The Fragility of Jade

Chapter Two

The state of the former dragon god's temple was a mess.

The once bustling place filled with chatter and hushed prayers was now quiet and barren, the winter wind’s howling the only sound that could be heard beyond the set of footsteps that entered.

Baozi had cleaned it as best as she could after the death of her Lordship, but a lone woman could only do so much with a broom and a rag. Clearly, her sweeping did not help, seeing as the dust still layered the entrance to the tall gates, as well as the rim of the dried-up stone pond.

Most, if not all of the stone statues erected in the draconic image of Huang-long were destroyed during the war, but the few that survived—the smaller ones that sat at the first steps of the mountain stairway—were now kept inside the shrine. Baozi was careful not to chip the stone further… it was one of the god's remaining remembrances for Baozi, after all.

“This is…” 

An absolute shithole, yes. Qing-long was too damn polite to say it but Baozi knew what adjectives were sitting on the tip of his tongue.

“I have not cleaned up the temple in a while,” She interjected before the younger could get any courage to muster up whatever he was about to say, “I have neglected my duties as a priestess, I must admit.”

Qing-long shook his head almost immediately, feeling guilty, “Oh, no— no, no, no. I did not mean it like that…” He made a gesture with his free hand, a nervous laugh spilling from his lips, “I was merely… surprised. I-It is my first time visiting a god’s temple in the mortal realm, is what I meant…”

He does mean it like that, but at this point, Baozi couldn’t find it in herself to care. The shrine was sullied by the march of time and the rage of war—it would be more surprising if it did stand its ground rather than become what it was now. Human architecture was as fragile as its builders. War and time had always been a man’s greatest enemy, and their creation wasn’t that much different yet it persists as best as it could anyway.

If Yǒngyuǎn’s countrymen were sinful nonbelievers, then why did Huang-long’s fight last for centuries? To the people of Yǒngyuǎn, gods weren’t bedazzled thrones or untouchable divinity but rather a raft amidst the endless sea—a symbol of hope rather than power. Gods hated anything that was tied to Yǒngyuǎn because they were nothing the moment they stepped foot in this godless land. The gods feared the mortal men of Yǒngyuǎn

Perhaps that was why the High Heavens turned its back on Huang-long and his love for the scorned—left him to rot with the sinners and crumble like the shrine he once called home.

“You have never visited one?” Baozi asked, attention elsewhere as she tried to push the spiralling thoughts at the back of her mind just so they would not seep into a sour expression on her face and scare the other off, “I had thought by now that a seasoned traveller like you would find an old shrine to be less “surprising” than the well-kept ones you had probably seen on your travels.”

“Well, I reckon it’d be disrespectful for another god to step foot in a sacred place on such short notice, no?” The younger retorted as they finally reached the large wooden door of the innermost shrine, “You, miss priestess, invited me in… Surely your Lordship would not mind too much.”

The intricate carvings on the front remained intact, the bottom carved with the scenery of the old Yǒngyuǎn ranging from abstract imagery of the village folks to the scarce fawn and fauna littering the lands. On the upper right of the door was a carefully carved dragon etched with tiny jade jewels looking over the land. It served as the memory of the previous god that resided inside once upon a time.