The red thread of fate《Zhanyi version》

Chapter 4

Unknown POV

Throughout my long lifespan, I have seen much; I have met thousands of people, seeing them part in their own ways.

I had seen heartbreaks, pain, and suffering.

I had seen the world twitching and turning from the very beginning.

I had seen how cultivation slowly died out and was seen as a fairytale.

I had seen how my own home became nothing more than a lost forest filled with magic.

And here I was, watching everything happen again . . .

***

Xiao Zhan's POV

I quickly lost track of time after I arrived here.

The evergreen forest of my life was like a home to me, and it was the only place that felt safe because, in the end, life was dangerous.

I sat down on the wooden porch swing, it was an old one, but it carried many memories of the past because the porch swing was one of the last things my dad left behind for me after he died.

Slowly it started moving, and I pulled my legs up, and for a moment, it was as if all the worries around me didn't exist anymore.

Just me and nature.

While closing my eyes, a deep sigh escaped my mouth, and when I opened them again, I looked down at my thumb, where it was meant to be a red thread, but sadly I wasn't destined to have one, a decision made at my birth only known by fate.

People used to tell me fate is in our own hands, but sometimes it's impossible to change what was written in the dark night sky, perhaps that "normal" people have a chance to change their own path course, but it was a choice I never got.

I never lived my life to the fullest because I was afraid, and I regret everything I hadn't done, so many regrets and so many feelings that shouldn't be there.

Quietly I started to hum a lullaby that had been around inside my mind while I can't even remember where it came from; it was a somewhat familiar melody, carrying odd feelings I couldn't quite place.

The lullaby was something I always heard whenever I was standing between heaven and Earth; it was a song that accompanied me my whole life up until this point.

To some people, it might sound childish, but the lullaby was one of the small things that brought me upon a smile, a real one.

"Zhan." I unconsciously smiled, hearing her voice somewhere inside my mind as if it was a faint whisper from some distance, but the voice brought warmth with it, making me want to be cradled in it.

"Mom." My voice was nothing more than a faint whisper of the past carrying pain with it; I missed her even if I had never seen her; I always felt her presence around me.

And sometimes it would be as if someone was calling me from a very distant place, but the voice is too familiar to be a stranger, and yet it gave me indescribable feelings of cold shivers.

While I kept humming the lullaby, an old memory popped up from nothing,

In the dim moonlight of the house were two souls, one young and one older, a child and a man.

Two bodies but only one heart that was actually beating; they were both staring intensely outside as if they were keeping a small contest, but there was nothing to see except a wasteland outside that window, perhaps if one would have carefully watched with much patience, they may be even noticed where the eyes of the two people were directed to.

Since it was seven crows sitting on the wooden porch swing that was amidst their small garden.

All of them sat there on a perfect row, almost as if they were told to do so.

The boy's breath was extremely unstable and uneven, almost as if he had run a whole marathon and tried to grasp for air.

He sat there like a statue on that chair, and his mind was clouded by darkness, but whatever he tried, he wasn't able to move, as if the boy was in an endless trance.

Frozen and only able to watch the seven crows, and silently inside his mind, he started chanting the rhyme his father had once taught him.

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

Four for a birth,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

And seven for a secret never meant to be told . . .

When I stopped humming the lullaby, the memory slowly faded from my vision.

It was the day that my father had died, and maybe those crows were just foreplay; I could have known it, and perhaps if I just spoke up, things would have packed out differently.

I dryly chuckled at my own stupidity, reminding myself some things are bound to happen, but how I longed for his warm and safe embrace one more time; the feeling of having a family, and someone who truly cares about you, someone who can protect you, and help you stand up after you fall.

My eyes wandered around the forest, but again fell onto my hand, and how I wished I was able to see a red thread that I longed for, but sometimes even if we long with our whole heart, it won't be enough because, in the end, we keep wanting more, it's what makes us humans.

I stood up and tried stretching my long gone numb limbs, and it was when I felt a presence of someone or something that didn't belong here in the forest I stopped.

This place was unlike other forests because this place was built for those who were lost, souls who didn't find peace; while for humans, it was an all-optical illusion of an old building that gave off a frightening abundance from the outside, so they wouldn't dare to approach it here.

Except for some teenagers who found it somehow funny - what I never understood, of course -, but even if it was a teenager, it was impossible for him or her to enter this far into the woods, the bound of magic would have stopped him or her, but why didn't it, this time?

Listening carefully, I only heard the rustle of animals who walked on leaves, but besides that, it was all silent, maybe it was just my imagination, but still, I couldn't shake off that feeling that something or someone was watching me from a dark corner.

***

Here I was, in the living room that I knew better than my own cottage in the forest; after all, it was where I spent my time, watching over Yibo, who didn't even see me.

But of course, I didn't blame him.

I hugged Yibo while he talked to Wangji, he didn't feel my embrace, but I did feel his warm body against mine, his heart beating under my hand, and I placed my head on his shoulder, continuing listening with a half ear to their conversation.

Suddenly Wangji's gaze diverted towards me, and for a mere second, it was as if his eyes pierced through mine as if he was able to see me before it was gone.

Just a fracture of a second, and yet it felt so real, it wasn't possible, I chanted inside my mind, hugging Yibo tighter, and while the conversation went on, Wangji didn't look my way again.

So perhaps I imagined it all, right?

Word count: 1264 words