The morning mist over Píng'ān had not yet burned away when Wù Fēng gathered his disciples in a clearing at the edge of the reborn forest. The air was still…waiting.
"To be a deity is not to know more tricks," Wù Fēng began, his whimsical tone replaced by a serene authority. "It is to hold a fragment of cosmic authority. You do not request. You will. Your first lesson is not in doing, but in being. Sit."
They sat in a circle: Yisha, radiant and eager; Qianyi, steady and attentive; Li Wei, a quiet pillar of frost-kissed intensity; and Xuán Chè, earnest but unsure of his place among them.
"Meditation is the foundation," Wù Fēng instructed. "But not for emptying your mind. For filling it with your intent. Feel the world not as a separate thing, but as an extension of your own spirit. Then, gently, command it."
He moved to each of them, placing a hand on their shoulder to sense their energy flow.
To Yisha, he said, "Your light is Clarity. Do not simply create it. Will the shadows to retreat. Command the air to become a lens, focusing truth. Make the very concept of 'obscurity' bow to your presence."
To Qianyi, he murmured, "Your power is Order. Feel the chaos in a single blade of grass—the random dance of its atoms. Now, still it. Impose perfect, harmonious structure upon it. Not to break it, but to make it the truest version of itself."
Then he stood before Li Wei. "Your path is different, Frost Fox. You are a force of primordial nature, refined. Do not seek to command the world as they do. Become its winter. Your demonic qi is not an impurity; it is your sovereignty. When you exhale, do not 'create cold.' Reveal the absolute zero that your will makes manifest. Your lesson is Embodiment."
Finally, he came to Xuán Chè. The boy looked up, expecting to be overlooked. Instead, Wù Fēng smiled. "And you, Xuán Chè. Your gift is Memory, though you do not know it yet. Your blood is a living record. Do not try to grasp for power. Listen. Listen to the memory of the wind, the story held in the stone. Your task is to feel the resonance. Trace the echo of what was, and you will understand what is."
As the four of them settled into their unique meditations, a fifth presence made itself known. Zhōu Línglóng, unable to contain her curiosity, peeked from behind a large tree, her eyes wide as she watched the air around Yisha shimmer with light and the grass at Qianyi's feet arrange itself into perfect, geometric patterns.
She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp, utterly mesmerized.
Wù Fēng could feel her presence as clearly as if she were standing beside him—a bright, curious spark in the tapestry of the morning. He let her watch on in peace, sensing no threat from the girl, only a budding potential. A part of him felt she would come to him on her own when her curiosity finally outweighed her caution. A knowing smirk played about his lips.
He held out his open hand. The air above his palm shimmered, coalescing into the solid, cool form of a flawless white jade gourd. He brought it to his lips and, leaning his head back, poured a stream of golden, honeyed peach wine into his mouth.
As he did, a gentle, perfumed breeze, one that touched nothing else in the clearing, stirred, playing with the ends of his long, unbound black hair and carrying the sweet scent of celestial peaches through the air. It was a picture of divine indolence, a god enjoying a private performance.
Each day, for the following week, they trained. They meditated.
On the third day, Wù Fēng's assumption was correct. As he sat whittling a piece of spirit-wood into a flute, a small shadow fell over him.
Línglóng stood there, twisting the end of one braids nervously. "Wù Fēng Shīfu," she began, her voice uncharacteristically small. "I have to ask... who are you? What are you? And them?" She gestured vaguely toward the others, who were causing the very air to hum with power.
"All throughout Yōujì Kingdom, we have rumors. Stories of demons in the deep forests and a few ancient cultivators who achieved immortality. But they are just that—stories, ghosts from the time of the Yan Empire."
She took a breath, her brown eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. "And gods... the gods are said to have died off in the great wars, or... or simply stopped caring about our realm. No one has seen a true god here for thousands of years. But you... you are here. Living. Breathing. Pouring wine. Are you the only one? Are there more?"
Wù Fēng finished his carving stroke and looked up, his gaze both kind and immeasurably old. He did not answer immediately, instead posing a question of his own.
"If you saw a single, perfect lotus blooming in a pond of scum and decay," he said softly, "would you believe it to be the only one? Or would you know, in your heart, that somewhere, there must be a pristine garden from which it came?"
He stood, brushing the wood shavings from his robes. "I am not the only one. But the garden is far away, and it has been... neglected. The gardeners became distracted, or fell ill, or forgot their purpose. Some realms, like this one, were left to wither."
He looked at Yisha, who was weaving light into solid, shimmering shapes, and at Li Wei, whose exhales coated the leaves around him in a delicate, beautiful frost.
"We are not stories, Línglóng Gūniang. We are the reminder. And the beginning of the answer to a question this kingdom has been asking in its silent solitude for a very, very long time."
Línglóng absorbed Wù Fēng's words, her gaze drifting back across the clearing. After a moment of internal debate, she looked up, her voice dropping to a shy, almost conspiratorial whisper. "Do... do gods get married?"
She couldn't help but flick a quick, nervous glance toward Li Wei before looking down, blushing at her own boldness.
Wù Fēng followed her gaze and then looked back at her flustered face. A rich, warm laugh escaped him, the sound like cheerful bells.
"Gods can love, can marry, just like mortals he explained, his eyes twinkling. "Bùguò, there are very strict rules and conditions that must be met."
He then made his own glance toward Li Wei, this time slow and deliberate, ensuring Línglóng understood exactly whom he was speaking of next.
"As for demons," he said, his tone shifting to one of playful gravity, "they... are different."
He let the words hang in the air, a world of unspoken meaning contained within them. Different customs, different courtships, different, perhaps even more intense, passions.
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Since Li Wei had returned to his human form, Línglóng had mustered only polite greetings, which he met with silent nods or a gaze that went straight through her.
One evening, she found him walking alone, his brow furrowed in deep contemplation, obsessing, though she didn't know it, over the memory of a certain morning and a bitten shoulder.
She gathered her courage and approached. "I just want to stay by your side," she stated, her voice a mix of boldness and desperation. She then launched into a rehearsed list of her skills—cooking, mending, negotiating with traders—a list of mortal utilities that a several-thousand-year-old Frost Fox Demon, let alone the one who operates Zuì Mèng Lóu, had absolutely no need for.
He was used to this. Operating the pavilion, he was a magnet for such offers. Women—and men—would throw themselves at his feet, offering to serve for nothing, hoping for a glance, a crumb of his attention. He never accepted.
His heart had been quietly, irrevocably claimed for centuries; he simply didn't know if the one he loved would ever accept it in return. So, he stayed silent, a fortress of ice.
This time, he broke his silence. "Bù."
The word was a door slammed shut, direct and leaving no room for misinterpretation. That was his way.
"But—, she attempted to plead, her voice cracking.
He gave her a lecture as cold and sharp as his ice daggers, interrupting her train of thought.
"You are nineteen. You are mortal, and I have absolutely no interest in entertaining you. We can be acquaintances. We may even be able to do business someday, if you present the right proposal. However, anything beyond that, I have no interest."
The girl flinched as if struck, tears welling in her eyes. Girls crying had never moved him. Only the tears of Qiānyí and Yīshā had ever held that power. To him, Línglóng was a child.
Seeing her genuine hurt, his tone shifted from glacial to merely cool, an attempt at warmth from a being of winter.
"Línglóng gūniang, let me give you a piece of advice," he said. "Never attach your aspirations to someone else. You are still very young. You mortals place immense importance on family and marriage, but you had the good sense to escape a union that was dangerous. That proves you are smart. You have potential. Do not waste it on a fantasy."
With that, he turned and continued his walk, leaving her with the sting of his rejection, but also, perhaps, the seed of a far more valuable lesson.
Li Wei continued his walk, his feet carrying him almost unconsciously across the old stone bridge and toward the main gate of Píng'ān. The quiet of the evening was abruptly fractured by a scene unfolding ahead.
There, under the fading light, stood Wù Fēng and Xuán Chè. Kneeling before them, his body trembling with a final, desperate effort, was a man Li Wei did not recognize.
As Li Wei closed the distance, his sharp hearing caught the man's strained, guttural words:
"Yǒngshèng Jīng...," the man gasped, his voice a bloody rasp. They... they've overrun it..."
With his final breath spent, the man collapsed face-forward onto the hard earth. The impact was sickeningly final.
It was only then that the full horror became clear. Protruding from the man's back were three black-fletched arrows. But these were no ordinary arrows. A blackened, viscous mist coiled from the wounds like spectral serpents.
It wasn't smoke. It was something alive, something sinister—a visible manifestation of a corruption that consumed not just flesh, but the very light and life around it.
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© 2025 Kiesha Richardson, writing as QiXia. All rights reserved.
Death Blooms for You is an original work of fiction by QiXia. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or adaptation of this story in any form is prohibited. All characters, events, and settings are created for entertainment purposes and bear no intentional resemblance to real persons or situations.