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In Chinese mythology, cranes are a form of divine bird which travels between heaven and the human realm.
They are generally monogamous and mate for life.
-
On the riverbank, the crane with its shining ivory plumage and black-tipped wings and crimson red crown picks its way through the reeds. Its task is to carry departed souls to heaven, its wide wings floating on a biting breeze as it soars in the gold-painted sky.
This crane carries its departed soul with blood-stained feathers and a broken cry erupting from its throat, willing itself to wheel back and return to the riverbank. But fate’s winds carry it forward, and as soon as it delivers the soul, it collapses, falling out of the sky as the air cuts through its feathers with frantic shrieking.
-
Zhuo Yichen stands in the rain, paralysed. He's trembling all over, his mind numb with icy cold shock. The Yunguang Sword lays on the floor at his feet; he can barely look at it, recoiling at the thought of touching it.
Wen Xiao had left the main hall a while ago, Baize Token in her hand as she set out to finish what Zhao Yuanzhou had started.
Zhuo Yichen tilts his head up, his tears indistinguishable from the rain as sobs wrack his body.
The images burn themselves into the backs of his eyelids.
Zhao Yuanzhou laying limp in Wen Xiao’s arms. Red and gold sparks floating into the air as Yichen’s zhiji dissipates into nonexistence at Yichen’s own hand. Eyes fixed on Yichen’s face, a faint smile gracing Zhao Yuanzhou’s lips; acceptance, forgiveness, absolution.
Yichen doesn't deserve absolution.
His knees give way with a sob, hands coming up to clutch at his chest. He chokes on his own tears, convulsing and coughing as his grief gets caught in his throat, sharp thorny barbs cutting deep, drawing blood. He presses his shaking hands harshly against his face, the heels of his palms digging into his eyes, curling in on himself as the rain covers him like a blanket, like Zhao Yuanzhou’s cloak.
He holds out a shaking hand, palm up, the other clamping over his mouth, barely muffling the sound of his sobs. He reaches out with his hand, reaches for someone who is no longer there. It’s the cool rain that greets his hand, washing over his palm, dripping through the gaps in his fingers.
When I die, I will turn into rain. Whenever it falls, it’ll be me coming to keep you company.
Yichen lets out a hoarse scream, hands falling to scrabble desperately at the slick stone floor as if to gather phantasmal ashes. Zhao Yuanzhou, you liar.
-
When the crane hits the ground, the earth around it shatters and sobs with a fellow grief, dust whirling through the air as it answers the crane’s despair with an awful ferocity. The crane lays broken and stunned on the ground, neck snapped, wings splayed out in an ugly, unnatural configuration, tail broken.
-
The next few days are a blur.
It’s Pei Sijing who drags Yichen out from the meeting hall, drags him to the guest rooms to clean up and get changed. He’s almost catatonic as Pei Sijing gently guides him through the funerary preparations for Bai Jiu.
(Zhao Yuanzhou, Ying Lei, Pei Siheng, Fan-daren; they all dissipated in a whirl of dancing golden sparks. They left nothing behind, nothing to bury, nothing to remember them by except a memorial tablet, and isn’t that the most tragic thing?)
They gather (or what’s left of them gather) for Bai Jiu’s funeral. Zhuo Yichen, Wen Xiao, Pei Sijing, Bai Yan, Situ-daren. They wrap Bai Jiu’s body in crisp white linen, his coffin starkly small and fragile. That morning, Yichen had woken to find that the hair at his temples had gone white. He had smiled bitterly, running his fingers through the snowy white mark of his grief. When Wen Xiao sees him, fragile silence hangs between them. Tears fill her eyes and she looks away, mouth twisting crookedly. He knows she sees Zhao Yuanzhou.
He does too.
Wen Xiao spends most of her time in the Archives these days, only emerging to share a few meals here and there with Pei Sijing, sometimes venturing out into the Tiandu City streets to deal with the aftermath of Wen Zongyu’s plot. Zhuo Yichen doesn’t join them. His guilt will not let him.
But he’s still Zhuo-tongling, commander of the Demon Hunting Bureau, and so his responsibilities he must still fulfil. King Xiang has ordered the Chongwu Camp to disperse and the Demon Hunting Bureau to take over all demon cases in Tiandu City; there’s so much work to do.
He does it all in a haze, Pei Sijing a silent, robust presence at his side. She too is burdened by guilt and grief both. Sometimes he sees her glance to her side as if expecting someone to be there next to her. He looks away when her eyes fill and her jaw clenches, a didi shaped hole punched in the air next to her. Zhuo Yichen knows what that feels like. He listens for the ringing of a bell that will never come, for the high pitched shrieking of a pre-pubescent voice that will never again fill the halls of the Demon Hunting Bureau.
In between cases, Zhuo Yichen grabs Yunguang and takes off on a black horse, only the clothes on his back (He’s a demon now. There’s no need for anything else). He feels freer, lighter among the wind’s whistling as it blows through the grass, the cries and shrieks of birds overhead, the horse’s heavy breathing below him.
On these trips, during the day, Yichen scours the Wilderness and the human realm for any trace of Zhao Yuanzhou’s soul, habitually glancing down at Yunguang’s pommel, hoping fruitlessly that it will glow a cool, icy, heartstopping blue. He rides through most nights as well, but when his horse needs to rest, he meditates, sinking into dreams full of Xiao Jiu’s laughter, Ying Lei’s whining and Zhao Yuanzhou’s snarking commentary. When he wakes, there are tear tracks on his cheeks.
-
The wind whispers to the crane as its body slowly stitches itself back together. Its shattered bones fuse, painfully, as the ground coaxes it with a gentle lullaby. The crane hides in the reeds by the riverbank, silent tears carving their way down its beak, dripping into the cheerfully bubbling water, covering its face with its wing.
The sun bathes the crane in a warm, golden blanket. Its apologies burn the crane cold.
-
Time blurs, shaky and disorienting as a desert mirage. One day, back from one of his searches, this time to a neighbouring city (This trip was as useless as the others, Yunguang laying dormant and unreactive in its sheath), Wen Xiao is waiting for Zhuo Yichen in the main hall of the Demon Hunting Bureau. Yichen’s steps falter and he looks away, moving the hand holding Yunguang behind him. He ducks his head.
“Wen Xiao.”
He moves to walk past her, gaze averted, but then he feels a hand on his arm. He stumbles slightly and looks in Wen Xiao’s direction, unable to meet her eyes.
“Xiao Zhuo,” she whispers softly. Her arms come up around him, strong and steady and sure, and he finally sinks into her, burying his face in her shoulder as he hunches over to fit himself into her embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, tears staining the fabric of her ocean-blue robes, “I’m so, so, sorry.” Her arms tighten around him and she brings a hand up to stroke through his tangled, unbound hair. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she says gently, patting his head, “I know what he was like. I know you had no choice.”
She cups his face, pulling him away from her shoulder to look warmly into his eyes.
“I don’t blame you,” she says as her thumbs stroke over his cheekbones. “Of course I don’t blame you.”
“I thought you hated me,” Yichen says, hands coming up to cover hers. “I thought…”
“I could never hate you,” Wen Xiao says, serious and firm, “I thought you needed time, that’s why I stayed away. But you’ve been avoiding me, Xiao Zhuo, please don’t do that again. You can’t leave me too.”
Yichen tries his best to smile and nod through his tears, corners of his lips trembling as he struggles to lift them, warm liquid seeping down his cheeks. Wen Xiao smiles back at him, tears also marking themselves on her skin.
Living becomes more bearable after that, less like water flooding into his lungs as he coughs and chokes and retches, more like an active choice to take breath after breath, to keep living day after day. Yichen joins Wen Xiao and Pei-daren when they go out in the streets of Tiandu City, accompanies Wen Xiao in the Archives as she distracts herself from her nigh-overwhelming anguish, conducts training of the new Demon Hunting Bureau members with Pei Sijing.
Still, his soul and conscience will not let him rest, and he cannot stay in Tiandu City for much longer. He hands the Demon Hunting Bureau over to Pei Sijing, who accepts her new role with a solemnity and sorrow that Zhuo Yichen well knows. He bids farewell to Pei Sijing and Wen Xiao, dons his rough, travel-worn clothes, braids Bai Jiu’s bell into his hair, readies his black horse.
Pei Sijing returns to the Demon Hunting Bureau, Wen Xiao leaves to protect the Wilderness, and Zhuo Yichen wanders, anywhere and everywhere, Yunguang once more clutched tight in his white-knuckled fist.
-
The crane settles among the reeds, healed, feathers glistening pristine in the sun’s gentle caress. It folds its wings against its backs and waits, and waits, and waits, not moving an inch as the wind buffets the reeds around it, as other cranes come and go, souls cradled between their wings, returning to the riverbank without them. The crane waits, and is prepared to wait as long as it needs.
-
It’s when he’s settled by a little stream, horse grazing a small distance away, the crisp morning air biting at Zhuo Yichen through his threadbare robes, that Zhao Yuanzhou’s soul finds him, carried by a breeze.
Yichen sees the rough parchment floating gently over, rippling as it comes closer and closer. Curious, he plucks it out of the air, and brings it close, a sad smile gracing his lips as he reads the words on it; The Great Demon will be with Wen Xiao as long as he lives. He wonders, vaguely, how it got here. He moves to tuck it away in his robes.
But then he sees it.
A small wisp of red demonic energy emanates from the crimson thumbprint at the bottom of the contract; Zhao Yuanzhou’s thumbprint. Zhuo Yichen’s breath stutters and he’s frozen, staring at that faint, dancing wisp. His heart pounding in his throat, the sheer force of his rushing blood feeling like it’ll rupture his veins at any second, Yichen brings Yunguang’s pommel close to the thumbprint.
It glows icy blue.
Yichen shudders as his breath escapes him in great, quivering exhalation, eyes filling with tears as he stares down at the wisp. He stands up, legs numb, and he stumbles as he reaches for his horse, swinging himself up onto the saddle, parchment clutched tight in his hand, and he makes for Kunlun Mountain.
The world fades around him and he can barely sense anything other than the steady rocking of the horse below him, mind still white with shock and relief and love and utter, utter disbelief. When they finally reach the foot of Kunlun Mountain, Yichen hands his horse over to an innkeeper, pressing a silver ingot into his hands without saying a word, still in a daze. He hurriedly making his way over to the gateway to the Wilderness.
When he passes through, he immediately rushes to the rocky shore where he finds Wen Xiao where she always is, gazing out at the sea, Zhao Yuanzhou’s pendant wrapped around her hand.
“Wen Xiao!” Yichen shouts, running over to her, robes whipping around his legs. She turns around, eyes widening as she catches sight of him. She stands up. “Xiao Zhuo?”
He’s breathless when he reaches her, thrusting out the contract towards her, “Look,” he gasps, “Wen Xiao, I found him.”
Her hands are shaking as she takes the contract, the red wisp still dancing. “He kept his promise,” she whispers, an incredulous smile on her face, “The Great Demon will be with Wen Xiao as long as he lives, he's come back to us.” She looks at Yichen, hope glowing in her eyes for the first time since Zhao Yuanzhou died. “You did it, Xiao Zhuo.” She flings her arms around him and he catches her, both of them holding the other up.
“What do you plan to do next?” Wen Xiao asks a while later, when they’re calmer, both of them now sitting as they look out over the Wilderness’ sea.
“It will take several centuries for him to cultivate back to human form, but by then…” Zhuo Yichen trails off, looking at Wen Xiao. By then, despite her extended lifespan as Baize Goddess, Wen Xiao, as well as Pei Sijing, will be gone from this world. Wen Xiao smiles bravely, not quite able to hide the bitter sorrow in her voice as she says, “It’s okay. The knowledge that he will come back one day is enough for me."
Yichen shakes his head. “No, there’s another way.” Wen Xiao looks at him. “I’ll bring him back to his birthplace. He’ll be stronger there, and cultivating will be easier for him.” Yichen looks to the sea. “I’ve thought about it. If I feed my demonic energy into his soul, I should be able to make it so that his cultivation process won’t take so long. You’ll be able to see him again.”
Wen Xiao grabs his hand. “Xiao Zhuo, won’t that exhaust you? Will you be okay?”
“I have enough energy. Wen Xiao, you spent three hundred years in the sundial for him,” Yichen cradles Wen Xiao’s hand between his, “It’s my turn. I’ll bring him back to us.” She looks at him with achingly mournful eyes, and nods, pained smile painting her lips. “I’ll wait for you,” she says.
-
Zhu Yan’s birthplace is a large rock pit, covered in lush green grass with foliage climbing the stone walls, a great, towering tree towards the back of the pit, trunk and branches twisting and undulating. It’s hidden from most yaoshou, hidden by a curtain of vines which obscures its entrance. There’s a raised stone dais towards the centre of the pit, its sides carved with strange images and symbols that Zhuo Yichen cannot decipher.
Yichen places the contract with Zhao Yuanzhou’s soul on top of the raised dais, and settles below the tree, its old, gnarled roots nestling him in a gentle embrace. Hands pressed to his knees, Yichen closes his eyes and waits. He feeds a steady stream of his demonic energy into that fragment of Zhao Yuanzhou’s soul as he meditates, as he reminisces, as he yearns and yearns.
The scent of the air around him is fresh, sharp, wild, a slight breeze cutting through his thin robes as the cries of yaoshou calling out to each other sing through the air. His breaths fill his lungs in long, deep pulls, momentarily held in that space between breathing in and breathing out, before leaving in a slow exhalation, barely stirring the air around him. The heavy weight of his love, his grief, the sheer vastness of the unspooling thread that is the time that stretches before him presses him down. Yichen thinks about Zhao Yuanzhou, Zhu Yan, the Great Demon. He tries to recall the particular curve to his smile, the calm, velvet cadence of his voice, the quirk of his eyebrow.
His memories are nothing more than stagnant pictures frozen in the shadows of his eyes, faded, muted scenes and sounds and feelings.
And so Yichen stays there, time unfeeling and unreal as it passes by, laughing and uncaring. Sometimes, he opens his eyes, looking over to see that red wisp of Zhao Yuanzhou’s soul as it cultivates; mostly, Yichen spends his time in a faint haze, every single breath focused on that small stream of demonic energy he feeds into Zhao Yuanzhou’s soul, to help strengthen it and bolster its cultivation.
It’s years later when Zhao Yuanzhou finally opens his eyes, at last cultivated back to human form. The first thing he sees is Zhuo Yichen, eyes closed, sitting cross-legged below an ancient tree as a faint breeze ruffles his frayed robes, blowing his hair across his face. Yuanzhou’s eyes rove over the white hair by Yichen’s temples, before he notices the steady stream of demonic energy that enters his neidan.
Like a baby deer, he stumbles off the dais, towards Zhuo Yichen. He collapses by Yichen’s resting figure, a trembling hand coming up to cradle his face. A smile spreads across Yichen’s face.
“Great Demon, you’ve come back,” Yichen whispers, finally opening his eyes again, heartbreaking joy bursting across his features as he drinks in the sight of the newly reformed Zhao Yuanzhou. He leans into Yuanzhou’s hand, covering it with his own.
Zhao Yuanzhou smiles back at him, tears filling his eyes. “I’ve come back.”
-
On the riverbank, the crane with its shining ivory plumage and black-tipped wings and crimson red crown is once again accompanied by its partner. Together, they take to the skies, the wind cradling them in its infinitely powerful embrace, soaring and calling under the sun’s watchful gaze.