Clifftop Crisis and Transformation: A Thousand Li short story by Tao Wong

Author:Tao Wong [Wong, Tao]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

***

A cloud of shattered brick and compressed earth-dust rose, the sprawled bodies of the quartet of gang members lying in the gaps between. Shu Huai stood before them, one hand idly holding the dao he had taken away from the lead bandit, the other lowering from having slapped the man away. He tossed the weapon— barely cared for—onto the ground and turned away from the beaten attackers to meet the gaze of his wife.

She was old now. Nearly three decades had passed since they had first met. She was still spry, but lines along the eyes that had been hinted at now crossed her face and deepened under her eyes. Her forehead was no longer smooth like a jade piece, her hair no longer the lustrous black of youth, shot through with the occasional streak of white now.

But her eyes sparkled, with outrage and concern, with intelligence and understanding. She was still as beautiful—if not more—than when he had first seen her. Though the flicker of betrayal, as she stared at him and the sword and then the bandits lying on the ground, made him flinch internally.

For Shu Huai knew that what she had known, deep within, could no longer be avoided. A conversation that they had snuck around, to be finished later that day.

Then, shouts, from outside their gates. The city guards finally arrived, rounding up those gang members on the ground, pulling them up and tying their hands. There was a flurry of activity to be taken care of: statements to be given, bribes to be administered, repairs to be made.

It was later that evening, much later, when both concerned Elder Brother and adopted son had been sent away that she caught him contemplating the sliver of moon that poked its head out of the curtain of clouds, as if too shy to be seen this evening—or hiding from the wrath of the one that came.

“You’re healed.” Eh Huang accused.

“Yes,” he acknowledged.

“How long?”

A moment’s hesitation. “Two decades or so, now.”

“And?” She pounced, reading more than he had said. The way a true companion could.

“I’ve grown. Improved.” Not to the Nascent Soul stage, but he was at peak Core cultivation now, his core having filled itself. His cultivation, progressing with the barest effort, when for days, years, he had struggled to make it move a little.

He had found a dao, even if he did not understand it himself. Perhaps existence was not meant to be understood so much as lived.

“Then why are you still here?” Eh Huang said, glaring back at her husband. Her partner.

“Do you have to ask? After so many years?”

“But you’re an immortal. And I’m…”

She did not need to say it. He had tried, they had tried, again and again to clear her meridians. Even with his greater knowledge, his experience and the pills they acquired, they had failed. Perhaps if he had met her a decade ago, while she was a teenager herself and before her meridians had clogged up further, it would have been possible.

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