The Red String

The Spaces Between Us

"Ah Xiang..." He tried and those thoughts screamed louder in his head. "Ah Xiang, I'm here."

She thought she was dreaming, he could feel it, but she stepped back from Cao Weining and they looked at each other for a long moment. Wen Kexing could see through her eyes as she repressed something, hid it from his view, and he could have looked. Could have pried it from her head, but he didn't. He trusted her with everything he had.

He watched Cao Weining through her as the young witch smiled peacefully and then lowered the shield without saying anything. He felt his heart swell, but it wasn't his. It was Ah Xiang's heart growing in her chest so he retreated. This wasn't for him.

He centered back into himself and saw Zhou Zishu gazing at him with love shining beautifully out of his eyes. "A Shu..." I love you, he meant to say but it suddenly became hard to think. To convey the lump in his throat and heart that beat on his tongue, but he could see that Zhou Zishu knew anyway. It was relieving somehow to have someone who didn't need words to know, who knew him all the way to his marrow without speaking.

There were too many people who spoke with honeyed words and acid smiles but Zhou Zishu, his hands held Wen Kexing's like the intricate steel of a sword. Both gentle and careful yet sure and unwavering.

The purple sphere drops to the ground and Gu Xiang is waiting for him. She practically jumps on him just like she used to do when she was a child. Her face and clothes were red through and through, stiff against him, and Zhou Zishu let go of his hand. He wrapped his arms around her immediately.

Tears welled in his eyes and he felt his shirt dampening, and it was quite suddenly all too much. Two vampires were crying against all odds and it was so much he crumpled to the ground with her. Zhou Zishu followed, then Chengling, and Cao Weining. They huddled together, sobbing and rocking in unison as the world narrowed down to the raspy exhales and hoarse sounds of sadness dispersing in the air.

Where Zhou Zishu gathered Chengling against Gu Xiang, Cao Weining pressed in from the side until one couldn't be discerned from the other. Mumbled intelligible words were whispered into the Valley as Zhou Zishu looked off to the side. His vision blurred as tears slid down his cheeks and the Valley around him shimmered as he remembered the red of that day. Red decorations hung and embellished the hard rock, but it had been tinged with laughter floating through the gauzy fabric. Then, red blood dotting the dirt and pale skin that led to cold lips devoid of laughter.

It was supposed to be a happy day. Supposed to be the beginning to the rest of Gu Xiang and Cao Weining's life, and it had ended so wrong. That wrong clung to their souls for over a century, but now it fell to the ground in gossamer flakes.

Zhou Zishu's tears ran down his face, making a path through the blood as if to show him that he had finally cleared away the agony of that day. His body shuddered and the group trembled with him, clinging tighter and tighter until Zhou Zishu felt like he couldn't breathe.

It was wonderful. It felt like his lungs, so full with bitterness, were finally letting go. He felt like he could finally live. He couldn't breathe and it was the best he had felt in a long time because it meant he was held so close that his chest had no room to move.

He would trade every breath for a second of this.

A roar shattered the peace around them and they parted to see two witches running at them with hands full of magic horror.

It happened in a flash. Gu Xiang spun in the dirt and covered Chengling with her body, and Cao Weining threw himself over them both. Wen Kexing whirled, claws out and teeth bared as Zhou Zishu jumped in front of the three smaller forms. A shot rang out, clear and sharp in the dawn air, and one of the witches stopped in place. Shock froze those features that were so filled with hate.