@legendwrote || Zhou Zishu
A single insignificant snowflake drifts through the air, falling one moment and soaring high the next, helplessly carried by the raging storm that moves the world around it. The winds are fierce and merciless but not fearsome. It doesn’t matter how often the little snowflake falls or rises, how quickly it moves or where it will land once its journey is done. Time is not of any essence and with nowhere to be or go, no place is the wrong one. The moment is short-lived and infinite at the same time, a heartbeat frozen in endless quiet peace.
Waking up is like daybreak after the longest night, like the first sunray of summer melting the ice that was frozen for centuries; and with every drop of meltwater Wen Kexing’s mind awakens a little more. His body remembers how to live first, his fingers moving against the blanket that covers him and his chest rising with a deeper breath than he’s taken since he closed his eyes on Zhou Zishu and the world.
Zhou Zishu. The first words he remembers to call out, but no sound comes from his lips, like his tongue has forgotten how to shape words. He’s floating, then falling, faster and faster, through the white endless snow– until it all just stops.
He’s still and silent, like before, but with every breath that goes in and out of his lungs more feeling comes back to his body. He’s lying on a smooth surface, the comforting weight of a blanket covering most of his body. The air in the room is cool and filled with scents he recalls from what feels like several lifetimes ago. That’s right - he can breathe, hear, smell, taste. Remnants of the endless peaceful snow falling in his mind are still clinging to him but fading quickly now as he remembers what it’s like to be conscious.
Wen Kexing’s eyelids twitch, and then they open, blinking a few times as his vision clears. He looks at the high ceiling of a room made of windowless stone walls, far away from the bed he is lying on. With the ample space and the absence of decorations it lacks the comfort and intimacy of a bedroom and rather resembles a shrine. Kexing finds no memory of this room in his mind but something about it feels familiar. Something about everything here feels familiar.
And just like that, he remembers.
“A-xu..!” he calls out as he sits up, but his voice is so hoarse it barely comes out audible. His hair falls over his shoulders from the sudden movement - ashen white and far longer than it should be. Marveled, Wen Kexing catches a strand of it between his fingers to inspect it more closely. For a moment the thought of reincarnation crosses his mind. Perhaps he’s been reborn and this is his new life– but no. These long ashen strands are his, as are the fingers holding them and the eyes seeing them. These thoughts are his, too, and these memories of a love so deep he chose to gave up everything to save it. Save him.
“A-xu..” he says again, his vocal chords moving a little smoother this time.
⚍☯⚎ Streaks of silver shone in his mind’s eye, waking or sleeping. Chestnut turned white, fluttering like blankets of snow. A whispered profession of love. Warm gaze hooded and then closed behind heavy lids. Figure fallen prone like a toppled statue — Buddha in slumber, peaceful. Deep.
Zhou Zishu had panicked when the other’s grip grew lax in his hands; when Wen Kexing collapsed to the slab of cold stone beneath them, the warmth of that vibrant qi still coursing through Zhou Zishu’s body as if he’d sapped him of his very lifeforce and left him a motionless doll. He’d called his name, shook him until he himself shook, feeling so much like the crisp husk of a leaf clinging to a dying tree, but there was no response — no literary regurgitation, no quip, not so much as a feeble mewl of his moniker.
He had, upon realizing that Wen Kexing would not rise again any time soon, but was not altogether gone yet, fled down the mountain as far as he needed until he could send word for the fabled shaman from Nanjiang: Wu Xi. The man had been in these parts recently with an old mutual friend, and he held out hope that he still lingered. Sure enough, in several days time they both arrived in their warm cloaks; help had arrived.
It was a long time before Wen Kexing would wake, and they dared not move him from his spot lest they leave bits of his wayward spirit behind — scattered but not dissipated. Wu Xi worked tirelessly day and night to repair it, and once stabilized, instructed Zhou Zishu to remain nearby in case he woke, and to feed him only the crisp snow water from the mountain on which they resided until he recovered fully. The cold would sustain him in a sort of stasis for now while his spirit reintegrated. He had sacrificed much for Zhou Zishu. It would take time, but he would wake.
It was weeks still beyond this time, and Zhou Zishu had been down the mountain a ways trading silver taels for food. He had just been returning with his haul when he heard the strangled cry from inside the World’s Armory. His heart leapt into his chest and he dropped the bundles of reserves just inside the doorway, sweet potatoes tumbling through dusting of snow that stretched icy fingers into the vault.
He hurried to the room where Wen Kexing rested, preparing himself along the way for the disappointment of finding that the sound had merely been the buffeting wind moaning through the halls as it so often had been in the past. He stopped only when he saw the man sitting upright clutching those long silvered strands in wonder.
“Lao Wen,” he breathed, his own words barely above a whisper for the back of his throat burned and his eyes stung, relief threatening to choke and overwhelm him. He made his way to the slab, quick at first, then slow, realizing he did not know the nature of the other’s awakening — would his memory be intact? Had anything changed in the weeks upon weeks that had passed?
“You’re awake,” he would say at last, stopping when he was near, gazing down at the other upon the stone slab, fingers curling and uncurling into his fists, uncertain of what to do with themselves. “And you call me lazy,” he added with a small half-smile. ⚍☯⚎
