萬物作焉而不辭，生而不有 (maan6 mat6 dzok3 bin1 bat1 tsi4, saang1 bin1 bat1 yau5) - Everything in the universe, when defined, is relative to everything else.

- Chou-Wing Chohan translation of the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2.

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“What did you talk about?”

Gong Lau Yan and Zéyì sat together in the gardens after the latter had dismissed the morning's conferencing session with the palace officials. An array of regional delicacies were spread out in front of them, but they hadn't touched a single piece.

“We didn't,” Gong Lau Yan said bluntly. A teacup was the perfect thing to fiddle with, and so she did, not looking up.

“You went to see the woman who caused your country to collapse and hurt innumerable people and you just stared at her?” Zéyì asked sarcastically.

“Not everyone responds to things by tearing people's limbs off,” Gong Lau Yan sighed.

“I didn't tear her limbs off,” Zéyì snapped.

They groaned simultaneously and hastily drank more tea. This was going nowhere.

The loong cleared her throat. “Alright, let's start again. I'll talk and you can add things where you like, okay?”

“Fine.” Zéyì winced at how petulant the word sounded.

“Dzue Dzi Ming was the last Regent of Dzue-”

“And my father.”

“He never confirmed or denied the fact.” Gong Lau Yan rubbed her face and looked up at the ceiling of the small pavilion they sat in. “But everyone knew he was very fond of Mun Gong.”

“Her diaries say he is... was... my father.”

“I see.”

“What sort of person was he?”

Gong Lau Yan looked at her narrowly. “What do you want to hear, Zéyì?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want me to tell you he was a cruel tyrant? Would that make you feel better? Would you understand why things turned out this way if I did?”

“You speak as if you understand what happened well,” Zéyì said coldly.

“I don't. I've no idea what that man was thinking. I can guess, but I don't understand why he would... Why anyone would...”Gong Lau Yan finished the tea in her cup and poured herself more. “Unfortunately, Dzue Dzi Ming was a great man and an excellent ruler. As a cultivator, he was extremely talented and dedicated. If he had lived, he probably would have Ascended.”

At this, a thousand questions flooded Zéyì's mind, but to ask them would have taken away from the topic at hand. She bit her tongue and said nothing.

“He was clearly fond of Mun Gong, and she was evidently in love with him. He never made a move to reciprocate her feelings. Why? I don't know. My sister was much closer to him, almost like siblings themselves, so she may have known.

“Mun Gong's family were very ambitious. They were a distant relation to the Dzue royal family. It seemed to be a sore point for them, they were always trying to become more powerful, more important. They arranged for Mun Gong to marry the king of Cheon. And then she became pregnant.”

“And my... mother never said who the father was?”

“No... but

 

“What...” Zéyì tried to keep her voice light. “What did he look like?”

Gong Lau Yan looked at her sadly, for a long time. “He looked like you.”

“So did you know, when you first met me?”

“When I first met you, you'd been rotting at the bottom of a lake for a century, Zéyì. You didn't even know yourself. But when I came back from Cheon, and you'd healed...” Gong Lau Yan's eyes were soft now, gentle as a warm spring day by a river, and Zéyì could feel her own eyes prickling. “Even so, I wasn't sure. I've met so many people in my life. You know, I can barely recall the faces of my nieces now, and I loved them so dearly.”

“So...” Zéyì swallowed to regain her composure, “... that's why you didn't say anything, just brought me to Chun?”

“The only certainty for me was that you were the woman once known as the Second Princess of Chun. There was still so much conjecture – was Dzi Ming really your father? Did Mun Gong really escape the fall of Dzue? Was Mun Gong and Man Jiang the same person? And you... you were introduced as her second child, when you should have been her first.”

“She was able to do it because I was very small when I was young, whereas First Brother grew quickly.”

“Ha... really. Mun Gong really is such a smart girl. And then she got desperate.”

“You sound so fond of her.”

“I can't help it.”

“I see.” Zéyì's voice was tight with rage. She folded her hands. “Do you remember Master Yuan Mu?”

Gong Lau Yan's eyes flickered. “What about him?”

“My Senior Brother... I met him at the Yuan Wei Temple that used to exist here in Chun. He told me I was the direct disciple of the Divine Tortoise of the North... Ha... Who even knows if that's true. I've never even met them.”

“It's true,” Gong Lau Yan said bluntly. The certainty in her voice made Zéyì pause.

“Are you going to explain?”

“Yuan Mu is also a direct disciple, of the Dragon at the Centre of All Things, my grandmother. When the Great Demon War ended, he chose to delay his Ascension to wait for the last two direct disciples.”

Now the conversation was veering wildly off topic, but Zéyì no longer cared. She gaped at Gong Lau Yan. “What do you mean? What happened?”

The loong closed her eyes and screwed up her face, thinking hard. “The Wu Xiang had felt the approach of a generation of direct disciples. Of the five of them, by the start of the demon war, two of them had already been found. One was Yuan Mu. The other was a man called the Jade Exorcist. He was the direct disciple of the White Tiger Who Rules the West, Jian Bing.

“It was a chaotic time. The Vermilion Bird of the South, Ling Guang, was kidnapped and forced to teach her techniques. She convinced herself that this meant that her coercer was now her direct disciple. Luckily this wasn't the case. A close friend of Yuan Mu and the Jade Exorcist showed herself to be immensely capable and the true inheritor of Ling Guang's techniques.”

“Who...?”

“She was known as one of the Two Stars. Cheng Guk Lung is here helping you, right? His Great-Aunt was the other of the Two Stars.”

Zéyì's mind was reeling. “Does he... Does he know all this?”

“Possibly.”

“Why didn't he say?”

“Did you ask him?”

“No... Of course, he doesn't know about any of my matters either... Did you know them all well?”

“I need to ask a question first, Zéyì. Why did you ask about Yuan Mu all of a sudden?”

Zéyì produced a book. She opened it to a page that she had marked, and handed it silently over.

 

[88th Day of the 10th Year of the Reign of the Regent of Chun]

I hope he won't come back now. Maybe he doesn't remember me, but I can't risk it.

Easy enough to pay some thugs to bar the doors from the outside. Harder to recall the techniques that woman taught me, so long ago. I lit the spark myself.

Don't come back, disciple of the dragon. Stay away from Dzak Yat. She doesn't need any of that.

 

Gong Lau Yan dropped the book. “Who was 'that woman'?”

“She told me that she met a young woman one day when she had run away from home. She said... she was pretty, and there were flames in her eyes. There's an early diary entry that says she met this woman when she was sixteen, and was taught how to use the Fire attribute, although she didn't have that much affinity so there was only so much she could learn.”

“Did she say anything else about this woman?”

At this point, Zéyì realised that the sky had become very dark. She glanced out beyond the roof of the pavilion and saw towering black clouds racing across the once blue sky. “Perhaps we should go inside-”

“Who was that woman?” Gong Lau Yan's whole body was rippling with scales. Her sharp teeth were curving beyond her human jaws; it looked painful, and the rising growl in her throat only added to this impression.

“She never gave a name,” Zéyì said calmly. “She didn't know who this woman was. Her diary entry mentions that the woman seemed a bit eccentric... and she carried multiple knives as her weapons.”

Gong Lau Yan retreated into her human form with a sound like water on hot rocks. She buried her face in her hands.

“Gong Ze?” Zéyì asked anxiously, forgetting all her grievances in the face of the loong's despair. She started at the sound of helpless sobbing. “Gong Ze, what is it? Why are you crying?”

Rising from her seat, she knelt by Gong Lau Yan's side and touched the loong's hand.

Gong Lau Yan considered the hand, tears streaming down her cheeks, and sighed. “I'm just so... Even after all these years... Even after her death... She still continues to cause us...” She interlaced her fingers with Zéyì's. “During the Great Demon War, the most damage and destruction came from a single woman.”

“Not a demon?”

“In truth, it was called the Demon War but... It was a human war. The demons were just an excuse. A poor scapegoat. Greedy humans on trying to grab more territory and resources, fear of an unknown race. How would you feel if you knew I fought on the demons' side?”

“Surprised, but... Gong Ze, you know I have demonic powers. How did you end up being a demon hunter then?”

“It's a job title that's more a cover-up than anything else. In any case, this woman-”

“Who was she?”

“The thing is... no-one really knew. She just appeared one day during the Jade Exorcist's travels, and after that she kept appearing to bother him and his companions, including Yuan Mu. She seemed to find joy in causing problems for Chan- for one of the Two Stars, not Cheng Guk Lung's Great-aunt. She was called the Fire Star.”

“So she was the one who became the direct disciple of the Divine Bird of the South? And... was it this woman that coerced the Divine Bird into giving up her Fire techniques?”

“Very good,” Gong Lau Yan said proudly, and Zéyì felt warm in the praise despite everything. “Yes, Ling Guang was kidnapped by demons, but this woman infiltrated the prison and took all the techniques she could. She promised to help Ling Guang escape but left as soon as she had learnt everything.”

“What happened to her?”

“She's gone,” Gong Lau Yan said shortly. “But still, after all this time... Will you tell Yuan Mu?”

“Should I?”

“I want to say yes.” Gong Lau Yan leaned back, her fingers still interlaced with Zéyì's. “But knowing that kid... Not yet. You should tell him, but not yet. Wait until the time is right.”

“What do you mean, Gong Ze? Do you know something?”

“What do you know about Ascension?”

Zéyì thought the question odd, but answered, “It's the goal of our cultivation techniques. To Ascend from the mortal realm and receive understanding of the universe.”

“It's a strange place,” Gong Lau Yan said. “The Heavenly Realm where the Ascended go. Most don't stay long. They come to understand how things are, what the world means, and having discovered that, they move on.”

“Where?”

“I can't tell you that, Mei Gui. You'll find out one day. They can't come back here, at least, not as they are. I can tell you that much. What I can tell you is that reaching Ascension is... finding a feeling of peace and understanding. And it can be a relief if one has struggled for a very long time.”

“You're saying... I should tell Shi xiong just before he Ascends?”

“He's carrying a lot of burdens, Zéyì. If you tell him just before he Ascends, he won't have to carry this particular one too long.”

“Why hasn't he Ascended yet? Has he not found the other direct disciple?”

Gong Lau Yan looked surprised. “He has. You met them, in fact.”

“Who...?” What was left? Zéyì was the direct disciple of the Tortoise of the North, the divine being who ruled all Water. Yuan Mu Shi xiong was taught by the Dragon at the Centre of All Things, who ruled the Earth attribute. The Jade Exorcist had been chosen by Jian Bing, the Divine Tiger of the West whose element was Metal. And of course, the Fire Star, under the guidance of the Vermilion Bird of the South, Ling Guang, had the Fire element.

So all that remained was the Wood attribute...

A person suddenly popped into her mind, a small person with silver blond hair and dark eyes and an ever-present smile that called her 'Shi jie'.

“Oh... that cultivator at the auction... Yuan Yi Feng... Yuan... How did I not notice it before, they have the same family name as Shi xiong. Is Yuan Yi Feng his child? They don't look alike.”

“Yuan Yi Feng was an orphan that Yuan Mu adopted.”

“No wonder they gave me their given name as well. How did I not notice at all?”

“You were a bit distracted...” Gong Lau Yan looked guilty. “We both were.”

“So this all leaves one last thing.” Zéyì massaged her temples as if trying to physically rearrange her thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Who is exactly is Dzue Yi-sang?”