When Yi discovers the truth, instead of throwing down immediately, Yi seemingly "comes around to seeing sense" during his argument with Eigong. He sees that the cards are stacked against him and knows that if he raises his sword at the council, he's a dead man. He feigns support, but in the background, he schemes.
He essentially kidnaps Heng and puts her under. He doesn't entertain the slightest possibility that she wouldn't go along with his plans, so he rationalizes that she'll understand once he tells her everything. He fakes her passing to the Tianhuo so he can simultaneously make sure she's safe and make sure Eigong has no leverage over him.
He suggests that his systems need maintenance, despite its autonomy. He suggests hiring living Solarians to give the council something to focus on. She notes the suspicious lack of faith in his own work, but she plays along and creates the dusk guardians to give her an excuse to test her serum in secret.
He tried to buy time for himself. He suggests they need to test an apeman brain before they take off. Eigong agrees and sends a scout ship she personally fitted with bleeding edge tech so it comes home faster than expected.
He enters in backdoor access codes to the autonomous system he designed. She silently notices and increases the firewall of her personal guards and the largest geno-soldier division.
He spoofs his life signs in the soulscape so he can wake up during travel. She slips a piece of programming that wakes all the sols at the slightest sign of trouble, or if a sol seal isn't where it's supposed to be.
As New Kunlun hurtles through space, the start to reduce the amount of moves left to play. Yi manages to wake up multiple times in between the 500 years, making tweaks and adjustments, and Eigong does the same with her dusk guardians and continues her research.
Both of them operate in their relative secrecy, each of them setting countless spring traps for one another in the form of countermeasures and anticipated actions. It's a centuries-long qiankun match where all the pieces go through their pre-determined motions at the word "go."
Yi slowly realizes that he's outclassed. At his wits end with nothing but time and silence, he reflects on his complicity of the eternal cauldron project. He belongs to the council who damned his planet. His vitriol is turned inward when he has nowhere else to direct it. He desperately needs to make things right.
So... why not start with him?
He decides to bring in a complete unknown onto the board, even to Kuafu. He gives his sister his Rhizomatic Stabilizer and the Mystic Nymph. He places his hopes of justice and retribution to her. He tasks Ruyi with taking care of her as his Ace up his sleeve--a savior to both Solarians and Apemen, alike.
Just like how Lear removes himself from the equation during a time when his people need him, Yi does the same.
After 500 years, Shuanshuan stumbles upon Heng after he loses his parents. He wakes her up.
Ruyi breaks the news to her of the passage of time and how her brother "protected" her. She spends the next two years in emotional agony. Two years of screaming and crying when she thinks no one is watching. Two years of simultaneously cursing his name and mourning his loss. She hardens herself, stubbornly refusing to play Yi's game.
Thankfully, it's also two years of recovery and physical reform. She grows close to Shuanshuan. She finds herself helping the village through silent acts of kindness while she tries her best to hide her identity (Shennong clocks her immediately). She listens as the roots talk to her and she learns how to defend herself from the occasional wandering dragon snake by a mysterious man in the limitless realm.
When she watches Shuanshuan get risen to the altar, she can't help herself from saving him and it kicks off the events of the game.
As she goes further and deeper into New Kunlun, she comes to realize that Yi literally haunts everything. All of his designs, his cold calculations, the architecture, the engineering, his flailing efforts to never go quietly, all of New Kunlun is Yi.
At some point, she figures out the truth that was withheld from her: the eternal cauldron project and the harvesting of innocent lives was all Yi's idea. It all clicks into place for her in that moment and she immediately disowns him.
But as time goes on, in the lulls between fighting, she can't help but see the passion and love and care put into every piece of code and every angle of stone and metal. She sees him in the way the geno-soldiers are decorated in historical regalia. She sees him in the decisions to give the apemen ideal living conditions and a painless harvest.
She sees him in Kuafu, who decides to continue his best friend's legacy despite Heng screaming at him for everything he's done. She especially sees him in Shuanshuan, a genius in his own right. He sent her to save them, Shuanshuan tells her. Yi couldn't have been all that bad, right?
Over time, as she brings back gifts for Shuanshuan, she sees him most's especially in the four seasons pavilion, a place built specifically for him and Heng to live. When she finally strips away his brother's bitter vengeance and cold decisions, she's reminded of the older brother she looked up to--someone she thought would one day would change the entire world for the better.
It makes it so much harder when she brings herself to listen to his final recordings and learns that Yi didn't see himself that way at all.
Hou Yi dies utterly alone, filled with regret and wine as he thinks of home. Despite his explicit instructions of his disposal, Ruyi kept him. Heng swears she can hear her brother say "such an unnecessary sentimentality," from the grave.
Funny enough, Yi unintentionally turned Abacus into an AI with enough personhood to make its own decisions out of empathy--a posthumous breakthrough, even during his most turbulent moments. Yi was someone who could breathe life into silicate and lines of code, that's how brilliant he was.
That's how she decides to remember him and she carries it with her as she continues to finish what he started.
I've labeled this AU "Nine Sols Eclipsed" and I really hope I didn't steal someone's AU name. I thought it'd be symbolic because it can work both ways in how Heng protects everyone from the sols yet Yi basically overrides her autonomy in the beginning. I have some more thoughts on how the rest of the events would play out, but I'll save that for another post.
I think I'll have to dedicate an entire book to navigating Heng's complicated feelings towards her brother. I honest to God think I might do it.
But yeah, nine sols hurt me and in an attempt to make myself feel better about it, I metaphorically pulled out the knife it stabbed me with and ended up accidentally stabbing myself elsewhere and I wrote all this and made the feelings so much worse LMAO. To paraphrase one of my favorite writers, "writing this hurt me and I refuse to suffer alone."
If you've read this far, thanks for reading. I'm not done yet. Next time, I'm bringing back Chien.
AU Yi's belong to @/ashdistic @/gensational @/doodledrawsthings and some others I added on first glance (I'm too self conscious to tag them)
Thinking very hard about human-ish solarian designs. Yi up first.
I enjoy the idea of him kind of having slicked back hair when he’s a scientist first and foremost and then letting loose and having free flyaway strands when he starts on his quest for revenge
A Nine Sols AU of sorts...
MAJOR 9 Sols Spoilers and AU context under the cut:
basically, hypothetical super secret third ending AU where Yi is both able to take out Eigong before she mutates the Fusang pinnacle and ALSO evacuates and helps the Apemen. Maybe he takes them back to Penglai, but I wanted to explore the Solarians living out their last days/months/years/whatever on the Pale Blue Planet living with the Humans as equals and helping them set up shop and survive.
I was high off my ass last night and had this dream where I was in this dense ass forest and sitting there was a tall woman. She was so tall I couldn’t see her face but she was wearing gold and I was like “uh…hi?” And she said “I made you, do you know that?” And I nodded and she was like “I hear your thoughts. Why do you hate my creation? Why do you try to destroy yourself? I made you perfect as you are. Please don’t break my heart”. Then she started crying and it flooded and I woke up with fucking heart palpitations like what does it Mean™️????
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
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