Over the past few centuries, he had often dreamt such dreams, yet whenever he opened his eyes to seek them out, they would break apart.
That man had left so freely. Aside from those few butterflies and the tassel on his blade, he had left nothing behind. Even the scent that lingered upon them was faint; one had to press it beneath the nose and breathe deeply to catch even the slightest trace.
For hundreds of years, relying on that faint trace to fall asleep, he could not help but wonder whether, in casting everything aside and leaving, there had been even the smallest reluctance.
There must have been. After all, he had so many friends. And yet, in the end, he had not chosen to stay.
The mere thought of it pricked like a thorn. From the moment he had watched him vanish, something within him had broken. Day after day, there remained only a hollow ache, an unsteady sense that nothing was quite real.
In the past, he had always been glad that Xue Cuo was so self-contained, so decisive. Now, he found himself wishing the opposite, wishing he had been a foolish romantic, one to indulge in the joys of the mortal world, to live out a full and happy life before departing, so that his leaving would not have seemed so abrupt.
Xue Cuo had never spoken to him of mortal affairs, yet a man like him would surely leave traces wherever he went.
Holding on to that thought, in the first century he wandered almost every corner of the southeastern lands.
Whenever he heard tales among the common folk of someone righting wrongs and upholding justice, he would always ask, always listen. In this way, he gathered fragments of stories. Some must have been him. Some might not have been, yet perhaps they were.
He would linger for a long while each time, searching in vain before moving on to another stretch of wilderness. Those were the times when longing gnawed at him most fiercely.
He would always fall into the illusion that Xue Cuo was still alive, merely hidden away by the Heavenly Lady. That when he grew distraught, when tears threatened to fall, Xue Cuo would suddenly leap out with smiling eyes, or stand upon a tree with his hands behind his back, startling him.
But the truth was simple. When a person dies, they are gone.
It took him a hundred years to accept this, yet even so, he could not help clinging to that futile hope.
He had knelt before all eighty-nine peaks of the Goddess, and gone as far as the Sage beyond the Ninth Heaven, seeking a definite answer.
He had also ventured into the underworld, searching every crevice, feeling his way along stone after stone in the endless black river.
Xue Cuo had left behind no soul. At that point, both the heavens above and the depths below had given him their answer. Xue Cuo was not there. And yet he still searched. Perhaps that was the only thing the living could do when they missed someone.
By the time the sixth century came, he rarely left the mountain. Most of the time, he remained in his true form, sleeping beside the stele.
This time, he dreamt a long, beautiful dream. And when he awoke, he saw him standing there, vividly alive.
The figure in his dreams had never carried such a heartbeat. It was so real that Yin Feixue almost began to suspect that the person before him truly existed.
The snowy night lay silent. Within the vast, empty sacred forest, there was only the soft susurration of falling snow.
The mound of snow atop the grave stirred, and a great tiger with silver markings rose to its feet. It stepped through the deep drifts, drawing closer, one pace at a time.
Those golden eyes were keen and composed, fixed upon him so intently it might have stirred fear in another.
But Xue Cuo did not fear. The great tiger stood nearly as tall as he did. It came close, lowered its snow-dusted head, and gently touched its cool nose to his.
It sniffed at his cheek, at his cold, ink-dark hair, as though confirming something. The nearer it came, the deeper its gaze grew, warm breath puffing softly from its mouth.
Xue Cuo sneezed, meeting its eyes, and said awkwardly, “I did not mean to.”
The tiger said nothing. With an effortless swipe of its great paws, it knocked him into the snow, burying its soft head against him, nudging and pressing until Xue Cuo could not help but twist away.
Breathing hard, he braced both hands and feet against the tiger’s head and said sternly, “Yin Feixue, have you no dignity? If you have something to say, stand up—”
Before he could finish, the great tiger vanished. In its place stood a silver-haired youth in white robes, who seized Xue Cuo’s wrists and pinned them above his head.
Those brilliant eyes were like molten gold, dangerous, restrained, utterly uncompromising. And yet when he spoke, his voice was hoarse, broken, as though torn apart by wind and rain. “Xue Cuo.”
Xue Cuo fell silent. He had slept for a very long time. In his dreams there had been nothing, yet faintly, he seemed to recall years slipping by.
He had awakened from the golden pool and looked out over the mountain peaks. Centuries had passed. The mountains still stood, but the villagers once gathered beneath Goddess Peak were long gone.
Time had drifted far away.
With nothing to do, or perhaps driven by some quiet pull in his heart, he had followed the narrow path back, simply to look upon his old grave.
When they had parted, he had never imagined he would make him wait so long. Nor had he imagined they would meet again.
“Is it you?”
“It is.”
He pushed himself upright, tilting his head as he gently brushed the thin layer of snow from the other’s hair. His gaze was soft, like a spring night lake that never freezes.
How had Yin Feixue grown so thin? His jaw had sharpened to a fine point. That once confident, spirited beauty had been worn into something almost clumsy by longing.
“I’m back.”
Before he could say more, his lips turned cool. Cold lips pressed hard against his own, the force of the kiss edged with a kind of desperate madness.
Xue Cuo blinked, a flicker of amusement rising as he tilted his head, yet he could not avoid that chill, snow-scented kiss.
Yin Feixue bit lightly at his slender neck, sharp tiger teeth grazing his skin as though measuring its warmth. One hand slid slowly to the back of his head, cradling him, while the faint fragrance of lotus deepened between them, like a dream that would never need to end.
Then, suddenly, tears fell.
Since the day Xue Cuo had left, it seemed he had never cried again. And yet now, faced with something so real it felt unreal, he could not stop.
Cold droplets fell one by one onto warm skin, making him shiver.
Xue Cuo lifted a hand, threading his fingers through strands of silver hair, touching his neck, then moving upward to stroke his head.
Half-sitting in the snow, he drew him close, holding him gently as one might hold a great, winter-weary cat, letting him cling as he pleased. “Am I dead?”
“No. You’re alive. Perfectly alive.”
Yin Feixue held him fast, his voice hoarse. “If this is a dream, you may as well kill me.”
He had gone so long without being able to touch him. Even if he could now, he would never dare believe it.
Yet illusions held no warmth. The figure in dreams, even when smiling, was always distant, as though he might vanish at any moment. He would never allow himself to be held so tightly, nor would he repeatedly knead at the ears that had only just emerged.
Slender fingers moved from the crown of his head to his chin, lifting his jaw, refusing to let him bury himself and hide against his neck.
The great tiger was dissatisfied, stubbornly trying to coil around him. Its thick, fluffy tail lashed restlessly against the ground, scattering fine snow.
If one looked closely, within those golden irises there was not only a faint shimmer of moisture, but also a dazed, dreamlike confusion.
Xue Cuo found it rather amusing. He seized his face and rubbed it hard, laughing as he mocked, “How long have you been asleep? Have you not seen anyone for so long that you’ve turned into a delicate tigress?”
He spread his hands. At his fingertips, several small paper butterflies appeared. They fluttered their wings, multiplying, growing in number, circling Yin Feixue in a riot of colour, rendering the once steady, mountain-like demon king faintly foolish, almost endearingly slow-witted.
Xue Cuo could not help but laugh aloud. All the heaviness and loss from before vanished in an instant, replaced by the easy familiarity of years long past.
Only then did Yin Feixue truly realise this could not be a dream.
He was alive. Alive, and standing right before him.
A thunderclap seemed to explode in his mind. From head to toe, a terrifying numbness seized him. His voice nearly failed him, his entire being turning rigid, like a statue.
“Xue Cuo…” The words were barely audible, trembling. His heart tightened violently, as though something within had abruptly ceased, everything thrown into disarray.
Xue Cuo started, his expression changing at once. He struck Yin Feixue lightly on the face. “Yin Feixue? Feixue? Your Majesty?”
Why had he suddenly gone deathly pale mid-sentence, as though he had forgotten even how to breathe? That wan, bloodless face looked as though his Dao heart might shatter and his soul scatter at any moment.
In the next instant, he was pulled into an even tighter embrace. Not a single word followed.
Only the harsh sound of breath and a heartbeat pounding like thunder, so strong it seemed to pass straight through the thin armour, stirring even Xue Cuo’s steady heart into a matching rhythm.
Xue Cuo tilted his head back. Snow fell in thick flurries. Cold flakes landed upon his cheeks. He did not brush them away, only gazed absently up at the gentle moon above.
In this life, he had known no small measure of pride. And his ending, too, had been a complete one.
He did not linger long in the snow with the great tiger. Before long, he sprang up with renewed energy, rolled up his sleeves, and began enthusiastically digging at his own grave.
Worthy of his title as demon king, Yin Feixue quickly gathered himself and stepped forward to help dismantle the mound.
Yet the moment Xue Cuo used his Supreme Freedom Technique to vanish briefly, the faint smile on Yin Feixue’s face disappeared at once. The black blade slipped from his grasp, striking the ground, and his expression became indescribably stricken.
Even in the face of the great calamity, he had never looked so dreadful.
Xue Cuo reappeared beside the grave, knocking about with a stick. Noticing Yin Feixue’s stiffness, he belatedly realised something.
He glanced at him.
Yin Feixue said nothing. He stepped forward, his expression composed once more, though his tail hung low and his ears stood rigid, betraying the tension beneath.
With a single strike, he broke open the tightly sealed tomb, unravelling layer upon layer of restrictions and formations, then led Xue Cuo inward.
The tomb had been carved into the mountain itself. Along the way, murals adorned the walls. Channels of clear water ran on either side, planted with golden lotuses. The place was suffused with immortal qi, utterly devoid of any gloom one might expect of a grave.
Funerary objects lined the path. Xue Cuo picked up a crudely moulded clay figure and turned it over in his hand. “And this?”
“Xuan Zhao made it for you,” Yin Feixue replied.
He frowned slightly, recalling Xuan Zhao’s ambiguous words to Xue Zhenzhen, and the way he had stood before the tomb, on the verge of tears. It seemed he had known something.
Yin Feixue said nothing more. He glanced at Xue Cuo, only to see him peering about with unabashed curiosity, as though everything were new. He could not help but laugh softly.
This man… truly…
By the time they reached the radiant golden coffin, Xue Cuo had already gathered most of the burial items. Clearly in high spirits, he circled the ancient incense burner before it, and on a whim, lit a stick of incense.
Yin Feixue’s face darkened at once. Without a word, he reached out and snuffed it out.
Xue Cuo scratched his head, coughed lightly, and stepped aside with his hands clasped behind his back.
A slender hand came to rest upon the coffin lid and pushed. The lid slid open, revealing what lay within.
Xue Cuo leaned in to look, then froze. His gaze swept across the contents before he slowly turned back to Yin Feixue.
“You…”
Yin Feixue lowered his long lashes. He still carried that effortless composure, yet there remained one thing he could not relinquish.
“It is only a small selfishness.”
When his lifespan came to its end, he would leave behind neither soul nor true spirit, allowing himself to disperse between heaven and earth. To walk the same path as Xue Cuo, and return together to the Great Dao as one.
