WangXian Forever Book 10

Chapter 81: Empathy

The Royal cemetery is as ostentatious and grand as the Palace and the courtyard, and everything else connected to the Emperor. Golden lions and dragons decorate the massive golden gate that leads to the mausoleum and private resting places of the past Emperors and their families.

There are doors leading to tombs, or little rooms containing the buried family members, distant relatives, and previous Emperors and their families.

People are buried according to their status, and their connection to the Royal family - those who were high in the service to the Emperor, like Cheng MaoJi, are buried outside, and in his case, under a cherry tree.

The group of visitors wishing to pay their respects to him walk slowly, silently through the grounds, quiet in thought.

It is a cold evening in Chang'An, a fitting end to this last adventure.

Wei Ying glances about him, thinking about all the people walking on this same path, connected by a single person who is surely not at peace, not after what was done to him.

Huaisang lost his grandfather. Huaisang, who is no stranger to grief, and having lost the brother who loved him so much, and yet became reluctantly stronger because of that loss, and able to understand that even this sudden absence of his maternal family member was not by accident. What will he want to tell his grandfather?

Cheng MaoJi's family too, all of them walking silently behind Hao Bai, their matriarch. A son who lost his father, a wife who lost her husband. And another grandchild losing her grandfather.

The Emperor too, losing a lifelong trusted friend.

Wei Ying had explained to everyone that conversations with the dead were better handled in the shadows of night time, when the world turned darker and unseen doors of places that were closed in the daytime would open. Like a shimmering curtain of steel, the invisible barrier between the living and the dead was that much thinner, more flexible during that middle time between day and night, in the magic of twilight.

So it is when the stars begin to twinkle above them that they reach Cheng MaoJi's last resting place.

They sit in a circle and hold hands, with Wei Ying sitting right next to the grave. He closes his eyes and seeks the spirit, the one no doubt still hanging around here. His hand slams down on the hard, unyielding earth, frozen during winter, and when his eyes flash open, they're red, as scarlet as the reddest rubies.

A pulse of energy explodes around them, and then a white skeletal hand fights its way up out of the ground. The white bone a stark contrast to the dark earth surrounding it.

Wei Ying bows his head and takes the hand, and immediately, a shimmering plain ghost is visible, a young man now, staring back at them with interest. He knows exactly who each and every one is, except for the one who brought him here.

The Emperor bursts into tears.

Hao Bai bows her head, weighed down with grief.

Seconds tick by as the heaviness in the air becomes deeper.

"Gonggong!" Huaisang says with forced cheerfulness.

Wei Ying can see what this is costing him, his bottom lip trembling, blinking back his tears out of sheer will.

"A-Sang! How good it is to see you," his grandfather says warmly, coming closer to place a hand on the top of his head.

"You, too, Gonggong. I wish it were under different circumstances."

"Ah, who is powerful enough to defy destiny, huh?" Cheng MaoJi laughs quietly. "I miss you, dear boy." He wraps himself around Huaisang as if he's hugging him, before moving onto Hao Bai.