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Within the watery abyss, he could see the vague imitation of the one he loved. It swayed gently, like a piece of moonlight someone had dropped. It was hardly a corporeal thing — a bygone echo that shouldn’t be here, its fragility making the pitch-dark ocean even more lonely. Even if the East Sea were drained, even if the earth turned into one vast desert, darkness remained as one perpetual constant.
Nezha remembered the moment the sky broke, and the mortal realm was stirred by the whims of otherworldly beings. Many humans and yao alike perished in the war, innocents falling like leaves during their evacuation. Residents of the depths, imbued with generations of trauma, were quick to hide themselves away inside the deepest trenches, leaving behind a colourless world. Bones and carcasses littered the seabed in broken, forgotten piles. Water hugged his body from all sides, threatening to crush him into a fine mist. He would’ve been fine with it, if not for the fact that there was a single last mission he must complete. Then, he didn’t care if destiny, in one last hurrah of spiteful justice, decided to get rid of him for good.
“You’re thinking about how, if you had a choice, you would’ve sacrificed yourself for him.”
The King of the East Sea regarded Nezha with a tired, worry-worn expression. Spongy spheres floated like lanterns, illuminating the ruins with their pulsating lustre, and there he stood — the ruler of a once glorious legacy whose title was now uttered on the lips of Heavenly soldiers with little more than disparagement. He appeared more haggard than the last time Nezha saw him. His large form rose languidly from an inky black valley that surface light could not pierce. Shen Gongbao said that Ao Guang was cultivating in secret, but part of him wondered if the old king had reached his limit. Nezha could not see the same brooding, prideful ruler he was familiar with. He hoped that the sombre glint he spotted beneath those garnet eyes was the sign of a hope that refused to die — just like his was.
Funny. Despite Nezha’s unruliness, he’d always held the old coot in high regard. Even now, after the whole universe had deemed dragonkind unsalvageable, Ao Guang was one of the few beings left worthy of receiving three kowtows from him.
One as an apology.
One for condolences.
And one was a promise.
“Gladly,” he said.
“I’m afraid it won’t be necessary,” the Dragon King’s claws curled, digging deep tracks into the cliffside, “because they have been holding back against you. A human cultivator, no matter how disgraced and dangerous, is worth a hundred dragon yao. You’re standing here, aren’t you? You’re still standing here, after I’ve lost everything.”
Behind Nezha, Shen Gongbao shot both of them a look that almost read as pity. Nezha did not reply.
“Take these,” the dragon flipped his claws over and extended them in front of Nezha, “I meant to bury it, but… I think you deserve to at least keep a part of him, and I deserve to hold onto some form of hope. Do return to me if you have good news; otherwise, this shall be the last time we speak.”
What floated up were three teardrop-shaped scales that, despite the suffocating dark, shone with the clearest blue Nezha ever did see. Their iridescent sheen glistened without a light source, luminous particles rolling off of them and stumbling into the slow current. When Nezha’s fingers brushed against them, the scales shrank until they could fit neatly inside his palms. He loosely closed his hands around them, letting the feeble glow breathe through the gaps between his fingers. Amid the freezing waters, the scales were warm, like drunken kisses.
Nezha walked by crumbling archways and collapsed walls. The last free creatures of this realm swam aimlessly, nibbling on what little live debris was left and lamenting a world lost to endless wars. The thousand-tonne water pressure weighed but a fraction of his guilt, which, ever since he embarked on this journey, had been picking pieces off of him and crunched them between its vindictive — and justified — mandibles.
You said you would show me the new capital that your citizens built. You said I would love to witness the re-emergence of your kingdom in all its deserved splendour from the heart of a city shielded by miles and miles of gorgeous reefs and decorated with the prettiest pearls. You said you would take me on adventures in the furthest depths, and I was too busy imagining your carefree form gliding through the vastness that called you its Prince to realise that the logical destination of our journeys was closer than I’d thought. The four oceans welcomed you back with sumptuous banquets and jubilant music. Their currents embraced me, a child of fire, as well, because no matter how paradoxical it all sounded, this simply made the most sense. In my hasty dreams you were wearing a blue wedding gown; an azure veil shrouded your smile, and I forwent the traditions of my people for a moment just to become one with my little Pearl in this foreign, blue world.
The scales guided his way. Nezha could not make out the silent, colossal shadows jutting from the seabed on his own. Under the blue flare, he saw a piece of sail fabric fluttering from what remained of a mast that had quickly incorporated itself into the rubble. Ao Bing’s white sleeves would flow in the same manner around his wiry arms. The sight was so mundane, it had no business making Nezha’s knees buckle like this.
“I n-never realised how much he talked about you,” Shen Gongbao said unprompted, “now that I can’t hear his voice anymore. Is… is it strange to admit that I miss hearing your name, somehow?”
Nezha bit his lower lip until it stung, not even blinking at the thin, red sliver. They came to the crater in the middle of the old palace. Just like everything around it, it was deserted, sporting a dull, desolate grey. Shortly after the place’s collapse, the dragons had gone into hiding, and things were starting to look up. Then, the war happened — a slew of bloody battles between Heaven and those opposing them shook the firmament. It wasn’t over, not really, but Nezha had temporarily taken himself out of it. He had to.
This was also when he and Ao Bing were at their closest. They were hand-in-hand, knocking the world off its axis knowing that as long as they had each other, bringing them down would take nothing short of a miracle.
And a miracle, cruelly, did it take. Their happiness was antithetical to the rules of Heaven — that much was clear, so it sank, shattered, dissolved into sea foam.
“W-Wait… The scales…”
Shen Gongbao blurted out just before Nezha’s thoughts started to spiral. It was then that Nezha noticed what felt like dull blades digging into his palm. Opening his hand, he released the scales, and they drifted upwards, spinning like maple seeds in the wind. Their light was even more brilliant than before, draping a shiny veil over miles of terrain. And then, from every grain of sand, every crack and crevice, ghostly wisps started rising, flowing in thin streams towards the scales. At a glance, it looked like the scales were absorbing spiritual energy from the scenery, until he peered into the streams and immediately made out what they were.
“The Dragon King was right…! The S-Spirit Pearl broke into pieces upon his death, but it-…” Shen Gongbao gasped. “It is still alive inside those scales, and now it-… it’s summoning the memories of Ao Bing from the Dragon Palace’s ruins!”
Nezha let out a mirthless chuckle. With the water in contact with his eyes, he could not produce any visible tear, but he was weeping inside. Of course the Pearl was alive. He should’ve known that a father’s love was stronger than most things in this world. Ao Guang had found a way to preserve part of his son shortly after receiving his cold, lifeless body, and Nezha had done nothing but be the bearer of bad news, whose sole mission was to twist the dagger in the King’s wound. His arms were trembling; no matter how hard his mind was fighting, the heaviness of Ao Bing’s corpse had already been imprinted on them.
The Palace was alive for a split second. Visions from the past thousand years flashed in remembrance of its ill-fated prince. The sea hummed in a mournful choir, reverberating through Nezha’s body, and he was at a loss for words. Hope had the prettiest colour and the most beautiful song. He admired what he could only interpret as Ao Bing’s parting gift to dragonkind, and his tender heart swelled.
“Ao Bing?” Shen Gongbao called out. He, too, was shaken. “Ao Bing, do you recognise me? It’s your shifu-”
He reached into the empty sea. Thin slivers coiled around his arms like soft silks, comforting him. All at once, the world was plunged into darkness. One of the scales flickered once, twice, then curled up and hardened into a spherical shard. Nezha’s mouth twitched.
“I know where to go next.”
It was twilight, and the sky was blood red. Rolling clouds in the shape of monsters and horsemen engaged in a perpetual battle were plastered over it. Bare mountaintops draped themselves in a purplish blanket as they faded into the evening fog.
Nezha stood on top of what used to be his old house. After many years, the hardened lava had turned into another layer of the Earth’s crust. Chentang Pass was meant to be rebuilt — but not when bombarded with heavy rain and floods. The ground was obsidian black, still, and nothing was growing. Decay was simply a fact of life, yet there was something vicious about the way it permeated everything Nezha held dear. Was it his and Ao Bing’s fault that things eventually came apart around them? As proud and defiant as they were, a few small victories had made them forget that they were a pair of hot-blooded kids going up against the mechanism of the universe itself. Lacking clairvoyant vision, they could only react to what was thrown in their way, and thus, they must fall.
The ocean breeze was salty. Nezha could almost feel Ao Bing’s hair through his fingers — long tresses like brush strokes painted the sky in pale, watery colours, and the youth’s beautiful profile made the sunset look like a garish, kitschy sketch.
“I’ve always wanted to take him horse riding in the plains,” Nezha muttered into the dead air. Shen Gongbao didn’t even look like he heard what he said.
“What stopped you,” yet, the older man asked.
“I don’t know. Guess I never had the chance to.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? Now I wish I’d told you all the activities he planned to try out, just to rub it in your face.”
Nezha sighed. He raised the scale, overlapping it with the bright orange disk in the sky. A rainbow patch appeared on its surface, heart-achingly pretty.
“I don’t mind that he considers you, his mentor, someone to confide in if it’s about me. He’s always ahead of me when it comes to our feelings. For a little dragon, he’s always been so… forward, it’s kind of scary.” Nezha couldn’t control his smile. “If I had known, I would’ve asked my mother how to confess to him. In the end, neither of us won-…”
His throat closed up. Ao Bing would’ve scolded him if he knew how much regret Nezha was experiencing. They didn’t even share a kiss. For how many times Nezha thought about his friend’s lips, he never mustered up the courage to approach them. Ao Bing never made the first move because he knew Nezha would be childish enough to turn it into a competition. If only Nezha had matured earlier. If only the world had given them a chance. If only, if only, if only…
The scale in his hand stirred slightly, so he lowered it. Through the glasslike lens, he could see a young man standing an arm’s length away. The boy’s silky hair swayed to the sweltering breeze, and his lips moved to indecipherable syllables. The air around Nezha disappeared. His breath hitched.
Reality splintered. Superimposed onto the phantom’s illusory silhouette was Ao Bing’s visage that day, covered in ice shards after he was struck down. Barrages of lightning and brimstone rained around them as though evoking hell itself, trying to prevent Nezha from touching him, but he persevered. He embraced Ao Bing like he was the most precious thing in existence. Fire coursed around Nezha in the shape of lotus petals. Blow after blow landed on his back; some of them were absorbed, some smashed through his barrier and embedded themselves into his flesh — but it didn’t hurt. His wounds didn’t hurt at all compared to what he felt when he looked down at Ao Bing’s waxen complexion, where a sad smile rested. He touched Nezha’s cheek, and his palm was scorching hot. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. They were supposed to conquer the universe together. They were supposed to-
Death was a strange thing. Nezha had died before, so he should know. All he could remember was his consciousness being severed with no way of patching up, bookended by a burst of excruciating pain. He hoped that Ao Bing didn’t experience pain at all. Death to him should feel like a lullaby that trailed off at the end, like a boat filled with fragrant flowers gently carrying him along the huang quan. Instead, Nezha should be the one writhing in agony. He should be the one with the knowledge that, perhaps, this was the last time he could see Ao Bing again.
The blue light blinked in Nezha’s grasp. Heaven, in its determination to force its most rebellious child into submission, had rejected the Spirit Pearl. What had once been Yuanshi Tianzun’s most important half of his most important treasure was now deemed worthy of being shattered like an old mirror. Yet, it lived on, the stubborn thing. It had, in a sense, taken on Ao Bing’s identity after his soul was destroyed, although Nezha shuddered when he considered a reality in which their pearls had not been swapped.
Perhaps it wasn’t that the Pearl deserved to be punished. Perhaps the old dragon was right, and Ao Bing’s nature was all the excuse they needed.
And if I say that I cried a lot that day, will you laugh at me? If I say that I was so desperate to take hold of your soul I nearly went crazy, will you look down on me with pity? In all of our most important moments, I was a powerless, bumbling fool, and I have never stopped hating myself for that. Did you think I was pathetic when I slumped over your body, ripping my own throat out while screaming your name? I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight back. All I could do was beg you to stay while you patted my head and kissed my tears and whispered that they tasted like fire. Your touch was so gentle it lacerated my skin with grief. In my weakness I did the unthinkable — I prayed. I prayed to every deity I would otherwise spit in the face of to please spare you this one time. You were cruel, you know that, Ao Bing? You wrapped me around your pretty finger just so that when I truly deserved punishment you dared be kind and told me to please forget about you, please live, please dream of a bright future, no matter how hard it was.
Nezha wiped the tears rolling down his chin. On the other side of the scale, the phantom approached him with childlike fascination.
“A human kid? How odd. I think you’re lost here, kid.” It said. Nezha was frozen in place. He briefly glanced at Shen Gongbao, who wasn’t even looking his way. Nezha’s hands were adult-sized and calloused from holding weapons. He stared at not-Ao-Bing, perplexed as to what either of them was seeing.
“There was once a town here, I think. I was born in the sea, but somehow, I know a town, and I’ve been to it. Do you happen to remember where it is?”
Nezha didn’t react.
“Strange. Someone I know must’ve hailed from here, but I don’t know who, or when…” The phantom tilted its head. “Will you take my hand, child?”
Hesitantly, Nezha’s hand sank into its own, and the world turned blue. Thousands of phantoms rose from the ground and whipped their heads around. Bubbling beneath their exterior was the rage of lives being ripped away in a meaningless power struggle, but they were oddly calm. Some even laughed. They must’ve remembered their peaceful days, and didn’t fully comprehend why they were here at all…
“Nezha, these are memories…!” Shen Gongbao warned. “They’re not spirits of people you knew. Don’t get lost in them.”
The phantom turned to look at them. It, too, must’ve been a memory. The shadows around it flickered red, and they stepped forward, sparks falling from their sleeves onto the obsidian floor. Nezha jolted when the scale in his hand heated up. He dropped it.
By his ear, he could almost hear Ao Bing whisper to him. He said he would never curse or blame Nezha, but he would be very mad if Nezha would indeed exchange everything to get him back. Ao Bing was just as kind and eccentric as he remembered. It was embarrassing to be this weak, to admit that he would surrender that easily. There had to be something else he wanted to say.
“I miss you,” Nezha squeezed his eyes shut and spoke in his mind, hoping to send his thoughts through to the phantom. Memories be damned — if Ao Bing was here in any capacity, he would be able to hear him. “I miss you so much. Your father, your shifu, everyone misses you as well. I said I would give everything for you to return, but… If you do come back, we will surely continue our adventures and carve our path like we vowed. Screw Heaven. We will not relent. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing matters anymore.”
Chentang Pass was empty once again. Nezha fell to his knees, the shard lying just out of reach.
“Ao Bing!” He called out, but the phantom was no longer there.
Only the beach remained the same, it seemed.
Nezha sat down on a rock next to the boulder he’d once broken. Shen Gongbao wasn’t here. Nezha assumed his shishu wouldn’t understand the significance of this mundane location, so he decided to go without him. More than anything, though, he wanted to be alone. With Ao Bing.
This corner of the world was something private and dear to Nezha. Even with a war going on, he couldn’t see any trace of bloodshed. Waves lapped against yellow sand like they had been for millennia. Sunlight sparkled on the surface, pushed against each other by the undulations of the sea.
The last scale lay flat against his palm. Caustics rolled across it in webbed patterns, casting slivers of white light on his face. Last night, he’d held it to sleep. He was hoping Ao Bing would leak into his dreams and tell him he was here, that everything would be okay, but all he could see was lightning. Eternal, punitive lightning.
Nezha raised the conch to his mouth. A sorrowful sound escaped its maw, travelling far and wide. Sand grains fell from its rim. Its cry was deep and echoing, calling for someone who would never come.
When he stopped to take a breath, the universe responded. Spacetime itself was being stretched thin, for he could feel the distance between him and the tip of the waves expanding. Bioluminescent specks washed up, clinging to wet rocks and forming a blue galaxy along the shoreline. Nezha felt a presence crouching next to him. It clapped its hands twice, not to alert or scare him, but to break the quietness that had long stopped being comforting. It smiled at him with Ao Bing’s smile, but it didn’t have a face. “Aren’t you lonely?” It asked. He was. The loneliness that had shaped his soul up until now had taken on many forms, like a scarecrow trying on different outfits to frighten a wise old bird. A hand wormed its way into his fist as though it was its nest. “I’m waiting for the one I love. I was hoping we could play jianzi again.” Nezha said. “Jianzi? Why? I heard rumbling in the sky. Don’t you have a war you need to fight?” He gently pushed the figure away, watching it fade into the amber sky, “I made a promise.”
The final shard drank in its last remnants of memories. The small shadow reflected on its surface was not something Nezha had seen in person, but it was so familiar to him he had to choke down a sob. He really looked stupid standing like that in front of Ao Bing while dangling the jianzi as though trying to lure a pet, yet Ao Bing still coloured this echo of him in the most gentle, loving hues.
A bolt of electricity zapped through Nezha’s hand, causing him to drop the shard. Upon touching the sand, now speckled with blue glitters, it blossomed into a column of light. Nezha took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, and once he managed to make out its shape, all the strength was drained from his body. It was vaguely humanoid and consisted of many slipping, shifting parts. It cloaked itself in a thick cloud of mist, and when it tried to speak, a struggling, icy breath escaped.
Nezha shot to his feet. His mind went blank, and he barely sensed himself rushing forward. The light slowly condensed and started to slip off the figure. Its flesh was barely solid underneath his fingers, but he could feel its pliability as he threw his arms around it and pulled it into a crushing embrace. It was like hugging a pillar of ice, if that ice was also phasing through the top layers of his body. It wasn’t horrible, though, because he knew it was becoming more real. Ao Bing was becoming more real.
“Ao Bing! It’s me! I-It’s me, Nezha!”
The figure let out a few short, guttural sounds. Smooth tresses fell softly around Nezha’s hands. He held onto it — held onto everything, because the last thing he wanted was for Ao Bing to fade away again. The Spirit Pearl was putting itself back inside the figure’s chest, the cracks between its three pieces now filled with solid silver. Memories collected from all over the lands and seas that Ao Bing had set foot on formed around the Pearl and stitched themselves into a soul.
“You’re back…” Nezha cried into the soul’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ao Bing. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, but i-it’s okay now… You’ll be fine… I’m here, I won’t go anywhere… I-”
“N…e…zha?”
Ao Bing’s voice was faint, but Nezha could never mistake it for anything else, just like how he couldn’t possibly mistake the shape of Ao Bing in his arms, as supple and sturdy as that night in Nezha’s room when they held each other without a single word, or that day before the battle when they gave the other their vow, or-
Ao Bing’s body tipped over, and Nezha, despite locking his arms around him, stumbled a little. The familiar heaviness barely registered in his brain before all his emotions were undone, and he burst into tears.
Ao Bing lifted a hand, “Nezha… You… You’ve got snot all over your face.”
“Screw you…!” Nezha blubbered like a fool. “Is that really the first thing you say upon reuniting with xiaoye?”
“I’m sorry…”
“Xiaoye has been waiting so long for you. Do you know that, little dragon?”
“I know…” Ao Bing smiled. His visage was still ghostly and tinted blue, but Nezha was confident his beloved’s soul had fully been revived.
“Ao Bing…” He dropped his head on Ao Bing’s chest, repeating his name. His tears soaked through the other youth’s translucent flesh. “Ao Bing. Ao Bing…”
“Nezha,” Ao Bing replied. “I was walking along the Naihe Bridge when I felt the essence of the Spirit Pearl flowing through me. That’s why I refused to drink the Mengpo soup — I think I heard fuwang’s voice, and then…”
Nezha didn’t lift his face.
“O-or you don’t want to hear what I saw…?”
“Keep talking, idiot. I miss your voice so much. Even if-… if you could just… yell at me for being useless, for letting you die…”
“I won’t yell at you,” Ao Bing stroked Nezha’s hair. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“…Never… ever leave me again, you hear me?”
“I can’t promise that…”
“Ao Bing!”
“I was scared, Nezha.” Ao Bing admitted. “I’m scared, still, that we simply aren’t enough. What if it’s not me next time? What if it’s you, and there’s nothing shibo, or anyone could do…”
“We’ll get stronger,” Nezha gritted his teeth. “We’ll… we’ll bring Chan Sect to its knees…”
“Yeah, Nezha.”
“W-We’ll wreck the Heavenly Court! Destroy everyone who stands in our way! We’ll kill-”
“Alright, Nezha, I understand.”
A distant thunder sounded. Nezha exhaled. He sank into silence, just taking in Ao Bing’s presence, like a dying traveller having found an oasis. He wasn’t entirely here yet, and Nezha was still grappling with the knowledge that, after months of the worst pain he’d ever experienced, he was now holding Ao Bing — still strong-willed, beautiful, still perfect as ever. And Ao Bing, too, was studying him with the most affectionate gaze.
At last, Nezha said.
“Let’s… find you a body.”