That Year's Pain CRIMSON BLOOD SPLASHED and the onlookers cried out. Amid gasps from the crowd, it slowly soaked into the grain of the high platform's wood.
The noon sun was so bright as to be unnerving. Gu Mang stood ramrod straight, his face devoid of emotion as he looked on, watching as the head fell and rolled, watching as the body collapsed.
His best friend's body lay cleaved in two. Lu Zhanxing's head rolled forward, finally coming to rest at the edge of the platform. Open eyes stared at Gu Mang. As if trying to say, Mang-er, turn back. It's all over. Let my death become the end of this dream—don't go on. There's no way forward, only the mirage of a castle in the sky. Turn around. Give up.
The executioner's blade dripped scarlet, warm blood running across the floor in rivulets.
Go home…
The execution official cried, "Execution complete—"
After the initial excitement and awe had passed, the frozen crowd gradually thawed, like a sleeping beast waking from hibernation within a dark cave. Most wanted a look at Lu Zhanxing's broken corpse, but few dared. Some of the women gathered their courage and snuck a peek, only to immediately bury their eyes in their palms with a yelp, shuddering with fright at the mess of blood and flesh…
"How terrible."
"Don't look, it's really scary. If you see it, you'll probably have nightmares tonight."
The crowd bustled, their focus gradually shifting to Gu Mang. Some began to notice Gu Mang's expression and started to whisper among themselves: "Why hasn't General Gu reacted at all…?"
"He really hasn't, he hasn't even paled… Does he really hate Lu Zhanxing? Lu Zhanxing did ruin him, after all."
"Why did he come to send him off, then?"
"Probably just to keep up appearances. Ah, people like this keep all their fights private—they're not going to air their grievances in public."
Gu Mang hadn't defected yet; at this point, he was still an honored subject of the nation. Someone else immediately shot back, "Nonsense, General Gu isn't that kind of man! Deputy General Lu was an old friend. Even after making such an awful mistake, General Gu sent him off out of friendship. He's keeping calm for propriety's sake. After all he's done, what more do you want from him?!"
The other bystander wasn't to be outdone. They snorted disdainfully. "To share in life and death, in good and ill—that's what brotherhood is. If I were Gu Mang, I would've broken Lu Zhanxing out ages ago or gone directly to His Imperial Majesty and begged him to exchange my own life for my brother's. I wouldn't have done what he did at all!"
"How do you know General Gu didn't beg?"
"Just look how indifferent he is. Gu Mang only pretends to be a good person—he's cold-blooded and heartless!"
Perhaps Gu Mang had heard these words, or perhaps he hadn't. He was still staring at the execution platform. The executioner had left, and the execution official was directing the cleanup. Gu Mang stood in the harsh noon sun, his back straight as pine and bamboo, elegant and upright without the slightest hint that he'd been struck by heartbreak. He watched unblinkingly as Lu Zhanxing's corpse was bound and his head strung up high, watched as the bloodstains were washed away.
The execution official unrolled an imperial edict of yellow silk and read in dispassionate tones, "Let it be known throughout the nation that the guilty subject Lu Zhanxing failed to control himself on the front lines, decapitating an envoy and causing the defeat at Phoenix Cry Mountain, greatly disappointing His Imperial Majesty's heavenly grace. After today's execution, his corpse will be exposed for three days."
The voice echoed through that cloudless sky. Everything had come to an end. The execution was over.
Gu Mang didn't stay long; beneath those watchful eyes, carrying that jug of pear-blossom white he shared with Lu Zhanxing, he turned and left without looking back.
Of those hundred thousand comrades, he alone remained.
Gu Mang returned to his own dwelling. Mo Xi, under the invisibility cloak, followed.
This former first general of Chonghua was so poor he didn't even have his own manor. This was little wonder: recruitment and weapons cost money, provisions and equipment cost money, and making connections also cost money. His soldier's pay was only so much, so after his slave collar was removed, he had rented a little house in a quiet area near the eastern market. This humble abode had a firewood hut and a single bedroom with one bed, one set of blankets, a desk and chair, and a couple of dilapidated wooden boxes.
These were all the possessions this famous general had to his name.
When Gu Mang returned to his house, he set the jug of wine on the desk. He then went to the firewood hut. It was lunchtime, so he made a fire and boiled water to heat up the leftovers he kept in the muslin cabinets.
He was eating. His last brother was dead. Everything he had was irrevocably lost. But he was eating.
On the little wooden desk sat the red clay jug that Lu Zhanxing had drunk from before his death, a large bowl of white rice, and a dish of vegetables and tofu. Like a starving man, Gu Mang shoveled food into his mouth, scraping his chopsticks against the bowl. The food vanished quickly —not a single grain of rice remained. He rose once to refill his bowl and continued to eat.
It was as if an endless void had opened in his heart, and he could only stave off the chilling emptiness by eating. He ate, head down, cheeks bulging. Eventually he couldn't swallow as quickly as he shoved food into his mouth. He slowed down, but still choked. He tried his best to swallow that mouthful of rice in silence, as if trying to absorb some words he couldn't say, a pain he couldn't voice.
He swallowed miserably, face upturned and eyes wide. Staring at the ceiling, he suddenly let out a sob. It was like a groan of indigestion, so comical was the sound. But the rims of his eyes were red.
Mo Xi was right by his side, mere inches away, but he couldn't speak a word, nor touch so much as a strand of Gu Mang's hair. He watched, helpless, as Gu Mang's eyes filled with tears.
Gu Mang kept his head tilted back, as if trying to keep the tears from spilling. He swiped at his lashes and sniffed.
He had stopped himself—or at least he thought he had stopped himself—so he lowered his head once more and picked up the chopsticks to return to that plain and flavorless white rice. The same white rice he and Lu Zhanxing had used to eat with vegetables and tofu, back when they were small at Wangshu Manor.
He attempted a few more bites, but the agony of loss was like the belated fall of a blade—it stabbed deep into his belly, finally thinning his breath and breaking down his flesh, shattering that falsely composed facade. His hand shook as he held the chopsticks, and his lips began to tremble as he scooped in rice. He tried to keep still through his shuddering, but to his dismay, tears started to squeeze their way out of his eyes. One after another, they streamed down his cheeks to drip onto the desk.
He moved his chopsticks in silence while wiping away his tears. His throat tasted bitter; all his sobs were trapped within, and he forced them down along with the rice. But the point came when his shaking hand could no longer pick up the tofu. He tried once, it slipped; he tried again and it fell apart…
This man, burdened with the weight of seventy thousand souls, was broken by this tiny tableside defeat. Gu Mang flung the chopsticks down. Rising to his feet, he swept everything off the desk with an almighty crash. Plates and cups smashed on the ground, and most completely shattered of all was the empty wine jug Gu Mang had brought back with him.
He panted, his chest rising and falling as he stared blankly at the mess. He had smashed that red clay jug into the broken splinters of an old dream. Gu Mang stared and stared. Eyes red and teary, he walked over and squatted in a daze, reaching out to try tidying it—but he retracted his hand before even touching the shards.
He looked like someone waking from a dream, a kind of awakening that left him absolutely shattered. It was the first time Mo Xi had witnessed this kind of shattering in him. If Gu Mang dared to show such a face in front of his comrades in the military, their admiration and trust in him would fall to pieces. He was no war god but mere soft mud, a lonely and helpless ant, a scattered handful of sand.
Gu Mang sat weakly. He was wearing a neatly pressed and spotless military uniform, yet he seemed to have been stripped of all strength as he crumpled to the dirty floor. He stared, trembling, at the mess on the ground.
A small whimper issued from his throat, like that of a lost wolf pup. The whimpers became sobs, struggling out of his mouth, one after another.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
Mo Xi watched him: Watched as he slowly curled in on himself on that ice-cold floor, hugging his knees as he tried to resist with all he could but failed to hold back the flood of tears. Watched as he desperately bit his own lips till his teeth were bloody but couldn't keep those soft sounds from escaping his mouth.
The deity had finally shattered. The god of war had been completely defeated.
Gu Mang's lips parted. He had bitten himself viciously; he was on the edge of madness. He panted, the rims of his eyes scarlet, his gaze despairing as he looked around the room—as if hoping someone would suddenly appear, whether god or ghost, to save or to slaughter him.
Someone to save him. Someone to stay with him.
It hurt… It hurt so much.
How was the world so vast yet it wouldn't hold on to seventy thousand heroes? How was hell so deep yet it wouldn't take him, a single living ghost?
He was the only one left.
Gu Mang finally wailed aloud—he wept and clutched at himself desperately, as if trying to embrace his comrades, his brothers, through the barrier between life and death. As if his deceased friends had possessed him, martyred souls crossing the Yellow Springs to hold their General Gu.
Sobs leaked from those bitten lips. In the end, his cries became breathless, his pain beyond reckoning.
"I'm sorry…" Gu Mang kept saying. I'm sorry…
Mo Xi watched in agony. His heart had hurt as if cut up by a knife since he watched Gu Mang desperately try to eat as he shed silent tears. Gu Mang's pain felt like his own pain. Gu Mang's helplessness felt like his own helplessness. Only now did he see with his own eyes how much it hurt Gu Mang to lose Lu Zhanxing, so much that he felt his whole heart being wrung dry of blood.
He watched Gu Mang's face carefully. Gu Mang was almost delirious; he looked as if he could see ghosts, or as if he wanted to see ghosts. He looked around the small house in despair. He wanted someone to be with him. Even if they wanted his life, even if they blamed him, he hoped for someone to come to him.
A knife was twisting in Mo Xi's heart. When Gu Mang had voiced his grievances in the palace hall, Mo Xi wasn't by his side. When Gu Mang's pain grew deeper, still he wasn't by his side.
And now…
Despite knowing that nothing could be changed within the Mirror, despite knowing that impulsive action was dangerous, Mo Xi's anguish— like Gu Mang's—was too much to endure. Before Gu Mang had defected, he was the one who had failed Gu Mang… He was the one who didn't accompany Gu Mang, didn't see the cares weighing on Gu Mang's heart. He was the one who treated Gu Mang like an invincible god, forgetting that beneath the war armor lay a mortal's body made of flesh and blood.
A mortal body, still struggling despite its wounds…
A person's heart was not stubborn stone and cold steel—the silent sufferance of eight years collapsed like an anthill. Mo Xi couldn't bear it anymore; he lifted the invisibility spell on his cloak. Brows drawn low, he knelt by Gu Mang, who had curled into a ball. "Gu Mang," he choked out. "Look at me. I'm still here."
I'm still here.
But perhaps Gu Mang was too heartbroken, or his mind had been strained to its limits and finally collapsed. He didn't react at all to Mo Xi's voice, nor his sudden appearance.
Mo Xi was in such pain that he couldn't speak; his hands, too, were shaking. He reached out, wanting to take hold of his beloved—clad in a military uniform stripped of that fathomless glory—and gather him into his arms. In this moment, he stopped caring for consequences. Really… Over the eight years of pain and longing, in the upstream flow of the Time Mirror, he'd finally lost his mind.
"Gu Mang… Gu Mang…" Mo Xi whispered, unintelligibly hoarse. "It's okay, I'll stay with you… I'll stay with you…"
He reached out to take him into his arms, hugging Gu Mang from behind. But where his shoulder would have touched Gu Mang's back, a faint light flashed. Mo Xi found he had passed right through Gu Mang's body.
He looked at his own hand in shock. His face paled, his expression slowly transforming into one of panic.
They were out of time. Murong Chuyi and Jiang Yexue's spell to break the Mirror must have reached its final phrases. He didn't know how much longer he could stay in the Mirror's world. At this moment he had already become insubstantial.
He couldn't interact with this world. He couldn't show himself. He couldn't comfort Gu Mang, nor could he turn Gu Mang from his path.
That day, Gu Mang huddled amid the broken crockery, hugging his own knees as day turned to night.
When darkness fell, he leaned against the icy wall. Like a beast separated from its pack, he slept curled in a tight ball. His eyes were yet red, his nose was red, and even the ears hidden in his inky hair were flushed a pitiful red.
Mo Xi sat by his side all night. Even asleep, Gu Mang whimpered with unconscious sobs. Mo Xi raised his hand, but he couldn't wipe away a single one of these tears that had been shed eight years since.
This was the nature of time—there was nothing he could change. Even within the illusion, the two of them had still ended up like this.