Chapter Text
You can keep your whole world.
Her singing to me while I lay dying on her lap.
Your ‘love’ and your ‘protection’.
Her picking me up and flying me over that tiny stage, declaring to the world her contempt of titles like “righteous” and “demonic” in a burst of fireworks.
Your ‘righteousness’ and your ‘compassion’.
Her swooping in, like an azure angel, to save us from the bats although she had no idea who we were.
Your goodness and your Taoist Way.
“Promise me, you’ll kill me if it looks like we’ll starve? Better one of us survives than we both die…. “
All that I owed you, you took from me even before I ever met you. All that you owe me? You have nothing that I want.
Her laughing at my buns and my tales of how I make them.
Nothing but one thing.
Her small, resolute hands in mine, dripping in solidarity against the pouring rain while the wind swept her abandoned umbrella into the bamboo woods.
Give me back that one blow, that cold, steel piercing that took from me her warmth and her compassion, her protection and her love, her innocence and her beauty, her laughter and her tears.
“Come with me,” she says, her eyes shining, “we’ll go somewhere where words like ‘good’ and ‘evil’ don’t even exist!”
Give me back that one moment when I lost, when I let slip through my fingers, her exquisite whimsy, her limitless hope, her reckless persistence, her boundless passion.
“Never mind,” her eyes downcast, her hand drawn back, “of course I understand. How could you abandon your Qingyun?”
You can keep all the rest. They mean nothing, less than nothing to me. All those vainglory things I held so dear for so long, that I blinded myself to the truly worthy things in the world.
The chime of golden bells, the soft smile, the clear voice, the fearless, foolish sacrifice.
You can keep your whole world, Qingyun.
“Don’t be afraid Xiao Fan. Even if you die, I’ll die with you.”
Only give me back mine.