Pingyi

In a daze, Li Pingyi heard weeping. He took a few steps and saw a little boy sitting outside the door, tears wetting his eyelashes as he cried. Sunlight shone on the side of his face, making him look rather endearing. Li Pingyi stepped forward, and a childish voice came from his own mouth: "Little Brother Xiu..." The boy lifted his wet lashes and turned his head to look at him. Li Pingyi heard himself say with solemn conviction: "If you die, I'll be sad too." ... "Ugh." His blurred vision gradually cleared, and Li Pingyi finally woke from the dream. His entire body ached agonizingly. His mouth was bitter and astringent, filled with the taste of blood. The bones in his chest were broken, and his leg throbbed with a numbing pain—it was most likely broken as well. Before his eyes, two flies danced through the air, chasing each other. Li Pingyi wanted to raise a hand to swat them away, but nothing lifted. He squirmed on the bed a few times before finally noticing someone sitting quietly by the bedside. His face dark, sitting as still as a stone statue, he simply sat there quietly, watching him. "Father..." Li Pingyi forced out two words. Li Xiewen's expression did not flicker in the slightest; he only watched him in silence, showing neither joy nor grief. "Where are my hands...?" Li Pingyi's mind was muddled, everything drifting hazily between near and far. He called out in a raspy voice. "Gone." Li Xiewen's throat finally moved as he quietly uttered the single word. As if slapped across the face, Li Pingyi froze for a breath. All his memories rushed back at once: the pearl, the thunder-fire, the collapsing buildings... Li Pingyi suddenly began to thrash violently, crying out: "The Young Patriarch?!" Li Xiewen's throat bobbed, and he uttered the word once more: "Gone." Li Pingyi was like a chicken suddenly choked by the throat, letting out a couple of strangled clucks. Tears burst forth, streaming down his cheeks. He choked: "Gone." Li Xiewen watched him gloomily. He watched as Li Pingyi went from weeping silently to wailing aloud, and from wailing aloud to cursing furiously, until he abruptly stopped. Because Li Xiewen slapped him across the face. *Smack.* With a backhand, Li Xiewen struck his other cheek, leaving him dizzy and seeing stars. Li Xiewen then reached out to touch his neck. Li Pingyi squirmed on the bed for a moment, then sobbed: "Father, I still have unfinished business." Li Xiewen looked at him coldly. Squirming on the bed, Li Pingyi looked around and finally spotted the half-charred wooden slip at the head of the bed. Halting his tears, he whispered: "The Young Patriarch bade me deliver this text to Young Master Yuanyun. I must trouble Father with it." Li Xiewen hesitated, two scalding tears finally falling from his eyes. His voice raspy, he said: "That pearl was offered by you." "It was this child." Li Pingyi forced the words through clenched teeth, slumping as though his spine had been torn out. With tears streaming down his face, Li Xiewen said hoarsely: "Since childhood, you were always someone who gave no worry—sharp, clever, knowing when to advance and retreat. Apart from lacking a spirit aperture, you were not inferior to any of the children of the Yuan generation. "Your father was dull since youth. If not for my good ties with Brother Xuanxuan and my younger brothers' uselessness, this position of head steward would never have fallen to me." Tears streamed endlessly down Li Xiewen's face as he continued: "Later, you were born. Those two dark, gleaming eyes stared right at me, and I thought, this child is cut out to manage affairs. He will be better than me—far better than me." On the bed, Li Pingyi's mouth was filled with his father's tears, bitter and astringent. He shifted twice, tears pouring uncontrollably as he wept: "Father... I'm sorry." Li Xiewen wiped away his tears, patted his eldest son, and gritted his teeth. "Yet Xiu'er is dead... Li Yuanxiu is dead! That was Li Yuanxiu! The Young Patriarch of the Li family! The eldest son of the main branch! The mission your grandfather placed into my hands, which I in turn placed into yours! Do you understand?!" Li Pingyi closed his eyes and answered, "Father, I understand." Li Xiewen slowly stood up, tucked the half-charred wooden slip into his sleeve, and stared at his eldest son's face for a moment. Only then did he flick his sleeves, step out of the room, and pull the door shut behind him. Li Pingyi was dazzled by the piercing sunlight that entered as the door opened, his vision turning shimmering and bright. As his father left and pulled the door shut, the room plunged once more into deep darkness. The dim, yellow lamplight danced before the desk, but it was too far from Li Pingyi for him to make out his surroundings clearly. Like a worm, he squirmed twice across the bed and poked his head past the edge. He squinted and looked for a while, finding that his eyes had been injured by the thunder-fire blast; his left eye was virtually blind. Staring with his right eye, he finally made out a wooden tub beneath his feet. Crafted from mountain timber, its rim was carefully bound with sheet iron and securely lashed, not leaking a single drop of water. It was a tub of bloody water, seemingly left behind from when Li Xiewen had wiped down his body earlier. It smelled foul and fishy, and a gray rag floated upon its surface like a dead fish. "Good." Li Pingyi gauged the distance, shifted his angle using his one unbroken leg, and took several deep breaths to ease the pain that turning over put upon his fractured bones. Then, he pushed with all his might. *Plop!* He plunged headfirst into the tub. The bloody water rose just above his chest, flooding into his mouth in great gulps. Terrified that he might reflexively thrash and struggle, Li Pingyi wedged his remaining, movable leg tightly into the corner of the bedframe. A sweet taste grew stronger in his nose and throat. Li Pingyi broke into a fit of coughing, making gurgling sounds beneath the water. He convulsed as he inhaled the bloody water, then violently coughed it out, his body locking stiff and tense. The intense spasm caused urine to soak through his trousers. A beam of light flared before Li Pingyi's eyes. In the haze, he seemed to see his father Li Xiewen's face, his mother's face, and Li Yuanxiu's face flashing past him one by one. A thought surfaced in his mind: *To see them once more before dying makes it worth it after all.* *** Outside the door, Li Xiewen kept his eyes closed, his fists clenched white as tears flowed uncontrollably. Only when the gurgling inside fell silent did he let out a few shuddering sounds and slowly collapse limp to the ground. He lay prone on the floor for a while, unable to tell ceiling beam from floor. Dizzy and disoriented, he shifted, and a pair of leather boots appeared before his eyes. Li Xiewen raised his head to see a face seventy percent similar to Li Yuanxiu's, though the corners of the eyes were narrower and longer, and his expression fiercer and more ruthless. He stared straight at his face and whispered: "Uncle Xiewen, where is Li Pingyi?" Li Xiewen straightened his posture and answered in a low voice: "Greetings, Young Master Yuanjiao. Having witnessed the Young Patriarch perish before his very eyes, Li Pingyi's heart was torn with agony, and he followed him in death." Without pausing to look at Li Yuanjiao's shocked expression, he drew the half-charred wooden slip from his robes, presented it with both hands, and said heavily: "This item was entrusted by the Young Patriarch to be delivered to Young Master Yuanyun. This was the sole matter Li Pingyi could not let rest, and he has already handed it to this subordinate!" Lu Jiangxian withdrew his gaze from the myriad facets of mortal life at the foot of the mountain. His divine consciousness settled back into the mirror, arriving beside the white-jade stone table. With the gentle breeze brushing against his robes, he slowly sat down and let out a soft sigh, a trace of sorrow surfacing in his expression. "Four pairs of fathers and sons, schemes from three clans, generations of entanglements... Such is the way of the world: you fear me, and I fear..."