I Fell Into Your Eyes

Chapter 2

The beginning of this chapter takes place around chapter 3 in Sorrow of Autumn, after Shen Wei meets with Ma Gui and Fu You to discuss Kunlun. I cut it out of the main story at the time.

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For Tien Roseln. Love you!

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There are moments in life that seemed so small at the time, so insignificant. But even years and worlds apart, they somehow become the choices that define us.

For Shen Wei, so many of these moments began with Zhao Yunlan. The world was redefined by Kunlun in a short few years, freed by him and now all they have today is because he stood up and refused to be afraid.

There is a chill in the night air, the whispered warning of approaching winter as the Emperor of Dixing drifts along the paths of his walled garden, holding his white jade flute. It is his sanctuary within the walls of the Palace of Six Phoenixes and his habit however lamented by the Royal Guards to visit it often late at night. Sleep had never offered him much reprieve and meditation was useless when a new piece of information about Kunlun came to his hands.

Tonight he had met with old friends, old allies and learned that enemies had not faded like the past. Tomorrow he would confront Ma Gui sometime before the ceremony. But that was tomorrow and dawn was still a long way off.

Zhao Yunlan had dreamed of his own garden. He used to lie in bed beside Shen Wei when times were dark and tell him all the things he wished to plant. Breathing out the pain and weight of the day, Shen Wei would listen lovingly curled into his side. He too would dream of sitting beneath plum trees and imagine the feared Kunlun with his prized melons.

One year after becoming king of Dixing, Shen Wei had found himself sitting here in the snow, looking around at the forlorn, tragic space that formed the Imperial garden on this side of Dragon City Palaces. As lost as the snow tumbling through the air, his broken heart as lonely as the wind swirling through the bare branches.

His broken heart would take him to the Hanga lands soon, but that night he had let himself mourn.

He was the Emperor and the ruler of the nation had to be invincible. No one tells you when they speak of grief, that you can grieve more than one thing. How when you lose someone you so often lose your world with them, who you were and all the plans for the future. Strange how that realization had swamped him one day, in the middle of an negotiation with the outer regions of Dixing. In all the chaos and determination, the endless decisions and crumbling stability, he had been able to avoid thinking about anything more than the next hour. The next crisis and appointment. The whispers about Kunlun, the searches that bring him nothing, chasing rumors that are little more than phantoms. The next morning and next series of problems.

Kunlun was missing. The world was moving on and Shen Wei couldn't stay the same. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Kunlun was out there somewhere waiting to be found!

He would never give up on Zhao Yunlan. Never stop searching. He knew one day, he would find him. But he did have to accept that things had changed. That had been the hardest thing to accept. Letting go of his dream to live in the mountains with Kunlun. He would not be Consort of Shangbei's King. He was an Emperor in his own right and that meant that there was no retirement to the mountains, no little house of their own.

In all the months of rebuilding after the loss of Ye Zun and his mother, after the infighting that threatened the lives of everyone who sided with Shen Wei....after all of trials and his own tragic marriage to Wang Zheng....Shen Wei had told himself that he had found balance. Not peace. That could only be found in foxfire eyes.