Fanfic: Mo Yuan and Shao Wan 2.0 - Chapter 57b (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)
Chapter 57b
written by kakashiedited by Panda & LigayaCroft
“Where are we going exactly?” Tian Gu’s voice was trembling with suppressed anger again, not getting a chance to calm down these days. They had been walking for quite some time but there were no signs of the runaway.
“There,” Yu Dian said and extended his hand to vaguely point into the direction they were headed anyway, letting it fall again quickly as if he had no strength or desire to hold it up longer.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, which was probably exactly what had happened, with red rimmed eyes, unruly hair and a shaggy beard. Not that that changed anything about the effect his presence had always had on her, quite the opposite.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t realize what she was planning,” she asked him unnerved.
“And what if I did?” he replied with a snort that confirmed her hunch. He had no interest in ever catching up to the Celestial.
“You let her go?” Tian Gu couldn’t believe this. “You knew exactly how important she is to my Shifu!”
“What if I did?” he replied again, a smug expression spreading on his features. “That Shifu of yours can take care of his own problems. I paid my debt by getting that little vixen back to him. He shouldn’t have left again like he does all the time if she was that important.”
He had a point.
It had been subtle, but Tian Gu had clearly felt the Demon Ancestor’s heavy sadness before they had parted from her. As an effect, she was gravely worried. Her Shifu was likely doing it again. That thing where he snapped - and decided to take on the world by himself.
“Don’t be worried,” Yu Dian said with a glance at her face and for the first time since they had set out, he sounded gentle.
“What if he needs me,” Tian Gu sighed.
“Then he will call for you,” Yu Dian replied with a shrug. “It’s not like he doesn’t know how to force people to do what he wants them to do.”
As if he had waited for this cue, her Shifu materialized in front of her in a flash of gold.
“Sh… Shifu!” Tian Gu cried and bowed, trying to get her fast beating heart under control. She was very glad to see him.
“Tian Gu, I need you to return to your home and find your Grandmother,” the God of War said with no further explanation. He looked well, she quickly assured herself, though there was something about him that looked out of place, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Was it that he was wearing earth colors, something he only rarely did?
“Are you… sending me away?” she said, wanting to cry.
“I will give you further instructions,” he said. “Consider it a special mission. But you go alone. I need the Demon Lord for something else.”
For a moment, it looked like Yu Dian wanted to protest, but lacked enough courage in the end.
“Yes, High God,” he said, sounding deflated.
“Is it dangerous?” the words escaped Tian Gu’s mouth before she could even think.
The God of War’s brows went up a fraction. “You can say goodbye,” he remarked drily, “I will be waiting over there.”
Tian Gu looked at the disheveled Yu Dian, unsure what to do or say. How awkward. Should she hug him? She wanted to, but it didn’t seem right.
“Do you think he means to punish me?” Yu Dian whispered to her, looking over her shoulder towards where Mo Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, surveilling the landscape like it was of great interest to him.
“He doesn’t even know what you did,” Tian Gu whispered back, but could she be sure of that? Maybe he had watched them all this time.
Yu Dian sighed. “Oh well. This is goodbye, then,” he said with a wry smile that set Tian Gu’s heart racing. Dammit.
“We will meet again for sure,” she tried to assure herself.
But why did it feel like they would not? Now her tears began to flow for real. Embarrassed, she wanted to hide her face away, but he put both his hands on her cheeks and held it in place.
“Hey,” he said. “What is this.”
And he bent down to kiss the tears off her face, one by one until they stopped.
***
The Zhang Mei Mountain range ran right through the middle of the Demon Realm like a massive, fat snake with a horn-ridged back. It had always made it harder for the bellicose tribes in the East to fight the more placid tribes in the West, much to the Eastern tribes’ anger and the Western tribes’ relief. At the time of aspiring to be Overlord for the first time, Shao Wan had come to value the natural division of the land greatly and once the tribes had been successfully united, she had turned one of its more mellow hilly areas into a place for outdoor festivals and friendly jousting to honor its contribution to peaceful cohabitation.
It was where her people had erected a monument for her. Feeling discomforted to see where she had been worshipped as dead and scattered, she directed her horse towards the stately pillar and tied her shawl around the round top like a turban. With coal from one of the fires that had been used to burn offerings, she drew a friendly face on its surface.
Better.
“Should we remove the monument, Demon Ancestor?” Yue asked.
Shao Wan waved aside his concern. “It’s fine.”
But whose body had they burnt and whose ashes had they put here if not hers? Once again, thinking of Fong Hung and his bravery in snatching away her body and hiding it in the mortal world made her miss her Mount keenly.
Looking at her with sympathy, Yue added: “Do not worry, people are already using it to pray for your strength and happiness.”
“I need it,” she murmured, feeling touched. She wasn’t used to receiving so much love from people. But times had changed. The Demon Tribe was longing for a place in the sun after being condemned to dwell in darkness for so long and Shao Wan would do everything in her power to get them there.
Onward they went in silence. Riding a horse due to limited powers was arduous given her size and all the jolting upset the children who would not stop kicking her, but Shao Wan gritted her teeth in silence when nobody looked and smiled queenly when they were; and otherwise cursed all Celestials and Demons under her breath, until she realized her children might already have ears and could hear her.
“We are now right behind her,” Yue reported, after having run ahead a few times to check for tracks, “and she is alone.”
That Jie Jing was a brave woman and determined on top. Shao Wan had been right to think Shǒu had provided her with the necessary information and he had also made sure she had provisions for the journey. The payment? Information. Information about Soulswappers and Celestials and diverse other things.
“I do not discriminate,” the rebel leader had shrugged, “I make business with everyone who has something valuable to offer and information is sometimes more valuable than gold.”
He would still be at her Palace to deal with once she came back, the scoundrel. Same as the Purple Queen, who was too lazy to come on outings - her own words - and Donghua, who had merrily slept through her earlier epiphany. It was just Yue, three other guards he had picked, and Yue’s two half-tame owl monsters that were accompanying her.
Those beast were growing at an alarming rate and there was definitely nothing adorable about them anymore. Every time one or several of their eyes swept over Shao Wan, she shuddered involuntarily. The energy they omitted pierced her like a shower of needles. Sometimes, they ventured close to her, as if they were trying to get her attention, but Yue would call to them and they would return to his side.
He had come up with a special type of signal-whistling to communicate with them. Those beasts would fetch an exorbitant sum if sold to one of the Beast Masters in the Ghost Realm, but the guard seemed too attached so she didn't ask. Besides, it was satisfactory to think how much it must anger Shǒu to see something that could have been his own property this well trained and acquiring more value by the day.
Zhang Mei Mountain’s biggest peak, Mount Bǎoguì, was high enough to be good friends with the clouds, so that Demons had given it the nickname Demon Kunlun or rather, for brevity’s sake, Dekun. If anything, Dekun looked like Kunlun’s baby sister, Shao Wan thought upon looking up.
Demons liked their Dekun and were very proud of it, but for all its aesthetic qualities, Dekun was not a pillar of the sky like Kunlun. Which was good, Shao Wan mused, because if it were, it would have to be protected with extra care against potential evil, a necessity known to all immortals ever since primordial God Gonggong had smashed his huge ugly head against the pillar Mount Buzhou in a fit of anger. He had greatly damaged it and as a result, the sky had tilted towards the northwest and the earth had shifted to the southeast, causing great calamities and the end of first Creation. Mother Immortal Nüwa had been able to restore the balance and patch the hole in the fabric of the universe back then, but at a great cost to her own powers.
To prevent such destruction in the future, Fuxi had later put his own son in charge of protecting Kunlun and by extension, the Realms, and had hidden the location of the other three pillars.
For a brief moment, overcome by something like nostalgia, Shao Wan considered climbing up to the very top of Dekun - once before she had done this, to check whether Kunlun shimmered golden like it was said in the stories. But she dismissed the idea quickly, because neither was the Master of Kunlun there, nor would it help her in her current situation if she saw that other mountain.
“What is he thinking leaving that place,” she murmured, continuing her train of thought and feeling a strange dread creeping up on her. “Your father is far more reckless than people know,” she explained to her children, “and not half as filial as he should be.”
She couldn’t shake the feeling of gloom. In fact, the more familiar the landscape became, the stranger she felt, like she was travelling backwards through time. It was as if she shed years the further they got, as if the thinning, clear air and the light of the fading evening sun stirred the memories of a past self that no longer existed, but had left such a deep impression on the land itself it still echoed in response to it.
Suddenly, a sharp pain that snaked up her arm let her shout in alarm - but it was only the Dais who had finally managed to sneak up on her collectively. The contact between the skin of her right hand and their rough, pink tongues was painful, but the sort of pain that was half pleasurable as well, leaving her with a tingling feeling of alertness halfway between a shudder and sneeze.
“Go away!” Yue, who had ridden ahead, shouted, turning around his horse to gallop their way, “how dare you touch her!”
But Shao Wan lifted her left hand in a reassuring gesture, slowing the guard down. The two owl-monsters had their eyes half-closed, as if licking her gave them extra pleasure.
Such a fuss for such meager feasting, Shao Wan thought, but the animals did not seem to mind. In fact, however diminished her powers might be, the licking would not stop, it even grew more demanding and the longer it continued, the stronger the tingling feeling became, until she started to feel very dizzy.
Maybe it was time to shoo them away.
Shao Wan pulled her hand away and glared at them and though they looked reluctant, they scuttled away, only to eye her with tilted heads and perked up ears from a short distance away.
“Are you alright, Demon Ancestor,” Yue asked concerned, looking at his pets sternly.
“Yes,” Shao Wan replied. In fact, she was feeling more than fine.
“Ancestor… your Feather!” Yue exclaimed with eyes growing as round as the setting sun.
Her eyes found it immediately. It was glowing. Red and gold, like the most beautiful sunset and the most pleasant of fires.
“We’re almost there,” Shao Wan said, her voice wanting to shake from excitement, her hand closing tightly around her token of power. Almost as if to provide some additional dramatics, the wind picked up, rustling the needles of the lonely and shrivelled pine trees who had lost their way this far up.
But then, she remembered his words and a chill came over her.
Before it really gets out of hand, you feel completely fine. In fact, you feel better than ever before. You see things with more clarity, your mind performs miraculously well.
She was convinced: she was on the brink of falling into the abyss of madness. She was feeling… too good.
***
“Are you alright, High God Mo Yuan?” Yu Dian asked a bit puzzled.
“I am,” the curt answer came immediately, but Yu Dian had clearly seen it: a distortion of his face, brief but strong.
Had he…?
They were resting between cloud jumps because his hangover didn’t make it particularly pleasant to race across the realms and Yu Dian looked at the God of War from the side, trying to hide his curiosity. He had seen this before. In his father, afflicted with the Demon Madness, a danger to everybody around him.
As unobtrusive as possible, Yu Dian probed the essence of the God next to him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mo Yuan said sharply.
“S… sorry,” Yu Dian stammered. What was he even thinking?
“I guess now is as good a time as any to talk a bit about your past,” the God of War said and turned his dark, displeased eyes on Yu Dian.
Those eyes, Yu Dian was certain, had the power to see through lies and since he wanted to lie very much, he began to sweat immediately.
“Your sister and you,” the God of War said, “how close are you?”
Yu Dian took a deep breath. He knew instinctively the God of War was not asking how friendly they were. This was about something else. The twin bond. That feeling that the other was you, sometimes fully.
“We… we used to be much closer,” the Demon said, thinking that expressed it well enough, and not quite knowing how else to put it.
Like he had expected such an answer, the God of War nodded.
“She died at birth,” he told Yu Dian matter of factly, looking away towards the clouds around them, “but Qing Quan split a large part of your soul off and put it into that dead body.”
What? No.
“She was you and you were her, but that link was severed not too long ago. How? I need to know.”
So cold and emotionless, so cruel those hurtful lies.
“Qing Quan possessed your father’s ailing body and brought him out of the Tower,” Mo Yuan offered a further explanation. “It was easy for him to command him, because your father’s wits had all but left him at that point.”
No, no, no!
“I refuse to believe you,” Yu Dian spat out with all the hate he had always felt for Celestials and this one Celestial in particular.
“Ah, yes,” Mo Yuan said quietly, “I’m no stranger to this sentiment. Knowing it’s true but not wanting to believe it because it destroys your confidence in the world.”
The High God was quiet for a while, leaving Yu Dian to his seething hate and his miserable knowledge that is was entirely misplaced.
“There is a missing link,” he then mused, “he is keeping it from me. Why? Whose body did he take over once your father died and before he fused with Ying Ming? Someone close to your family, maybe.”
Maybe High God Mo Yuan was afflicted with some kind of madness himself, Yu Dian thought with a shudder. He knew that Celestials suffered a different fate than Demons when they overused or misused their powers, but had this High God not almost mastered Demon powers before? Maybe he had gone too far.
“As he is hopping from body to body, he is leaving pieces of himself. I need those pieces,” High God Mo Yuan explained.
“It is beyond my capacity to understand, not to mention help you,” Yu Dian said with a shaking voice. “Please, High God Mo Yuan. Let me be.”
The God of War turned his head in his direction again. “You are mistaken on both accounts, Green Lord. It is with your help that I will end this once and for all and save Shao Wan from her calamity. It is indeed you, your heritage and your history that holds the key to everything.“
***
They came upon Jie Jing a bit further up. The woman had piled up stones into a little wall in haste and was crouching behind it.
“I will not come back with you!” she shouted and started to throw stones at them. The Dai did not like to be attacked like this and it took Yue awhile to calm the hissing monsters down.
“Jie Jing,” Shao Wan called out, shifting uncomfortably in the saddle, for it had been a long journey and her backside hurt quite considerably, “this is madness. Nothing will change for you if you do this.”
“Everything will change for me!” the Celestial woman objected tearfully, “everything. I refuse to be sold off to a Celestial Lord I have never seen before! I’d rather die than be forever unhappy.”
“Should we apprehend her,” Yue asked at her elbow, “it would be easy.”
Shao Wan sighed. Somehow, it felt wrong to unleash these muscular Demon guards on such a small woman, though she had heard the Celestial had had an assassin’s training.
“Let me go talk to her first,” she said and gestured to Yue to help her down, which was a very inelegant affair.
“I’m coming up to you,” Shao Wan called out and started walking up the path, after indicating to Yue and his men to let her do this by herself.
Her feet recognized it before her head did. This close! The entrance to the cave was almost in sight. To the right here was where she had first seen Donghua Dijun. Over there to the left had been where she had always dried the fish, a perfect spot for a fire. This was where she had always practiced her whip. Shao Wan craned her neck as she stepped even closer. There it was! There was a magical barrier at the entrance, like she remembered leaving it, shimmering orange.
“I was born in there,” she told her children under her breath.
“Demon Ancestor,” the young Celestial begged, “please do not force me to go back. You know how terrible it is in the Heavens, you had to endure it yourself! Rules, rules, rules, propriety, honor, no room for breathing.”
Was that all it was? Yes, the Celestials had rules, a great many of them, but they also had things of great beauty. Paintings, music, philosophy.
“It will not make you a different person,” Shao Wan said, now standing in front of the pitiful heap of stones the Celestial woman had erected for her defense. “You will still be who you are now.”
“But I will have a choice,” Jie Jing pressed out. Her face was wet from tears and dark from misery. “You of all people. You must understand!”
A choice? Shao Wan turned her head towards the West, where the sun had now disappeared behind the horizon, leaving the sky in a double hue of pink and blue. Was she standing here, tired, round, hurting, feeling the cold wind against her cheeks, missing a man who had left her with few options because of her own choices?
It was true, she had chosen to die by his sword. She had chosen to ascend to see him again. She had chosen to do everything for the children growing in her belly. But were those really choices? Could she really have done something else without becoming another person entirely?
Not falling in love, not saving the realms, not having the babies… those had never been options. So to her, it did not feel like she had had a choice. But she understood. Nobody had told her what else to do - and that was the big difference.
To be able to tread a path that may lead to one particular end without someone pulling you along on a leash - or to be able to tread your life path at your own pace, with the stops and detours you wanted to make.
“I… I understand,” Shao Wan said, turning back to Jie Jing.
“Please,” Jie Jing begged, “please let me go into the cave. I will not bother you ever again.”
Shao Wan sighed again. “And how do you think you can get through the barrier I erected? It’s my strongest magic.”
She stepped over Jie Jing’s stone wall. Even this little exertion made her breath heavily.
“Come,” she said, “let’s go and see together. I am… not myself right now, but there is a chance the magic will recognize me still.”
Like a child wanting the support of a parent, Jie Jing grabbed her hand. The young Celestial was shaking. Really, who was she to think she had a right to determine whether this woman could be a Demon or not? Pressing the little hand that even felt like a child’s, Shao Wan walked to the cave entrance with her.
And now? Feeling very stupid, Shao Wan looked at the shimmering energy barrier. She had put it here before the First Demon War. Angry. So very angry after discovering somebody had stolen her Feather. It could all be her imagination, but she thought she felt that anger radiate until this day.
Jie Jing turned her pale face at her questioningly. Smiling nervously in reply, Shao Wan lifted her hand and… touched the barrier.
Like boiling liquid kept inside an alchemy cauldron for too long, like molten stone finding its way to the surface after being kept underground, something inside of Shao Wan erupted, overflowed, found its way out of its prison and flooded every corner of her being, threatening to rip her apart, to make her disappear.
She wanted to scream in fear, but not a sound came out.
And just like that, the moment was over. The barrier at the entrance was gone and she had not disintegrated. There was no pain, no madness, she felt her children stir inside of her, lazily and content, anchoring her in the here and the now.
“What…”
“Can I go in?” Jie Jing asked reverently.
Shao Wan lifted her hands to stare at them. What had just happened?
The Celestial woman had already stepped into the dark cave. Too dark, she would hurt herself. Shao Wan conjured up a light in her palm. A brilliant yellow-red fire ball burst forth. She was so shocked to see it, she extinguished it again immediately.
“My powers,” Shao Wan whispered.
Impossible!
Again, she conjured the light. Fire. Her fire. Her fire was back! She sent the fireball up to the ceiling of her birth cave where it burnt bright and powerful. She drew more power to her. It obeyed her without the least resistance.
Glorious.
She had to be sure.
“We do this together,” she told Jie Jing excitedly. But how?
“I am feeling a bit sick,” Jie Jing lamented. Demon energy would do that to a Celestial. And if Mo Yuan had been right, Demon energy was very strong here.
Demon energy, it flowed from the earth, from all living things. It was there underneath her feet, it was all around her. It vibrated through her body, almost making her teeth chatter. She felt… excellent.
“Dig a hole!” she urged Jie Jing, “over there where the ground is soft.”
Where were the shards of her egg? Shao Wan craned her neck. She remembered putting them on a heap very neatly when she had been little, knowing how powerful they were. If Jie Jing ate some of it…
A flash, a memory… this cave was not done with her.
“Do you remember where we hid your egg shell, Dǎodàn?”
She nods in excitement.
“We'll need it. All of it.”
She was beginning to slip, she thought in panic. That voice… who…
Quickly, she busied herself with looking all around the natural shelf the cave had formed as if nothing had happened. Do not think bad thoughts, she repeated to herself, do not think bad thoughts. You are fine. You are fine.
But no egg shells to be found. They had to be here! Unless…
I cannot go mad now, she thought in desperation. Not now. Everything felt precarious, like the floor underneath her feet was going to tilt any moment, letting her slide down into black oblivion.
“Is this deep enough?” Jie Jing asked timidly, her hands dirty and bleeding at the nails.
It was not. Shao Wan lent a hand until she was satisfied, glad she could busy herself this way, her haste making her sweat, her fear making her cry. Then, grabbing the Celestial woman’s arm, she stepped into the hole in the ground with her.
“Lie down with me,” she commanded. As soon as Jie Jing had settled down next to her, she willed the earth to cover them up. And the earth obeyed.
Jie Jing screamed, but her exclamation of anguish was extinguished very quickly when the air and the light was cut off by the soil. It was like a mountain had fallen on them, pressing the air out of them.
Do not fear, Shao Wan willed Jie Jing to understand, it will not harm you. The Earth will bring you forth, newly born.
When time stopped, there were infinite possibilities. A gazillion futures, branching off into infinity. She could see them all, in one clear moment, saw her infinite selves. All flowing from the here, the now. She just needed to reach out and grab it.
Her.
Now.
Her future with him and her two children.
This.
Her transformation filled the cave with the glorious song of the Phoenix and shook the realms with its thunder.
Shedding all her worries like old skin, Shao Wan rushed out of the confines of the mountain and took to the sky.
Chapter 58
End of Arc IV