Chapter 44:
Saving the World through the Power of Shipping
I open my eyes to a familiar darkness. The neon light of the clock on my night stand casts stark shadows on the curtains. The ceiling lights up and I look over to see my phone, showing several notifications. There’s the date. It’s exactly the day I left. Gui hasn’t lied to me.
Tears run down my face in the silence of the night. I am back. I am. I… My limbs feel heavy. I got so used to the powers of cultivation, my body feels unwieldy and clumsy. How can I go on like this? How can I…
I start crying and don’t stop until morning.
——
The week is a blur. I call in sick and stay at home, rewatching [The Ballad of Falling Snow]. We didn’t even get to the falling snow when I was in Xiyang. The attack happened much later in the drama, snow settling over the ruins in the last scenes, burying the remnants of Xiyang as Murong Zhiyu and Liu Renqing leave the city.
I observe the drama versions of him and Feng Yu, seeing how they’re similar and so very different to the men I got to know. The drama feels like a Disney version of a classic fairytale, but it’s exactly what I need.
There’s a scene where Liu Renqing, Feng Yu and Murong Zhiyu all sit at a river together. I pause it on a frame of them laughing and cry over it for hours.
——
In the middle of the night, exactly seven days after I returned, Gui appears in my bedroom. He is muted, compared to the other times he showed his godly self to me. He isn’t even floating. He sits next to me on my bed like a friend.
“How are they?” I ask.
“Liu Renqing survived.”
“Murong Zhiyu?”
“She fell into a coma after taking on the curse. They’re sure she’ll wake, but they don’t know how long it’ll take her body to purge the curse. They held a funeral for Liu Zixuan and Zhu Chun. Officially they both died in defence of the city.”
“So the queen didn’t want to drag her daughter’s name through the mud.”
“Mhm. How have you been?”
“Miserable.”
Gui laughs. “That’s the way this usually goes. I haven’t transported a single person to help me, who came out of it unscathed. So, do you want to go back?”
“That’s… that’s an option?”
“You wouldn’t be Murong Zhiyu. You would be yourself. Yes, that’s an option, but you could never come back here. I only choose people for this task, who are inconsequential to their original world, so if I erase their existence there, it wouldn’t disturb the future.”
“Wow. Really?”
“I’m just telling the truth.”
I pause for a long moment.
“Take me back. I want to be where I mattered, at least once.”
Gui smiles at me and I’m blinded by a white light. When it fades, I can see the gates of Huoyun Sect. Dai Xuan stands in front of me, pointing.
“How… how did you…” she stammers.
I breathe in and the hot desert air fills my lungs.
I am home.
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