288: Qing-er (Bai Ye's Memory)

Qing-er (Bai Ye's Memory)

For a long, wordless moment, Bai Ye just looked at her. The face in front of him was an unfamiliar one of a six-year-old girl, but he knew that when he looked into her eyes, he was seeing the sword spirit. He was seeing the person he'd been waiting for, for two hundred and sixty years.0

He didn't know what to expect. He didn't know if she would wake up with any memories of him. He searched the girl's face for any signs of recognition, but he found none. The girl blinked, and then looked past him toward her parents.

"Mommy?" she called, her voice hoarse from the sickness but filled with life. "Daddy?"

The parents burst into tears. They rushed over to the bed, hugging her and crying with all the grief and fear they'd been holding for the past few days. Bai Ye didn't want to intrude upon this precious family reunion. He took another lingering look at the girl, and he quietly stepped out of the door.

He didn't have the courage to face her anyway.

Maybe … this was all for the best. She said she would forget everything about him, and she had done it. Maybe it was best for everything to stay this way, so she could live this new life free from those painful memories, free from their past. Free from him.

Bai Ye stood outside that house for a long while. He knew he should leave. He knew he should respect her choice this time and stay out of her life. But he couldn't. He wanted to at least keep her safe, to make sure she stayed healthy and happy. He wanted to at least watch over this little girl as she grew up.

So he left a guardian spell at their door before leaving the village. That way, he would be alarmed of any changes in her spiritual power, and he'd be able to come to her rescue if she was in danger. As long as she was safe and sound, he could deal with being a stranger to her for the rest of their lives.

But he overestimated his resolve. After returning to Mount Hua, he couldn't stop thinking about her. He couldn't stop wondering what ended up happening to that girl. Time crawled by even slower than before, and it wasn't long before he ate his words and made his way back to that village.

He disguised himself as a traveler this time. He picked a tree atop the hill overlooking their house and pretended to be enjoying a picnic, all the while staring in the direction of their place. It wasn't right, he knew, but he couldn't help it. And he couldn't help but keep doing it for years, each time disguised as a different man.

He watched the girl grow up. He watched her help her parents with farm work and play with her friends in the yard. He watched her plant flowers in the garden and tend to their baby goats in the barn. Even though he never talked to her, he knew she was still the same girl he remembered, because he saw how carefully she held the tiny animals in her hands, how brightly she smiled when she sniffed the colorful spring blossoms.

But there were also ways in which she changed. She seemed shy. Almost timid. The other children who played with her liked to snatch her dolls, and she never said anything when they did. She would simply go back home quietly, and she would not come back out to play again for weeks after … because she didn't have a doll.

She also seemed easily scared. She cried when it thundered, and she always hid from strangers. She seemed especially afraid of young men. While the other children would flock to the sweet-talking peddlers selling candies and toys, she would peek at them from behind a tree, suspicion written all over her face.

Bai Ye felt his heart ache whenever he saw her like this. The girl he remembered had always been so bold, so dazzling, demanding all the attention wherever she was. She never knew what it was like to be afraid. But now … Was it because of how much he had hurt her? Did her soul still manage to remember the betrayal that cost her life, so she would no longer trust anyone else this time around?

He wished he could help her. He wanted to tell her to be brave, to stand up for herself and not let anyone take her for granted. But he had promised himself not to meddle with her new life anymore. He had already paid the price of pushing her onto the wrong path once before … and he swore not to do it again.

So he kept watching her from the shadows. Until seven years later, things changed.

It was the guardian spell that alerted him, warning that the aura around her parents was fluctuating. He hadn't expected it to be a big deal, thinking that they might have gotten into a fight and caused too much emotional imbalance. But when he arrived at the village, the strange quietness all around told him he was wrong.

It was the plague again. These disasters weren't unusual in the commoner's world. It seemed even worse than the one seven years ago, and it had spread through the village so fast that most of the sick were already gone by the time Bai Ye made it there. It frightened him—although he knew from the spell that the girl must be alright, he was still worried. Hastily, he steered his flying sword directly toward their house, and he froze when he saw the sight beneath him.

The girl was all clad in mourning white, kneeling in the yard. Two new graves stood in front of her. She was weeping, and she was saying something to the graves as she burned the paper money for the dead. Ashes filled the air, turning into a smoky cloud above her.

Her parents … were gone?

Bai Ye cursed himself. The guardian spell he set was mainly meant for her, so he hadn't included as much of the spiritual power from her parents in it. He should have … Because what would the girl do now without her parents? He didn't recall seeing any relatives visit them over all these years. She might not have any other family left around.

He watched her finish burning the paper and stood up. She left the house. She walked onto the street, but she didn't seem to know where to go. She wandered aimlessly, and she looked so weak and helpless that he thought she might collapse any moment.

Bai Ye couldn't keep watching her like this. As much as he promised to himself that he'd let her live her own life this time, he couldn't bear seeing her left alone in this world. She was only thirteen. Someone had to look after her.

So he lowered his flying sword, landing in her path. This wasn't the way he had planned for it to go. She deserved so much better than what he could give her in this life … But he couldn't help it. And he couldn't help looking into her eyes as they finally came face to face for the first time in seven years.

No. For the first time in two hundred and sixty-seven years.

There was still no recognition in the girl's eyes. She looked at him a bit blankly, probably from the shock and grief of her parents' passing. Bai Ye felt a stab of pain hitting him, though he tried his best to hide it. He was nothing but a stranger to her now, and he didn't want her to suspect otherwise.

"What's your name, little girl?" he asked, bending down to meet her at eye level. Even though he already knew the answer all too well.

The girl hesitated for a second. "Yun Qing-er," she said as she studied him.

"Qing-er," he repeated the name. The sword spirit never had a name, and he thought she might like the change. Qing—meaning clear—was a perfect name for a clean, pure soul.

He told himself not to, but he reached out to the girl anyway, smoothing out her wind-tousled hair gently. "I made you wait too long …" he whispered. "Come with me."

The girl seemed slightly puzzled, and she studied him for a bit longer. Then she nodded, and she placed her hand in his, letting him lead her onto his flying sword.

Bai Ye took a deep breath. He didn't know if he was doing the right thing by taking her with him, but at that moment, he thanked the heaven and the earth over and over for giving him the chance to do it. Because for the first time in almost three hundred years, he felt his heart beating once more against his chest.

For the first time in almost three hundred years, he felt alive.

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