208 The City Beneath the Willow

Da Ji stood in silence as the platform descended.

The people began to rebuild.

And just like that, five years quickly passed…

“It’s unbelievable how fast progress can be made when given a direction.”

The years had shaped New Willow beyond recognition. Once a fractured settlement gasping for breath beneath the weight of war and despair, it now rose proud and shining. Towering walls had replaced makeshift barricades, reinforced with layered stone and imbued with qi-resistant scripts. The white banner bearing the emblem of a willow tree fluttered atop every major building, a symbol of resilience and a soft defiance against the chaos of the current world.

Five years had passed since the Yama King’s invasion. In the aftermath, Wen Yuhan had emerged not just as a leader, but as something closer to a saint. She brokered unity among rival city-states, brought order to the streets, and invoked Da Wei’s name like a prophet weaving scripture. Atop the very platform that once levitated the city's survivors during the siege, a shrine now stood. It was carved from polished obsidian and crowned with silver filigree; it housed Da Wei’s enshrined image… young, tired, noble, and unknowable. Before it, people knelt in prayer.

And at its base, Da Ji watched, unable to decide if the whole thing was inspiring or insane.

The shrine held more than reverence. It had become the spine of a new philosophy, drawn from a series of books Da Wei had written in what had apparently been only a single year. His ideas on the conscience as dao, on freedom as the foundation of power, on humanity’s boundless potential and the heavy price of wielding it… They became gospel. Preachers wandered the streets quoting his lines. Children learned them before they learned arithmetic. In the alleys and markets, debates over interpretations of the “Path of Conscience” were common, sometimes impassioned, sometimes violent.

And yet he had never returned.

Five long years.

Da Ji’s chest tightened. She remembered the warmth of her brother’s palm on her head, the weight of his words when he made promises he could not keep. She had waited. First with hope, then with bitterness, and now with resignation that festered beneath the skin like a half-healed wound.

A voice brought her back to the present.

“What is it, Ji’er? Is there a problem?”

Chen Enlai stood beside her, now adorned in the crisp formal robes of New Willow’s military elite. The Willow Tree emblem gleamed from his belt, polished daily, no doubt. He had matured into a man both composed and charismatic, his once-boyish features sharpened by duty. And yet, when he looked at her, his eyes still softened with boyish awe.

“It’s fine, Enlai, dear…” she murmured.

His cheeks tinged red. Even after two years of marriage, she still had that effect on him. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was an easy and familiar gesture. His gloved hand found hers, and together they walked down the snowy path, boots crunching on white-crusted stone.

In the distance, a low tremor rippled through the ground as the iron monster approached. Steam hissed from its joints as the newly built rail engine, a marvel of post-Da Wei engineering, roared past. Gleaming steel, pulled by qi-infused combustion cores, shrieked along the tracks. The temperature dropped as it passed, and Da Ji calmly summoned a thin qi membrane around them, deflecting the cold with practiced ease.

“You never cease to amaze me,” Chen Enlai said, brushing her fingers with his. “Your qi control is impeccable.”

“Not this again,” Da Ji sighed, her voice low, tired in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. “I already told you. I’m not coming back to the military.”

Chen Enlai frowned, not pressing the matter but visibly disappointed. He respected her boundaries, but the distance between who she had been and who she had become was hard for him to ignore.

He didn’t know the truth.

The military had not broken Da Ji. The truth was far crueler. In the last five years, her condition had worsened. What had begun as whispers… the occasional cruel suggestion in a crowded room… had evolved into something far darker. The hallucinations were no longer content to haunt her ears. Now they bled into her vision: black crows watching from impossible corners, shadows that twisted in ways no living creature should move, glimpses of Da Wei dying again and again, in countless ways across landscapes she’d never seen.

And worst of all was... the voice.

“This world doesn’t deserve you. Let it burn.”

She clenched her hand tighter around Enlai’s, willing the thought away.

The physicians said it was stress. The spiritualists claimed it was a karmic echo from the invasion. The few who dared speculate in whispers called her condition a mark of evil and a representation of bad karma. But none of them have an idea just how hard it was.

Only her husband's arms, on rare days, seemed to quiet the madness.

As they continued walking, Da Ji stared at the people around them. She watched them talk about conscience as if it were a tangible force. She watched young men quote Da Wei’s texts while carving food rations, and mothers named their children after metaphors Da Wei had once used.

It made her sick.

And yet… she also saw peace, order, and hope. All were built in the hollow Da Wei had left behind.

Chen Enlai’s voice was calm but firm as he continued, thinking it would be a waste not to at least try. “I know you’re uncomfortable with the idea,” he said, adjusting his robes as the wind picked up, “but at some point, you will have to fight again.”

Da Ji didn’t respond immediately. The snow crunched beneath their boots as they turned into an alley that overlooked one of New Willow’s many training grounds. Youths in worn but proud armor practiced under the watchful eye of qi-instructors. Even here, in the capital of the Sacred Groves, every soul was trained to fight. They couldn’t afford anything less.

“It’s not about being uncomfortable,” Da Ji finally said. “It’s about not wanting to be a monster again.”

Chen Enlai exhaled. “No one blames you for what happened five years ago. You were overwhelmed. You lashed out. So what if you shot one of the protesters? Wen Yuhan brought him back. It’s not—”

“You won’t understand!” Da Ji’s voice cracked, rising like a blade from a sheath. She stopped abruptly at the corner of the alley, and Enlai froze too, the steam of his breath mingling with hers in the cold.

He turned to her, eyes dark. “Then make me understand.”

But before she could speak, a sudden melodic voice rang through the air, breaking their argument like ice beneath a hammer.

“Wen Yuhan, oh noble priestess, whose love burns eternal for the boy of miracles, whose shrine she built from blood and sorrow—”

They both turned to see a ragged minstrel perched on an overturned crate, strumming a lute with cracked nails. The man sang with wild passion, his words drawing a small but entertained crowd.

“—‘Twas not war, nor heaven, nor fate that moved her—

But the stolen touch of Da Wei’s breath!

For she kissed his corpse and wept his name,

Now she bears his face beneath her frame!”

The ballad devolved into an increasingly bizarre tale involving stolen bodies, forbidden rites, and a love too transcendent for mortal flesh. The sheer absurdity of it made even the soldiers pause in disbelief.

Chen Enlai blinked. “Is he saying… that Wen Yuhan and your brother…?”

Da Ji groaned, running a hand down her face. “That’s the third time this month someone’s sung that version. There’s another where she’s secretly his reincarnation, and one where she killed him and wears his soul like a robe. The rumors are getting worse.”

It was true. The cult of personality that had formed around Da Wei… and Wen Yuhan by extension… had birthed stories too strange to be called propaganda. Wen Yuhan’s miraculous powers had only fanned the flames. She could heal wounds that should have been mortal. She had once resurrected an entire squadron of soldiers during the defense against the Yama King. The Day of Healing festival, which commemorated Da Wei’s first miracle, had transformed into a quasi-religious event.

But for Da Ji, all of it felt like trying to wrap the sky in silk. Her brother wasn’t a god. He wasn’t some eternal idea. He was a person. He was gone.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, voice losing its heat. “For raising my voice. I’m just… tired.”

Chen Enlai looked at her. For a moment, it seemed he might press again, might try to prod past the layers she had built between herself and the world. But instead, he scratched his cheek and muttered, “So… am I sleeping in the living room?”

Da Ji blinked at him. Then, with a tired smile tugging at her lips, she said, “No.”

He looked surprised.

“We need to make a baby.”

The words came out so plainly, Chen Enlai choked on nothing. His face turned crimson in an instant. “W-what?”

“I’ve decided.” Da Ji took his hand and began walking again, faster this time. “That way, you’ll stop nagging me about returning to the military. And maybe my parents will stop bothering me about grandchildren. It’s getting exhausting.”

“You can’t just… Ji’er!” he sputtered, half-dragged behind her. “You can’t just say that with so many people and walk away!”

But she did.

The laughter of bystanders echoed behind as Chen Enlai ran after her.

Their house was small, nestled in the quiet crook of New Willow’s upper district. It was neither rich nor poor, but modest in the way a soldier’s home ought to be. The walls were wood with qi-infused lacquer to keep the warmth in, and the windows were latticed with woven glass panels that sang when the wind passed.

It was there, behind those paper walls, that Chen Enlai and Da Ji collapsed together into breathless silence, sweat cooling against bare skin. The act had been driven more by frustration than romance, an outlet for unspoken things. As their heartbeats slowed, Chen Enlai drifted into sleep, snoring gently, his arm draped protectively over her stomach as if shielding a life that refused to take root.

Da Ji remained still beneath the covers. Her hand absently traced the lines of his knuckles before gently lifting his arm to tuck the blanket around him. She rose, moving with the grace of a disciplined cultivator, and dressed herself in loose robes. The fabric whispered softly around her as she stepped out to the small balcony that overlooked the frost-touched street below.

The moon was full tonight. It was glaring, heavy, and almost accusing.

She folded her arms, feeling the thin cold seep into her sleeves. The voices hadn’t spoken when she and her husband were making love, but that only made her more anxious. The voices were never truly gone, only waiting. They came when she was vulnerable… when she bled, when she cried, when she tried to smile.

Five years had passed since the Yama King’s invasion, and with it, her brother’s disappearance. The city had grown tall and proud, and yet she had grown twisted inside. Wen Yuhan, once so open and perceptive, now avoided her with smiles too practiced. And Da Ji? She had ascended into the Spirit Mystery Realm without knowing how. It had taken most elite cultivators decades to reach that stage, or so she’d read from Da Wei’s books… Meanwhile, she had done it in four years!

Worse yet, her spiritual roots were muddled. No one with her foundation should have advanced so quickly, yet she had, and without any bottleneck. She never told Enlai. She never told anyone.

As the moonlight kissed her face, she exhaled mist, and it curled unnaturally, forming shapes… crows, fox tails, and weeping eyes. She’d developed powers she hadn’t trained: frost that answered her pain, illusions that mirrored her fear, and charm that coiled from her voice like a serpent through fog. None of it made sense.

And worst of all… she still couldn’t conceive a child.

They had tried, year after year, marking cycles, drinking foul herbal tonics, enduring the awkward inquiries of physicians and the polite pity of friends. Each month ended with bleeding and failure. And each failure was another crack in her heart.

Yes, they were young, but still, it was embarrassing…

“Ji’er,” came Chen Enlai’s voice from the doorway, still thick with sleep, “is something wrong? You’re still awake…”

She didn’t answer at first.

He chuckled softly, rubbing his eyes. “It looks like I didn’t put in enough effort. Shall we go another round?”

Da Ji scoffed, though her laughter dissolved into something brittle. She turned her face away. “There must be something wrong with me. I can’t conceive. And now I… I can’t even sleep.”

Chen Enlai stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. His warmth was familiar, solid, and dependable.

“Is it the dreams again?” he whispered into her shoulder. “Is it that bad?”

Da Ji nodded slowly. “You died in it, Enlai… Not just you. A lot of people. Sometimes, I see people I don’t recognize. Sometimes, they become monsters. Sometimes… I become them. It’s like I’m watching a mirror break, and each shard is a life I never lived.”

She trembled. Chen Enlai tightened his embrace.

“Don’t let the dreams fool you,” he said gently. “You’re here. You’re safe. And no matter what happens, I’m here too.”

She leaned into him, letting her body rest against his… but her mind remained restless. She wanted to believe him. She really did. But the truth was cruel in its simplicity: she needed him, not because of love, but because she couldn’t stand being alone anymore.

Chen Enlai was her shelter. Her crutch. Her anchor to a world that stopped making sense five years ago. And deep in the marrow of her bones, she feared that anchor would someday break.

The moon climbed higher in the sky. The wind whispered again through the trees. And the shadows in Da Ji’s heart twisted slowly, waiting for the next crack in her resolve.