Chapter Text
Waking up and realizing
that my life has been
wandering as in dreams
I feel more solitary hearing
the cold rain dripping on
the hardy banana leaves.
The Golden three-legged crow has long gone to slumber and the moon laid in the high sky. The blue illuminating the sky grew darker and darker as night fell. Stars were nowhere left to see and fog drifted through the blue yonder, like clouds Immortals would use to descend.
A quietness fell over the area, the earlier triumph of the celebration over Wu’s demise long gone.
Only Fanli, alongside crickets, was wide awake.
Verses of poetry of the moon repeated themselves in his head. Yet..Was it really the moon or the moon goddess he thought of? You could say, in a way, yes.
He couldn’t sleep. But what else was new? These nights were all too similar to the time he spent imprisoned in the Wu Palace. The cold, the hunger. Maybe even the longing for a better life and revenge. Even the days back in Qi, where he was regarded as a madman, crazy.
He wished he could just shout at life to stop its torture, not only of him- but of all life. Of people. Of animals. Of nature.
And still, he stayed quiet, laying in the guise of hay — his only companions the stench of wildlife, and sleeping horses. Even if it could serve as familiar or ‘comforting’, Fanli felt quite the opposite. He felt rage, regret, sorrow, and loneliness.
Sometimes he begged for himself to wake up, back in the Wu palace on the day of the Banquet. Where he would still have to fight, where he still had some sense.
Where she was still there. And where they hid in that room, in each other's embrace. He would willingly let himself repeat that day over and over again, just to see her face.
“Xishi. Yiguang.”
Was the only name he let himself mutter the past few days. Who else was left behind?
He was a mess. And for the first time in weeks — his mind drifted back to Luyi. What he said, at least. He did as Luyi predicted, and threw his life away for Yiguang. His status, his face, his own self. Was he even Fanli anymore? Or was he someone else?
A few days ago, he came to the palace of Yue, and declared he’d come to quit his position. To Goujian’s face. Did he regret it? No. Did he regret breaking the King’s arm as a final? No. Did he regret asking Wen Zhong to come with him just to leave him behind? Yes. His friend – with whom he had once been through thick and thin, even back in Chu – he left him behind, the one who listened to his words and actually considered them. The one he really thought of as an ally. Quietly, he begged the heavens to bless the man and give him a peaceful life, after all his efforts.
A goat passed by, bleating as its hooves met the hard ground with a flounder and came to his side to feed on the hay. He couldn’t resist reaching out. A’Qing, how is she doing now? Will she be waking up every day, taking her goats out for a walk like she used to? Or will she be waiting for her Ge to come back to go with him?Alongside Xishi, she was probably the only other woman he stuck with in his whole life. Well, except now.
He met her on a street when walking through the capital. Drunken Wu Guards were assaulting her and attempting to grab her goats, possibly to sell them. A’Qing, took a bamboo stick and swiftly knocked the guards unconscious.
At that moment, he couldn’t help but think about Xishi. How, when they first met, Xishi threw a rock at a Wu guard's nose (a feeble but effective attempt) to protect a little starving girl.
The two were similar in that way.
And he still felt guilty comparing A’Qing to her.
Sometimes he had to admit, A’Qing was like a little sister to him, and would go out of his way, just to sit on that patchy green field with goats surrounding them, while A’Qing spoke of anything that came to mind.
He hoped she was well off, and that Luyi would cook his porridge not for him, but for her. For she loved the taste of porridge. He wouldn’t let himself think back to Luyi, not with how that betrayed look of his when he left still lingered in his mind. Instead, his mind came back to the poetry he learned and recited for years, which he even taught Xishi.
The mind destroys; the heart devours.
His sword had long been discarded, left somewhere in the claws of Goujian, possibly covered by a cloth, left to be forgotten, or even shattered by the hands, with hatred, of the King himself.
It didn't matter now. He was free.
His thoughts wandered all back to Xishi, no matter how many people he further thought of. It all came back to her in the end. His moon goddess.
The little goat he called Xifan, by the color of its milky fur that reminded him of congee, now rested on his lap, its eyes shut and his hand still nestled in his fur. For a split second, he asked himself if he could ever bring warmth to anything. He himself overheard many words about him. Like how he was as cold as ice, how no one could come close to touching him, not even the king if he demanded it. But now it was too late to ask.
Fanli's fingers left the goat's head and laid it on the straw mat, letting himself stand up. The minister stared at it for a few seconds, silently wishing it good health as he did to most he said farewell to, and naturally strode off to another road.
Fanli didn't know how he ended up here. Again.
His shoes stood stained in the mud, his legs unmoving as if being strapped to the ground with vines. His heart clenched, standing over the grave of someone he knew well. Maybe not well enough. His arms laid motionlessly by his side, his expression dispirited.
“Yiguang,” he whispered, a name left unsaid aloud.
And before he knew it, he found himself back on his knees, his hands resting on his thighs. He lowered his head, his eyes tracing the words on tombstone like brushes painting words. And once again, her face came back to his mind, one he simply couldn't forget.
“Yiguang, how are you-.. When-..” He wanted to ask so many questions, ones that made him feel sour. And ones that made him feel warm. What use was it, asking questions, if he didn't get answers? Following his only remaining train of thought, he began,
“I’m no longer in service of King Goujian,” He stopped momentarily to think about his next line, as if he was in an Opera play, “And I’ll be leaving soon, I don’t know where to but..”
His eyes traced back to the grave stone, a slight bit of hope lighting his eyes as he murmurs, “Will you come with me?”
He stops.
Then continues again, the light already relinquished.
“I will no longer be Fanli, but Tao Zhu Gong. Will you still willingly follow another man?”
And again he hoped for an answer.
And as none came, his eyes landed back on his knees. If she wouldn’t, he really couldn’t blame her. The last time she followed him somewhere, it ended in her demise.
For probably the first time in years, his mind was blank. Not a single train of thought. Usually he would be reciting something to compose himself or be devising carefully curated and clever plans.
But now? Nothing.
The only thing remaining was the sorrow clouding his heart and tiredness plaguing his eyes.
“Goodnight, Xishi,” were the last words he said, before falling next to the grave and closing his eyes.
Hoping to meet her in yet another dream.