Chapter 123
Heart's Silent Burdens
Liang followed Leo between the trees in silence as the darkness began to thicken. Leaves rustled gently under the harrowing wind, their footsteps ever so faintly joining the symphony of the night.
The back of his Master seemed especially... heavy tonight, he felt, as though it were carrying invisible burdens stacked like mountains. The steps, though confident, lacked the usual 'lightness' that Liang liked the most about the ethereal figure that took him in.
No more than ten minutes into the walk, his Master parted tall and wild shrubbery and stepped into the clearing, but Liang... couldn't. His feet froze, his heart stopped, and he felt his eyes bulge at the sight; terror raced up his throat into a scream that he barely stopped himself from unleashing, while blood seemed to chill into frost within his veins.
In over twenty-five years of his life, Liang had seen many things— a good number of which did scare him, to one extent or another. But never before, not even in the face of death, had he felt his entire self seemingly disassociate from reality in a desperate attempt to escape it. There, at the very center of the clearing, was a... figure. No, an apparition.
Transparent, faintly shimmering, ethereal, unbecoming.
It was then that he heard, as though he'd been cured of deafness. The wail was soft, seldom a screech, but it was so piercing that Liang felt his knees give out and found himself plummeting towards the ground. He felt a gentle force hold him and help him down. Looking up, his Master's face stared back, full of sympathy and guilt, and he seemed to mumble something, but Liang couldn't make any other sound besides the wail.
Master walked off, and Liang watched with horror in both his heart and eyes as he approached the apparition, beginning to hum in a golden glow, reaching out with his hand and pressing it against the figure's forehead.
The wail stopped, and Liang felt the heaviness upon his soul lessen. Bit by bit, he watched the ghastly thing regain its color and shape and become whole... but only for such a brief moment that, were his entire attention not on it, he would have missed it. It opened its eyes and looked at the Master with such gratitude that even Liang felt it swell within his heart, and within a breath... it disappeared, like smoke in the wind.
It was only then that he realized he was doused in cold sweat and that he was shivering. He quickly used Qi to dispel it and normalize himself as much as possible, just in time for his Master to turn and face him with a faint smile.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I... I didn't think it'd have that much of an impact on you. Though, it seems I will have to learn my lesson rather loudly: stop taking people that I care for to places they don't belong."
"N-no, I'm sorry for being so weak, Master!" Liang quickly said, and he was seldom lying. He did feel weak—if one little ghost was enough to bring him down to his knees, what of the rest? After all, Master asked him if he could hear them, not just hear it. "W-what... what was that, if you don't mind?"
"An old remnant," his Master replied cryptically, walking over toward him and helping him up to his feet. "She died in a fire, cradling her child, trying to save it."
"... d-did... did she?" No answer came, only silence—but, well, the silence itself was an answer. "Oh."
"I'm sorry for being selfish, Liang," he said. "I wanted to unburden myself, it seems, more than I realized."
"No, I'm glad you have shown me, Master! I just... I just wish I could help in any way..."
"Ha ha, that's quite alright," though there was still some heaviness to it, Master's voice regained its usual fleetingness and color. "I don't need you to help me. I just need you to get well quickly."
"... Are... are there more?" he asked the question he already knew an answer to.
"Yes." Liang felt his heart stir and his palms turn damp. "But you needn't fear. They are harmless. Every night, they sing a song, calling for me. And every night I go out and meet one of them, granting them whatever it is that they need. They don't come near the camp, so, as long as you don't wander far off into the woods at night, you shouldn't encounter them. Then again, perhaps the only reason you could see her was that I was there—or am I simply thinking too highly of myself yet again?"
It was the strum of guilt, and Liang finally understood how perhaps Yue felt—the helplessness in the face of something greater than yourself was unlike anything he ever felt before in his life. After all, even if he did feel helpless before, it was different: he could always merely struggle to become stronger, to outdo whatever wall he ran into. But, despite not knowing much (if anything) of the ghosts in the woods, he knew in his heart that even if he worked for a thousand years and trained for a thousand more, he would never be able to help his Master in any meaningful capacity.
Over and over, through tiny and large things, Liang had come to realize that there wasn't much in the world as enigmatic as his Master. All the Arts that he taught them were divine; at least, all the things he fed them were equally so, transforming their bodies in ways that only the mythical Immortals were capable of, and he was a conduit through which they established lasting bonds with Spirits, of all things.
Liang didn't think even for a second that all of this came because of him—no, it was a twist of luck, he knew, that he was one of the few that escaped the Sect that night, and that Lya knew to come here of all places, and that they were taken in, and that he was allowed to stay. A string of lucky decisions well outside his ability to make them, and now he stood at the precipice of greatness that he felt nobody in his generation could match.
And yet, there was nothing he could do to help the man who granted him all that, directly or otherwise.
"I finally understand Yue, a bit."
"Hm?"
"The guilt born of helplessness," he confessed, not knowing why. Perhaps he sought the selfish assurance from his Master that it was okay to be helpless? Maybe it was that he felt honesty was necessary? Regardless, he spoke it into the world just as the two returned home.
"You're lucky, then," he said. "That you know both sides of that coin. How do you feel about Yue's guilt?"
"I... I think it's silly," he confessed again, feeling his cheeks burn up slightly. How else would he feel? His strange Senior Sister took him in, accepted him, and never chastized him for the way he was. Whenever they would train together, she would chatter on relentlessly, and he would only ever nod and hum along, but those mornings when she wasn't there with him were strangely lonely. At some point, he preferred her voice, and whatever new thing she was shouting into the void, over the silence.
"Well, there you go." His Master chuckled, prompting Liang to glance to the side where he saw the figure stretching. His Master was some ways shorter than him, and yet, Liang could never truly see it—all he ever saw was a figure looming over the entire world, tall enough to hold up the sky from crashing down upon them. "Nobody else knows about them, so don't mention it."
"Of course."
"I don't think I said, did I?" The ever-radiant brown eyes shifted over and faced Liang with a gentle and warm smile. "Thank you, Liang, for protecting your Senior Sister. If you need anything, just ask—and though your Master is unreliable, I will do my best to fulfill it."
Liang hung his head low and stopped himself from smiling. There was a point in his life where compliments from his Seniors were more of a burden than much else—it was always almost followed by a request, and never one that took his needs into consideration. Though Holy Blade Sect was his home, and he had enduring, fond memories of it, being its Disciple, especially one as highly touted as Liang, was a burden. He hadn't felt much besides exasperation at the Seniors' praises in years, and yet, in the face of his Master's words, he felt tingling embarrassment, like a child did when their parent told them they did a good job plucking those carrots from the dirt.
"No, Master," he said. "You've already given me everything I could ever need. Asking for anything more would likely cause the Heavens to smite me for my impunity."
"Ah, don't worry. I'll think of something myself."
"No, Master, I--"
"--it's not a choice, Liang," he was interrupted as his Master slapped him gently on the back. "I've found that in life, as we grow older, we forget the duality of it all—we punish the crimes, but at some point, we stop cheering on the good deeds. Well, no, that's wrong—we do cheer, but that's about it. No rewards. Like only children are privileged enough to be rewarded for good things. So, I'm trying to change that, one step at a time. It seems like I'm trying to change many things these days. Oh well. Someone has to start, no? Anyway, thank you for accompanying me. You should go and rest. Tomorrow, we have to go hunting."
"Hunting?"
"I promised Shui'er a meat stew," his Master said with a grin. "But on the day I was to hunt for some, well, meat, you two came back. So, you want to pay me back? Let's all go hunting tomorrow."
"Of course, Master!" Naturally, his Master didn't need actual help hunting. After all, Liang suspected there were perhaps one or two people in the entire known world that were as strong or stronger than the bushy-bearded man in front of him, if that, even. But it wasn't as though Liang could help with anything meaningful, either, so all he could do was fulfill whatever was asked of him, no matter how minor and inconsequential. It was the least he could do for a man who altered his fate and afforded him a chance to potentially glimpse into infinity in the future, something that he would have otherwise never even dreamed of before.