A man was looking at the body of a young boy approximately in his early teens that was lying in a pool of water. The man's eyes were devoid of emotion, save for a touch of fatigue which was reflected on both the young boy's sleeping visage and also the man's flawless face.
He then languidly darted his glance towards outside the thin but impenetrable barrier that surrounded the young boy. Outside the barrier, thin, black strings swam around, trying futilely to find a way inside.
The young boy's physique must have been a tantalizing vessel for the malice to take over. However, the barrier was flawless and impenetrable. It was the working of his sister, an immortal who was adept in ancient formations. More than that, the man knew, even if the malice could get somehow close, his soul that would otherwise be residing inside the young boy was too powerful. The malice never had a chance.
Nevertheless, the thin barrier stood, emitting a faint reddish colour every time the black strings touched its membrane.
Just moments ago, Zuo ZhouLei stepped his feet into the body of shallow water to reach a blooming lone red lotus.
As soon as he touched the flower, the red petals bloomed larger but fainter in colour, dispersing to the surrounding and forming a protective cocoon.
And as soon as Zuo ZhouLei touched the flower, Lei's sleeping soul awoke, separating himself from his mortal self.
Lei, and the empty sleeping husk of Zuo ZhouLei, were inside a giant transparent red lotus' bud.
The space inside the red lotus' barrier was an alternate dimension, the pure energy was the same as that of his home, heaven. Lei knew the culprit who had summoned him as well as his physical body to this very site. Just by looking at the barrier, he knew. And looking at the swarming black malice outside the barrier, he could more or less deduce the reason behind it.
"Lei." A feminine voice, laced with a similar weariness was heard from his side.
"Ming." He greeted back. He would not forget the voice of his own sister, no matter how many incarnations he had gone through.
"Your high... I mean, Lei." Another voice, Yue's, was heard.
Lei raised an eyebrow, before nodding slightly to acknowledge the moon deity's presence as well.
"I would not have even thought about this if I could find another solution," Tian Ming sighed, curling her lips slightly as she saw the black silhouettes outside the lotus barrier,
"This may intervene with my own tapestry of fate. But I guess the only ones here are deities, and we can't let this problem to keep going anyway."
"I guess the red lotus was your idea?" Lei chuckled. Zuo ZhouLei might not have known why Sage Shen Zheng had sent him to fetch a rare red lotus that did not have any historical record of any benefit whatsoever, but one look at the barrier and its creator - Tian Ming - he knew she was behind it somehow.
"Hn." The scribe of fate nodded, "Though it was done using Yue's help as well. After all, as the moon deity, he is the guardian of dreams."
"I asked Yue to give a dream to that mortal shifu of yours, that the red lotus can aid enlightenment for immortality. Of course, it's not true, and after this, Yue will just appear again in that Sage's dream to say that it's not his fate to obtain the red lotus." Tian Ming looked at Zuo ZhouLei's body, "Don't worry. There won't be any consequences to your mortal body. You won't get punished."
Lei could only feel sorry for Sage Shen Zheng to be played by his mischievous sister.
"Why here though?" Lei asked, "It could be anywhere where the energy is pure. Wu Shan sect also has such a place... . A cave."
He was referring to Bu Gui cave, where Zuo ZhouLei had obtained his sword.
"Because, I have to show you those ... things. Otherwise you wouldn't even bat an eyelid and would just say I was overreacting." Ming gestured her chin towards the swirling blackness outside the barrier, and did not forget to grumble about Lei's skewed priority for a certain white flower's spirit.
Lei sighed. The rest did not need to be explained.
Bu Gui cave still contained pure energy – as pure as it could get. It could easily be used by the deities to be a portal to the mortal world. However, there was no malice in the cave. Perhaps not yet; while in this small lake, the malice had started to take over the pure energy of the site. Only where the red lotus bloomed and within the vicinity of the barrier, the qi was still uncontaminated. However, as soon as the barrier dispersed, malice would take over the lake.
"He... cannot wait any longer, can he?" This time Lei directed his question towards Yue, "Bian... is getting weaker, isn't he?"
Tian Ming nodded her head with forlorn expression,
"It's all karma. As the guardian of the Endless Water, Bian accumulated too much bad karma through his involvement in mortal fates, and finally came to this inevitable punishment. But Lei.. he is ... our brother, your brother. Imperial Brother, the Heavenly King, also asked me to seek your help. Besides, the only one who can stop malice from pouring out of the Endless water, is him."
Yue added further,
"Lei. My cultivation, my karma, my power, is not strong enough to sustain Bian's ancient soul. Only you can help him. Tian Ming and the Heavenly King cannot do this as well as they also have not accumulated enough karma – none of them have ever gone through the mortal tribulations through incarnations like you already have."
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The oldest of the Tians – the Heavenly King – had the responsibility of guarding the immortal realms and setting order for the citizens of heaven.
The third brother of the Tians – the Hell King – had the responsibility of guarding hell, the underworld.
The fourth brother of the Tians – Tian Bian – was the Seer, the Guardian of Endless Water. His duty was to look after the souls passing the domain of his power on their journey from the worlds to their next cycle of reincarnation, or to the underworld.
The fifth was the only female – Tian Ming. She was the Scribe of Fate.
Of all the Tians, the only one who had to go through tribulations was the second – Tian Lei, the sky deity.
Heaven only existed in heaven, hell only existed in hell; the Endless Water also existed in the plane of the immortals as well. The Scribe of Fate also could never leave her domain, even if that was to accumulate karma for herself. The four Tians, apart from Tian Lei – were bound by their respective responsibilities and their domains. Two had absolute power over heaven and hell; two had the prestige to write and watch over fates. One might say they had the ultimate power, but they had the ultimate loneliness as well.
There were myriads of worlds, innumerable realms where life and death regulated the life of mortals residing in it. Tian Lei was the only one who could be incarnated through those worlds and still had his soul linked to his domain. After all, the sky was always everywhere, no matter which world he appeared and was reincarnated in. Hence, Tian Lei carried the burden of the Tians, accumulating karma for the whole Imperial clan, undergoing the tribulations needed to sustain his and his siblings' power to keep doing their responsibility.
However, if his siblings had the ultimate loneliness by never being able to undergo mortal incarnations, was Tian Lei really the lucky one for experiencing such privilege? Was it truly a privilege, and not a curse?
To undergo deaths, heartbreaks, to be loved and abandoned, to be betrayed, to see the ugliest of mortals' souls.
Although Tian Ming might say she wove the most harrowing of fates for the deities for their mortal incarnations, there were only certain patterns she could paint and dictate throughout their mortal journeys. More often than not, she was only certain of their ends, not the progress of the actual lives. The in-betweens, depended on a lot of factors that was outside her control and involved too many souls of strength and color.
Her duty as the Scribe of Fate, was also tightly linked with Tian Bian's responsibility as the Guardian of the Endless Water.
If one wayward soul was to escape Tian Bian's intended path of course for it in the Endless Water, it could cause irreparable tears to Tian Ming's tapestry of fate that would ultimately affect billions of other souls linked to that one single string.
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More than his other siblings, Tian Lei had gone through thousands of lives of suffering. He had also gone through thousands of love, but none of them were eternal. After all, he was a deity, and the other mortals he had shared his life with in the past were not. They would forget him once they had exhausted their lifespan.
Lei would always remember, but none of the mortal souls remembered.
Except two. Two souls remembered; not in their minds, but they remembered him somehow, in a place inside their souls - no matter how hidden and indiscernible the memory was.
One belonged to a mortal female.
They had met a long time ago and the soul had followed him through his reincarnations. He did not know at first, but at one time, that soul – her soul – was so white and bright that it finally attracted him, making him pay more attention to her next incarnations. That one soul – a tiny mortal soul that was thought to be insignificant by any other immortal – sacrificed her lives time and time again to save Lei's mortal incarnations. It did not do much to his inevitable death of course, but she finally accumulated her own strong good karma, and she was always linked to his existence.
Until one day that the soul refused to move on to her next incarnation – despite the common knowledge that mortal souls possessed no leftover will from their initial lives. The bright light that was her soul always stayed by the Endless Water's edge. Although it possessed no corporeal body or physical features, even Tian Lei could see that she was always watching him.
As one who had experienced thousands of lives, Lei knew more than to be attached. There was no such thing. But this soul... he could not help but to notice this stubborn soul.
As the Guardian of the Endless Water, even Tian Bian was unable to set the soul's course to her next incarnation. It baffled and irked The Seer as her stubbornness was a rift to his perfect record of being a guardian of the souls.
It did not matter what kind of mortal riches and wonderful fate Tian Ming had woven for her, she would not budge. Until finally, Tian Lei and Tian Bian took a gamble: they decided to cultivate this mortal soul in heaven. If she succeeded, the mortal soul could gain a deity's sentience, and possibly cultivate in the heaven to become one of the immortal spirits and obtain her own corporeal body. If she failed, her accumulation of good karma would vanish and she would once again be subjected to cycle of reincarnations. Once her good karma was exhausted and her link to Tian Lei severed, she would not have any strength to avoid her next incarnation.
Thus, this one tiny mortal soul was planted by the Endless Water.
She grew, constantly trying to reach the sky, Lei's domain.
Tian Bian watched, gradually becoming envious, especially as the Guardian of the Endless Water and of those souls, he could see her past attachments, her past lives that were linked to his brother. He guarded her growth, but he did not guard his own resentment.
Perhaps Lei was lucky. Although he experienced a lot of death, he experienced a lot of commendable mortal qualities as well: patience, love, forgiveness, letting-go.
Tian Bian was always alone. The deities had always been busy with their own solitary duties, their own immortal lives, going through their days in motion. Tian Bian was no different - as one who had all the time in the universe, there was little he could do to ease resentment born from a lonely heart.
Tian Bian wanted her attachment to himself. He wanted her attention to himself. He wanted her blooming for him.
But the white tree never bloomed for the Guardian of The Endless Water.
The second soul that became attached to Tian Lei belonged to a mortal male. In Zuo ZhouLei's life, this soul's attachment to Lei was his third one.
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"What would you have me do?" Lei sighed again.
"Ascend to immortality, Lei!" Tian Ming hastily replied, "Your mortal body already has the ability to do it. After all, initially you did not even have to be born as a mortal. Just attain Sageism, and then ascend to heaven. You have to help us get rid of this malice. Help Bian! Do you know that this is not the only world that malice has been leaked to?"
Malice was formed from souls that had accumulated too much bad karma. Normally, with Tian Bian, he would direct these souls to their next cycle of reincarnations, or direct them to the underworld for the Hell King to deal with.
With Tian Bian being dormant, the Endless Water was unguarded. Some of these souls had passed through the sieve and wreaked havoc in the worlds that they were not even intended to be born into.
As Tian Ming suggested, Tian Lei should return to heaven and focus on repairing Tian Bian's dormant soul instead. Only Tian Lei, who had accumulated enough power and karma from his mortal tribulations, could do so. Only he could do as such without being broken.
Although the last time he imparted more than he could afford to -- to save a certain flower spirit -- he had to undergo another hundreds of reincarnations again.
However, once he ascended, who knew how long it would take for Bian to gain his power back to guard the Endless Water? How long would it take to fix this malice?
What would he do if when he was busy repairing the other worlds, repairing Tian Bian, the malice in this world somehow got their hands on her? How many more reincarnations would she need to go through? Even if he was to follow, when would that be? Would they still be linked to each other? Would he take such a chance?
And, what would his silly mortal brother, that had followed him across three lifetimes, do if he were to disappear? Grieve and succumb to another death, only to follow him again to the next one? How long would that take? Lei had forever, what about their souls that would be subjected to more deaths and mortal pain?
Tian Lei closed his eyes and as he opened them again, his azure eyes were bright with resolution.
He walked towards Yue and lifted his finger, touching the middle of the moon deity's forehead. Yue's Shang Dantian felt only lukewarm at first, but it soon grew so hot that it was almost painful. His eyes were wide in astonishment. The swarm of foreign energy was forceful but strong.
Yue then realized that it was not only Lei's pure qi that was being transferred. It contained part of Lei's soul as well. Such was an immortal's existence. Their energy was their soul.
"Lei! What are you doing? If you do that here, in this mortal realm, your soul is no longer complete and it will be neigh impossible for you to obtain immortality in this world." Tian Ming gasped in horror.
As Lei withdrew her finger, his countenance was considerably much paler. He chuckled,
"If that were to happen, then I hope you wouldn't weave me too bad of a fate for my next life, Ming."
He then clutched his heart, slightly bending forward as he tried to stabilize the sudden loss of energy.
"Ming, you might think I am foolish. But as I have lived the life of a mortal for thousands of times, I have grown to now possess a trait of a mortal as well." A corner of his lips was lifted in a helpless smile,
"I have grown to be greedy."
"I cannot leave her. I don't want to. Even if that means I have to go through a thousand more deaths, I have to be with her. I have to look after her. In this life, she is here. I have to be with her until the end."
"But Ming... . Yue... . I cannot forsake Bian as well. Before all this... before I met my precious magnolia... , Bian and I... are brothers. And Ming, I would have done the same for you."
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Back in heaven, Tian Ming and Yue were blankly staring at the dark body of Endless Water.
"To impart his soul just like that. It's not an insubstantial amount as well." Yue muttered, still feeling the pool of energy swirling inside of him. He knew though, the energy was not really meant for him, but for the Seer's soul.
Some time passed in silence, though no one could really tell how long. In the water, lights of various brightness and color swam and bobbled mindlessly. However if one was to pay attention, some black mist sometimes swam past them – though no one knew the destination.
Ming suddenly stood and looked down into Yue's eyes.
Or into Bian's soul.
"Bian! You should get up now! I know you have gained consciousness. Don't you still have your pride as a deity? Look where your negligence has got us to. Our Imperial Brother wants to see you once you at least sort out the Endless Water. Lei has even given some of his soul to you. Think carefully of what you have done!!"
She then jumped and flew out of sight, leaving Yue still sitting by the water's side. Soon, Yue felt the pool of energy previously pooling inside of him suddenly leaving his body.
He did not even notice the faint greyish silhouette of a person that had slowly formed by the Endless Water since before Tian Ming left. The pool of energy leaving Yue's body slowly streamed towards that silhouette, making the person's physique become more vivid by each passing moment.
As the last string of energy – Lei's energy – formed a complete physique of a familiar but solemn face of a deity, Yue took a sharp intake of air.
The Guardian of Endless Water was back, and Yue could not help but be vigilant.
After all, this was the deity that had taken over his last mortal's body and was indirectly the cause of his death.
The person turned his body, Yue could finally see his face.
The face carried a few points of similarity to Tian Ming and Tian Lei, but Tian Bian's face was more inanimate and expressionless, save for the one emotion Yue could discern:
Sadness.
"Yue. I need some time alone." Tian Bian finally spoke, his voice was almost inaudible, "Ming was right... I ... have a responsibility. I have to guard the Endless Water... ."
The moon deity could only acquiesce and turned his back to leave the place. He could faintly hear Bian's voice from behind,
"Yue... 'Zhang KongJing'. I am sorry."
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"What a mess." Tian Bian sighed and walked towards the water, submerging his ankles in the blackness.
"But I created this mess." He smiled ruefully and lifted both of his hands. Although Lei's qi that also contained the sky deity's soul had helped him gain his corporeal body back, he still had to do his own cultivation to stabilize his power.
He looked at his own reflection in the water. His hair was now ashen white, his existence was still weak. But perhaps, the weakness actually made him able to think slowly and clearly, without having to use his power.
Ming has said before: "Lei has given some of his soul to you. Think of what you have done."
As a deity, to be imparted another deity's soul was to be given a share of their burden and memory as well. With the sliver of Lei's soul that Bian also now possessed, he gained a little bit of insight into Lei's past tribulations, Lei's tie to the mortal soul that had become the white tree, their pasts together. His previous knowledge of looking into the Endless Water to see mortal lives was like a third party watching a movie. By now possessing a part of and looking through Lei's soul, it almost felt like he experienced those times himself.
It was not only love, it was thousands of lives' suffering and sacrifices.
Bian walked towards the dormant white tree and covered his face with both of his hands. There was still a bit of him that was unable to let go. Previously, he had thought that he had guarded the white tree for as long as Tian Lei had done. That he could be his brother, that he could also feel, that she could feel for him.
Previously he did not know their pasts, their mortal lives, the white tree's choice and attachment in every single one of them, was always for Tian Lei. Perhaps he would know if he bothered to look into it – after all, he was the Guardian of the souls. Then, he would understand as he had at the moment:
He, Tian Bian, never had a chance.
"I... never had a chance... never have... never will," he whispered, caressing the branches of the tree softly as if afraid to cause any pain from his touch,
"But I have caused you pain, haven't I? I hurt you, not just once or twice... ."
Even as he was asleep inside Yue's body, Bian could hear every word that was transcribed, that was spoken by Lei. Perhaps, it had to take a lot of sleeping for his muddled mind to gain a semblance of clarity.
"[I cannot forsake Bian as well. Before all this... before I met my precious magnolia... , Bian and I... are brothers]," he muttered, echoing the exact same words Tian Lei had said to Ming.
"I... what have I done?"
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----------Runexi's notes ----------
Isn't The Seer kinda handsome though? But then again, who isn't handsome in novels... . Except Qian FanSheng perhaps... Mirror mirror on the wall...who is the least handsome of them all... .
Somehow, I miss that idiot.