a gong.
The Emanator rounded the crib, now standing behind Yingxing. Gently, they coaxed him to stand and guided his arms with their own. In a daze, he complied, too scared and too lost until he found himself holding the little girl in his arms. She appeared so very fragile, like a porcelain doll, and his tears were unceasing.
“The abominations must be eradicated,” they whispered into his ear, repeating the teachings of the Xianzhou while their body wrapped around his. Their voice was low and drawled languidly.
“Please…” With horror, Yingxing realized what that meant. “Please, don't make me do this,” he pleaded. He cradled the chirping infant close to his chest, covering her downy head with his hand.
The Emanator clicked their tongue chidingly, tapping their fingers against his forearms. “You know, the Hunt doesn't care who lives or dies, as long as something of the Abundance dies. Do you think they'll take you back? Your life for hers.”
A shudder went down Yingxing’s back, and he couldn't seem to stop his arms from shaking as he stood otherwise frozen. The Emanator's words and their implications settled into his bones like frost. Behind him, he could feel them shift, their hands burned his skin where they made contact. Then, suddenly, they squeezed. They squeezed his sides until he couldn't breathe, and then they pressed even closer as if to try and crawl under his skin.
“Strike while the iron is hot,” the Emanator drawled, “or do you admit that in the end, you are all bark and no bite?”
“Please…” Yingxing sobbed. The Emanator kept pressing in closer, crowding him against the crib, and the moonlight felt blinding. It hurt; their touch was scalding, a piercing heat not even a lifetime spent in the forge could undermine. He couldn't breathe, there was fire in his lungs, acid in his veins – he shook, clinging onto the infant in his arms; her candle-eyes never leaving his.
“Quit stalling!” The Emanator dug their clawed nails into his arms.
His mind was racing. He felt akin to a cornered animal, his skin felt too small, too hot, there were beads of sweat – a hearth – a crucible – Shuhu kept fanning the flames. Choices, supposedly, what choice did he have? If he just closed his hands, squeezed a little tighter, used just a little more force, it would be so easy to crush her. The little girl was so fragile in his too-large hands. But what makes a monster? What lights that flame? What moves those waves? When do you cross that line? And has he not done so already?
“Kill me.”
The Emanator's hysterical laughter echoed through the hall.
“You asked, her life or mine,” he bit out through clenched teeth, his shoulders tensed, “I have made my choice, kill me, so she can live.”
Immediately, the Emanator's laughter died, and they grew quiet.
“You don't get it, do you?” they asked.
“I've made a choice! Kill me!” he yelled as he hugged the little girl close.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Yingxing’s voice came out thin and pathetic.
Instead of answering, Shuhu continued to prod at Yingxings arms. They seemed lost in thought for a moment, then wistfully they said: “All troubles are dispelled.”
“What–” Yingxing couldn't breathe.
The Emanator began to hum again, softly, as if to placate a fussy child, and Yingxing tried to writhen futilely against their hold.
“I hereby plant the sacred tree,” they started to recite, voice lilting and light, “to liberate those living beings: So that life is boundless and old age never coming; death revitalized; all troubles are dispelled.”
“Stop–”
“She will die regardless of what you do, and you will live regardless of what you want,” Shuhu said and snickered as their hold on him circled his chest, “You are dreaming, old dog, this is all a dream, you never had a choice.”
He blinked once, and suddenly he was no longer holding the little girl but a burning candle. Wax had dripped onto his hands, fusing the candle to his skin. It burned, leaving his skin raw. The scenery around him had fallen away, opening up to a black void. Shuhu hummed a melody into the nothing. His heart began to race once more, and he felt feverish as he stared down at that candle in his hands. A tear slipped from his chin and dripped onto the wick, the flame flickered and twitched, the light dimmed, and for a moment, Yingxing dared to hope. But the flame righted itself, returning to its former shine. Another tear fell, then another, each one raining onto the candle, but none could extinguish it. The fire kept on burning. One last time, Yingxing took a breath and blew on the flame, but nothing changed, and in that moment, he knew. Despairing, Yingxing closed his eyes and thought, for a moment, he could hear Shuhu’s cacophony disperse into the sonorous echoes of an ancient elegy – a memory – a moment shared in secret in days long passed – a kiss – a farewell – longing…
In a sudden burst of flame, he came alive.