"After you descended to the small worlds, there was an attack on the celestial realm from outside its boundaries. The two sides fought for over a hundred years. Heaven and earth cracked open—and afterward, I fused my true form with the ten thousand worlds, so the cracks would not continue to spread. As long as there are no further attacks, the worlds will slowly mend themselves."
"The sky cracked open—what does that have to do with you? Why did it have to be you?" Kong Li's voice broke. "Did they bully you alone? Just the one of you, against all of them?"
"If heaven and earth crack, how could it not concern me?" A-Xin said, mild and unhurried. "I was born from heaven and earth too. I couldn't simply watch it shatter."
Kong Li could almost understand that. But fusing with the ten thousand worlds—fusing her true form into the very fabric of creation to hold it together—that wasn't something A-Xin had to bear alone. "A-Xin, how many beings in this celestial realm were also born from heaven and earth? If we're speaking of obligation, they all share it. Every one of them. Why did it fall to you alone?"
"I haven't finished. Going back to heaven and earth—that's only half the reason." A-Xin paused. "The other half: if I hadn't acted, the first thing to collapse would have been the small worlds."
The words landed. Kong Li buried her face against A-Xin and let out a sound like something breaking open—grief that came in waves, that wouldn't stop, that she couldn't hold back.
Because she understood now. The cracks in the ten thousand worlds, if left unaddressed, would have spread outward from the weakest points first. The small worlds—unstable, fragile compared to the great ones—would have gone first. And Kong Li had been inside one of those small worlds. It didn't matter that she carried the Golden Crow's bloodline, or the Peacock King's. A divine spirit adrift in a small world when it collapsed would survive only technically—power shredded, soul heavily damaged.
A-Xin had kept that from happening.
Kong Li held on and cried for a long time. When she finally surfaced, her voice was thick. "If that half of the reason hadn't existed—if I hadn't been in the small worlds—would you still have fused with the ten thousand worlds, A-Xin?"
"Probably not. I am not the only being born of heaven and earth. The others could have gathered their divine power collectively and helped mend the worlds. That would have been the natural course of things."
Kong Li cried harder.
So the deciding factor had been her. A-Xin had made this choice—had condemned herself to this freezing darkness, alone—because of her.
She thought of everything she owed A-Xin. She had been thoughtless from childhood, willful and proud, never once stopping to see what was right in front of her. And now, even getting to this point—even getting to the simple act of falling in love—had required A-Xin to go to these lengths.
The ten thousand worlds mended. When would that be? How much longer?
All those years while she'd been away—A-Xin had been here. In this cold, lightless abyss. Alone. However A-Xin described it—"a few hundred or a few thousand years feels like a long sleep"—it was not nothing. No one who was not lonely would say that.
"A-Xin—why did you forget me?" Kong Li looked up, a trace of reproach in her eyes. "I matter so much to you. Why did you seal me away?"
"That wasn't forgetting. That was a seal." A-Xin corrected her gently.
Kong Li pressed her lips together. "Fine. Why did you seal me? And why that particular condition—if I hadn't confessed to you, you would never have remembered me. Why?"
Her eyes, still damp, went to A-Xin's face. "Was it because you were afraid I wouldn't come to like you? You were afraid of unrequited love—of waiting and waiting with no result—and it hurt too much, so you buried me in some sealed corner of your memory?"
"Kong Li." A-Xin's voice was patient. "You have had the same mind since you were small. It is full of nothing but dramatic imaginings."
Kong Li opened her mouth. Then shut it. She supposed she did like to extrapolate. Was it not, in fact, that scenario?
"Then tell me why."
"I sealed your memory not because I feared you wouldn't come to like me," A-Xin said. "Because you had already liked me for a long time."
Kong Li's mouth fell open slightly. Then closed. She couldn't exactly dispute that—she had always liked A-Xin. She just hadn't known it until now.
"I sealed your memory because I wanted you to discover for yourself that you liked me. I have liked you for so long. I wanted to know what it would feel like—to be loved first, for once." A-Xin said this with perfect composure. "And Kong Li—if I had truly wanted to keep you at my side from the beginning, I could have. You would never have had the chance to descend to the small worlds."
Kong Li: "…" She had somehow forgotten—the being sitting beside her was the first vine to exist at the dawn of all creation. Not some simple, guileless woman.
"If I had stopped you from going," A-Xin continued, "and told you then that I had feelings for you—what would you have done?"
"I would have..." Kong Li's face went pink. "I would have said—that's impossible, we're just friends, I only think of you as a friend."
"Exactly. That answer would have made me very unhappy. And when I am very unhappy, I might do things that would make us both unhappy. I might have hurt us both. That is not an outcome I would ever want."
A-Xin's expression was soft. "Your going to the small worlds gave us both something. And my choice to fuse with the ten thousand worlds came with its own advantage—for as long as my true form sustains the worlds, everything is within my awareness. I can go anywhere I choose, change any world I need to. No one in the celestial realm can stop me."
"The Dragon Mother schemed against you. Because I had already fused with the ten thousand worlds, I could dismantle everything she planned with ease. Even if Ao Yunxiu suffered for it, she had no recourse. And afterward, I told her plainly: if she ever tried anything again, I would make the small world where her dragon son was dwelling collapse and reset. I can protect you. She cannot protect him."
"She had it coming!" Kong Li sat up straighter, indignant all over again at the memory of being used. "How dare she scheme against me. When I get back, I'm going straight to my mother and father. The Dragon Mother—she has no idea what's coming for her."
She had absolutely no intention of handling this herself. Her mother was the Golden Crow Emperor. Her father was the Peacock King. Those were extremely large legs to stand on. Why fight her own battles when she didn't have to?
"So." Kong Li tilted her head. "You had already calculated, from the very beginning, that I would come to like you. Hadn't you."
"Yes," A-Xin said plainly. "You had always liked me—there was one journey that needed to happen to make you see it clearly. And if I had tried to force the result, to rush it—it would have worked against me. Small things would have become obstacles between us. Your pride, your stubbornness, your certainty about who I was to you—I knew all of it. Trying to override any of it would only have pushed you away."
Kong Li's nose stung. "I'm sorry. I was too willful for too long. Too proud. Everything required your patience—even just falling in love. You had to go to such lengths for something so ordinary."
A-Xin was right. If A-Xin had confessed back then, it wouldn't have gone smoothly. Kong Li knew herself. She was self-centered, proud, and had already decided in her own mind that A-Xin was her friend—nothing else. Any declaration would have been met with defensive rejection.
And A-Xin had waited. In this cold dark place, alone, without complaint, for what amounted to centuries.
She called it easy. A long sleep and it passes. But anyone who truly found loneliness easy wouldn't have described it as a long sleep.
"A-Xin—what if I had never come to like you?" Kong Li asked quietly. "What would you have done?"
A-Xin's gaze was steady and deep as she looked at her.
"From the first moment I saw you, you were already my purpose," she said. "We both have endless lifespans. I had all the time there is. I would have drawn you to my side, eventually, one way or another. Kong Li—you were never going to escape me."
"I know." Kong Li laughed despite herself. "All those years ago—I tried to pick a flower. That was the beginning of everything, wasn't it." She paused. "You gave it to me afterward. But think about it—if it had been anyone else who tried to pick your flower, they would have been gone before they touched a petal. You watched me hatch from my egg and decided not to do anything to me. So—were you already fond of me even then? Did you think the egg was particularly beautiful?"
As she said it, something occurred to her. "A-Xin—that's not actually true, is it?"
She thought back. When she had still been inside the egg, developing her awareness, she remembered how extraordinarily comfortable it had felt. No matter what the weather—wind, heat, cold—she had never been exposed to any of it. And on the day she finally hatched, she had needed immense quantities of spiritual energy, and somehow the spiritual energy in the air that day had been particularly rich.
When she broke out of her shell, she had found herself nestled in soft vine leaves.
Her parents had placed her there—she had always assumed because it was simply a good piece of land, ideal for a hatching. But her parents had laid an array over the location as well, to keep her from being discovered or stolen.
She had taken it for granted that A-Xin's home had happened to be the right spot. It had never occurred to her to ask who had arranged it.
"No," A-Xin said.
Directly. Without elaboration. "I tended to you because the Golden Crow Emperor and the Peacock King asked it of me. They entrusted you to my care during your hatching, to ensure no one would find and steal you."
"So my parents did actually care about me." Kong Li blinked. She genuinely hadn't known. She'd always assumed the choice of location was purely practical—a good piece of land near a powerful spirit who happened to live there. That her parents and A-Xin had known each other, had spoken—this was new.
It made sense, now that she thought about it. A-Xin was extraordinary. The land was extraordinary. Why would it seem uninhabited? Because it was claimed. Because of the seals A-Xin had placed around it. The only reason Kong Li had always been able to come and go freely was that A-Xin had given her special dispensation—even her parents, the Golden Crow Emperor and the Peacock King, could not enter freely.
After she'd hatched, she had been brought back to Kong Li's Hall. But she had always felt a particular warmth toward that place—and so she had returned, again and again, on her own.
Then one day she had seen it: a single small flower blooming on a vine of pure white, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life.
She had been captivated. She'd stood in front of it for a long time. And finally, she'd reached out to pick it.
The moment her fingers closed around the stem, a voice said: "What are you doing?"
"Picking—picking the flower." She'd startled back guiltily, then tried for dignity. "Is this someone's? If so, I won't take it."
She wasn't unreasonable. If it belonged to someone else, she wouldn't steal it. The only reason she'd reached for it at all was that no one seemed to live here, and in all her years of visiting, she had never encountered another soul.
She couldn't have known: those other souls simply couldn't see the place. The seals made it invisible to everyone except Kong Li, who had been born there and been given special access.
"You like this flower?" A-Xin had asked.
"Of course I do," Kong Li had answered without hesitation. "It's the most beautiful flower I've ever seen. I want to pick it and wear it—it would look wonderful."
And then the endless white vine had vanished. In its place stood a girl in white robes—features cool and perfect, with long black hair that fell past her ankles. Cradled in her hands was the flower.
The girl in white looked at her.
"What is your name?"
"Kong Li."
"You like this flower?"
"Yes." Obviously. She wouldn't have tried to pick it if she didn't.
The girl seemed to weigh this—assessing whether the answer was true. Then she said: "If you like it, I will give it to you. But you must take care of it always. You cannot throw it away."
Kong Li had been overjoyed and promised without a second thought.
She was someone who grew tired of things quickly. But that flower—she never grew tired of it, not once. Every time she returned, she wore it. Over time she and A-Xin became friends, and she learned that the white vine was A-Xin herself.
At the memory, Kong Li opened her palm. The flower appeared—as vivid and open as ever, petals soft pink, their edges threaded through with faint gold light.
"A-Xin, look. I've always kept it perfectly."
A-Xin looked at it with something warm and quiet in her eyes. "Yes," she said.
"Then—will you put it in my hair? For me?" Kong Li smiled with her whole face. "If you put it there yourself, I'll be your wife. I'll never leave you again." She wrapped her arms around A-Xin's waist and rested her head against her shoulder, her voice low and full of feeling. "Even if the years ahead are all spent here—in this cold, dark Abyss—I'll stay with you. I'll watch the worlds change with you. I'll walk beside you until heaven and earth themselves are gone."
A-Xin held the flower carefully. "Outside there is color and warmth and infinite variety—and here there is only me. Kong Li, think carefully."
"Outside there may be color and warmth. But a world without A-Xin is a grey world. A still world. Here—even if it is cold, even if it is dark—with you in it, I think it is warm. I think it is bright."
A-Xin was a divine spirit who had fused her true form with the ten thousand worlds. The Abyss Between Worlds was the place most suited to her now. For a spirit without a body, the outside world meant constant erosion—slow, steady damage to her soul.
"Very well."
Kong Li heard it in A-Xin's voice—the quiet happiness she kept so close to the surface.
A-Xin placed the flower in Kong Li's hair. The two looked at each other. Then A-Xin raised a hand.
The cold, lightless abyss changed.
Mountains appeared. Rivers. Flowers and trees and all the green things. Kong Li stared, unable to speak.
The little silver flower that had been sitting quietly at the edge of the jade stone suddenly leapt up with a sound of delight. "A-Xin, A-Xin, you finally decided to do something with this place! It's so much better now. You should have gotten married sooner."
A-Xin: "…"
Kong Li came back to herself. "A-Xin—this place didn't have to be so dark all along?"
"No." A-Xin said. "Living alone and living together are very different things. When you live alone, any rock will do for a bed. When you're married—naturally I wouldn't put you through that."
Kong Li's smile was pure sunlight.
The silver spirit—Yín Líng, the little silver flower—wilted immediately, pouting. What about me? she thought. Was I not also living here?
Well. She supposed she wasn't a person. She was a flower.