As Willed by Fate

*** A/N: Written for Frea.

A little after-story of QuanYin's reconciliation.

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From the day he ascended, in the hundreds of years he spent in banishment, whenever he looked at himself and what he'd become, sometimes Yin Yu couldn't stop asking himself the same questions.

If he could go back to the past, would he be able to make some difference by working harder?

If he was given the chance to turn back time, could he accomplish more if he were to make different choices?

Had he steeled himself to be stricter and harsher, could he stop people from trampling all over him, comparing every little achievement he managed to obtain by his own hands with greater things attained by others?

And if he could return to that particular day, to that one particular moment, knowing what kind of future was waiting for him and his lifelong dream, would he still extend his hand with a smile to help that dirty, beaten-up boy named Quan Yizhen?

For a long, long time, from the days he was still but a mere mortal, deep down in his heart, Yin Yu knew there was nothing especially outstanding about him. He was fairly smart, but there were many people smarter than him. He was strong, but there were others much stronger than him. He was decent at best; he could never outshine natural-born geniuses or beat gifted fighters in martial prowess. As a human, he was but an ordinary man, and as a god, he was but an ordinary god. No matter how hard he tried, he was fated to become someone mediocre, someone whose accomplishments meant little in the face of those blessed by the heavens since birth.

Be that as it may, if it really was not part of his destiny to become someone great... At the very least, he wanted to be kind.

Time seemed to have become but a jumbled mess in the mind of a near-dispersed entity. Yin Yu had lost both his soul and spiritual power; his body had turned into nothing more than an empty vessel about to wither away, a puppet whose strings had been cut. He did not know whether he was dead or alive, if he had become something neither a god nor a ghost, trapped in a perpetual state of emptiness.

He had even less of an idea of where he was. Everything that passed before his eyes looked to be a chaotic whirlwind of scenes flashing and twisting one after another. He couldn't tell which one was true and which one was false, which was the past, the present, or a hallucination he'd conjured up out of nowhere. All he could tell was the sensation that felt as if he was floating. Like a child in a cradle, his entire body seemed to be cushioned by very soft pillows, wrapped under a warm blanket.

Yin Yu felt like he had been sleeping for a long time. In his sleep, he recalled numerous things that had happened in the distant past and in recent days. The memories of his childhood, a little boy brimming with both dreams and spirit to achieve the greatest feats in life. The memories of his time as a mortal, a youth who worked tirelessly towards ascension, so that he could become a god like all his elders and teachers taught him to. Now that he thought about it, that youth had indeed obtained what he wanted the most but he just have to so foolishly destroy everything in a brief moment of anger.

...No. It really was nothing less than a culmination of his pent-up frustration for so many years. And everything was caused by that single call he'd been dreading to hear even after centuries had passed.

"...Shixiong...?"

Yes, that one. The one that had ceaselessly disturbed him day and night, in the mortal realm and among the immortals. The one that repeatedly slapped the harsh truth of his inferiority straight to his face. The one that continued to pester him, embarrass him, cause him endless troubles from the day they first met to the day they parted ways. What wouldn't Yin Yu give to forget that one single call, the one that perpetually reminded him of the worst mistake he'd ever made in his life, the most shameful chapter of his story?