Fanfic: Mo Yuan and Shao Wan 2.0 - Chapter 57a (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)

Chapter 57a

written by kakashi
edited by Panda & LigayaCroft

“Do you really think you can keep me locked away like this?” the Passenger roars.

Yes, Mo Yuan thinks he can. He has trained his mind for a very long time to be as sharp as a sword and as reliable as the orbitals of the heavenly bodies. He has controls in his minds that are as impenetrable as his Father’s Sea-Cloud prison.

“You will have to sleep,” the voice says menacingly, “you will let your guard down.”

Mo Yuan does not speak with him. He will ignore the parasite until he needs him. Then he will force him to give him all the information needed. Maybe he will use the Dragon to do so, for extra emphasis.

“Dragon, beautiful Draaaaagon,” the Passenger taunts him, “is that why you have built such walls? Do you not get tired of this much effort to control yourself?”

Mo Yuan knows he has to be very careful. He knows how to deal with enemies. But this is the first time one is inside of him. Inside of him and trying to catch every single word he is thinking.

***

“Did you know what he was going to do?” Shao Wan yelled at Donghua, who made his usual placid face though she had just roused him from his bed like a bad nightmare.

“Well,” he said and coughed delicately as he flicked back his slightly tousled hair, “he mentioned the possibility.”

And that was it. No explanation, no apology, no excuse such as maybe I should have stopped him but he threatened my life and the life of my family.

“Why do I even ask,” Shao Wan fumed, “you men with your ‘I will protect my little brother until death’-attitude. Did Zhe Yan know too? Of course he did. Not once would you have considered my feelings first!”

“Calm down, Meimei,” Donghua said and tried to pat her shoulder. “It’s not like that.”

She slapped his hand aside viciously. “Get out.” She said. “Get out of my Palace and don’t come back. Tell him I never want to see him again.”

Donghua nodded gravely. “He knew you would say that.”

“So why are you still here!” she wanted to kick things, but that usually only resulted in her hurting herself, so she let it be.

“I promised to protect you,” Donghua shrugged. “But do not fret, I will go, when he calls for me. I promised Mo Yuan to help him with the last part of his plan.”

“Oh, pray tell!” she exclaimed. “Does it involve dying?”

“No,” Donghua frowned. “Of course not. We are going to this Cult to get the remedy for your illness and then he’ll get rid of this… parasite. After that, retirement for all, I cannot wait.”

Shao Wan had to laugh. It was a bitter, unbelieving laugh. Only one man could make something so precarious sound so easy. The infinite arrogance of the God of War was something to marvel at, it could even be called impressive - but since she was basically exploding from anger she was not ready to do anything else but despise it.

He had not said one word after coming out of the prison.

He had not untied her either, but had very gently transported her down those steep, blue stairs in the blackness of this in-between-world and once they had come out through a blue door, had put her down in the garden, on the stone that still had the cushion on it.

It was night in the Demon Realm, thousands of stars twinkled above them in the blackest sky. Hard to say how much time had passed. Hours, days? But it didn't matter. Her despair was as black as the sky and just as all-enveloping.

“Farewell, my love,” he had said.

She had just turned her head away, not wanting to see him, not wanting to speak to him. When the chains had disappeared into thin air and she had finally looked around, he was gone.

Also gone was the physical bond on her wrist. He had severed it.

She hated him. She hated that even without having to reflect a lot, she understood his choice. She hated that she would probably have done the same for him. She hated that she already missed him. Most of all, she hated that she had not told him how much she loved him. Not once. What if he never came back?

“Shhhh,” Donghua said, “don’t cry. You look horrible when you cry, you should really not do it anymore.”

“You are such an idiot,” she snapped at him, but she dried the stray tears on her cheek and swallowed the rest of her sorrow down. She hated to feel so helpless. She had never depended on the help from others before. She was used to doing things by herself, her way.

“I never asked to be saved by the lot of you,” she sniffled, “I want to rip your heads off for not talking to me about it.”

“I understand,” Donghua said and looked over at his clothes that were draped on a stand to the left of them and then at his bed sheet, as if to decide whether to get up and get clothed or to turn around and go back to sleep, “but in your condition…”

“My condition!” that word was a veritably good way to stoke the fire of her anger again, “Yes, my condition that I happen to find myself in not because of people talking to me but once again because some people never talk when they should.”

“Too much talking definitely kills the mood,” Donghua said and… yawned. “Listen, dear Meimei. I gather it is very late, or, depending from which side of the night you want to look at it, really early. So… would you mind? I am still awfully tired.”

Insufferable. Donghua was probably even worse than Mo Yuan, all things considered, because he was rude on top of everything. And much unlike the God of War, he had never once pulled his punches when going up against her.

Had she just thought that?

Shao Wan sighed in utter frustration. Sometimes, she had learned, someone pulling their punches was worth more than flowery words of admiration, but what sign of weakness was it for her to think this way! That man and his babies inside of her had messed her up completely. She was certain that he would smile a small proud smile if she ever let him know.

“Tell me what happened while I was gone,” she demanded.

“Not much,” Donghua shrugged and settled back into his bed with flourish, “that other woman came with her entourage.”

Right. Before Mo Yuan had made his food-bearing appearance in her throne room, she had expected Yi Mei Niang’s arrival.

“What else?”

“Oh, nothing…,” Donghua yawned again, this time longer and louder. “Only that little Celestial ran away.”

“What?” Shao Wan said, thinking she had misunderstood.

“That little Celestial ran away,” Donghua repeated.

Trouble. But none of her business. But what if she ran into some ruffians who… or what if Celestials found her and…

“Dammit,” she cursed. Not her problem? At the heart of a very big problem all to do with a certain Celestial High God.

“If they find out what happened to Mo Yuan, they are going to massacre us,” she said with a sudden feeling of chill.

“It would indeed be unfortunate if they found out,” Donghua mumbled. “Make sure the Crown Prince does not hear of it, he has only just forgiven this whole mess with you and his wife and is prepping for his trial. And now, please extinguish the lights. I don’t mind if you keep sitting here, but please refrain from talking. As I get older, I find myself with the need for more sleep.”

Not thinking twice about it, she did as told. Soon, her friend’s slow breathing told her he had fallen back asleep. How much time till morning? She better use it wisely.

Feeling helpless did not become her. Time to get over it.

***

“Hmmmmmmmm,” was all that Zhe Yan said after examining Mo Yuan with his eyes closed. “Hmmmmmmmmm, hmhmhm.”

“Just say it,” Mo Yuan sighed.

“You are fine,” Zhe Yan said with a frown, “but I honestly don’t know for how long.”

The air at the Peach Blossom Grove was especially fragrant with the everlasting bloom of Zhe Yan’s fabled trees tonight and Mo Yuan took a few deep breaths in the hope it would calm his troubled heart.

“He is… very strong,” he admitted to his friend when it didn’t.

Without reprieve, the Passenger was running against the walls in his head with a battering ram.

“Comes with practice, I assume, he’s been doing this for millennia,” Zhe Yan said and got up. “What do you say? Let’s go to Kunlun and fire up the cauldron. I will make you a special elixir. We will…”

“No,” Mo Yuan said. “I cannot go to Kunlun.”

Zhe Yan shook his head gravely. “You fear…”

“Yes,” Mo Yuan agreed. “I do not want to risk him finding out the details about Kunlun’s defenses. And I beg you, please tell Chang Shan and the others not to let me in in case I demand entry.”

Zhe Yan left the hut without a goodbye after that.

It wasn’t like he could blame anyone but himself for his current situation. But he was so very tired. A bone deep weariness that extended to his soul. Battered, broken, scattered, barely mended… Mo Yuan hid his face in his hands.

“Care for a drink?” Zhe Yan asked quietly from the entrance.

The Old Phoenix had come back, shaking two bottles of his finest wine in his hand, newly dug up from those hiding places only he knew.

“I shouldn’t,” Mo Yuan said.

But Zhe Yan had already filled two cups and pressed one into Mo Yuan’s hand.

“Come,” he said, “let’s sit by the pond. We haven’t played Go for so long. What’s the score?”

“7687984 to 7687298,” Mo Yuan said without having to think.

There was a special quality to the moonlight in this place, as if the pureness of the peach blossoms it touched made it softer and warmer, a goldenness to the silver that could trick the eye into believing it was daytime when it was the middle of the night. It just reminded him of those times he had seen Shao Wan here. It had been the magic of this place that had helped chase away the clouds in front of his eyes and in his mind. It was impossible that he could have done anything else but fall in love with her over and over again.

“Please tell her that I…” It was difficult to finish the sentence.

“Tell her yourself,” Zhe Yan interrupted him. “Sit, Mo Yuan. Drink. No gloominess allowed. We’ve got this. Donghua will smack your head hard if necessary and I will bring my entire supply of healing potions.”

“Is Ye Hua…”

“He’ll be fine. He is preparing for his trial and he will not hear of this. I will also keep it from Xiaowu. Even though…” Zhe Yan pulled a face. “That Demon essence inside of her? I think it’s his.”

He pointed at Mo Yuan’s head.

“But how…”

“Not that I know enough about soul swapping and soul possession, but I am learning,” Zhe Yan replied. “My guess is as good as yours, but this is what I think: Transferring cultivation without fungal grass, as we know, is already a highly risky undertaking. I am guessing from what happened to Shao Wan that transferring one’s soul is even more risky and extremely messy on top. The likelihood that you lose pieces of yourself while doing it is high. Souls of the living are even more afraid than the souls of the dead to get lost in the great void that beckons to them so they attach themselves to what they can find if they get loose. It is possible that a piece of the Tower Engineer’s soul attached itself to Shao Wan that first time he soulswapped.”

That long.

“And when Shao Wan’s soul went into Bai Qian’s body, it got stuck there?”

Zhe Yan nodded. “Yes. Luckily, because that way, Shao Wan could feel it. Knowing the Tower Engineer might be still around gave her hope there could be a remedy. In her situation, hope is already a lot.”

“We need to get it out of Bai Qian.”

“Nice of you to be concerned for the Crown Princess above all,” Zhe Yan snarked, “when the mother of your children could lose her mind tomorrow.”

“Bring her here,” Mo Yuan said stubbornly, “I cannot go up to the Heavens.”

“We would have to wait until the Crown Prince has left.”

“How long…?”

Zhe Yan shrugged. “Could be days still. Frankly, I don’t think you can wait, Mo Yuan. You need the Tower Engineer to submit to you fully and as soon as he does you need to be at that place. And I am not sure it is a good idea to see Xiaowu in this current state of yours. Who knows what that soul will do when it feels a fragment of itself in somebody else.”

Mo Yuan lifted the cup to his lips and sipped. Then, he sipped some more. Of course, Zhe Yan was absolutely right. But maybe…

“I have an idea,” Mo Yuan said. “Please listen to the end. I am not crazy. At least not yet.”

***

“That little Celestial ran away, I hear?” Shao Wan asked Mo Yuan’s remaining disciple not many hours after her nightly conversation with Donghua Dijun. Who had not shown his pretty face yet.

A hearty breakfast had been served in the throne room and as if the effrontery of Mo Yuan’s decisions had purged her body of indecisiveness and timidity, she found herself with her normal appetite and no more nausea to speak of. And by the Gods, this food was good! She had just wolfed down a whole bowl of crispy fried and sweetly glazed beef morsels and found herself tempted to lick the dish clean, only holding herself back in the interest of appearing queenly.

“Yes, Demon Ancestor,” Tian Gu said and from the tense tremolo in her voice, Shao Wan guessed she was about as mad as she had been last night, “I would have followed after as soon as I heard, but someone … someone didn’t think it was necessary to inform me.”

She shot such a scathing look towards Yu Dian that Shao Wan had to suppress a chuckle.

“Yu Dian,” Shao Wan addressed him, “what happened? The God of War put you in charge of keeping an eye on that tiny woman, did he not?”

This person had a piece of her soul? She couldn't believe it.

“Demon Ancestor,” Yu Dian slurred, “it is… I… well. I did… watch… but… she said she wanted to take a walk.. and… the night was beau… beautiful.”

He was inebriated to the extreme. If Shao Wan’s nose was not mistaken, he had smoked a mountain of Huànxǐng leaves as well as partaken in some generous intake of Yi Mei Niang’s liquor. Of course Jie Jing was clever enough to escape from someone this out of it.

“Tian Gu, did that guard of yours come too?” Shao Wan asked sweetly, since somebody else seemed to have been a bit preoccupied last night.

The Horse Tribe Princess blushed a very dark red. “Y… yes, Demon Ancestor, you mean Yue. He is the Purple Queen’s Head of Guards.”

Shao Wan sighed. Ah, to be young, foolish and carefree again. Instead, she was old and tired and had hooked up with the most reckless man in existence.

“She will come back,” Yu Dian hiccupped and shot a scathing look back at Tian Gu. “Where else should she go? There’s nothing around her at all and her powers are suppressed.”

“You should have come to find me immediately!” Tian Gu hissed at him, “I could have stopped her!”

“Unlike you, I do not like to interrupt people’s romantic get-togethers,” Yu Dian gave back.

“Oh be quiet,” Shao Wan intervened sharply. “Keep the details of your relationship out of my throne room, but I can’t have a huge liability walking around in the Demon Realm all by herself. Yu Dian, I order you to go after her this very instant.”

“Demon Ancestor, where did my Shifu go?” Tian Gu asked in a small voice, “I was hoping to catch him to ask how to proceed…”

“He’ll be back,” Shao Wan said quickly before anything about her demeanor could give away what had really happened. Here she was, picking burning coals out of a fire he had started when she wasn’t even sure he would ever be able to thank her.

“L...let me go… wash,” Yu Dian murmured and staggered to his feet.

Shao Wan shot him a disapproving look. “Tian Gu, why don’t you go with Yu Dian and catch the Celestial runaway. I am not sure he’s quite up to the task.”

“Oh,” Yu Dian suddenly said and a look of reverence came over his handsome though slightly crumpled face as he put his hand inside his sleeve to rummage around. “I remember something extraordinary. She had found… scrolls and she started reading from them. It was about… Demon… Demon culture! A wondrous thing, what book is that, Demon Ancestor?”

A book?

A book. Yu Dian pulled out scroll after scroll from his sleeve pocket and handed it to her. The handwriting was neat and precise and the words were chosen with utmost care.

There was not a word too much. In speaking as in writing, Mo Yuan expressed only what was necessary

***

“You think you are so strong!” the Passenger taunts him. “It will be my biggest achievement yet to break you.”

Mo Yuan lets the Golden Dragon speak. “Be quiet or I’ll eat you.”

It renders the Passenger quiet for a while.

Golden Dragon sits down comfortably in the mind chamber that he fills out almost entirely and looks at the ugly thing in front of him. He lifts one of his paws and places it on top, pressing down.

“You will tell us all we need to know,” he purrs. “I have been imprisoned for far too long, ugly thing, and I have no patience at all.”

***

That book Yu Dian had given her was what Mo Yuan had been working on while stationed here at the Obsidian Palace as Demon Ambassador. Shao Wan was amazed at the profundity of what he had recorded. Where had he even learned all this? Funeral rites. Marriage. Rituals for the rainy season. Birthing days. Hair cutting occasions. Food for spring full moon celebrations. Sorted neatly according to seasons, type of ritual and variations by tribes.

“He talked to a lot of people,” Yi Mei Niang knew. “They lined up to fight with him and in return, he quizzed them about their way of life. He even told them to send their relatives to him.”

She popped another one of the round, sugar coated cookies into her mouth. “These are good,” she munched, “you must tell your cook to give my cook this recipe.”

“Doesn’t my cook have the recipe from your cook anyway?” Shao Wan said absentmindedly. She was trying to figure out the connection between Jie Jing reading this material - where she had “found” it was another question, where else had the little vixen sneaked to? - and then running away.

“Is that so?” Yi Mei Niang exclaimed surprised. “Yue! Yue!”

“Yes, Overlord, at your service,” the guard stepped forward from the shadows and bowed low.

“Is it true what the Ancestor says?”

“Yes,” Yue nodded with a reverent side glance at Shao Wan, “it was you who provided the God of War with the necessary personnel when he first came here.”

“Extraordinary,” Yi Mei Niang mused. “So why is my cook not cooking the things she has told her cook?”

“That I do not know, Overlord,” Yue said. “Maybe your orders were different. But I can talk to your Head of Household about it if you wish.”

He had really grown into his new role, Shao Wan thought, looking at him a bit more closely. All grown up in every sense of the word. No doubt about it, Yi Mei Niang had an excellent eye for talent.

“How are your brothers, Yue?” she asked him, thinking back to her little group of bodyguards with fondness and something that came close to nostalgia.

“They are well, Demon Ancestor,” Yue said and his eyes lit up in the most adorable way, “thank you very much for asking.”

“Are some of them still for hire?” she asked Yi Mei Niang.

“Ha!” the Purple Queen said, “all of them, if you name the right price. It is you who is asking after all.”

Shao Wan heaved a sigh. “I need an accountant first,” she said, “I really cannot keep track of money with everything else that is going on.”

“I understand,” Yi Mei Niang said eagerly, “in fact, I have a good one. She is very young, but extremely clever and also very good in…” she stopped herself. “But I forget you are otherwise inclined, shame. Anyway, I warmly recommend her.”

“She may come speak to me then,” Shao Wan said and put the scrolls aside. “Yi Mei Niang, I have something else to discuss now that you are here. I…”

“Yes!” the Purple Queen yelled, “I abdicate! I am so glad you are back. No duels necessary, every drop of Demon blood spilled over this is a sad waste. Just tell me when you want me to hand everything over to you.”

Shao Wan lifted her eyebrows. That had not been the topic she had wanted to bring up. “Soon. But in my current condition…”

“Pah,” Yi Mei Niang said and eyed Shao Wan’s belly with appreciation, “how much longer can it last? You look about ready to pop open. I am sure they will come out soon.”

Shao Wan laughed. “Believe me. If I had known even half of what this does to you…”

“But imagine!” Yi Mei Niang said with a huge smile on her face. “A Goddess like you, a Phoenix, has secured her bloodline! Nothing better could have happened to the Demons. Don’t you see? Our Clan knew nothing but despair for so long. You are giving them hope. They’re already celebrating!”

Shao Wan felt a fuzzy warm feeling spread in her chest. She smiled proudly as she stroked her belly. Hope. She liked this.

“A bird does not sing because it has found answers,” she said, quoting a proverb. “It sings because it has a song to sing.”

“Then sing it more loudly,” Yi Mei Niang chuckled, “I heard Shou is licking your feet as well, something I never accomplished. He was so hellbent on opposing me, I never quite understood why.”

“People like your liquors better than his,” Shao Wan grinned, “but I think I have a solution for his discomfort. Let’s call him, he should be moping around somewhere in the Eastern wing. Of course, you will pay taxes to me and everybody wins.”

“How could we ever function with you,” the Purple Queen sighed. “Please, Demon Ancestor. Can you promise never to leave again? We need you. I heard there are Celestials seriously interested in establishing trade relationships? I’m sure you can use your… connections to negotiate a good deal for us, right?”

“I’m not planning to leave,” Shao Wan said.

But maybe she had to. But would she be able to read the signs correctly and early enough? It was her biggest worry. Part of her wanted to believe that Mo Yuan would really be able to help her in time. The other part of her was much more practical. There were dungeons in her Palace that would contain her for a while. She would go test out the chains and bolts today.

“Maybe many of them will want to become Demons once they familiarize themselves with our ways,” Yi Mei Niang mused, “luckily, there is still quite a bit of space left for additional…”

That’s when it hit her.

“Oh no!” Shao Wan moaned.

“What, are the babies coming?” Yi Mei Niang grasped her hand in concern.

“No,” Shao Wan said and felt dizzy all of a sudden, “I think I know why that little Celestial left.”

Quickly, she began to search through the scrolls until she had found the passage in question. It was towards the end and only halfway done. Mo Yuan had written a note in the margins. “Verify through other sources and if necessary rewrite.”

“Oh no,” Shao Wan said again as her finger traced the title of that section: “How to become a Member of the Demon Tribe.”

To be a Demon was as much a choice as staying a Celestial was. Normally, this choice was given to the unaffiliated, those not naturally born into one of the Tribes. Like Donghua Dijun, who had been undecided for the longest time what he wanted to be. And Zhe Yan, but he had never been undecided. He had met Mo Yuan as a child and had immediately wanted to be with him.

Since it was a matter of choice, there also was a way to change Tribe affiliation. So there were rituals. Shao Wan knew of them, though she had never seen it done - in her lifetime, she had never met someone who had wanted to become a Demon. She only knew those rituals were very dangerous.

But would that matter to somebody desperate who really wanted nothing to do with Celestials anymore? Someone who thought that freedom was worth more than any other thing? Somebody disenchanted with fate’s dealings. Someone who wanted to take her life into her own hands.

With a feeling of trepidation, Shao Wan read what Mo Yuan had recorded. First, he described what she knew. Rituals that consisted of drinking an assortment of poisons that made you fall into a deep sleep from which only the strongest ever woke.

But there was something else, almost like an afterthought.

“I encountered two sources that spoke to me about a fabled place in the Demon Realm where Demon Energy is stronger than anywhere else. This is the place those seeking to convert should find, because that place seems to hold a special key to Demonic energy without the risk of painful death from the rituals described above. Given my extensive studies about the natural concentration of power throughout the realms, I would expect this place to be a cave - just like the caves at Kunlun Mountains contain some of the highest concentration of Celestial Energy ever encountered. Given what I know of Demons, which is deplorably little, I would venture a guess that this cave may be in the Zhang Mei Mountains.”

And that was it.

Zhang Mei Mountains. Where her egg had been.

Who had put it there was a mystery, but she had crawled out of it one fine day, having two arms and two legs and a head with hair on top.

“How would that little… Purple Queen, may I borrow your Head of Guards for a moment?”

Yi Mei Niang waved her hand in agreement. “Yes, Ancestor,” the guard bowed eagerly, even before Shao Wan could call for him..

“Bring me Shǒu. I bet you he pointed out runaway in the direction of Zhang Mei Mountains with one of his maps.”

Sadly, those maps were very accurate and catching her in time was not going to be a trivial thing.

Chapter 57b