Promise and Betrayal: A Mo Dao Zu Shi (the Untamed) Story

Chapter 34

**Notes: Thank you all so much for taking this journey with me! This story was my constant companion as I wrote it, and it got me through some tough times. It means a lot to me, because it's the first story I finished. I'm boundlessly grateful that you all have accepted it with open arms, and I find it fitting and satisfying that I'm posting the last chapter close to a year after I finished the story. So, without further ado, here is the last chapter! I hope you've all enjoyed this story's journey as much as I have, and I look forward to sharing more with you in the future!**

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I wake to carriage movements. The blacks and whites have faded a bit, but the twilight remains. The numbness and the indifference are constant friends. I sit up. Then I realize I have registered what I did. I am back to paying attention to my world.

As I sit up, I feel a hand on my back, supporting me. Though the haze has lifted, and I can now see his face clearly, the person in the carriage beside me is still unrecognizable. I stare at him blankly. He does not seem surprised.

He says something to me, but the words disappear. I lean against the carriage, staring into space for the rest of the carriage ride. No thoughts populate my mind. I just stare.

The carriage stops. The man beside me escorts me out, then up a path laden with plants and trees. I find myself vaguely wishing for color, so I could appreciate their beauty, but the plants pass as monotonous as everything else. The path slopes up a mountain, several gates dotting the trail.

We reach the top, a settlement appearing. It tickles the back of my mind, a relentless itch, but I cannot name it. Yet I cannot shake the feeling I have been here before.

My guide ushers me to a room. He sits me down, then leaves. Strangely, I find myself readying the room for my residence here. For how long, I do not know, nor do I care.

Time melds together, each day the same as the last. The color slowly returns, the voices become clearer, yet the faces remain blurred. And still, I cannot feel. Each day, I wake up and walk the grounds of what I am realizing is a beautiful compound. Nestled in a mountain, populated by trees, flowers, and the man that escorted me here in the carriage showed me the rabbits. That day was the first day I had felt something in a great while, and every day since then, he takes me to the rabbits and watches as I play with them and hold them.

After an eternity in blacks, whites and grays, I finally regain the ability to see the world in color. I talk now, and the faces...the faces have come back. Lan Zhan, my best friend, was the one who escorted me here. He showed me his rabbits, and he watched as I slowly emerged from my grief.

I also learn that it has been four months since my brother's death. The season has already changed. After his fall, I was taken prisoner by the Jin Clan and forced into a cell for a week. After a week, I stood trial in front of all the gentry clans. Those men that approached me with swords were a combination of Jin Clan guards and Jiang Clan guards. The man that rushed to my aid and knelt deeply before Clan Leader Jin was none other than Lan Zhan. For me, he almost destroyed his reputation and begged the Jin Clan to spare my life and live out the rest of it under the supervision of the Lan Clan. The Jin Clan agreed.

Some nights the pain of Wei Ying's death is all that occupies my mind: the grief, the suffering, the notion that I will never see him again...they threaten to consume me. Some nights I find myself standing at the edges of cliffs, or by the river, ready to throw myself in. On those nights, under the bright moon and stars, Lan Zhan always finds me. Never has he given me a word of condolence or comfort. Neither do I for him. Instead, he finds me and gently pulls me away, then embraces me for as long as necessary. On bad nights, I stay in his arms until dawn.

I find myself thinking of all the things Wei Ying and I could have shared: swimming in the ocean, riding through the forest, walking Cloud Recesses together, more moonlit heart-to-hearts in the dead of night. They strike me at odd moments: when I am on an errand, when I am training, in the middle of a conversation. Every time, people say my eyes grow distant, faraway, depthless, and keenly melancholy.

The pain does not fade; neither does the memory of his last moments, the bottomless sorrow and the profound peace of his expression. The pain only becomes more bearable, a burden that becomes no less heavy; I only learn to function under its load. The nights can become bad, sometimes even dangerous; yet, I have Lan Zhan to save me from the brink. The days are better, filled with activity that keeps my mind from dwelling on it for too long. The rabbits become a treasured part of my day.

And gradually, I learn to continue on without him, without his presence or his warmth, his smile or his laughter. I learn to accept this gaping hole in my heart, a hole that will never fully heal.

And I learn to live again.