The place of Zhou Liuxian's residence was a barren thing.
Where lush ferns and endless rows of vivid trees once lay was now home to naught but a stray group of pebbles or a solitary tumbleweed floating by acrost the sands. Ponds have faded to puddles, towering cities reduced to dilapidated sheds. Over the course of a century, the paradise that was once the kingdom of Hai'an was now an empty wasteland.
And Zhou Liuxian was the sole point of blame.
Liuxian knew this well. This was this person's daily routine throughout the decades:
Wake up, poke at his measly meal of dried herbs, slaughter a few dozen warped corpses, visit his caretaker, beg the heavens for forgiveness, sleep. The last step of this process often did not come till late into the night. Presently, he was on the third step of this pitiful list.
Hai Xing was sealed in a very dark cave. Or, at least, what remained of Hai Xing. Zhou Liuxian had salvaged his soul, but it had been corrupted by the sheer amount of tainted qi[1] poured into his body, and he was thus sealed in a sea lantern by Zhou Liuxian. "Sea star"[2] seemed quite cruelly ironic now, considering how his soul in that lantern with a light that shouldn't have blazed purple lit up the otherwise blackened cave.
Zhou Liuxian peeked around the corner. He knew there was no use for such things, but he dare not risk scaring Hai Xing's soul into flickering[3]. That would give him a heart attack.
Cautiously, he approached the purple shine, steps light and calculated. Hai Xing's soul, naturally, recognized Zhou Liuxian's—rather, Lei Wutong's—footsteps, and the harsh, agitated violet dimmed to a softer glow. Often it reminded Liuxian of kinder times, days where Hai Xing's face, his focused expression as he lay in wait for a bite on the hook, melted away, revealing a blanket of a smile and a "welcome back" from his lips when Lei Wutong returned from his meditation.
Every day Zhou Liuxian imagined the glow as that warm smile, and it made everything hurt just a little less. The rage, the bloodlust, the fear, the guilt.. it all evaporated into salt when he thought of being greeted by that smile again.
"Xing-ge." His voice, as quiet as it may have been, was a pluck of a zither in an otherwise silent hall. "I'm back."
The sea lantern lay resting on a rock flattened by Lei Wutong's own hand. Below that rock was the sole remaining pond in the entire area, surrounded by scarce species of little water plants. It all belonged to Hai Xing, in Zhou Liuxian's eyes. All of it. Not just this little pond, but everything from what used to be a sea to the crumbling wall that marked the border of Hai'an.
Zhou Liuxian waded through the murky depths of this pond, not particularly ruffled by the frigid water pulling at the ends of his robes. Ripples and splashes came to being and faded from his ears just as quickly with his movement.
He reached the lantern and clutched it tightly to his chest. Lei Wutong breathed deeply, inhale, exhale, over and over, savoring the warmth of the lantern bleeding into his blood and bringing him back to life. Only in these breaths could he bear to live as Lei Wutong.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault."
He spoke these words daily, confessing his guilt, the truth of his sins, as though the sea lantern was a short-term amnesiac and Lei Wutong was the doctor informing the lantern of its condition once more.
"I swear I'll fix you. I'll save you. I will, Xing-ge."
His eyes stared down at the lantern with devout determination. He would find a way. He would. He had to, or else all these decades of pain and hurt and anger would have been for nothing and Hai Xing's soul would suffer eternally for the price of saving a god from his own wrongs.
Gently, gently, Lei Wutong rested the lantern on its gravestone, and he was Lei Wutong no more.
Zhou Liuxian collapsed, kneeling up to his sternum in the water, head bowed and hands latched together. The water from the resulting splash drenched his ashen brown hair into a murky color that blended within the scene.
"Please forgive me," he pleaded softly, eyes shut tight, brows furrowed in desperation, "please forgive Hai Xing. His soul is kind and good, he did no wrong. Please, free him…"
He waited in silence for a response to his prayer. He waited and waited and waited, waited and waited for seconds, minutes, hours.
Nothing. Then again, he never got any responses the last who-knows-how-many times he prayed to the Elder Gods. Nevertheless, he'd try again the next day.
Zhou Liuxian kept nothing of Lei Wutong's if not his persistence.
The chill began its dreadful creeping up his bones, and Zhou Liuxian stood slowly, taking careful glanced at the soul-holding sea lantern as he wrung out the water from his hair and clothing.
"I'm going to leave now," he murmured, turning away from the pond. "Goodbye, Xing-ge."
♪──── ♤ ────♪
Zhou Liuxian was restless.
It was late at night when he shot up, eyes weary and wide. His head was swimming with too many things, too many memories, too many sins, too many regrets. He stood numbly, his feet carrying him somewhere he hadn't been to in years, nor had he wanted to until now.
The old fishing hut was largely deteriorated. Rotted wooden walls, shattered glass dusting the floor with sharp, glittering pain, mold permeating every webbed corner, choking Zhou Liuxian's lungs…
It was the perfect place for a fallen god's end.
His legs stumbled to a tattered screen, and he tripped, swaying like one of those drunken men on the pier with nothing to live for. His hand, a hummingbird's wing escaping from its fate as prey, reached for the edge of the screen and shoved it out of his way.
He fell, and stained silken sheets caught him, sending a cloud of dust flying all around him. He clawed at the old pillow, tearing it away from where it had hidden his greatest secret.
Zhou Liuxian stared at the rusted black sword. He knew it was over. It was over, and he had lost.
He held the edge of the blade to his neck…
And pulled.
* * *
When he wakes, the sound of the frothing sea dimly crashes into his eardrums.