Chapter 96:
Eve of Departure
LI JINGLONG STARED at Hongjun. Despite the snow on the ground, the boy was clad only in a thin robe. Hongjun looked back at him in silent confusion.
“Go back inside.” Li Jinglong stepped forward and grabbed his hand. “You’ll catch a cold.”
“Who’s visiting?” Hongjun asked.
It took Li Jinglong only a moment to put together the events of the evening. “My dad,” he replied.
The Li and Kong families had just had dinner together, so it was reasonable for Li Jinglong’s father and Kong Xuan to share a drink after the children went to bed. Hongjun cast his suspicions aside.
“Go back to bed.” Li Jinglong put an arm around Hongjun and guided him toward his room.
Hongjun tried to struggle free. “I can’t fall asleep!”
On this festive occasion, many children were still awake, staying up through the night to greet the new year. Hearing the loud pops of their firecrackers in the distance, Li Jinglong shushed Hongjun. “Shh. The nian beast6 is coming.”
“I’ve never seen it before. What does it look like?”
Li Jinglong suddenly had an idea. “Let’s go. We’re going out for some fun.”
He led Hongjun across the line of trees and back into his own home, where his father was already snoring. Grabbing some of his outgrown clothes, he waited for Hongjun to change into them before taking his hand and leading him out to the stable, where he borrowed a horse. He mounted first, then pulled Hongjun up behind him.
“I’ve never ridden a horse!” Hongjun yelped as he clung to Li Jinglong’s waist.
Li Jinglong laughed. “I’ve just learned recently myself!”
Hongjun didn’t know what to say.
Li Jinglong turned the horse’s head toward Ximing Temple. The monks there were preparing for the first prayer ceremony of the year, when they would welcome the common people of Chang’an as they came to pay their respects to the Buddha. The two boys slunk into the rear courtyard, where they found a wooden ladder—the monks hadn’t put it away after hanging up the golden prayer flags flying in the wind—and clambered up to the roof of the temple. Balancing on the roof tiles, they gazed eastward over Chang’an, the city aglow in the darkness as it waited for the new year to begin.
“Look.” Li Jinglong pointed toward the sea of lights.
“Wow.” Hongjun marveled as he sat on one of the golden flags, flattened like a blanket against the roof. Taking advantage of his distraction, Li Jinglong leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Hongjun assumed, at this moment, that the nine-year-old Li Jinglong beside him was still his own memory of the boy from his past. Unable to restrain himself, he leaned closer and kissed Li Jinglong square on the lips.
Li Jinglong flushed scarlet, and Hongjun scooted back with a smile. “I’m moving away soon. Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?”
“I do,” Li Jinglong replied with certainty. “I’ll wait for you. I know you’ll come back to Chang’an one day.”
Hongjun stared at Li Jinglong in surprise. “Perhaps I’ll never come back again.” Emotions surged over him like the tide. He blurted, “That monster will swallow me whole someday. When the time comes—”
“It won’t,” Li Jinglong said firmly.
“It’s my fate.” Hongjun hugged his knees, staring out at the cityscape of Chang’an without truly seeing it. “The demon seed in me absorbs all the malign energies of the world, and someday, they will turn me into a demon. But if we let Xie Yu absorb them instead, it would be even more disastrous. Jinglong, promise me, if I become Mara—”
“I said you won’t,” Li Jinglong repeated.
Hongjun turned to look at him, stunned.
“Don’t be scared. I won’t let the monster break free, no matter when or where it happens. Wait for me, Hongjun. I’ll study spiritual techniques properly so one day—”
The instant Li Jinglong called him Hongjun, he realized something was amiss. How does he know that name?
The nine-year-old Li Jinglong grabbed seven-year-old Hongjun’s shoulders, leaned down, and kissed him.
Hongjun’s dreamscape warped and shifted. As the wind picked up, the world expanded without end, and their bodies lengthened and grew bigger—
He opened his eyes, waking in Li Jinglong’s arms. Realizing the person lying beside him was no longer Lu Xu, he flinched back, staring at Li Jinglong in shock.
Li Jinglong met his gaze, his brow deeply furrowed. “We…knew each other when we were kids?” he murmured. “Hongjun, what happened? How…how could I have forgotten you?”
Hongjun shook his head slowly. Li Jinglong pressed him, urgent now, “Was that your past? Hongjun! Tell me!” He refused to relent even as Hongjun pushed him away. “Hongjun!”
Summer had just begun. Under the dimming evening sky, the fragrance of orchids wafted on the breeze.
Mixed emotions churned in Lu Xu as he strode out onto the balcony on the second floor of Lanling Amber. The West Market was closed for the day, and the evening drums had begun to sound, heralding the arrival of nightfall.
Mergen was crouched like a wolf on the balcony, watching the sunset, when footsteps sounded behind him. He didn’t need to ask to know it was Lu Xu. “Did you help Hongjun enter his dream? I was about to wake you two.”
Lu Xu hummed an affirmative—he’d barely spoken to Mergen since their fight the other day. He settled his arms on the railing, looking into the distance beside Mergen.
“What did you see?” Mergen asked.
“Is that any of your business?”
“It’s just…he’s like a younger brother to me,” Mergen said, almost to himself.
Lu Xu swallowed the mocking words on the tip of his tongue. After a long silence, he gazed down at the marketplace bathed in the sunset’s glow and said thoughtfully, “I saw a child who was very lonely…”
He turned to fix his gaze on Mergen’s crouched silhouette. As he watched little Hongjun and Li Jinglong, a complicated emotion—equal parts envy and melancholy—had risen in him. He had once been even lonelier than Hongjun. After coming of age, he’d been sent to Sha Prefecture and entrusted to the garrison commander. As an untidy, half-wit kid, he had been bullied everywhere he went.
“What was your childhood like?” Mergen asked suddenly.
Lu Xu didn’t answer. He thought back to that snowy night in Yulin on the northern border—to the moment when he opened his eyes to see Mergen’s glowing palm pressed to his forehead.
“Hey, idiot, where do you think you’re running off to?”
“He’s completely useless, but he runs fast, I’ll give you that.”
“Do you even know where you’re running to?”
His world had been a blur, nothing but a vast expanse of white through which he ran and ran, striving toward a destination that did not exist. And yet he kept running, as if there was someone waiting for him at the end of this boundless world. If that person wouldn’t come to him, he thought, he might as well go to them. But he had traveled the entirety of Hexi, never stopping long for any reason, and still had no idea whom he was looking for.
Mergen looked back at Lu Xu. “I’m sorry…”
Lu Xu frowned. He arched a brow, motioning for Mergen to spit it out.
“I’m sorry I didn’t figure it out earlier,” Mergen said. “But I… I’m not like the chief. I thought I—but… It’s my fault, so don’t be mad.”
Lu Xu was utterly confused. After much deliberation, Mergen continued, “I thought the gray wolf and white deer must be… But—”
“Get to the point,” Lu Xu snapped.
Mergen considered his words carefully, his back still to Lu Xu. “Hongjun’s right. If that…isn’t possible, maybe being friends is the best thing.”
“Hongjun and I are good friends though,” Lu Xu said. “What are you overthinking for, you stupid wolf?!”
Mergen turned to face him, gesticulating at the space between them as he said awkwardly, “I’m talking about you and me.” Met with Lu Xu’s silence, he quickly explained, “I always thought the gray wolf and white deer should be husband and wife, so I… I… I’m sorry for being presumptuous.” He couldn’t seem to look Lu Xu in the eye. He turned away again, muttering, “It’s all my fault…”
“Yes, it is,” Lu Xu said. “And I’ve never had feelings for you either.”
Mergen breathed a sigh of relief. “Great. I don’t have any improper intentions toward you, Lu Xu.”
Lu Xu scoffed. “Well, this was completely pointless.”
Mergen scratched his head. By the time he opened his mouth again, Lu Xu was already stalking away.