Chapter Text
The God’s Suburbs, The Ghost King’s Garage
…
Chapter 21: Turtle Island – Part I
The group of four had spent the better part of two hours walking through the everglades. Xie Lian, honestly, could hardly tell left from right anymore. If they were wandering in circles, Xie Lian would have been none the wiser.
Everywhere they went, the canopy of half-submerged trees followed them, blotting out the sky. They had long since left any semblance of a paved path. Squawks and splashes and chirps rose from ground level, all the way to the top of the forest. It was hot. It was humid. There were mosquitoes everywhere. And there was mud, and there were dead plants, and there were fallen logs, and there was moss. So much moss.
“San Lang, would you happen to know of any wars that have occurred here?”
Xie Lian stopped in his tracks. He felt something underneath his shoe. He kicked the dirt aside, and for just a moment, a little flicker flashed before his eyes. He bent down. Time had dulled the thing with rust, but Xie Lian always recognized the glint of iron, no matter its condition.
“Florida was the sight of the Seminole Wars,” San Lang replied. “There were three of them.”
“Three?” Mu Qing moaned, sounding incredulous. “Are you implying that people actually fought over Florida?”
“En.”
Xie Lian didn’t have to look at Mu Qing to catch the general rolling his eyes.
“Hey!” Then a slap. “Pesky mosquito!”
“Careful, or you’ll get malaria,” Hua Cheng quipped dryly.
.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
.
“Stupid bloodsuckers!”
Xie Lian sighed to himself.
.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
.
Xie Lian, fast as lightning, extended his open hand. Just as quickly, he snapped his fingers shut around the unfortunate mosquito flying next to his ear.
Then, Xie Lian brushed his other hand against the dirt. He dug into the mud, not caring for the wet, gritty sensation beneath his fingernails. Xie Lian grimaced, but he carried on.
“Gege?”
Xie Lian felt his eyebrows furrowing in concentration. He took a deep breath, readied himself, and plunged his hand into the soft soil. His fingers hit something. An object, long and narrow, most definitely made of wood. Scratchy. Old. Worn. Xie Lian flexed, then pulled.
From the ground emerged an old, rusty blade. The thing resembled an axe, but the angle of its edge, the way the handle balanced in Xie Lian’s hold, told him otherwise.
“It’s a tomahawk,” Xie Lian stated matter-of-factly.
“A what now?” Feng Xin asked.
“It’s a weapon used by the indigenous peoples of North America. Tomahawks are often paired with a club in combat.” Xie Lian tilted the tomahawk into the sunlight, examining it. “By the looks of it, I’d say that this specimen is 150, maybe 200 years old.”
“It’s likely from the Second Seminole War,” San Lang added. “Of the three Seminole Wars, the second one was the longest, lasting seven years. As a historical tidbit: The Seminole Wars were, and are, the most expensive wars waged against Indigenous Americans in the United States. The Second Seminole War, alone, cost the U.S. government 20 million dollars – a truly eye-watering amount in 1835.”
Xie Lian nodded in agreement. He smiled at his husband. “My San Lang is so smart!” he praised. Xie Lian did not notice the subtle flush of Hua Cheng’s cheeks.
“Okay, but how is this relevant?” Feng Xin interjected.
Xie Lian hummed to himself, trying to translate his thoughts into words. He fiddled with the weapon in his hands, enjoying the weight of it against his palms. “Remember when Shi Qingxuan said that they suspect that some other entity is using the chupacabras as puppets?”
“Yes?” came Mu Qing’s reply.
“According to San Lang, fighting occurred on this land. So what does this mean? It means that perhaps, the appearance of chupacabras in Florida isn’t coincidental. Isn’t it suspicious that the hotbed of chupacabra attacks and sightings originate from the everglades?” Xie Lian ran his fingers along the tomahawk’s rough handle. “That makes one wonder, if there are any resentful sprits left behind after the Seminole Wars ended. If I recall correctly, a heavenly official hasn’t visited Florida for hundreds of years due to its alleged rotten spiritual aura. Does the timing, therefore, not match up perfectly with the Seminole Wars? San Lang, when did the Second Seminole War end?”
“It ended in 1842.”
“That was the last time a heavenly official even set foot in Florida!” Mu Qing exclaimed. Then he muttered, “Excluding Ling Wen, apparently.”
“So that’s the working theory,” Xie Lian concluded. “I posit that a resentful spirit who died as a result of the Seminole War is the root cause of the chupacabra attacks. We appease the spirit, and in theory, that will eliminate the chupacabras.”
“Well, that’s nice to know and all,” Mu Qing began, “but how do we even go about appeasing this theoretical angry spirit?”
“Maybe we should just find it and bring it up to heaven. We can seal it beneath a mountain or something,” Feng Xin noted.
For some reason, sealing the spirit underneath a mountain didn’t seem quite right to Xie Lian.
Some invisible force urged Xie Lian along. He, making sure that he held the tomahawk with both hands, arranged the weapon into a vertical position, perpendicular to the ground. He stuck the tomahawk into the muddy soil.
“I apologize. This isn’t much, but it’s all I have at the moment.” Xie Lian knelt next to the tomahawk. His hand disappeared into his sleeve, and it reappeared with an orange. Xie Lian laid a tuft of grass in front of the weapon, set the orange atop the grass, and picked some flowers. The flowers, too, went on the tuft of grass. Again, he reached into his sleeve, and he pulled out some incense.
Xie Lian snapped his fingers. He barely had enough spiritual power to light the stick. Nevertheless, he planted the incense sticks in front of the tomahawk. He pressed his hands together, palm to palm, and tilted his head to the ground. He closed his eyes, then prayed.
“May your soul find peace. And may it move on, in one form or another,” Xie Lian muttered in reverence.
Xie Lian felt San Lang’s hand along his shoulder. Xie Lian could tell it was San Lang’s. Xie Lian had long ago memorized every little swirl, every fingerprint, every ridge and bump along San Lang’s fingers. San Lang’s hands felt cold, but when he took them away, they left behind a warm, tingly sensation – contentment and happiness and love made tangible.
Xie Lian felt something else, however. A little glimmer of spiritual energy pulsed through his chest. How peculiar. It wasn’t from San Lang. Xie Lian recognized San Lang’s spiritual power. San Lang’s spiritual energy felt like happiness and devotion. It made Xie Lian’s heart flutter, filling it with so much love that it ought to burst with joy. Right now, however, Xie Lian, out of the blue, felt somber and sad and sorrowful. A tear tickled the edge of Xie Lian’s bottom eyelid. He wiped the dastardly tear away.
“Gege?”
The sudden crying must have worried Hua Cheng.
“There’s something not right here,” Xie Lian mused to himself. “I’m so sad all of a sudden.” Xie Lian rose to his feet as more tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Your highness?”
“Xie Lian?”
“Gege?”
.
“I feel as if… I’ve lost something.”
.
Something familiar. So that was it.
Xianle had collapsed so long ago. Almost three thousand years ago. A sharp, yet not unknown pain zipped through Xie Lian’s head. Xie Lian’s heart ached.
“This feels like… this feels like when Xianle fell.” Xie Lian could barely put the sadness into words. He couldn’t even begin to describe the deep, deep sorrow now seeping into his bones.
“Your highness…?”
“I haven’t felt this way in a long, long time,” Xie Lian told the group. He stared at the tomahawk. “This feels like losing the people all over again.”
“Gege…” Hua Cheng stepped closer. He tenderly wrapped his arms around Xie Lian’s waist.
“I’m fine,” Xie Lian assured. “I think… I think that praying opened something up… some connection. I feel it. I understand it.”
Xie Lian, Hua Cheng, Feng Xin, and Mu Qing all stood in somber silence. Xie Lian was sure that they could feel it, too. The love and loss. The grief and heartache. The screams. Oh gods, the screams. Of men and women and children. Of innocents lying dead in an unceremonious heap. Of family, and of that family’s loss. Xie Lian thought of his mother and father. He wondered where their spirits were now. He wondered whether they had found peace.
Guilt.
A tremendous wave of guilt washed over Xie Lian. Suffocating, drowning, wallowing in guilt.
.
He should have tried harder. He should have been better.
Xie Lian curled his hand into a fist. His fingernails pressed against his palm with so much force that it drew blood. Xie Lian scratched his neck, which for some reason, right now, had become unbearably itchy.
.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Xie Lian tore his fingers away from his neck. He reached into his sleeve, and he grabbed the stress ball. Vaguely, Xie Lian registered San Lang’s’ fingers as they tenderly rubbed the red spot on his throat.
This time, Xie Lian didn’t need to wipe his own tears away. He felt San Lang’s hands rise from his throat to his cheeks, where cold fingers lovingly wicked away the droplets.
“I’m fine; I’m fine,” Xie Lian repeated. From the top: deep breath in, deep breath out. Nevertheless, he leaned into San Lang’s embrace. He sighed deeply, slowly, sadly. Xie Lian took several minutes to compose himself.
They had all been born in Xianle. How strange it felt, to outlast their own kingdom that, by this point, had not existed for millennia.
“Don’t you ever miss Xianle?” Feng Xin asked, suddenly. Xie Lian, caught off guard, shuttered, quickly and quietly.
“No,” Xie Lian replied. The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Xie Lian did not need to look to catch Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s shocked stares. A little gasp escaped Mu Qing’s lips.
“Xianle was broken,” Xie Lian continued, “fundamentally. It wouldn’t have… regardless of what happened, it wouldn’t have…” Xie Lian could not bring himself to finish his sentence.
In a way, perhaps letting White No-Face – an outside, uncontrollable force – topple Xianle was easier than seeing the kingdom crumble naturally to time. But Xie Lian wasn’t sure.
“What is done is done. Xianle, Yong’an, Banyue, they’re all gone. Their people are gone, and the world’s moved on. Nothing can be done. Nothing can be done.” An incredible, indescribable exhaustion overtook Xie Lian’s very bones. He tried his best to stagger forward, but his legs felt like they were made of gelatine.
“Gone, but not forgotten.” Xie Lian knew that Mu Qing was just trying to help, but it felt like a slap to the face.
“Forgotten is better.” Xie Lian sounded far colder, far more bitter, than he ought to.
“Your highness-” Feng Xin stammered.
Xie Lian interrupted. “No. Not now. Not this time. I’m not him. I’m not the crown prince of Xianle. I’m not the Flower Crowned Martial God. I’m no one and nothing, and I’ve made my peace with that.” Xie Lian frowned deeply. He balled his left hand into a fist, wound himself up so tightly that his fingernail left indents in his palm.
“But you are, Gege.”
“San Lang, don’t-”
“You are all those things, and none of those things. You are your past and present. You are you, regardless of the state of you.”
Xie Lian wanted to cry again. He sniffed, once and hard.
“I can’t, San Lang. Not now.”
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. What is now just is,” San Lang replied. Softly. Tenderly. Gently. “And right now, you’re sad, and that’s okay.”
“I’m a fool. I was and always will be.” Xie Lian chuckled wryly. He didn’t want to cry, so he laughed instead.
“As am I, Gege.”
“We all are,” Feng Xin added. “We’re all wise, and we’re all foolish.”
“What matters is you, and not the state of you.” At San Lang’s words, Xie Lian almost burst into tears on the spot. Crying like a baby in the presence of San Lang was one thing. Doing so with Feng Xin and Mu Qing standing behind him was something else entirely.
.
And then, rumbling.
.
Xie Lian’s eyes widened as he observed the ground split open. Right below where he had planted the tomahawk, the ground split open before his very eyes, and it swallowed the tomahawk whole. Just as quickly as the ground parted, it resealed itself. The rumbling did not stop.
“Look! Over there!” exclaimed Mu Qing.
A figure emerged from the water. Everyone tried preparing for combat, but admittedly, without the use of their spiritual powers, they were sitting ducks. Feng Xin tried shooting an arrow at the water, but with his spiritual energy blocked from use, the arrow bounced off harmlessly.
Even E-Ming refused to open its eye. Hua Cheng gave the scimitar a smack, scolding it, but it’s eye remained shut.
“f*ck!” Feng Xin cursed.
“I hate Florida!” Mu Qing repeated for the umpteenth time.
Hua Cheng grumbled in displeasure. He waved his arm, trying to summon his wraith butterflies, but other than some sparks which flashed from his vambraces, no butterflies appeared.
Red, glowing eyes. A giant, slobbering maw filled to the brim with razor-sharp teeth. Scales and fur, claws and spurs. A chupacabra, Xie Lian realized. Xie Lian gritted his teeth. The creature rose, up and up above the waterline. Xie Lian stared at the creature. He should have been scared. After all that he’d been through, however, he hardly felt fear in the face of a spiritual threat. Instead, a deep sadness sunk its tendrils into Xie Lian’s chest, threatening to strangle his heart from the inside out.
Xie Lian thought back to what Feng Xin said, about how they ought to just seal the spiritual threat beneath a mountain. For some reason, Xie Lian – despite the multitudes of resentful ghosts he’d fought in the past – stared at the beast in a strange sense of awe.
“Your highness, what are you doing?! Don’t just stand there!” Feng Xin barked. Xie Lian blinked, and he realized the sheer size of this particular chupacabra. He had thought that the ones from earlier were big. The one in front of him in this very moment, however, easily dwarfed its contemporaries. Its head alone was so large, Xie Lian probably could have stood on it like an island in the water.
“Run!” Mu Qing ordered.
They tried, but more chupacabras emerged – from the water, from the earth, from the trees. Everywhere. They were everywhere. Some were big, some were small, and they all glowered at the group, staring at them with malicious eyes, wriggling grotesquely in half scaly iguana, half mangy dog.
Mu Qing and Hua Cheng slashed with their swords. No matter, with only the brute force of their weapons and no spiritual energy, every time someone landed a hit on a chupacabra, it just sunk back into the earth from where it came, and was replaced by another. As if the swamp itself, as if the land itself, was the source of the monsters.
“Hua Cheng and I will hold them back!” Mu Qing cried out. “Feng Xin, Xie Lian, just… think of something!”
“We’re trying!” Feng Xin retorted. He turned to Xie Lian. “Any ideas?!” Feng Xin was going fishy-eyed. Xie Lian shook his head no. He tried to resist the urge to starch his neck, but the action was automatic. Every time he needed to think hard about something, scratching his neck just provided this indescribable release.
Feng Xin, out of presumable frustration, smacked a tree with his bow, splintering the wood. At that, even more chupacabras emerged.
“Stupid everglades!” Feng Xin wailed, then kicked a tree root. “Stupid chupacabras! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Kick. Kick. Kick. “f*ck this place… f*ck Florida. f*ck everything that has to do with Florida!” Kick, kick. Kick.
“Wait, Feng Xin, I think you’re making it-” Before Xie Lian could finish, the chupacabra in the water began its slow yet steady approach. Waves and moss cascaded off its back as it continued rising from the depths. The longer Xie Lian stared at the beast, the more he realized its sheer size. The thing was huge, about as long and tall as a standard American school bus, and then some.
A deep, guttural hum vibrated from the water, through the soil, and underneath Xie Lian’s very skin. Xie Lian would have been lulled into a daze, but he stood his ground, and he, yet again, dug his fingernail into his palm.
Before Feng Xin could kick another tree root, Xie Lian restrained the general. “Feng Xin, I think that being disrespectful to the swamp is making things worse!”
Feng Xin’s mouth produced some strange – perhaps confused? – sound.
Xie Lian racked his brain through what San Lang had said about the history of the Everglades. He wondered if he could address whatever resentful, angry spirit resided here directly, but he couldn’t even begin to give this entity a name. Besides, he had no idea whether addressing it by name would make things better or worse.
“It’s strange, is it not?” Xie Lian pointed out.
“What is?” Feng Xin asked.
“None of you can use your spiritual powers, right?”
“Yeah?” Feng Xin responded, waving around an arrow of emphasis – an arrow that, at the moment, refused to glow with spiritual energy.
But Xie Lian remembered. He remembered before, when warning the tour boat, he felt it. When praying at the tomahawk, he felt it. Even now, he felt it. Sadness. He felt sad, but that was the point. Xie Lian knew what it felt like to be without spiritual powers. He had spent almost eight-hundred years in such a sorry state, serving out a self-imposed punishment. Xie Lian tried not to think about how much the action hurt his husband. He tried not to think about the look of utter failure and heartbreak within Hua Cheng’s eye upon the discovery.
Xie Lian spent eight centuries with his spiritual powers sealed away. He knew what it felt like to be empty, to have some critical part of himself blocked off, hidden away in the deep, inaccessible recesses of his being. In this moment, his peers were likely experiencing the same sensation. But not Xie Lian. Not all the way, at least. He felt like a squeezed pipe. Sure, his spiritual power trickled through him slower than usual. He couldn’t access nearly as much of it as he normally did. But it was not gone.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The low hum of equal parts electricity and melancholy flowed through him, slow and lazy, like a winding stream.
Xie Lian took a deep breath, snatched the arrow from Feng Xin’s hand, and he threw. Xie Lian, unless absolutely necessary, usually just fought with Ruoye. A lack of spiritual power affected him the least out of everyone in the group, on account of him being so accustomed to such a state. He hadn’t noticed at first that he could still access to his spiritual reserves, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that for once, he was the only one not being drained of spiritual power.
Right on cue, the arrow Xie Lian had thrown ignited itself. It speared one of the smaller chupacabras, and unlike the others, the chupacabra disintegrated upon impact.
“Xie Lian, how did you-”
Out of nowhere, spots filled Xie Lian’s vision. Feng Xin’s voice faded away into oblivion. Xie Lian’s ears rang. Xie Lian squinted, not unlike how he would when overstimulated.
Sadness.
Xie Lian could do nothing to stop himself from burying his face in his hands, then weeping. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Xie Lian began gasping, hyperventilating. Through the furrows of overwhelming grief, Xie Lian realized one thing. He realized that he, on some deep, fundamental level, understood.
The love and loss. The tragedy and heartache. The complete and utter despair one experienced in the face of failure to their people. Xie Lian had failed. He felt it. He knew it. And whatever entity was haunting the everglades, it felt it, too.
In that moment, Xie Lian became a figure who he thought to be long dead. In that moment, Xie Lian, just for a little bit, became the crown prince of Xianle. A young, hopeful prince who could only exist in the absence of this old, tired god. Xie Lian fell to his knees, and he prayed, tears streaming down his face.
…
Shi Qingxuan stood before heaven in disbelief. They never thought that they’d ever, ever, ever be here again. They’d purposefully fought against their own cultivation. They didn’t want to be here. They didn’t!
But then Shi Qingxuan gazed at He Xuan. He Xuan was here. With them. Only that mattered, Shi Qingxuan realized. Shi Qingxuan had long wondered why the idea of re-ascension rattled their bones with unyielding repulsion. Shi Qingxuan had tried to reason with themselves that they didn’t want to entangle themselves in heaven’s petty politics, that they didn’t want deal with heaven’s poorly veiled bullsh*t, that they didn’t even deserve ascension in the first place, for after all, they had inadvertently stolen that fate.
However, now, standing in heaven, in the arms of He Xuan, Shi Qingxuan realized right, there, and then why they had been avoiding cultivation all this time.
Even if they had successfully re-ascended, what was the point if He-Xiong couldn’t be there with them?
It felt so strange to suddenly, once again, have access to a wealth of spiritual power. It coursed through Shi Qingxuan as freely as their own blood. Every time they breathed in, yet more power filled them. The sensation proved to be so overwhelming that without He Xuan present, Shi Qingxuan might have straight-up fainted.
Shi Qingxuan gazed lovingly into He Xuan’s eyes. As He Xuan stared back, just as enamored, Shi Qingxuan came to the startling conclusion just how much He Xuan had changed over the centuries.
The last time they talked, Shi Qingxuan saw the hate. The pain. The regrets. The revenge.
This time, however, Shi Qingxuan saw none of that.
Shi Qingxuan just saw He Xuan’s love of good food and bonefish. They saw an old, weary soul, who begged for company. They saw a man who could spend hours rambling about seaweed samples. They saw an animal lover and an ocean conservationist. They saw a scholar who contentedly pursued his studies. But those parts had always been there. He Xuan hadn’t changed, so much as the truer, more vulnerable parts of him rose to the surface after centuries of suppression.
Shi Qingxuan saw a turbulent, angry storm that had been calmed to a gentle sea breeze. They saw love and sadness and relief, all at once.
.
“A dual ascension! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Such power! Like the ascensions described in the legends!”
“Wait… I recognize… is that…?”
“Shi Qingxuan! The god who fell from divinity over two-thousand years ago!”
“And Black Water Sinking Ships! The Calamity!”
“Wait, is he the one who broke into heaven over two-thousand years ago?! Are you sure?!”
“I’d recognize that bonefish motif just about anywhere!”
.
Shi Qingxuan chuckled awkwardly. He Xuan, very slowly, set them back down on their feet, then coughed dryly.
“I’m not sure if I’m exactly welcome,” He Xuan admitted as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
“I think it’ll be al-” Shi Qingxuan paused. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Shi Qingxuan, at the back of their head, registered a faint voice.
“Wait, I do hear it!” He Xuan exclaimed. “Is it a…”
“It’s a prayer!” Shi Qingxuan’s eyes widened. “Wait, and you can hear it?”
“What is it saying? The voice in your head – our heads – I mean?”
“Um… um…” Shi Qingxuan closed their eyes, trying their best two focus. For some reason, though, the words were being drowned out by… curses? About chupacabras? Wait. That was why the voice sounded so familiar!
At the exact same time, Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan both gasped, “It’s Xie Lian!”
“So you can hear my prayers.”
“And I can hear yours.”
Shi Qingxuan grabbed their fan from their new robes, then flicked the device open. Shi Qingxuan examined it. For the most part, it looked the same, with the character for wind on the front and three lines on the back. However, they noticed how the three lines, representing the wind, now extended off the edge of the fan. Along that same edge, thick, blue, swirling lines radiated from the cutoff point. The design almost looked to be incomplete.
He Xuan, mirroring Shi Qingxuan’s actions, reached down to the belt around his waist. His hand wrapped around a fan, not unlike Shi Qingxuan’s fan.
“Where did this…” He Xuan stammered in confusion. He unfurled the fan, and sure enough, the back design – blue stylized lines resembling waves – completed the lines on Shi Qingxuan’s fan. On the front of He Xuan’s fan, they found the character for water. “Where did this come from?”
Shi Qingxuan ran their hand along the middle of their own fan, realizing that something was missing. “The staples!”
“The what?”
“Remember, all those years ago, my fan was broken. And then it was fixed, for a while, but then it like… broke again…” Shi Qingxuan laughed dryly.
“Oh, yeah…” He Xuan nodded, looking rather ashamed, but Shi Qingxuan tried to assure him with a gentle squeeze of the shoulder.
“Not to worry,” Shi Qingxuan said, smiling, letting it reach and crinkle the corners of their eyes, “The past is the past. But to let you know, after everything with… you know, Jun Wu, um… the fan broke again. But I thought to just keep it. It wasn’t like it mattered if it was broken or not; it wasn’t like I could use it anyway.”
Again, a pained, guilty expression overtook He Xuan’s face, but Shi Qingxuan just, once again, gave He Xuan’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
“But enough with that. My point is that my fan is supposed to be broken. It’s supposed to be held together with thread and staples. But look!” Shi Qingxuan held up the device to eye-level, allowing He Xuan to examine it.
“Look, there,” He Xuan said as he pointed at the fan’s edge, where the complementary designs would complete each other should Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan press their fans edge to edge. There, along the fan’s frame, Shi Qingxuan felt groves, little notches carved into the wood. They resembled stables.
“Are you telling me that…”
He Xuan completed the thought Shi Qingxuan couldn’t. “I think… I think that your fan… made two fans.”
A cursory examination of He Xuan’s fan revealed that it, too, possessed the same notches – resembling stables – carved into the left side of its frame.
At the revelation, this wide, beaming, ecstatic grin spread from one of Shi Qingxuan’s ears to the other. They squealed, lurching forward to hug Black Water a second time.
“HE-XIONG!” Shi Qingxuan squeezed.
“Too tight! Too tight!”
“Sorry!”
Shi Qingxuan let go, but their hands remained trained on He Xuan’s arms.
“He-Xiong…”
He Xuan, despite all that he had been subjected to, smiled. Actually, genuinely smiled. Shi Qingxuan felt tears well in their eyes, but just before they could completely lose themselves to the moment, Xie Lian’s voice popped into their head once again.
“Looks like we don’t have too much time for celebrations,” He Xuan sighed, but he was still smiling.
“Ling Wen’s on vacation anyway. I guess she can deal with it all once she’s back.”
“I pity her.”
Shi Qingxuan chuckled, happily and easily. They hadn’t found a joke that funny in a long, long time.
And so, Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan – of their own volition this time – descended from heaven in a rush of wind and clouds. Leaving behind extravagant villas and gilded streets, they charged head-on into the Floridian wilderness.
…
Xie Lian would not, could not, stop crying. No matter how many times he wiped the tears away with his sleeve, and no matter how many times he bit the tip of his tongue, he could not stop crying. Xie Lian lurched forward, an indescribable pit of sadness sinking within his stomach. Xie Lian suddenly started shaking. Tremors, pins and needles, knees like gelatin – Xie Lian, for one reason or another, was shaking.
Xie Lian kept praying. He didn’t know why he was praying. He blabbed on and on, sputtering nonsense. He vaguely remembered asking the swamp to forgive whatever transgressions had occurred in the past. He muttered something about how even if some people don’t deserve to be forgiven, to forgive means to let go. Xie Lian told the swamp that he just wanted for it to be at peace. A stream of consciousness poured out of Xie Lian’s mouth, even as he continued to cry.
Around Xie Lian, he felt it. He felt it in the roots beneath his feet. He felt it in the way winding branches swayed. He felt it in the ripples on the water’s surface, felt it swirling like pollen in the air. Xie Lian felt a presence. Xie Lian radiated spiritual energy, like waves. Amongst the waves stood a rock, interrupting an otherwise predictable flow of spiritual power.
“I see you,” Xie Lian declared solemnly. He had closed his eyes, but he saw it. He saw him.
Then, electricity.
Goosebumps formed along every square centimeter of Xie Lian’s skin. Despite the searing heat of Florida, Xie Lian was cold. He was shivering. When Xie Lian inhaled, cold, crisp air burned the back of his throat.
At last, Xie Lian opened his eyes, and he started – straight on – into the lagoon. He mentally begged for the spirit to come out. He only wanted to talk.
“Lower your weapons. Please,” Xie Lian told his companions.
San Lang paused, then looked at Xie Lian, E-Ming still in hand. San Lang opened his mouth in protest, but Xie Lian shook his head.
As he sat on his knees, in the dirt, Xie Lian continued staring at the water. Small ripples became waves, and waves sank into whirlpools, and whirlpools morphed into a single, angry vortex which sucked in every floating branch in sight.
Vines pulsed, then crept, from the mangrove trees, towards the vortex. Moss and mud spurted from the vortex, into a column. A figure began to take shape – a man. He looked as if he had been made from the swamp itself. It looked as if when he had died, his spirit returned to the everglades and threated itself into every corner of the landscape.
Before Xie Lian’s very eyes, a man made of bark and vines materialized. Mud filled in the gaps. His limbs, also made from the flora of the everglades, extended out from trees and shrubs. Every twitch of his fingers, and the trees shook. Every time the man swayed to the left, or swayed to the right, Xie Lian felt compelled to move with him. Or rather, it felt as if the ground beneath Xie Lian’s feet had shifted.
In awe, in sorrow, in pity, Xie Lian looked on. For a moment, he was rendered breathless. Leaves sprouted from the spirit’s body, forming rich cloths and textiles. Lines of beads spun in spirals before settling as necklaces on a broad, haggard chest.
The vortex broke into whirlpools, which scattered into waves, and ripples died, mid-crest, in the water. Yes, Xie Lian was kneeling before a man. The man was staring at Xie Lian. From Xie Lian’s point of view, he looked haunted. And sad. And also angry.
The man opened his mouth, and he spoke. With every booming word which left his mouth, Xie Lian felt the trees around him shake, heard the fish in the water squirm, saw the birds fleeing from the ground.
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“Speak your name.”
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In a daze, Xie Lian had almost lost the ability to form words. Almost.
“Xie Lian. My name is Xie Lian. And if I may, and I apologize if I overstep, but what is your name?”
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“Asi-yahola. Of the Seminole people.”
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Xie Lian bowed, not in fear, but in reverence.
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“You’re not from here.”
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“An astute observation. I, as well as my companions, hail from Xianle.”
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“I have never heard of such a place.”
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Embarrassingly, tears once again brimmed from Xie Lian’s eyes. Xie Lian blinked them away. “Of course not. Xianle is long gone.”
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“How long?”
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“Almost three-thousand years.”
The sudden realization punched Xie Lian right in the gut, knocked all the air from his chest. Xie Lian’s thighs trembled as they rested underneath his torso. Xie Lian suddenly couldn’t think straight. Xie Lian suddenly felt as if his mind was swimming through molasses. His thoughts floated from one ear to the other, slow and cumbersome, clunky and awkward. The grief within Xie Lian pressed so tightly against his temple that his head hurt. A sharp, piercing pain needled itself against the inside of Xie Lian’s skull, threatening to undo him. Xie Lian’s heart shattered to pieces all over again, just as it had all those millennia ago.
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“Then you must understand. The pain of seeing the common people suffer? Seeing them flee their homes, seeing them die, seeing them wounded and diseased. My people, my nation, they’re weeping. Don’t you hear it, Xie Lian?”
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Against ripples along an otherwise still lagoon, against the sweet spring breeze, Xie Lian could not help but detect an undercurrent of somberness. He heard it in the way the wind scattered among twisting, woven trees, creating a hollow whisper for the deceased. Strangely enough, Xie Lian swore that he could hear the wind, but his hair remained still.
“I do, I do,” Xie Lian agreed. Xie Lian bit his lip in anxiety, bracing himself for the sentence about to leave his mouth. “But Asi-yahola, please reconsider. Hurt does not fix hurt. You’re only hurting-”
Before Xie Lian could finish, a plume of water erupted around Asi-yahola, obscuring his form, which shimmered and flickered from behind the water. The very foundations of the swamp croaked, almost as if in agony. The sky, previously blue cloudless, darkened, and a ray of thunder pulsed through the horizon. Wave after wave after wave rocked through the marsh, towards the shore. If Xie Lian hadn’t anchored himself by hooking his foot underneath a tree root, he wondered if they’d sweep him away.
The water roared and gushed, so much so that a fine mist dampened Xie Lian’s face. Xie Lian gritted his teeth, trying to continue his pleas, but the spirit’s voice – now laced with the echoes of thunder – bellowed.
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“You, of all people, dare tell me, of all people, to forgive?”
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Xie Lian likes to consider himself an honest man. He can’t bear to lie. The truth tumbled out of Xie Lian before he could so much as consider filtering himself.
“Yes!” Xie Lian cried, sounding more desperate than he ought to.
The water continued to swell. The wind – the howl – danced around wildly. It howled through the trees. The grief and sadness within Xie Lian boiled, threatening to bubble over. Xie Lian felt so immensely sad that he was half-convinced he’d disperse like a ghost laid to rest.
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“How dare-”
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Through the tears, Xie Lian could barely speak. Xie Lian, if nothing else, however, is a man of grit – grueling, hardened, inextinguishable grit.
“What do you want?!” Xie Lian wailed. “Revenge?! Penitence?!”
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“Those who wronged us! They deserve to suffer as we have!”
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No.
“No!”
Xie Lian looked on, wild and crazed, eyes shimmering with grief, as he thought of Xianle and Yong’an.
“No!” Xie Lian repeated. “You don’t know what that actually means!”
Xie Lian’s appeals were met with yet another surge of spiritual power. Crashing through the forest, pulsing through his body, drowning him. Yet, in the fray – the mess of wild winds and merciless water and shaking trees – Xie Lian suddenly found himself bursting at the seams with spiritual energy.
Xie Lian’s ears started ringing. Xie Lian squinted in overstimulation. Too much. Too much. Xie Lian gritted his teeth, and he persisted.
Louder and louder and louder. Loud thunder. Loud wind. Loud. Loud. Loud. And then, it began raining.
Through the rain, and thunder, and waves, and anger, Xie Lian was hearing so much that he, in actuality, could barely hear a thing. He couldn’t even hear himself speak, even as he felt the strain of his facial muscles.
Was the oncoming storm drowning out his voice? Or was his voice really just that soft?
“No! No! Stop it! Stop this! It doesn’t have to be this way! Stop! Stop!” Xie Lian was only half-convinced that those were his actual words. He sounded muffled. Blurry. Xie Lian squinted.
Then, the sound of metal ripping through flesh snapped Xie Lian back.
Startled, Xie Lian whipped his head to his left. San Lang had skewered a chupacabra on E-Ming. Xie Lian would have sighed in relief, but his desire to fight – or to even raise his sword in combat – had long since left him. Xie Lian could only guess, based on the movement of his husband’s lips, that Hua Cheng had cried out some two-syllable word – most likely some iteration of, “Gege!”
Xie Lian wished that he possessed the capacity to express his gratitude for San Lang. All the while, spiritual energy continued to pool in his stomach, through his meridians, into his head, out of his fingers. The more sorrowful he felt, the more power collected within him. Xie Lian, in all honesty, kind of hated this. The sensation had begun frying the edges of his nerves.
It was at this point that Xie Lian even registered his feet were no longer on the ground. He was floating. Confused, Xie Lian tried looking at the ground, only for some invisible hand to force him into eye-contact with Asi-yahola. In Asi-yahola’s irises, Xie Lian saw nothing but red, glowing, burning anger. Those eyes reminded Xie Lian of the pit – of the despair. After Xianle had fallen, Xie Lian – for far longer than he’d like to admit – could feel nothing but white-hot rage. Somehow, Xie Lian remembered that in such a state, feeling angry was far easier than feeling sad.
Xie Lian knew that he understood, quite perfectly, Asi-yahola’s pain. He thought for himself as a fool, though. Despite so thoroughly understanding Asi-yahola’s rage, Xie Lian was at a complete loss at how to help him.
Xie Lian didn’t feel like he possessed the ability to reason with the disgruntled ghost. At the same time, however, he didn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, fight – despite his now abundant wells of spiritual energy. Xie Lian felt like lightning in a jar: powerful, yet impossible to harness.
And now, chupacabras were attacking his loved ones, Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan had disappeared into the swamp, Xie Lian could hear the cries of thousands lost through the howling of the wind, and his neck was just so, incredibly, indescribably itchy. Itchy, itchy, itchy.
Xie Lian wanted to scream.
Before he could, however, a brilliant swirling of colors descended onto the swamp.
Xie Lian didn’t realize that he’d closed his eyes until he opened them. He blinked. Some part of his mind struggled to register what was actually happening.
Xie Lian had to blink another two times to ground himself.
A familiar voice rumbled through the everglades, restored to its former power and glory.
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“In the name of Lady Wind Master and Black Water Sinking Ships, I, Shi Qingxuan, command Asi-yahola of the Seminole Nation to stand down at once.”
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Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan – the wind and water – had arrived.
