Fanfic: Mo Yuan and Shao Wan 2.0 - Chapter 66a (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)
Chapter 66a
written by Kakashiedited by Panda & LigayaCroft
It was said the elixir chamber at Kunlun had been built by Fuxi himself. Father Immortal had liked to experiment with different substances in his free time before opening his famous school for all Tribes, and those with particularly good eyes looking for proof would eventually find the faint traces of explosions on the walls around and above the cauldron.
If someone were further interested in this topic, they would find the following information in the Great Library of the Heavens tucked in one of the dusty volumes discussing chambers of special quality: "In all the realms, there were only three places built to withhold extreme energy spikes."
The strongest was the Dome Chamber at the Lost Demon Tower. Showing his genius, the Tower Engineer had used Celestial Power to seal it, the clash of Celestial and Demon Energies creating a most efficient abnormality to imprison Demon Abominations. That place had been destroyed beyond repair during the Second Great Demon War. Contrary to the fears of those knowledgeable of such things, the Crazed Ones had not caused too much damage afterwards. Some said they had disappeared into another dimension all by themselves. Others had heard that most of them had been caught by special hunting teams trained to capture renegade beasts. The truth was known to only a few: It was the Soulswapper Cult who had apprehended them, using the Tower Engineer’s inventions millennia after he had died. Some of them had been sold - but most were living in cages in some place far, far away from the rest of the inhabited immortal plains.
The second such chamber had been a lone immortal’s pet project. Living in eternal ice and snow, the Sage of the North Pole had experimented with lightning powers to forge special weapons, writing down his knowledge in tomb after tomb. In his younger years, Mo Yuan had read all of them at least five times each, coming to the conclusion at that time that the Sage was quite mad and they were all better off with him staying at the North Pole. It wasn’t unheard of that lightning power was used to forge a special weapon - had not the Demon Ancestor created a whip of fabled power the exact same way? - but the risk involved with that strategy was unimaginably high. Even the slightest miscalculation would result in the immediate destruction of one’s soul and essence and would create immense damage to one’s surroundings.
The third place was the Elixir chamber at Kunlun. More than one architect had tried to identify its special secret over the countless years since Fuxi’s demise, but there was no consensus as to how it had been built to withstand extreme energies. Dragon Bones was one theory. It was well known that they had magical qualities of great proportions, but was it not sacrilege to use them as structure for buildings, even as part of the Pillar of the Sky? Nüwa’s final tears was another theory. But that was even more unlikely to be true. In the end, it didn’t matter all that much. All that was important was the Chamber’s ability to absorb power.
It was tested to the extreme on the day Father Immortal’s older son let himself be pierced by his Father’s sword.
Xuan Yuan sword had the power to destroy primordial spirits entirely. Upon contact with the blade, they scattered. They ceased to exist. The Nothingness swallowed them up, extinguished them completely and never released them again.
But Xuan Yuan sword did not want to destroy its second Master’s primordial spirit nor soul and neither did the reluctant wielder. However when the sword entered the Master’s body and found a soul eager and willing to be sucked out, it caused such a confusion of powers pulling in every possible direction, an explosion of the grandest proportions occurred.
It was later written that the Heavens shook for several minutes. And since Kunlun bridged both the Heavens and the Earth, the Earth shook too. The earthquakes and floods caused by this in several mortal worlds were a great tragedy. Quite unforeseen it almost killed the Celestial Crown Prince on his trial at only twenty years of age, almost causing his premature return to the immortal plains. As this would have resulted in the failure of his trial and loss of powers, the Star Lords rejoiced when it did not happen. The pain he had to go through as his bones mended in the years following the catastrophe just added to his overall suffering, which was always a good thing for mortal trials. As Si Ming told Lian Song a little breathlessly after the crisis was over, he was rather disturbed how both of Father Immortal’s two sons, ascension trials to High Gods had been messy, precarious affairs that tested the Star Lords’ abilities almost more than their own.
At Kunlun, the Elixir Chamber was turned into a maelstrom of fire that scorched the formerly white walls the deepest black. The Cauldron itself, an artefact of the greatest value, melted and then evaporated, leaving behind nothing, not even a bolt or hinge.
When it was over, the shaking stopped. The smoke cleared - Kunlun’s elixir chamber had very crafty ventilation - revealing two people standing in the middle of the destruction. They were strangely unscathed, but Xuan Yuan never hurt its own. Besides, Xuan Yuan could not cause a fire nearly as destructive as a Phoenix could.
“Damn,” Shao Wan croaked as soon as she had gotten over the initial shock, blinking rapidly to rid her eyes of the irritation the steam, dust, and smoke had caused, “you idiot. Did you just try to kill me?”
But the man in front of her would not reply. Of course not. He had not tried to kill her but himself.
Mo Yuan’s Father’s sword was embedded in his chest, holding him upright before her even if all life had fled him already. It radiated a power that was awe inspiring and frightening at the same time, and frankly, it was overwhelming like only objects of great powers could be. Shao Wan’s knuckles that clutched the sword’s hilt stood out white against the black all around them and a chill spread inside of her that was going to numb her completely very soon.
Shao Wan groaned.
What do I do now? It wasn’t like she had gotten a lot of instructions. “It will be up to you to assemble my soul and get it back. With this. Do it fast.”
“I’m not going to cry for you,” she informed Mo Yuan resolutely even though she felt like bawling her eyes out so much it physically hurt. “You don’t deserve it. Besides, I’m trusting your judgment. For the time being.”
Mo Yuan always had a plan, didn’t he? Even if they were as foolhardy as this one. He was known for that. The God of War was ahead of people, always, several steps. This wouldn’t be the first time this didn’t apply, right?
Trying to calmly assess the situation, she focused her watering eyes on his wound. Only… there was none. Where it should have been there was a black hole, a fathomless void, something that gave her an instant headache as it drew her eyes. The sword disappeared into the void. A nothing with substance, an emptiness with meaning, ungraspable yet deep. As she stared at the blackness into which Xuan Yuan reached she saw little lights emerge, twinkling like stars in the sky.
“Damn, Mo Yuan,” Shao Wan said, drawing a shuddering breath, “what have you done now?”
Those were fragments of souls, she recognized them. Were those souls Xuan Xuan had taken? Or souls of desperate beings trying to return?
It was like there was a door in his chest. A door into the Nothingness.
“Do I follow you?” she asked him.
Not daring to let go of the sword, Shao Wan lifted her left hand to touch the blackness, finding her arm shaking and weak.
“Mei Mei!” someone shouted outside, giving her such a fright she almost dropped the sword. “Are you alright, what is happening? Talk to us!”
Zhe Yan. She had forgotten there were people outside trying to get in. Like she had forgotten that she was already slipping into the madness of her kind.
“Ah, brother Phoenix!” Shao Wan said, trying to make her voice carry further than it was want to, “I’m standing upright, I don’t even know how… but Mo Yuan…”
He’s gone.
“Let us in!”
That was Donghua. He sounded far more anxious than she had ever heard him.
“I fear that is beyond my abilities,” Shao Wan said ruefully. Now that she thought about it, there was precariously little left of her strength. The sword was keeping the lifeless God of War upright, but in all frankness, it also kept her upright.
“Should we try and break in?” she heard her friend say.
“Trying to overcompensate now?” Zhe Yan asked back.
“Oh be quiet,” Donghua snapped. “He simply left me in the Demon Realm despite earlier plans, I didn’t choose to sit around and do nothing!”
“I can help!”
That was the Fox Woman’s voice. Three High Gods should be able to break one High God’s barriers, Shao Wan thought, looking at the shield that shimmered in pretty colors at the door. I wouldn’t mind a little help to be honest.
“There’s nothing left here for you to destroy,” she informed them drily, “just give it your all.”
Turning her attention back to Mo Yuan and the void in his chest, Shao Wan lifted her hand again.
“Did you think ‘a Demon will surely know how this Mirror works’?” she murmured. “Let me tell you something, Celestial. I have never seen this artefact before, with no particular loss, one must add, and I have no clue how it works beyond the common knowledge every Demon has…”
She hesitated. This could go awfully wrong.
“There’s a reason I never used artefacts in my life,” she said to his lifeless, pale form. “Guess what it is… Yes! Very good. It’s because I hate them.”
They always pulled numbers on you, those magical objects. Either didn’t perform like they should or didn’t perform at all, or sometimes, they demanded a price so high their use seemed unjustified altogether in the end.
But then, maybe Mo Yuan had not given her any instructions before getting himself stabbed because he trusted her to know what to do without the lengthy sharing of plans. Maybe he even counted on her to do what he would not expect. Her approach to everything was quite decidedly not like his: While he would sit and ponder every move and counter-move until the cows came home, she usually just did what her gut told her to do.
“I see,” she said slowly, squinting at his serene and tranquil face, “I should just do what I feel like doing? Damn, Celestial. Don’t you know you’ve changed me? I used to care for nobody, least myself. But now?”
Please come back, Mo Yuan. I want to share eternity with you. We need to see our children grow up together. Imagine: the Demon Ancestor and the God of War have children together! I am going to laugh at all the shocked faces up in the Heavens!
Shao Wan’s fingers were almost there. Even before she could touch anything, the blackness began to twirl, upsetting the light of the soul particles that began to dance wildly. But now she saw them clearly: Two strings, intertwined into a helix. One red, one blue. Those she needed to have. She reached inside to grab them, but they slipped away.
Come, come here Dǎodàn, a voice said in her head. I will help you.
The voice was eerily familiar, but equally strange, like it belonged to a long forgotten dream. Had this once been her name?
Her hand disappearing into the blackness, Shao Wan hesitated once more. But in her head, an image arose, matching the voice to a face. Midnight blue hair down to the knees, golden skin, slanted, laughing eyes. A tall, graceful woman who stood for warmth and a part of the Universe that meant a lot to her.
“Sorry,” Shao Wan said to Zhe Yan and the others, who were busy trying to break in and might not hear her at all, “I’ll be gone for a bit.”
And then, she willed herself to step into the void.
***
Mo Yuan was so relieved when the pain stopped, it took him much longer than usual to take notice of his surroundings.
He was standing in a very long corridor. The light was low, the candles flickered nervously even though he felt no draft. He was alone.
He knew this place.
Walking forward cautiously, Mo Yuan directed his steps to his Father’s study. His boots were soft, and yet, in the deafening silence around him, even the light sounds he made echoed like noise.
Once he was in front of the closed door, Mo Yuan knocked politely.
There was no answer.
“Father?” Mo Yuan asked. “Permission to enter?”
No answer.
Mo Yuan extended his hand and grasped the door handle. He was no small child anymore, surely, he could enter his father’s study without fearing the consequences?
The room was empty.
It was also exactly how Mo Yuan remembered it. The desk that was always full of scrolls and objects. The candle holders to each side. The large painting of Mount Kunlun covering the back wall.
It had always been his favorite thing to look at. In the sky above his mountain, nine dragons frolicked without a care. They were all so big that even the smallest was three times the size of Mo Yuan’s own dragon form. They were playing with a flaming pearl that they threw to each other, their faces shining with happiness. To little Mo Yuan, the painting had always meant hope - hope that he and his Dragon Form could one day be at peace like this.
Ripping his eyes away from it, Mo Yuan looked into every corner, but his father definitely wasn’t here. There was no tea on the little table to the side. There was no coat on the clothes stand. And most tellingly, there was a lot of dust… almost as if Fuxi had not been here in quite a number of years.
Mo Yuan took a deep breath that turned into a sigh. He would have liked to see his father but just when he thought that, he realized that this wish was very strange. Wasn’t his father dead?
“What… am I doing here?” Mo Yuan whispered.
His voice sounded strange to his ears, almost like it did not belong to him. There was a memory that wanted to come to the surface but couldn’t, however hard Mo Yuan tried to help it come forward.
Taking a few steps, Mo Yuan reached his father’s desk. He had spent many hours in his youth standing next to it, watching his father write out difficult characters for him, listening to his father read to him.
It was also where he had first seen the Demon Mirror of Souls.
“Father,” Mo Yuan said into the silence of this vast palace, “remember you were at a loss as to how it worked? I now know.”
After fetching some water in a pot, Mo Yuan looked for an empty scroll, a brush and an ink stone. He ground the ink carefully, expertly mixed it with the right amount of water and began to write.
“Like most magical tools, the Demon Mirror of Souls can be used for two opposite functions: Splitting souls and pulling together souls. If you combine splitting and putting together, it can also be used for transferring souls. Fungal Grass no longer exists in Fuxi’s Second Creation, it upset the balance. The Mirror upsets the balance. All the more so because the Demon Mirror of Souls makes it possible to peer through the veil between the here and the not-here. It is a doorway that needs to be closed. Because is a door not a thing that allows us to go outside but at the same time can be used to get inside?”
Mo Yuan blew on the ink until it was dry and then carefully rolled up the scroll, to put it with the others on the desk.
The God of War sat in silence for a while, waiting for something to happen though he did not know what it was.
It was a knock at the door.
“Father?” someone asked. “Permission to enter?”
“Come on in,” he said curiously.
The door opened slowly and carefully. The anxious face of a child appeared from behind it.
“Father, can I come in?” the boy said with a voice that slightly shook.
“Of course you can,” Mo Yuan said, feeling surprise.
He knew that boy.
It was himself.
***
The song of the Uncreated was incredibly painful to behold for the ears of a human. Changing into her True Form, Shao Wan found it more bearable, but she still took flight to escape it. In vain - it was all around her.
Have I not been here before? Shao Wan wondered at the sight of unborn planets and infinite possibilities that almost blinded her.
“You have,” the friendly voice from before said. “You already made your choice. Come.”
A hand plucked her from the sky and carefully put her into a lap. Fenghuang pranced about nervously, shaking her feathers and then transformed back into human form. She was tiny, like a child, sitting on the knee of a beautiful woman in a dark green robe who smiled at her warmly.
“It gives me joy to see you,” the woman with the midnight blue hair said, “it’s been so long.”
“Who are you?” Shao Wan asked though there was a honorific in her head wanting to attach itself to this strangely familiar face and to the feeling that rose inside of her.
“Consider me a guardian,” the woman said, a shadow flitting across her beautiful face quickly before it was all friendliness again. “I make sure nothing gets in that isn’t supposed to.”
With a pang, Shao Wan remembered sensing unimaginably large beasts living just outside the veil, watching them. If they got in… they would be doomed. Even the world of Gods was a fragile place.
“So you only look into one direction?” Shao Wan asked a little surprised. Doors led in two: a guard should make sure nobody unauthorized passed in or out.
The Guardian smiled sadly.
“Who am I to stop the ones who want to leave? It is their choice. There are countless homes for those who grow tired of his creation and I am ready to be a guide to them.”
Shao Wan turned her head to all sides. It was very dark, but she was hoping to see that place. Maybe it was the anomaly over there? She extended her hand to point at it.
“Gu Gu, is that the place where the earth bleeds powers?”
The Guardian turned her head. “Ah,” she sighed, “my mistake. It gives me pain, but I am powerless against it. He willed it so.”
“We want to close it,” Shao Wan explained. “It isn’t doing good things to us. Or rather: our Creation doesn’t favor it much. I think someone will soon come through it.”
“Ah,” the Guardian sighed again but nodded. “It has come to pass then.”
Shao Wan remembered that very old Gods sometimes talked like this… like they had seen everything, heard everything and nothing could surprise them anymore. It saddened her.
But the Guardian bent down a little seemingly to scrutinize her, her face turning quite grave as she did so.
“My sweet child, you are afflicted.”
Afflicted? Afflicted with... ? Ah, yes.
“The madness,” Shao Wan agreed with a pout. “Yes. I misused my powers, Gu Gu. To save my children.”
“That is no sin,” the Guardian said though she seemed a little confused.
“The Universe thinks differently,” Shao Wan sighed. “It should already be much worse, but I had to give birth first, that kept me preoccupied.”
“Oh,” the woman said, “you gave birth? I thought you were using a figure of speech. Did you have much difficulty?”
Shao Wan considered this carefully. “Not really,” she then said. “All things taken into account, I think it went well.”
“It is remarkable that a Phoenix like you would procreate,” the woman said, lost in thought.
“Oh yes,” Shao Wan said. “Me, a mother. I would never have thought it possible.”
“If you close the door, you will likely be saved,” the Guardian said.
“The… door? You mean… that thing?” Shao Wan pointed towards the strange light in the distance again. Everything around them was dark, apart from the unborn planets that shone with a cold, eerie light. In contrast, the rift in the veil glowed in a deep, hot, unhealthy red.
“Yes,” the Guardian said, “The Demon Madness is little more than uncontrolled bleeding of powers into a Demon from Hundun. But the price will be high…”
“What… price?” Shao Wan asked though she really didn’t want to know. A woman grew tired of paying prices all the time.
“Your Tribe. It will lose a large part of its powers,” the Guardian sighed, her eyes shifting to a planet above their heads that had started to glow more strongly.
“What?” Shao Wan asked, taken aback.
“You will have to work much harder to cultivate,” the Guardian said.
“Oh,” Shao Wan said. That was inconvenient. But frankly, she thought she could manage. It couldn’t be harder than ascending from the mortal world, couldn’t it. And if it was she could just go to Mo Yuan to ask h…
“Oh!” Shao Wan cried. “Gu Gu! I almost forgot why I’m here! I need to help Mo Yuan! It’s quite urgent, in fact. He let himself be stabbed by his Father’s sword and now I need to get that soul of his out of that sword dimension… together with some fragments of my soul. Do you perhaps know a way?”
The Guardian said nothing and when Shao Wan looked up into her face, she was surprised to see a very angry expression on it.
“Something… something the matter?” she asked uncomfortably. This didn’t bode well for the Mo Yuan rescue mission.
“Who did this?” the Guardian pressed out.
“Well,” Shao Wan coughed. “Technically, it was me. Not that I wanted to stab him, he made me! But he’s doing all this for me, so… it’s definitely my fault.”
The Guardian looked confused again. “What is your relationship?”
Oh. “We are… he is… my… well, he is the father of my children and I think we’re husband and wife though somehow we never got around to getting married, which is…”
“Mo Yuan is the father?”
The Guardian had sprung to her feet, which caused Shao Wan to slide down from her lap and land on her buttock quite painfully.
“Yes,” Shao Wan said after scrambling to her feet and rubbing the afflicted area, “I know, I find it shocking too. Of all men I could have had! Him! The stick-in-the-mud Celestial!”
“Fuxi allowed this?”
“Uhm, no,” Shao Wan admitted. “Fuxi has been dead for… 300,000 years or something.”
“And still his prison holds fast!” the woman murmured to herself. “Come.”
With quick, long steps, she started walking into the blackness.
“W… where are we going?” Shao Wan stammered, running after her.
“To where I believe you might have a chance to enter the sword dimension too. Come. Hurry! I fear that Mo Yuan is in very grave danger.”
***
“I’m not your father,” Mo Yuan smiled at his timid self at the door, “I’m actually you.”
Only he wasn’t. It came as a sudden surprise to him that he no longer remembered his name and when he looked down at his clothes, it surprised him that he was dressed in ways he didn’t remember dressing.
“Why would you say this, father?” the boy at the door asked, sounding puzzled and a little scared.
“I…,” even his voice was beginning to sound like the voice of a stranger now, Mo Yuan realized. Alarmed, his hand came up to his face to find… a long beard growing from his chin.
This isn’t real, Mo Yuan managed to think, but it was with considerable difficulty. I am in… I went to...
He didn’t remember how he had gotten here. A memory rose in him, of dream walking and almost losing himself completely inside the dreamscape of another. He had persevered then, he would now. He had to. He had learned all the tricks. Remembering entry points. Remembering truths. Writing on walls. Writing on doors. He grabbed a brush like a sword.
“Father, you promised we would train today,” the boy said with a little pout.
“I did?” Mo Yuan said. “Then I better live up to my promise.”
“Oh, thank you!” the boy beamed and opened the door a little wider.
Mo Yuan got up and walked forward. Why was he holding a brush? He needed to...
He was standing in a very long corridor. The light was low, the candles flickered nervously even though he felt no draft. He was alone.
He knew this place.
Walking forward cautiously, Mo Yuan directed his steps to his Father’s study. His boots were soft, and yet, in the deafening silence around him, even the light sounds he made echoed like noise.
Once he was in front of the closed door, Mo Yuan knocked politely.
There was no answer.
“Father?” Mo Yuan asked. “Permission to enter?”
No answer.
Mo Yuan extended his hand and grasped the door handle.
Wasn’t there something he needed to… his eyes fell on an ink mark above the handle. It looked like the symbol of a Phoenix and a Dragon chasing each other’s tails.
“No,” he whispered. “Stop.”
“Father, are you not well?” his younger self said very concerned. “Are we going to train now?”
“I’m not going to train now,” Mo Yuan said sternly. “We never train anyway. You keep coming into my study to ask me and as soon as I step outside I’m…”
He was standing in a very long corridor. The light was low, the candles flickered nervously even though he felt no draft. He was alone.
He knew this place.
Walking forward cautiously, Mo Yuan directed his steps to his Father’s study.
Once he was in front of the closed door, Mo Yuan knocked politely.
There was no answer. Or maybe there was...
The deafening silence was an answer. There was nobody here. Nobody at all. The Creator had left his Creation, leaving behind an empty prison for renegade souls.
How many times had he been doing the exact same thing? One hundred? A thousand? Millions of times? How long until he would be just as empty as this place? How long until he would have forgotten everything?
“What… am I doing here?” Mo Yuan whispered as if saying the question out loud would bring him closer to the answer.
“You came here willingly,” his young self smiled at him. “Don’t you know there is no escape from this place? The only other person who could come and go except for Him is long dead. There’s no key. No lock. No door. Will you come train with me, Father?”
Mo Yuan was standing in a very long corridor. The light was low, the candles flickered nervously even though he felt no draft. He was alone. Soon, he would have no hope left. It was the last thing preventing him from losing himself forever.
Chapter 66b - The End