Wen Reian

2005 years after The Long Night

Wúmeng

"Wen Reian? Be still now child, breathe..."

After having run all the way back to Wúmeng, tears blurring his vision and causing him to trip and scrape both his hands and chin, Wen Rei was now gasping for air as he tried to fit everything that had happened in a few short phrases.

"Yi-jun!" He panted, "Turned to stone... Su Lan, my fault-"

"Calm down," Cai Yimu had sat him at the table and was already halfway through healing the boy's hands, when she blinked in surprise.

Reian could tell it was because she could feel the obvious wrongness of his aura. It had shifted, now it was so different that he didn't even feel like the same person anymore...

"Tell me what has happened, slowly."

After taking several deep breaths Reian nodded and began, though it all felt like a terrible nightmare instead of real life.

"The snake demon that lives inside The Howling Cave is Su Lan, Yi-jun's old friend. His mind was riddled with holes after so much time, so I tried to create a barrier in his head, between his untouched memories and the pain. He recounted his story to us, and when I thought it was over, I suddenly began to see something, something that I knew couldn't possibly be there..."

Cai Yimu waited patiently for him to continue, but Reian didn't know how to. It was all his fault! He shouldn't have tried to use his abilities on someone as powerful and unstable as Su Lan. He'd put all of them in danger-

"Reian? What then?"

The boy swallowed, having to look away...

"It was Jin Songcai, who I've been dreaming of for months. I saw him so vividly, I began to believe that he was real. But he wasn't like himself, he was angry with me. He was shouting, threatening me, and I felt like I couldn't breathe!"

The town head was listening intently, so Reian continued;

"I didn't even realise that I was still connected to Su Lan's mind, though I should have. I was panicking, and somehow that broke down the wall I'd built in his head. I could feel it, he was stuck lingering in the same memory over and over again, and it was the moment when he cursed Xie Yi-jun. I know Su Lan wasn't really awake, I know it all happened because I was careless and didn't think of how something like that could go wrong. I never expected... Yi-jun would push me out of the way! He's still there, I... can't wake him anymore-"

Seeing that Cai Yimu was watching him with half-closed eyes, her lips pressed thin, Reian didn't know what else to do besides beg.

"Please," he said. "I don't know why Yi-jun won't wake up. You must help me, I can't do it alone..."

The woman sighed slowly, then replied in an even, chilling tone;

"The demon's curse has set rules," she told him. "Not even I can tamper with such a thing. If the young King must be awoken by his mate, then that is all you need to know."

Feeling his heart begin to pound inside his chest, Wen Rei exclaimed a little too loudly-

"But I tried!"

Cai Yimu opened her eyes to stare at him, so Reian apologised and lowered his voice...

"I tried, and nothing happened! It wasn't like last time. I don't even know why he woke up in the first place... I am not Jin Songcai."

After several moments of a silence that he almost couldn't bear, Reian finally stood and bowed deeply to the village leader.

"I... I will do anything. Anything to bring him back, just tell me what to do."

Shaking her head again, the woman clicked her tongue-

"If the young King won't awaken by your touch, then that is because his soul does not recognise yours as his mate..."

"But it did in Sanlín City?" Reian frowned, "What's changed?"

As he asked, he not only felt Cai Yimu's knowing gaze upon him, but also the feeling of thousands of pairs of judging eyes, all turning on him from within his own mind.

You know what's changed... murderer!

Could Yi-jun really no longer love him? No longer recognise his soul? Reian felt as if he couldn't hardly blame the King. He too felt like a stranger. It made sense.

"But, without a soulmate in this world, then..."

Wen Rei's sentence trailed off as Cai Yimu leaned back in her chair and raised a thin eyebrow at him. The boy swallowed.

"Then," the woman nodded. "You best go about finding how to bring the young King's lover back."

After presenting Reian with the only thing she could give to aid him, Cai Yimu sent the boy off again to the caves, with only these words as parting;

"There are endless worlds, all dining at the large table inside your mind, Wen Reian. Some are dark, some are light... life is what happens when you are able to give every one of them a space to breathe."

Those words rang crisp and clear in his head as Reian ran all the way back north in the middle of the night. Not only was The Howling Cave home to snakes, but also bats, mice, and other things that Reian kept having to pick out of hair when he noticed their spindly legs.

Xie Yi-jun and Su Lan were right where he'd left them no more than an hour and a half ago; the snake demon curled up in the corner of the room, hiding his head in his hands and rocking slowly back and forth as if in a trance. Wen Reian didn't know what had happened to his mind after everything, but he could sense it wasn't anything good.

Reian had screamed at the man after he'd stepped away from Xie Yi-jun, but Su Lan appeared as if he had no idea what he'd done, and no idea how to reverse it...

So now, his breath stuck in his throat as he made his way over to Xie Yi-jun, Wen Rei tried everything not to burst into tears again, raising shaking fingers to the King's cold cheek, feeling as if everything good was now lost, trapped in time. Sealed in stone.

He stared at Yi-jun's face, his expression both pained and determined. He had closed his eyes just before he'd been frozen, his hand outstretched as he'd gone to push Reian out of the way.

This was not supposed to happen...

Reian held in his other hand, Cai Yimu's gift. A small red and gold Spirit Pouch that she'd said would easily hold and protect Xie Yi-jun's body and soul until Reian could free him somehow.

"As long as you can still see and feel it pulsing, you can rest easy knowing that the beat of his heart is untouched. Time shall not pass for him. He is a person sealed in a different universe... one that you must reach."

As Reian opened the bag, he took one last look at the King and whispered softly-

" Yi-jun, I am sorry it turned out this way. I'm sorry I'm not him, and I'm sorry I'm not me. But I will wake you up, even if it takes the rest of my life. I will set you free..."

Watching as the statue faded away, it's form being changed into Yi-jun's gleaming soul, Reian stared with wide eyes and a broken heart, as the energy tucked itself away inside the pouch, sealing itself, and then beginning to pulse gently with his hidden heartbeat.

Focused only on returning home, Reian left the cave immediately. He couldn't help Su Lan. That's what started all of this. Besides, he knew he couldn't focus on anything else until Xie Yi-jun was back safe and sound.

Wen Reian was too afraid to tie the Spirit Pouch to his belt, choosing instead to carry it in both hands, close to his chest, where he could feel every gentle beat.

Like that, he journeyed home on foot for a day and a half. It went by faster because he didn't stop to rest. When he finally saw the spires of Jingshén through the trees, the boy didn't even allow himself to grow excited or hopeful at seeing his Masters or friends.

What could they tell me that I don't already know? I am not Yi-jun's soulmate. But Jin Songcai is, so I have to get him back-

"Rei Rei!"

Some of the little ones came out to greet him as he walked inside, but Reian went straight to the library where he knew Master Hao would be at this hour.

It was a numb sort of feeling, Reian had, as he explained what had happened in as much detail as he could, and his Master replied only that he would do everything in his power to help...

"I'm going to stay here and do a bit of research," Reian said.

The moment he sat down at a table he winced, feeling all of his muscles aching after so many hours on his feet. His head was aching terribly too, but he rested the Spirit Pouch upon the table gently and then began to search for the relevant books.

Thankfully, Master Hao didn't linger...

With most of his energy used up, Wen Reian fought to stay awake as he flipped through what felt like countless pages, nothing of which seemed useful.

What began as hours, slowly progressed into days, and he got quite a few visitors at first... Xie De and Jin Yu and the young ones, people who only wanted to pity him and comment on how he really should be getting some sleep.

Eventually, nearing the end of his second week living inside the library, sometimes sleeping in the aisles, sometimes at a desk, Wen Reian felt as if he was putting small pieces of a puzzle together that was far larger than he had the ability to see...

Running on empty, it was another sleepless night with his eyelids growing heavy above a book, that he first had the idea.

It was so preposterous that for a while Reian didn't even allow himself to entertain the possibility. Chalking it all up to an exhaustion-induced fantasy, he put his head in his hands and sighed again in frustration.

I can't do this... no... I must do this-

Feeling that choking nervousness rise up again in his throat, Reian stayed awake through another awful headache, continuously finding himself back at the same, impossible thought.

Jin Songcai once told me, I can heal anything with a soul. Xie Yi-jun said that Hêi'àn City was partially telepathic; the land and nature reacting to and taking cues from it's people... If the city itself had a soul, could such a thing be healed? And if so, would that also bring back Jin Songcai?

Stupid, insane-

Rubbing his forehead and wincing, Wen Rei struggled to even imagine the amount of energy he'd need for something like that. Besides... wasn't it impossible to bring somebody back from the dead? Why was he even trying?!

Songcai himself had once explained to him that the problem with trying to "heal" a corpse, something that continued to be unpracticed by all of those in Wúmeng, himself included, was that during the healing process, the healer themselves required a return of energy from the patient. Not a lot, just enough so that it wasn't Songcai or Reian or whomever, simply pouring their life-force away and using it all up.

"Healing is a conversation between you and something else," Songcai once said in a dream...

"You have to give as well as receive in a conversation. And unfortunately, the dead stay silent."

It was true. Even if Wen Reian managed to transfer enough power into the city; the bones or whatever was left of that place, it wouldn't do much more than exhaust him since there was nothing left to latch onto. He might as well try to heal a bunch of rocks.

Mindlessly flicking his pencil around on the desk, his thoughts once again drifted back to Yi-jun. The person he was doing all this for in the first place...

When he thought of the King, Wen Rei's eyes immediately shifted to the bag in front of him. The steady pulse and beat of the light from within, his only proof that Xie Yi-jun was still alive. The light would continue to glow forever, the King remaining trapped either inside, or as a statue unless Reian could set him free.

Yi-jun will only come back if his soulmate returns and wakes him up. And for whatever reason, that's not me...

I suppose, I was stupid to think I was his soulmate in the first place! Even if Yi-jun and I love each other, Songcai will always be his other half and without him, Xie Yi-jun won't ever wake up.

I have to bring back Jin Songcai...

I have to, or what's the point?