The Tears of Thirteen Years

Chapter 23

The sunlight weak as it is, filters through the rafters of the old buildings and paints the rooftops in pale gold.

The air was still, the long rain storms over the early spring finally giving rise to the slightly warmer days, that whispered of summer approaching, winter but a distant memory.

Most of the cultivators, from Elder to Junior rejoiced as the fear of flooding and the icy chill of winter departed, from the mountains. The halls echoed with quietly hurrying feet and the classrooms were filled with new students, guest disciples and through it all, the banners of their Sect stood proudly.

One of their most famous cultivators avoided the muted noise and the company of others, choosing the lull while most were in attendance inside the walls of the classes or the training grounds.

The darkness of his thoughts carried him along the paths and corridors of Gusu, without aim or destination. The notes of the ode Sorrow following him, like a ghost clinging to the memories that once held life.

For weeks of restlessness, haunted by the past he has walked across the mountains, through the valleys and meditated in the forests, seeking but never finding solace in any of these places.

His heart felt like sand, his feet heavy. He had woken this morning well before five am, dreams of Wei Ying bloodied and desperate ripping into his soul. The cry of his name echoing in the hushed silence of the early hours, his voice breaking even as he reached out his hands to clasp only empty air.

No one witnessed his dry heaving sobs or the way his body shuddered, fingers pressing the silver bell into his chest. No one knew that he had spent the hours until dawn sitting like this, kneeling on the floor as he once had on the Burial Mound.

Two hours meditating in the remote cold pools had done nothing to ease the bitter ache in his heart, or the lingering pain of the nightmare. He had relived those final days with near prefect detail, letting him see so clearly all his failures and poor decisions. The line he had diligently kept to; that Gusu came first and that he still had time to change Wei Ying's mind...

Regret weighed on him heavily and there was no peace to be found in reflection, only the cold truth that his love died so brutally. That he knew that he might not survive, hiding Yuan to keep him away from the coming massacre...it taken him to his knees in the shallows of the pool thinking, that Wei Ying might well have known death was coming for him.

Was he afraid? No. Wei Ying was fearless and brave as so few were. Did he feel that fear when they came for him? When he realized that he couldn't get free? That he wouldn't survive, never to see Yuan's face again or watch him grow?

Did...did he look for him, for his face in the crowd? Did his heart hope that Wangji was there?

Guqin strings he has learned over these long years, can vibrate with the sound of despair echoing his own. The music of it, hallowed and haunting did nothing to ease the emotions in his chest, the restlessness or the driving sorrow. For once his refuge of music, cannot soothe him.

Every task asked of him had been completed in the hours since then and the Library held no sway over him, the words of the scriptures meant to calm, only drove him further into the darkness of his sorrow.

So he walked.

His weary feet slowed as he came to the oldest courtyard. Tired gold eyes fell on the square of grass recovering from the cold months and saw not the empty space by the fountain, but memories of a summer that felt almost like another life.

Wei Ying ignoring the rules about running, his black robes fluttering in the breeze as he dashed along the corridor. His hair had streamed behind him, the red ribbon almost completely loose as his hair rippled, like waves of dark ink. A flash of grey eyes and an impish smile before he disappeared around the corner, Nie Huisang only steps behind him.