Severed Yearning

An angry cloud has appeared on the calm scroll.

A crack of thunder leaves an ink trail on the white scroll, looking decidedly out of place.

Countless terrible ink spirits appear out of nowhere, scattering across the scroll, covering everything on it in black ink.

Did the heart skip a beat, or did it beat twice in an instant?

Or was it the vibration of the nomadic city from some sudden movement?

Or was it...

*Plop*

The scroll that was in the proxy's hand is now on the ground.

Finally...

...Finally!

You're here.

The hollow visage that is also yours.

Of course I'm awake... you had awakened me centuries ago, when you intruded upon my dream.

Dreamwalker? Very well, we'll call this a journey in a dream.

But I see those games you and your siblings play with those puny humans, and your foolish, flawed, presumptuous plan to replace me.

You want to become the same as the humans, to become such fickle, puny creatures, in order to escape your fate?

How pathetic... how laughable!

Is that so?

The proxy turns around to look at the corridor that he just walked through, but finds no path.

Why are you afraid, then?

It took so long for you to get a chance to see me like this. If you are not afraid, why have you not torn me to pieces in your hatred?

Pathetic... foolish.

Hahahahahahaha!

Didn't you want to fight me to the death?

Then come. Do what you do best.

A weiqi board appears in front of Wang, with a familiar crack on it.

Without asking, the mysterious foe takes the white stone and goes first according to tradition.

The first stone is placed in the Tianyuan position—the center of the board.

You'll find out when the game has ended.

Your turn.

He takes a black piece. The nineteen-by-nineteen board is intimately familiar to him; he has not tasted defeat in a long, long time.

Yet it seems as though his opponent sees through his every move, every thought, every emotion.

He soon finds himself at a disadvantage, even though his opponent had forfeited the opening move.

Why would it be?

Have you not realized that all the intricate moves that you have pondered, all your puny stratagems, are no secrets to me?

He clenches his teeth and picks up another stone.

Every move causes a splitting headache. Every move drains his spirit.

The game is finally concluded after another hundred moves or so, with all endgame plays settled. Black wins by the slimmest of margins—half a point—as the points are tallied.

The player is exhausted, at his last gasp.

Against his will, Wang gets up and takes a few steps back.

It is only a few steps, but the board that he has been seeing has shrunk to a tiny piece.

Wang forces himself to look...

It is no longer a nineteen-by-nineteen board, but hundreds of lines vertical and across. The game that he had poured his heart and soul into just to win by a hair looks utterly insignificant on the vast board.

Countless white pieces, as many as there are stars in the sky, lie beyond the board, which itself seems endless. There is no room to intervene in their formation—as immutable as Sui's anger and contempt, which have simmered for a thousand years.

Underneath her thick black hair, the Elf's ears twitched.

Suddenly, Chun understands.

Jie is asking for herself, and for Wang.

If losing a loved one is merely a little speck of sorrow in a long life, then she will choose death, and leave the insignificant sorrow to Wang, and become a loss that stings a little from time to time for her siblings.

If the pain of losing a loved one still threatens to tear one apart, even for those with lifespans far beyond the ordinary mortal, then she will choose to bear the unbearable pain, and the burden of those left behind, seeing the task of eliminating Sui through to the end.

An immortal being, facing the possibility of losing family forever for the first time.

Though she has written about meetings and partings innumerable times, finding no other measure to judge by, she can only rely on Chun to make a decision.

She only has to tell the truth.

That the pain of losing a loved one does not heal so easily, even after decades, after centuries.

That death is liberation and life is pain. Which way the scale tips is obvious.

That it was best for Wang to let him go, that Jie should remain and feel the pain that lingers. Wang reaps the death that he sowed while Jie remains. It is how things should be.

That Jie would cautiously advance the cause of eliminating Sui, without crossing the line as Wang did, incurring the wrath of the True Lung when the Sui Regulator received an anonymous tip.

But—

'Eliminate the great evil, before dealing with the culprit.'

'There is no one in the Sky Mirror Pavilion or the Imperial Historical Cabinet who can stop her. It's becoming a real problem.'

'She should be held responsible if the history of Yan falls into chaos!'

'Imperial Historical Cabinet abolished. Takes control of the written language of Yan. No one may oppose her.'

'Reviews the livelihood of every household in the land. Anyone who has committed fraudulent acts has their name erased and is exiled to the borders. Thousands die.'

Chaotic, murky memories grip the Candleholder's heart.

It is not right. She seems to remember that none of the speakers had faces.

Something is not right. It is false, fabricated, designed to drive a rift between Candleholder and proxy, turn them against each other.

But... is it not a fact that Jie's power is growing?

She will become more powerful, more terrible, than the Sui beast itself. She cannot help it. I must help her. I must do my duty to Great Yan—

Two entwined wills surge in her chest. One belongs to her, the other to those faceless people, but also...

...To a Yan that does not want to give a proxy complete control over history.

She cannot help but suspect that her recruitment by the Sui Regulator was not luck, but planned.

She was assigned to watch the most difficult proxy to control, because of her long lifespan.

She would understand the monster that Jie would become, because of her interest in history.

She would lose her hard-earned home if she betrayed Great Yan, because she has nowhere to go.

Is that why?

She feels the crushing weight of her burden. A rumbling sound fills her mind, and she cannot think.

She must do her duty to Yan, do her duty as Candleholder. By chance, she has seen Jie at her most fragile. She must let the great evil take the culprit's place.

It would be best for the proxies, even. Yan would lose a reason to wage war on them—

The pain tore you apart.

It was as though your heart was ripped out from your chest, leaving behind a bloody hole, and you know that nothing would ever fill it, that things would never be the same again.

You had cried your tears dry by the time the last dirt was laid over your mother's face, but still you could not stop crying. You had no idea what to do.

Your life is too long, and the lasting things too few. When you lose them, they leave behind voids that can never be filled, wounds that never heal.

Your loved ones appear in your dreams. They come to you when you are alone.

The pain grips your heart when you hear songs like the melodies that she once hummed. There is nowhere to run.

She barely managed to utter those last few words, so great was her urge to throw up. She could hardly breathe.

She dares not look into the proxy's eyes.

She fears that the one before her would be blinded by her words and truly believe that loss is something that can be soothed by time.

She fears that the one before her would see through her lies, see her vile intention and despise her.

...She fears herself, for saying those words.

The murk in the Candleholder's chest suddenly clears. There is only an empty hole there now.

Wind blows through the hole and speaks in her voice.

Chun fights back her tears. Even crying would be a lie, here and now.

But the hole in her chest continues to sob, a sound that only she can hear. Finally, she forces a few sorrowful, powerless words from her chest.

It is not so easy to not look back.

She looks at the innumerable lives and deaths recorded upon the shelves, many of which she had written with her own pen.

Would she become one of them?

How would those who come after depict this life, one that seems too long for others to comprehend, yet far too hurried for herself?

How would the other siblings react when they read those pages?

...

No. There will be no record of her. She knows it.

Of all the siblings, she is the one who has spent the most time with Wang.

She has given Wang ideas for his plans, helped him calculate the conditions and timing for Sui's elimination.

She can guess what is happening in the Tomb of Sui. The clear and distinct heartbeat has already told the full story.

There is no other way.

She must use her powers to erase the name—

...

She has spent much more time in the mortal realm than ordinary people.

Everyone dies. It is precisely the cycle of life and death that made possible the innumerable ways of life that have fascinated her, as well as her siblings.

But if death is such an unremarkable thing, like a wisp of smoke in the wind... what is living, truly?

Light from the setting sun pours into the room, upon the countless history tomes, as though relentlessly poring through traces of the past.

Every word in these scrolls was written with tears of blood, but the only thing written on the last page is the word 'regret'.

The sun's rays by the window...

...How warm.

But she does not walk towards the sunlight.

She leaves the room.

Into the darkness of the tomb.

No words need to be said. Wang knows it is a fragment It has retrieved from his own memory, an image that he has never forgotten for even a moment in the last hundred and twenty years.

He lies exhausted on the ground. A hundred white pieces on the board have turned into blades that impale his chest, and he is slowly inundated by the pure white.

Until the golden light surrounds him.

It was the other side of the dream, a place that he should not have been able to touch.

But she seems to notice him and turns around to look at him.

There is a faint smile on Jie's face, and she nods lightly.

The light gushes from behind her, surrounding the figure, swallowing it, dissolving it...

Sweeping away the dream realm, and revealing the true face of this place.