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“Do you remember what I first told you when I accepted you as my student?” Master Diviner Fu Xuan of the Luofu and the woman he calls Master asked Yanqing.
“There is only ever one path in destiny,” Yanqing quoted.
It had been her first teaching to him on the day Fu Xuan formally accepted him as her student and admitted him into the Divination Commission as an apprentice diviner. Yanqing had been young and scared as he pleaded with her to teach him divination to overturn the fate he had seen in a horrific vision. He was destined to be his father’s killer, and his world had fallen apart.
He had looked at Diviner Fu with her knowing gaze and imperious demeanor, the very image of the Luofu’s lofty and unapproachable Master Diviner, and thought she would be his only possible chance of salvation and overturning the fate revealed to him by the Matrix. Despair had overwhelmed him when she first told him that phrase, yet Fu Xuan told him not to lose hope. Humans were still in charge of their destiny. A myriad of paths and outcomes are revealed through divination; misfortune could be avoided, and woes lessened.
“Indeed. It was the last lesson my Master was able to impart to me, and the first one I also tried to defy. In some ways, you remind me of my past. Well-meaning but prideful and convinced every tragedy and disaster can be avoided because everything is revealed through divination,” she sighed, brows pinching together.
“I hope you don’t take your Master as a fool, Diviner. The General’s future has always been clouded by uncertainty and mired in death, yet shortly after you became my apprentice, it became akin to a clear sky. A single path forward.”
Unable to bear the scrutiny and judgment in his teacher’s face, he looked down to gaze at the jade abacus he painstakingly crafted himself and used during many sleepless nights to find a future where Jing Yuan does not have to die by his hand.
“Bearing eternal pain or loss is the fate of every ambitious diviner who once thought they could change destiny. It is a truth I know very well,” she chuckled humorlessly.
The Master Diviner was rarely this candid with him during their conversations, and Yanqing was inclined to respond in kind.
“Do you ever regret accepting me as your apprentice?” he asked.
He smiled bitterly because if she knew the many secrets he kept close to his chest, how he had sinned for more power, and was still paying the price for the futures he divined for the General, she might wish she had decided differently that day. Yanqing knew she would eventually harbor suspicions of how quickly he had progressed.
His Master shook her head.
“Not even once,” she replied, blunt and truthful as ever.
Her eyes swirled like galaxies, the witnesses to countless outcomes staring through him as if he were as transparent as clear ice, yet he remained silent. His hand fiddled with his jade abacus out of habit.
“Yanqing, will you ever tell me the price you have to pay? What did you sacrifice to THEM?”
There was cosmic irony in how an accident brought forth a life-shattering vision of a future that had yet to come to pass and set into motion Yanqing’s path into becoming one of the integral diviners guiding the Luofu’s voyage through the starry seas. Yanqing was inconsolable after witnessing the terrible truth and vehemently swore he would never pick up a sword again. The rumor mill had swirled with gossip of the Master Diviner poaching the Divine Foresight’s cherished apprentice to take him in as her student, yet only a few knew the truth behind the events.
“Diviner Fu, this is boring,” pouted Yanqing. The child looked up pleadingly at his temporary teacher, face half-hidden and wide, golden eyes peering up from the textbook the Master Diviner had forced him to read for hours on matrix calculations.
Fu Xuan looked unimpressed at his statement, but this was the diviner’s default expression, so perhaps Yanqing still had a chance to plead his case to her. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“This is our lesson for today. To be a diviner, you must learn the basics about matrix calculations versus human choices. It is through this Matrix that the diviners view the past and know the future. Even tethered as we are aboard the flagship, the Luofu is constantly drifting on the sea of stars. Diviners must make calculations every day to determine the best course of the Xianzhou's route in the vast sea of future possibilities,” Fu Xuan lectured.
Admittedly, this arrangement of teaching Yanqing, who was the General’s ward and apprentice, for a few hours during her free time amused her enough that she had accepted Jing Yuan’s request in good humor after Yanqing had thrown a tantrum during her recent visit to the Seat of Divine Foresight.
Fu Xuan had allowed her tone to betray her as she had fallen into a disagreement with one of the General’s decisions. A younger Yanqing had interrupted their argument, going up to her with a glare on his face, looking as intimidating as an upset kitten, before declaring, “Watch. I'll do your job better than you one day!"
Fu Xuan knew Yanqing was a budding martial arts prodigy under Jing Yuan’s careful tutelage. He had been dubbed a once-in-a-generation talent due to his skillful qi manipulation and rapid progress with his Cloud Knight training. She did not anticipate the boy to have any innate talent for divination, and she certainly did not expect Yanqing to take to divination like a bird would to flight.
“This is merely the basics of learning to be a diviner. How else would you plan on usurping my position of Master Diviner without learning this?” she joked while maintaining a completely impassive look on her face.
Yanqing looked deep in thought for a moment before looking up at her with bright, golden eyes.
“Diviner Fu, since our lesson is about it, can we please go to the Matrix? I always wanted to see it up close.”
“The Matrix of Prescience Ultima,” corrected Fu Xuan out of habit.
“The Matrix of Prescience Ultima,” Yanqing repeated dutifully.
“So are we going there, Diviner Fu?” he asked eagerly, already standing up out of his seat as if she had already agreed.
She suppressed a sigh.
“Very well then. We shall. Wait, Yanqing!”
The boy had already run out of the door in his excitement before the Master Diviner had finished speaking.
Yanqing’s eyes shone as he observed the countless jade abaci linked together to form the Matrix of Prescience Ultima. The constant sounds of the gears shifting felt almost comforting to Fu Xuan, who had spent most of her days consulting her jade abacus for her daily divinations or deliberating the calculations made before the Matrix of Prescience to ensure the Luofu’s safe course through the stellar seas and dispel unrest before it had the chance to take root. The Matrix was always a sight to behold, so it was unsurprising that Yanqing, who loved collecting swords and other glittery things, would be enraptured.
Fu Xuan truthfully held mixed feelings about the Matrix of Prescience. It was a constant in her life ever since she had become the Master Diviner after moving to the Luofu. Staring at such a marvel of human creation, blanketed by the false heavens, made her think she could foresee any outcome and dispel any disaster along with her Eye, but that was her arrogance talking.
Tragedies could not be wholly avoided if fate dictated such. Sometimes, the negative outcomes and losses could only be mitigated. This was the bitter truth of destiny she had reluctantly accepted after all her vehement denials when she apprenticed in the Yuque.
“Diviner Fu, Teacher, what am I going to do for my first lesson with the Matrix of Prescience Ultima?” Yanqing cheerfully asked.
“A quick divination,” Fu Xuan decided as she gazed down at the eager child.
“You will be divining tomorrow’s weather,” she said placidly.
Yanqing’s look of excitement shifted into confusion.
“But isn’t the weather maintained by the Realm-Keeping Commission?” he asked, brows furrowed.
“Indeed, it is,” Fu Xuan replied.
“However, a little-known fact is that if the Luofu passed by an abnormality in its course, it would cause a subtle or drastic shift in the flagship’s temperature and require the Realm-Keeping Commission’s immediate attention.”
Yanqing pouted but accepted her explanation.
Truthfully, it was better to err on the side of caution for beginner diviners when making their first calculations using the Matrix. A divination of tomorrow’s weather would be a good exercise for Yanqing, something simple that would invite no mishaps. However, when an awed Yanqing stepped foot on the Matrix, it hummed to life and bound the child in its wiring mechanisms, revealing truths and visions that should have never been uncovered.
Jing Yuan crawled to his knees, picking up a fallen crimson ribbon. The boy he raised did not let go of his sword, but he let him reach out with trembling hands to Yanqing’s pale wrist. With a tender smile, Jing Yuan wrapped his signature red ribbon around Yanqing’s wrist, gently tying it around this blessed moment of clarity as the last token he would give the one he considered a son before the mara took him again.
“You’re strong, Yanqing. I’ll always be proud of you,” Jing Yuan whispered as his vision wavered, and blood trickled from his eyes and mouth.
He was still softly smiling even as the same child who brought him hope after centuries of loneliness, his son, and his current executioner drove a blade enveloped in ice through his chest. The young swordsman collapsed to his knees, blade falling out of his hands to cover his face as he wept amidst blood-stained shards of crystalline ice and ginkgo leaves.
Destiny was cruel, and Yanqing could never accept the vision he had seen as the future. He was painfully aware of his limits as a mere apprentice diviner. One could only overturn fate’s boundaries if given an Aeon’s blessing, and Yanqing was weak. He was desperate and willing to sacrifice everything he could give to any god who would listen. The Finality heeded his desperate prayers at a price.
“I did it,” Yanqing muttered, manic and hysterical after receiving THEIR gaze at the Matrix where it all started.
Something in Yanqing shattered. He felt as if his chest had been hollowed. In a daze, Yanqing broke into hysterical laughter and cries as he clutched his chest at the cherished agony and sense of horror and triumph because he had succeeded! A perfect reversal of fortune. His soul fragmented in exchange for knowledge that could save Jing Yuan, prolong his life, and delay that cursed ending.
Yanqing had been the only survivor from his planet. Someone who should have never existed, yet Jing Yuan called him his son. Yanqing should have died that day if not for the General.
If this was the price he had to pay, so be it. The fate the Aeons controlled was cruel but just. A soul for a soul. A life for a life. After all, the Xianzhou as a whole dealt in repaying debts with blood, and Yanqing will pay his in blood and soul for the rest of his life.
Yanqing’s hazy mind registered the familiar thrum of the Matrix of Presience’s constant calculations. He slowly blinked awake. When he opened his eyes, dreamy lilacs interspersed with streaks of a golden dawn filled his vision. He thought if he reached out his hand, he could pierce the firmament, bring down the false heavens, and rewrite the destiny outlined in those distant stars. Then no one would have to suffer again.
“You can’t keep doing this, Yanqing,” Diviner Fu’s voice cut through his reverie, a swirl of pink in the corner of his vision as she rushed to his side. He sat up, or tried to. Fu Xuan’s unimpressed face glared down at him, yet she helped him sit. His master always denied her kindness under her veneer of unshakeable calm and layers of silk.
“But I have to… Diviner Fu, you’re the only one who can understand why.”
Yanqing hid a cough in his sleeve, and crimson splattered across sapphire cloth.
“Do you know how disturbing it is to find your apprentice passed out and bleeding from several orifices?” Fu Xuan sighed.
“I do not have to know the specifics to know this is killing you. I do not divine personal fortunes, yet your stubbornness has made me break that personal boundary of mine. Will you tell me yourself why your fate has been shrouded in dark clouds as of late? At the auspicious hour, I sensed a disturbance in the ambient qi around the Matrix and remained an observer from afar. The price you pay…” she trailed off.
Yanqing gave her a bitter smile.
“It’s a miracle I’ve been able to hide it from you for this long, Master Diviner. You deserved to know as my master, but I know you would try to stop me. Every time I overreach my bounds as a diviner to see THE END, a fragment of my soul is given in exchange.”
Fu Xuan closed her eyes, falling silent, not in condemnation but frustration for the child who would be willing to throw his life and very humanity away. The omniscia was both a tool for salvation and an eternal punishment. Knowledge always came at the price of suffering, yet her student was bearing more than physical pain. To shatter one’s soul meant they would surrender their chance to be reborn, and something in her broke at the knowledge that Yanqing had reached a point of no return.
“I know every diviner who dares to overstep their bounds has a price to pay, but this is worse than death, Yanqing. You do not have to sacrifice your humanity for this. You are already skilled enough to divine countless outcomes with the means you have without paying THEIR price.”
“As a General of the Hunt, the General’s life and safety are at a constant flux. I’m not enough to save him. I was destined to be his killer, and I would give everything I could to be his savior in this life,” he declared.
“So you would bleed. You would suffer for him. You would lay down your life in exchange for General Jing Yuan’s life,” Fu Xuan stated with her imperious gaze and arms crossed.
“I would.”
“Do you think he would want this for you?” she asked sharply.
Yanqing fell silent, unable to meet her eyes.
“Determination, choice, and futility, you know how these are all things we as diviners must come to terms with,” Fu Xuan said, her voice soft but unwavering. She spoke to him, not as his Master but as a fellow diviner jaded from the futility of fighting against destined pain and loss, yet continuing to walk down this path.
“I refuse to! How could I just accept how this fate becomes an inevitability across a myriad of outcomes? I’m sorry, Diviner Fu. I have no regrets.”
Yanqing smiled weakly in quiet resignation, and Fu Xuan thought of how much she had watched Yanqing grow over the years as her apprentice, yet he remained the same child who had been desperate to overturn his fate.
“It doesn’t matter. My life is expendable compared to his.”
Warm hands clutched Yanqing’s icy fingers.
“Foolish child. As much as you would grieve his passing, he would also mourn yours. The greatest thing you can do to honor his suffering would be to live. Who are we as mortals to weigh the value of life on a scale? We are children of the Hunt. We seek to be rid of our flawed immortality and return to the natural cycle of life and death.”
“I know, but I can’t accept it,” Yanqing said in a small voice.
“Why did it have to be him? I wouldn’t fight so hard if fate had been kinder to both of us,” he cried.
“Jing Yuan did not decide to take in an infant for them to pay a blood debt and become an infallible diviner or warrior. Jing Yuan chose to take you under his wing for you to live, Yanqing.”
Golden eyes welled up with tears.
“I honestly always thought of it as penance, Diviner Fu. A sin predestined to happen, isn’t it no better than one already committed?”
“There is only ever one path in destiny, and the end is predestined, but it need not be filled with countless woes. If everything were doomed to fall into ruin with all hope lost, neither you nor I would have become diviners. Fate still lies in our own hands, Yanqing. I’ll be with you even if we have to face the divine themselves to keep the General and our home safe. You have to live.”
Fu Xuan squeezed his hand, a quiet assurance and promise, like he was still that child who begged her to make him her apprentice to save the family he cherished.
“I can’t promise I won’t ever use this gift when disasters loom over the Luofu’s horizon, Diviner Fu,” Yanqing murmured.
“But… I won’t pay the price needlessly. I’ll be honest with you this time because I’m scared, scared of losing my humanity, and forgetting the reason why I walk this path of salvation. I have to try to live…”
“We’ll find a kinder ending to this story, Yanqing,” Fu Xuan stated, a promise to keep fighting to change the tides of faith and end this suffering.
“Until the end, Master Diviner,” Yanqing vowed.
Over the horizon, the sun rose, casting the pair in golden light as if the heavens themselves were granting their divine blessing to their shared vow to forge a tomorrow without tears.