"I buried her under a tree she loved. But there is no soil deep enough to hide what I did. Not from the world. Not from Heaven. Not from the corpse of my own heart. Every time the wind moves those leaves, I hear her breathing. And every root that drinks from that grave drinks from my sin."
— Xie Wu Ming
(The day she died. The moment he became a demon.)
The air was scented with rain.
Not the downpour itself, but the promise of it — petrichor and damp stone, that aching stillness that descends just before the sky weeps. The birds had hushed. The wind barely dared to breathe. Even the trees seemed bowed with mourning, as if nature itself were bracing for a wound it could not prevent.
Ruoxin could sense it in her very bones — that familiar pain that heralds conclusions.
She lit incense beside the windowsill.
The smoke curled like silk into the light of morning. The golden shards of sun dripped through the slats of her cottage wood, illuminating the motes of dust like wayfaring ghosts. She'd swept three times. The floor was so clean, there was not a speck of dust left behind. The porridge on the hearth had bubbled low and sweet, with dates she'd been saving for months.
For today.
Their morning.
She moved through the room while singing a song her mother sang to her when the storms made her cry. Her fingers brushed against the familiar — the tea cups, the hanging bunches of dried herbs, the little, well-worn pair of boots by the door.
Boots that weren't hers.
She stopped at his stool beside the fire — his stool. Once too large for him. That gaunt, half-starved boy she had discovered lying on her doorstep, covered in dirt and shivering. Nevertheless, she recalled the way his eyes had winced from her kindness — wild, empty, as if they feared it to hurt.
But she had phoned anyway.
Cleaned him.
Fed him.
And over the years — the slow bloom of time — they had built something quiet, something unspoken. She never pressed. He never spoke of his past. But he stayed. And in the staying, he softened. He began to laugh. He learned to tie knots and dry herbs and boil porridge just the way she liked it.
And now, after six whole years of rainy afternoons, mended robes, stilted tea ceremonies, and mutual silence under the stars — they were leaving. Together.
Her heart beat like a bird caged too long.
She had on the blue ribbon today.
The one she has reserved for special occasions.
"He'll smile," she muttered to herself, smoothing her dress, trying not to shake her hands. "I think… he'll smile today."
He didn't.
Wu Ming remained in the entrance.
Silent.
His robes clung to him with dew. His hair hung loose about his face. But it was not the dishevelment that made her cold.
It was his eyes.
Empty. Heavy. Soaked in the darkness of something intolerable.
She smiled, gently. "Enter. The porridge will turn cold."
He came in without speaking.
Didn't sit. Didn't take off his shoes. Didn't even glance at her.
The silence enveloped them like ice.
"Wu Ming?" she ventured, cautiously moving towards him. "Is there something wrong? Is it the city? You don't have to leave. We can wait. Or—"
"Do you ever regret being kind?" he asked.
His voice was a whisper of broken glass.
She blinked. "What?
He moved a step closer.
"Do you ever ask yourself," he asked, "whether being kind is another form of self-delusion? A way of pretending that the world is not vile?"
"...No," she whispered. "I don't think I've ever thought that."
"I have," he panted. "Every day."
Another step.
"I was born wrong," he interrupted. "Cursed. Born to die in holes like these. I don't know love. I don't know peace. I don't even know why you… why you kept me."
He faltered.
She moved closer.
Closer still.
And reached out.
Took his hand.
"You are not wrong," she whispered.
"I am," he growled. "You simply… can't see it.".
"If you were wrong, would I still be holding your hand?"
He looked down.
At her fingers — pale and soft and small, curled around his.
Warm.
Real.
It undid something in him.
He pulled his hand free.
She scrunched her brow in puzzlement. "Wu Ming…?"
And then —
He drew the blade.
It was ordinary. Unexceptional. But in his palm, it resembled the end of the world.
Ruoxin stiffened.
"…What are you doing?"
He remained silent.
His breathing was strained. His grip was unsteady.
"Wu Ming. Stop it. Put it down. We can talk, we can—"
"I'm sorry."
And that was all he said.
He could not look at her eyes.
He walked only forward.
And wept.
And then —
He drove the blade into her heart.
She didn't scream.
She gasped — soft as the rustling of petals falling.
Her eyes went wide.
Not with fear.
But sorrow.
A sorrow so pure it shattered.
As if the pain was not in the wound, but in the shattering of a faith — the crumbling of trust. As if, up to that moment in time, some part of her still believed in him.
She stumbled ahead.
Into his arms.
Blood bloomed between them — warm and fast and terribly alive.
And she smiled.
Smiling as she did on hot summer afternoons, when she teased him about his hair and brought him rice cakes.
Smiled as if to imprint that image upon his soul.
Her fingers encircled his sleeve.
"Was it… for your path?" she whispered, voice little more than a breath.
He couldn't respond.
She coughed.
"Then… I hope it helps," she breathed. "I hope… it was worth me."
Her eyes closed.
Her dying breath was honey and iron.
He remained there.
Cradling her.
Holding her cradled as she bled, her warmth seeping away by the second, the blood draining from her like spilt ink.
And he screamed.
A soundless scream.
A scream so deep it scraped his bones.
His knees went out from under him. Fell to the ground with her cradled in his arms. Pushed her against his chest. Rocked her like a child rocks a broken toy.
"I'm sorry," he wept.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
But she couldn't hear him.
She would never see him again.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
He stayed like that for an hour.
Two.
Four.
Eight.
Fourteen.
Until the sun climbed too high, and the porridge went cold, and the blood dried between his fingers.
Night fell.
The world became black and cruel.
And in the quiet, he found her diary.
He read the final page with trembling hands.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today was warm.
Not outside — it's still muddy and cold. But warm in the way that counts.
He came by again.
He did not say much. He never says much. But he was there.
He offered me a peach today. It was small, bruised, and slightly flattened on one side. But it was the most perfect thing that I've ever held.
I know he didn't think it was significant. He likely only had one left. But still… he remembered me.
It's daft, isn't it?
To be so happy about a fruit?
But when you're a type like me — someone whom folks forget in mid-sentence — Even a small act of kindness resembles a sunrise.
He was tired today. His eyes were also darker than usual. But when I made a foolish move and tripped over my words, he gave this tiny half-smile.
That smile was it.
He's like a star — not the distant one you glimpse from rooftops. But the one that you imagine perhaps, perhaps you might reach if you stretched your hand quickly enough.
I don't know what he is looking at when he gazes at me. Nothing, I'm certain.
But when I look at him.
I see light.
He doesn't realize how much he has saved me. Not heroically, the way they are in fairytales, armed with swords and magic.
But quietly.
Merely by existing.
By being kind without asking for anything in return.
I wanted to be the one he could count on.
Someone who would be able to make him feel a little less alone, even though I'm not much.
But perhaps… perhaps my place was simply to watch him shine.
And that's alright.
I'm glad I met him.
Even if tomorrow never comes, I'm glad today did.
If he ever gets to see this — which he won't — I hope he gets this.
He was my favorite day.
We leave tomorrow. I'm looking forward, I think, more than I'm scared. I hope he won't think I'm mad, but I do think that we can create something worthwhile. Maybe he can be a healer too. Or maybe he'll find out what makes him happy.
I think… I think I love him. Not for romance. Just… the way you love spring after you've lived the winter. Like he was the season I had been waiting for.
I wish he'd catch on to that too. Even a little.
Goodnight.
And thank you, for allowing me to be in your light.
— Ruoxin
--------------------------------------------------------------
The book fell from his hands.
He vomited.
He screamed until his throat ripped.
He hit his head on the wall until it was bleeding.
He clawed at his face, weeping so hard he couldn't breathe. He cursed himself until his voice was raw and his throat hurt.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU HATE ME!" he bellowed.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU CURSE ME BACK!"
She should have hated him.
She should have hit him.
She ought to have screamed, sworn, condemned.
But she hadn't.
She smiled. Forgave. And loved him until the end. Even as the dagger carved through soft flesh. Even as blood spilled like ink from a torn prayer. She smiled — to rescue me one last time.
And that was what shattered him most.
For she was the only one in his whole life to have loved him.
Not out of duty.
Not out of need.
But just because.
And now she was gone.
And he had killed her.