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Fates Parallel Interlude 7.3 - Broken Solitude
🕑 Added 2024-04-12 18:33:40 +0000 UTCDeep in the wilderness of the imperial countryside, within an isolated cave far away from the endless politics of the great sects, Zheng Long sat in quiet meditation. He wasn’t high on any great mountains, nor was he located in a place of power. He doubted that any such places were left undiscovered within the empire. He’d chosen the place because it was so remote and unimportant. What he needed was not speed or power, just peace, quiet, and solitude.
After his ascension to xiantian, Zheng Long was left with many heart demons to resolve. The experience had been traumatic enough even before an opportunistic demon had taken advantage of his weakness to hollow out his soul and plunder his hard-earned power for herself.
Yoshika, in her boundless mercy, had saved him. She was under no obligation to do so. He’d made himself her enemy many times. Wronged her over and over to satisfy his own pride and ambition. In the end, when he finally got what he deserved, she took pity rather than revenge.
Certainly, she had use for him at the time, but he felt—no, he was certain that she would have helped him regardless.
He’d been so confident, once. Assured that he was destined for greatness one way or another. Born under an auspicious omen, his parents had named him after the dragons his sect based their techniques upon. His talents were scouted at an early age, and he’d grown up trying every day to live up to his namesake and the fate it promised.
Zheng Long never questioned whether he was right or wrong. How can the actions of one favored by the heavens ever be wrong? Pride and arrogance had blinded him, and it was only when he was humbled that he finally saw the truth.
The people he’d hurt, the blood on his hands—even his own true feelings had been corrupted by that hateful inner demon called hubris. It had cost him everything.
Perhaps he would have been happier without knowing. He could have lived his entire life, cocksure and self-important, until someone less merciful than Yoshika crushed him for his insolence. Yet he couldn’t hate her for humbling him. As painful as it was to know that he had ruined everything dear to him, he was glad to have a second chance.
First, he had to release his lingering attachments and desires. His domain was built on a foundation of ambition, and it was too late to fundamentally change that, but he had the power to define what it meant to him. He had lost so much—his sect, his master, his friends, his love. By clinging too desperately to his ambitions, he would only find himself crushed alongside them.
Yan Hao, his master—a selfish pig who was too fond of the power he held over others. Zheng Long let go of that attachment easily.
Han Yu, his friend and sworn brother. He took too much after their master. He had a good heart at his core, but the sect broke him down, and Yan Hao rebuilt Han Yu in his own image. It was difficult to let go. He owed Han Yu so much, and regretted that he hadn’t treated his friend better. He would never forget that, and if given the opportunity, he would make it up to Han Yu, but their paths had to separate.
The Great Awakening Dragon Sect. It was his home—his family. They were all he’d ever known, and his greatest dream had been to one day stand at their peak and become the pride and joy of his sect. It was a selfish dream. Nothing more than a quest for their admiration—to stoke his own ego. Likewise, they only wanted to use him for their own glory. His greatness was their greatness—a twisted, mutually parasitic relationship. Each side trying to gain as much as possible from the other without giving anything back in return.
One after another, Zheng Long meditated on the things he’d lost, giving up on his dreams and abandoning his attachments. He needed to start from nothing. A true blank slate upon which to build his new purpose—whatever that might be.
There was one attachment that he struggled with. A heart demon like no other. Even he hadn’t known just how deeply ingrained the attachment had been until he tried to remove it, only to fail again and again.
No matter how he tried, Yan Yue’s face kept appearing in his mind. He had loved her, but convinced himself that she was just another tool for his glorification. By the time he realized his own feelings, it was far beyond too late.
Of all his mistakes, that was the one which haunted him most persistently. He could have helped her escape her cruel fate, instead of using it as leverage. He could have earned her favor, instead of just assuming that she owed it to him. He could have considered her feelings, instead of encouraging her disingenuous fawning.
For as long as they’d known each other, they had been constantly manipulating each other. Yue would tease at his ego, giving him the validation he craved while leaving just enough room that he always wanted more. Zheng Long would always stop short of promising her the escape she desired, to force her to keep working for it, in the hopes that she would one day find a way to convince her father to accept him as his heir.
It was an awful, toxic relationship built on a tower of lies, manipulation, and exploitation. So then why could he not let go of it? She was beautiful, to be sure, but simple physical attraction wasn’t enough to consume his thoughts like that.
While his thoughts lingered on the subject, he sensed an intruder. It was unusual for anything to find his cave. Zheng Long had chosen the location for its isolation, remote enough that he didn’t need to worry about any human visitors, while most animals naturally gave him a wide berth. Anything even remotely sensitive to Qi instinctively knew the danger he represented, and not even the most greedy beasts and elementals dared bother him.
Yet, despite the odds, a mortal had managed to find their way through the treacherous mountain paths to access his cave. She was a young girl, perhaps four or five years his junior, on the border of those awkward years between teenager and adult when it felt simultaneously too early to call her a woman and too late to call her a girl.
She was dripping wet and shivering from the frigid winter air. The volatile weather in the region had conspired to create a fog so dense and heavy that it soaked anything it touched, only for the air to almost instantly freeze it a moment later. Such phenomena were common in the area, and another reason nobody lived nearby. Or at least, he thought nobody lived nearby.
What had this girl been doing in the mountains in such conditions? Between the poor visibility, slippery ground, and freezing temperatures, it was practically suicide for a mortal traveler.
With shaking hands, the woman fruitlessly tried to wring out her frozen hair and slipped a basket of wood and charcoal off of her shoulder to begin building a fire. It was hopeless, however—the logs were as soaked as she was, and her flint was covered in a layer of frost.
Zheng Long sighed. Once, he would have ignored her entirely. Perhaps even killed her, just to ensure his continued privacy. But that was the life he had left behind, the person he no longer was. He needed to rebuild himself from nothing, and that started here.
“Let me help.”
The girl shrieked as he stood up and approached.
“AHH! By the emperor, you s-scared me! I thought you w-were a statue or something sitting so still in the dark. What are you d-d-doing out here?”
She struggled to speak through her chattering teeth. Zheng Long bowed, shaking off some of the dust and debris that had gathered on him during his meditation.
“I could ask the same of you. This mountain isn’t safe in the winter.”
“Was a ‘m-m-mergency. This is awkward...w-was gonna dry these c-clothes once I got the fire going.”
“It’s a little late for that. The cold has already set in. Even if you could somehow light those frozen logs, you’d die from exposure long before the fire made a difference.”
Mortals were so fragile. No—Zheng Long corrected himself—he couldn’t think that way. This was a person, with her own hope, dreams, and aspirations. There was value in that.
The girl shrugged helplessly.
“Ah well. I t-t-tried.”
Zheng Long raised an eyebrow as he made his way to the entrance of the cave. The first order of business was to stop the cold air from getting in. He wasn’t very good at the foreign disciplines, but he found that a combination of extremely simple techniques and sheer brute force could get a lot done in a pinch.
He began scrawling his formation onto the cave wall with a nearby stone as he made conversation.
“You’re quite calm for someone on the brink of death.”
“Am I? Cause I feel pretty t-t-terrified.”
She did, he could feel it.
“Composure isn’t about how you feel within, it’s about how you express those emotions.”
“Too c-c-cold to panic...”
Zheng Long smiled, putting the finishing touches on his little formation.
“Fair enough.”
With a flood of his qi, the air in the cave went still. It was messy and inefficient, but it would do. He turned his attention to the girl, and pointed at her traveler’s tunic.
“Take those off.”
She smirked up at him, and for the first time he noticed the deep emerald color of her eyes—the same as Yue’s.
“That’s a b-bit forward isn’t it? I d-don’t even know your n-n-name.”
Her sense of humor, too. Though that was where the similarities ended. The girl was shorter, with darker skin and lighter brown hair. She was by no means unattractive, but had a strictly normal, homely appearance that couldn’t possibly compare to a peerless beauty like Yue.
Zheng Long turned away in disgust—not at her, but at himself for even making the comparison. That woman was going to haunt him for the rest of eternity, he just knew it.
“Jokes aside, I am Zheng Long. My techniques are made for combat. I can dry your clothes, but I don’t want to risk hurting you.”
She shrugged and started undressing behind him.
“S-suppose there are worse ways to go out than being r-r-ravished by a ruggedly handsome rogue c-cultivator. I’m Xiu.”
“No family name?”
“No f-family.”
He grimaced, hoping he hadn’t struck a nerve.
“My apologies. What emergency was so dire that you would risk your life on such a treacherous journey?”
“Need m-medicine.”
“You’re sick?”
She shook her head, placing her clothes in a neat pile and hugging herself as she shivered violently in her underclothes.
“N-n-not for m-me. V-village elder. T-t-takes c-care of me. C-c-cold...”
“Sorry, one moment...”
Zheng Long politely kept his gaze averted as he gathered up her clothes and threw them on top of the wood and charcoal she’d been trying to use to build a fire.
“Hey! D-d-don’t—”
He held up a hand.
“Trust me...”
With a concentration of will, he focused on the wood and cloth. He had to be careful with his power. Though Warmth was adjacent to his natural element of Fire, it would be far too easy to go too far and set it all ablaze.
Steam began to rise from the pile as he forced the water within to vaporize. After about a minute, the steam stopped and he was satisfied. He took the clothing off the pile and handed it back to Xiu, looking away the entire time as she put her clothes back on.
“Wow! It’s s-so warm...”
While she got dressed, Zheng Long pointed at the wood and instantly set it ablaze. Then, he returned to his place in the middle of the cave and sat in silence while Xiu huddled up to the fire.
Gradually, her shivering slowed down and her breathing stabilized enough that she decided to break the silence.
“It must be pretty nice, being able to just do magic like that.”
“The path has its blessings, but there’s no shortage of curses either.”
“Right, sure. Well, anyway, thanks for saving me, Sir Zheng. And I’m sorry for disrupting your...whatever you’re doing here. I’ll be out of your way by daybreak.”
Zheng Long shook his head.
“No you won’t. You aren’t going anywhere in this weather. I didn’t save your life so that you could run off and throw it over the first cliff you can find.”
“Tsk, you sound like the old man. He didn’t think I’d be able to make it, but I know these trails like the back of my own hand. Nobody ever believes in me.”
She drew her knees up to her chest and stared into the fire, frowning. Zhen Long pursed his lips and sighed.
“I hesitate to presume, but did you consider that perhaps he doesn’t want someone he cares about to go out and get herself killed for his sake?”
“I will be fine! I can take care of myself!”
“If I hadn’t been here, you would already be dead.”
Xiu averted her eyes and blushed, but couldn’t argue. Zheng Long could see the despair in her eyes and feel the hopelessness in her aura. He knew he’d regret it, but if he just left the poor girl to her desperation, it would be a poor way to start his new life over.
“Maybe I can help. I’m no healer, but my master was an expert in herbs and potions.”
“Really?!”
Her eyes shone with desperate hope and Zheng Long quickly held his hands up to calm her.
“Don’t expect too much, I just said I’m not a healer.”
“Can we go now?! You can protect us from the elements, right? I don’t know how long he’s got left, and I’ll do anything!”
“Rest first. If your father can’t even make it until morning, then there’s nothing I’d be able to do to help him anyway.”
Xiu deflated.
“Okay. But he’s not my dad. Just some guy who took pity on me when I lost my parents.”
Zheng Long didn’t press her. It was obvious that she didn’t really believe that, but he knew better than to question the heart of a teenage girl.
—-
They left early the next morning. Zheng Long gave Xiu a makeshift talisman that gave her some protection from the cold and they made their way down the mountainside to a tiny village nestled in an unremarkable valley that he’d missed when scouting the area.
A few villagers greeted them as they entered.
“Xiao Xiu! Where have you been? Elder Fang has been worried sick about you—we thought you’d gotten lost. And who’s this rugged young man you’ve got with you?”
Zheng Long felt a bit awkward being described as ‘rugged’ twice in as many days, but he hadn’t exactly been maintaining his appearance. He had a scruffy, unkempt beard, and his long hair was untied and wild from his time in the wilderness.
He bowed to the middle-aged woman who was fawning over Xiu.
“Just a humble traveler, miss.”
“Well, thank you for taking care of our little Xiu for us. The elder will want to see you—his house is on the north side, with the big tree.”
“Thank you, miss.”
The directions weren’t really necessary—Xiu knew exactly where her own house was, and the tree the lady mentioned was, in fact, visible from well outside the village. A grand old oak tree, not quite old enough to attract cultivators and magic beasts, but impressive nonetheless.
Xiu led Zheng Long to the humble little cottage at its base and let herself in.
“Fang, I’m home!”
A wizened old man, who could have been anywhere from his seventies to his hundreds by the look of him, came hobbling out to greet her.
“Xiu! My little girl! I’m so glad you’re safe! I told you it was too dangerous to go out—what were you thinking?!”
“Never mind that, look! I bumped into a cultivator on the road, and he says he can help.”
The old man’s expression hardened immediately, and he looked up at Zheng Long with naked suspicion.
“What do you want from us, sir? We have nothing of value to one of your kind. Even the beasts don’t bother with us.”
Zheng Long bowed.
“I do not want anything from you. I am here precisely because there is nothing of value. I only wanted to be left alone, but fate seems to have other plans for me. Your daughter chanced upon me in her moment of need, that is all.”
Xiu glared at him.
“I told you he’s not my dad!”
They both ignored her, the old man scowling.
“A fugitive, then. Even worse. The best thing you can do for us is to leave and never come back. Cultivators only bring death and misery with them.”
Zheng Long couldn’t really argue with that, but he wasn’t going to abandon them after agreeing to help.
“I will return to my isolation once I’ve fulfilled my promise. Xiu has asked me to procure medicine for your condition—may I ask what ails you?”
“My condition is that I’m old, you lanky fucking prick—”
His shouting was cut off by a sudden coughing fit, his breath rattling as he wheezed for breath. Xiu ran to his side and supported him, frowning down with concern as she rubbed his back.
The old man was right. The crux of his condition was age. Decades of slowly accumulating corruption slowly eating away at his body and making him increasingly vulnerable to injury and disease. However, that didn’t mean there was nothing Zheng Long could do for him.
“I know that cough. It’s a common illness for the elderly, especially in cold and wet climates. There are some herbs in the mountain that can treat it—one moment.”
He stepped out of the house, a pair of flaming wings appearing on his back. Before Elder Fang or Xiu could protest, he took off into the sky to find the herbs he needed. They were fairly common, and didn’t even have any magical properties.
In fact, it wasn’t even a remedy he’d learned while studying under Yan Hao. It was a folk remedy he’d learned from his mother, before he left for the sect. One of the few memories he had of his mortal life.
He returned within the hour with a few tightly packed bunches of the stuff, already dried out with his powers, and infused with a tiny bit of extra qi to improve its potency.
“Brew this into a tea twice a day and carefully inhale the vapors while it cools, then drink it. Your cough will be worse for a day or two while your body expels the fluid, then clear up entirely. Continue the routine until you run out of leaves to prevent the infection from returning.”
Fang recoiled from the bundle as though it was poisoned, but Xiu accepted it with grace.
“Thank you, Sir Zheng. We’re in your debt.”
Zheng Long saw Elder Fang visibly pale at that and shook his head.
“Not at all. Consider this a gift, given freely. I do not expect we will meet again, so take care of yourselves.”
He ignored Xiu’s protests and took off into the sky once more. It was better that way.
—-
“I told you to stop coming here, Xiu.”
Xiu scoffed as she lit the fire, putting on a face as she mocked him.
“‘I don’t expect we’ll meet again’ he says, then just goes back to the same fucking cave. Idiot. If you didn’t want me to visit you again, you would have gone somewhere else.”
Zheng Long sighed miserably. He just didn’t want to give up his perfectly good hermit cave.
“Elder Fang is going to be furious if he knows you’ve been coming here.”
“Fang can mind his own business. You saved both our lives, and he’s just being ungrateful.”
“He’s not wrong about cultivators, you know. We’re dangerous.”
Xiu rolled her eyes.
“I know that cultivators are dangerous. But that doesn’t mean you’re dangerous. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already more than earned our trust.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t see why that means you have to come bother me every day. I’m supposed to be in meditation.”
“There’s more to life than just sitting in caves and thinking about the universe, Sir Zheng. You need friends, and I volunteer to be the first!”
He shook his head and sighed again. They’d already had this conversation a dozen times, and he always lost.
Xiu persisted no matter what he said or how he threatened her, and despite himself Zheng Long couldn’t bring himself to just leave. She would share her hopes about the future, or concerns about things happening in the village.
Inevitably, Zheng Long would end up volunteering, and it struck him just how many mundane little crises that could make or break a tiny village like that. A broken wheel on a plow threatened to plunge the entire village into starvation, a road blocked by a landslide threatened to permanently cut them off from important trading partners, and even a small fluctuation in the already volatile local weather could throw their harvesting schedule into disarray.
He helped wherever he could, and with Xiu coming to pester him daily, that eventually meant he was spending more time in the village than he was in his cave.
As the months rolled by, Zheng Long grew concerned that Xiu would hurt herself on the trip up to his cave, so he moved closer and built his own cabin on the outskirts of the village. Months turned to years, and Xiu decided that she didn’t want to waste her time walking back and forth from the village to his cabin every day and insisted that he allow her to move in with him.
It was a strangely fulfilling life, to simply tend the fields, solve the little problems that plagued the everyday lives of mortals who had no greater ambitions than making it through the next winter. Zheng Long didn’t have to share their struggles, but there was a simple joy in doing so anyway.
He gained the respect of the villagers, but he didn’t crave their adoration the way he once did with his sect. He found his happiness in the way that their lives were improved by his presence, and the way they trusted him with their problems. Even Elder Fang eventually came to begrudgingly accept him.
One day, while plowing a field to prepare for the spring planting, he came to an epiphany. A realization that had evaded him during all his meditations. The reason he’d been so attached to Yan Yue, when all his other desires were so easily discarded.
It was because while they were together, she was the one person in all the world who genuinely needed him. What he truly wanted, above all else, was to be relied upon. That was why he hadn’t left when Xiu kept visiting him, why he’d given up on his meditation to help the villagers time and again, it was how he’d found happiness in a remote village so far removed from all the things he’d once valued.
Perhaps it was fate’s cruelty, then, that he received a visitor only a few moments later.
“What in the world are you doing, Zheng Long?”
He glanced up at the man who’d appeared next to him out of nowhere and suppressed his growing panic. Elder Fang was right—he should have left.
“I am farming, Grandmaster Yan De.”
“Why?”
“Because I wish to. Do I need a greater reason than that?”
The ancient cultivator sneered contemptuously at the village around him.
“It’s a complete waste of your potential. Look at you! Five years and your cultivation hasn’t improved a bit.”
“I think you’ll find that it’s actually much more stable now.”
“Hmm, yes. You’ve worked through a few heart demons, I’ll grant you that. But still, I expected much better from you.”
Xiu approached from the edge of the field, glancing cautiously at Yan De and noticing Zheng Long’s discomfort.
“Honey, is everything alright?”
“It’s fine, sweetheart. Just an old acquaintance. Why don’t you head home and put some tea on for our guest? I’ll catch up soon.”
She glanced up nervously at the sect master, then looked back at Zheng Long and nodded.
“Okay dear. Stay safe, I love you.”
Xiu kissed him goodbye and he took her hand in his, smiling.
“I love you too.”
Once she’d turned away, Yan De’s polite smile dropped into an ugly grimace.
“That’s who you’ve found to replace my daughter? Surely you can do better than that, Zheng Long.”
“Grandmaster, is your contempt for me so great that you would stoop to insulting my wife?”
Yan De was taken aback by the venom in his voice, and bowed apologetically.
“You’re right, that was unbecoming of me. I rescind my previous words—she seems like a lovely woman.”
“What do you want, Yan De?”
“I require you to return to the sect. I’ll absolve you of your betrayal.”
Zheng Long narrowed his eyes.
“Why? Surely you can guess that I have no interest in helping you.”
“I can see that, yes. However, things have already been set in motion, and I have an important role prepared for you.”
“And if I refuse?”
Yan De shrugged.
“Then I will destroy this village and everyone in it.”
There was no malice in his words. No anger or bitterness to the threat. It was simply the cold promise of a man who knew exactly which levers to pull.
“You are truly monstrous, Yan De. I am ashamed to have ever looked up to you.”
“Now who’s being insulting? I’ll give you a week to settle your affairs here, then I expect to see you at Coiling Dragon Peak. If I don’t, then I will return to keep my promise.”
With that, he vanished, and Zheng Long sank to his knees. Why did the heavens loathe him so? What had he done to earn fate’s contempt? He wiped the tears from his eyes and stood up to gather his tools.
So be it, then. He was not the same man he had once been. He had something to protect, now. His ambition was not his anymore—it belonged to all the people of his village. Zheng Long would do whatever it took to keep them safe. He’d play along for now, but as soon as the opportunity came, he would make Yan De pay for threatening his people.
Nobody insulted his wife.
Comments
Spoon 4232184y091
This ch alone made subscribing worth it
CringeWorthyStudios
I never thought I’d say these words, but wow do I respect Zheng Long right now. Pulling a full Beware of Chicken just to reassess your cultivation and become a better person? Impressive. Also, I kinda hope he sends his wife (and village) to Yoshika for safety. It’d be a nice gesture of trust and really bring the cycle back to the start.
