NOVEL NEXT Chapter 73: Unfair
What future do they share? How was Feng to know?
"Thread carefully," the wraith warned.
Who was Yunjin to him? Feng thought long and hard. He could not find an adequate answer.
Four years ago, she was the girl he failed to save. Four years ago, she was the girl he desperately wanted to see happy after all the horrible things she suffered through.
But now? It was different. She was no longer a girl who needed him to be safe. She was no longer so weak that she could not secure her own happiness.
And so… He had no place in her life at all.
"… A dear friend," Feng finally said. "One that I cherish with all that I have, regardless of how she may feel."
The wraith said nothing, but Feng could easily sense her weary disapproval.
"Even now… Still so stubborn."
I have done Yunjin many disservices, Feng thought bitterly. But I will not lie. Not to her. And not on this.
Because from the very start, his Heart had only ever belonged to one person.
Yunjin showed no reaction to his lacklustre declaration, save for a flicker of quiet acceptance passing through her grey eyes. It was neither disappointment nor elation. It simply… was.
As if she already knew.
The Young Miss smiled, a touch more sincere.
"Then this dear friend assures you: she is not a girl who cannot take care of her own affairs any longer," she said gently. "We are not children any more, Young Master. Scions of our position must not rely on others. It shames both ourselves and the Sect."
"... I am happy to hear you have grown strong," Feng replied numbly, trying to smile back. "Yet, I cannot help but feel sad that you do not need me any more."
He understood what Yunjin was saying. It would not do for them to try and maintain this turbulent, nameless relationship between them. They had wondered for years, and now they have met once again.
Such transient things were not fated to last.
Yunjin blinked repeatedly, fighting the emotion threatening to spill over.
"You are unfair, Young Master," she repeated shakily.
"I— I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I did not mean—"
"I know," she cut him off, looking down. "I know…"
Silence stretched once more. Then, with great hesitance, she walked towards him, stopping only when she was an arm's reach away.
The Young Master's instinct screamed at him to run with each step closer she took. A presence filled the air, an acrid scent that spoke of painful deaths by toxins. His body wanted to run. It told him his life was in danger.
Feng brushed it aside. His life was unimportant.
Slowly, her fingers reached up for his face. Her hands were tightly gloved, the fabric strewn with talisman inscriptions. Anything less would see the poison within her body seep up and infect her surroundings.
Her hands stopped an inch from his face. The fingers wavered. The moment she began to pull back, Feng reached out to grab them.
Cold. Her hands were so cold. Yunjin gasped at his touch. She shivered when Feng leaned down and kissed her fingers.
His lips turned numb as the barest traces of toxins graced his mouth.
He was at the threshold of safety. Any more than that was dangerous.
Tears finally fell from Yunjin's eyes. When was the last time someone even dared to touch her?
"Be honest with me," she whispered, voice heavy. "If I had managed to persuade my father those years ago… If I had managed to convince him to bind our Sects together with marriage, when your Patriarch first reached out to him before he went to the Split-headed Carnivores… Could you have ever…with me…"
She could not bring herself to finish. And neither could he answer.
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The silence alone, however, was enough.
She closed her eyes. "I see."
He hated this. She should not be crying. Not for this. Not for him.
"Yunjin, I—"
"Don't," she interrupted him softly. "You have nothing to apologise for. This is the way things are. The way they have to be."
The Young Miss smiled. "Goodbye, Feng."
It was the first time she dared use his name during their conversation.
Yunjin moved away, or at least she tried to. The Young Miss blinked down at their fingers, still interlocked, as the Young Master refused to let go of her hand.
"Feng," her voice wavered. It was vulnerably close to breaking. "Please… Let go."
The man closed his eyes. "Not until I know you understand."
Feng did not let go. Not again. Not until he knew he would not regret doing so.
Even now, four years after their first meeting, Yunjin still did not understand what she meant to him.
In defiance of all things safe or sensible, the Young Master pulled the Young Miss even closer. Not for a kiss — putting aside that he might die if he did such a thing, the woman looked as if she might crumble if he did so — but to gather her into his arms.
He held her tight to his chest, sharing his warmth with hers.
"Feng, that's—" she tensed, shaking with shock and the knee-jerk reaction to pull away.
Eventually, finally, she leaned into him, face buried into the crook of his shoulder.
"...unfair," she sobbed.
She cried freely then. Tears soaked the front of his robes. The fabric started to wither. His shoulder began to hurt; a mere sting at first, then a searing pain as his skin hissed with toxic burns and his regeneration kicked in.
He held her closer.
"You mean more to me than you know," he whispered. "I know you will go away soon. I don't know when I'll be able to see you again, or if we will still be the same people as we are now. All the same, I need to make sure you know."
He sighed, voice shuddering. "I care for you," he murmured. "It is not the care you wanted. It will never be the care you want it to be. But I care for you all the same."
A soft warmth of laughter brushed against his chest. "I never doubted that."
She held him tighter, her fingers digging into the back of his robe as if she were holding on for dear life. Feng pressed close, even as her poison seeped into him. His organs were failing, dissolving and bleeding faster than even his regeneration could counter. A mouthful of blood nearly choked its way from his mouth.
"I'm sorry I cannot love you," he finally answered the question that had been unaddressed for years. "Not the way you want me to. I'm sorry."
Yunjin moved her face, her mouth reaching for him. It buried itself in the area between his chest and shoulders, carefully tearing the smallest silver of his flesh and no more. She swallowed. She shivered.
"This piece of you is enough," she whispered. "Goodbye, Feng. Be happy."
Only then did they finally let go. Feng took a step back. Yunjin did not look at him, already turning away.
She left him there. The Young Miss exited the hall without another word.
It was only when the tears stopped falling from his face that he dared leave the estate.
~~~
"That was not the right way."
"And what would be the right way, then? What would you have me do?"
"Love her."
"I cannot. Not when you are with me."
"Do you think this Heart refuses to beat for others because of my presence? I have long tried to return this piece of yourself to you. You will not accept it."
"... There are many things I do not understand: Why you plague my dreams; Why my soul aches when I look at you. But I do remember one thing."
"Your body under moonlit night. Me, dying as I crawled to you. I gave you something that day that I never could take back. It no longer belongs to anyone but you."
"Perhaps the man you called Zhong was once strong enough to take on the world while defying his selfishness. But I am not Zhong. And I am not strong enough to deny myself."
"No matter who came before, no matter who will come after… I know this foolish Heart of mine could only ever beat for you."
…
Feng did not hear her reply. He could not.
The wraith was already gone.
The Purple Bloom Mountain, Part 2
Despite the horrid conditions of the Blighted Bog, there was a living to be made harvesting the rich local flora that thrives within such abundant decay.
Nightshade Lotus. Phantom Vines. Blood Mushrooms. Dreadthorne Roots. Brown Nectar. All were vital ingredients required for producing the most potent of alchemical potions and medicines within the Northern Province, and they are only found strewn with the diseased innards of the Blighted Bog.
Such reagents are also high in demand and, as such, are lucrative commodities. A resourceful forager could make several times the meagre yearly earnings of farmers elsewhere in the Province with but a single trip. Those who possess the most frenzied devotion to wealth may seek their fortunes here; for many, it will be their last mistake.
Such an occupation is not without its risks. Prospective gatherers suffer from diseases like Fungi Lung and Mire Worm Toe with alarming regularity, and though cures for such illnesses exist, the necessary reagents for their concoction can only be sourced from the very same swamp that curses those afflictions in the first place. Worse, it would require a venture deeper within the Bog, where Spirit Beasts of the most monstrous nature prowl.
Joyous Corpsefly Beasts whose buzzing wings drive men to madness. Enormous Bloodvore Mosquitos with proboscises the length of an adult's forearm. And worse of all, within the deepest, most putrid waters of the swamp dwell the Plague Leeches: Spirit Beasts of such monstrous size and hunger that — once roused from its hibernation by any ill-fortune fool — would seek to consume any lifeform within a three-kilometre radius from its position. Entire villages have been wiped out overnight by the rampaging hunger of an awakened Plague Leech.
The Bog takes and gives life in equal measure. An endless cycle of birth, death, and decay, repeating and expanding for centuries without end.
Such is the power of the Divine God that lay in the centre of that accursed swamp: the Decaying Greyroots Corpse.
— Excerpt from A Citizen's Guide to the Flesh-Grafted Empire