安居乐业 (ān jū lè yè): "to live in peace, without disturbance"

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Winter turned to spring, spring turned to summer.

In the Jyun Mei temple, Zéyì watched the seasons change and remembered, a year ago, how she had watched the same thing happen by the edge of a lake.

However, this time Gong Lau Jan would appear every now and then, usually looking tired and ill. She had been circling around and around the east of the continent for months, even crossing the sea to look for the Eastern Demon Palace.

All of Shísuàn was on the alert for Miss Fén, demon hunter. As a neighbour of the Chūn Kingdom, it suited them to remain on good terms, and so they readily accepted that a bounty had been placed on this famous hero and spread the news throughout the country. Now every person who fancied themselves a martial artist was roaming the streets looking for her, while others peered slyly from behind shuttered windows ready to find and report her.

In the country across the ocean, that they called Yamato, she had managed to gather that there was a great deal of gossip about a famous performer who had been invited to Caam Lei's auction, but she had disappeared after giving away all of her possessions to her junior sisters in her performing troupe. There were whispers that she and the suave 'Lord Rei' had eloped together, that they were involved in a lovers' suicide pact, that she had pretended to go to see the auction but had actually killed herself...

The rumours were as numerous as leaves in autumn, but they served to tell Zéyì and Gong Lau Jan that the cold woman they had met at the auction, and likely the supernatural cat Eitsu, had not returned to Yamato. Where were they? They did not have the time or energy to do more than briefly ponder this mystery before returning to their own troubles.

Shísuàn was the easternmost country before one reached the ocean. Access to the Eastern Demon Palace surely was to be found somewhere in the region. But with all the citizens of the country on the lookout, what was she to do, fight everyone in Shísuàn? A normal person would die in a second, and then she really would be a criminal. She still remembered when she had lost control at the auction house, shuddering to think that she could easily have murdered innocent people.

Her search was severely hampered not only by this, but also her declining health. Without Zyu Ji Sang's assistance, depleted energy was taking far longer to replenish than before. She was losing more than she was replacing. Yuān Mù did the best he could to patch her up, but his expertise was hardly in loong health, and in any case, Gong Lau Jan was barely in one place long enough.

"You think His Highness Fàn Bì'ān took her?" Zéyì asked one evening, after Gong Lau Jan had stumbled in just before dinner. They were eating just outside the rooms where the disciples slept, a little apart from the others, and maintaining a polite distance between them. "He... I imagined it, didn't I? That he was infatuated with Zyu Ji Sang? Couldn't it have been Caam Lei?"

"... Yes, Meí Guī, that was not something that happened... It could have been Caam Lei. We don't know if his people were in the audience, and they took Siu Wan when... But I.. have past history with the Eastern Demon Palace. And with what happened in the Zyu Kingdom... I'm sure they're involved somehow."

"Zyu Ji Sang... is she part of the Zyu Royal Family?"

Gong Lau Jan smiled wryly. "Well, we never really tried to hide it. Zyu Ngan Wan is a descendant of the branch family. She would not have been in the line of succession at all. Now she's the only one left with the Zyu name."

"So you suspect that the Eastern Demon Palace is trying to finish what it started?" Zéyì put down her bowl suddenly. "Gong ze... Do you think Zyu Ji Sang is still alive?"

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"She is. The pearl bracelet she wears is a treasure of the Zyu Kingdom, passed to them by my ze ze. I would know if something happened to her. I just...can't find her. The Eastern Demon Palace have hidden themselves well."

"... What will you do if it's not them?"

"I will find Caam Lei." Gong Lau Jan's grey-brown eyes grew dark and she gripped her chopsticks like they were a dagger. "I will find him."

Gong Lau Jan didn't stay that night. She left soon after finishing her dinner, without any treatment from Yuān Mù.

Zéyì chased thoughts around and around her mind until she was sick of them. As the season changed, she cultivated the Still Water Heart with Yuān Mù by the side of the water gardens, as she ate her meals, as she tended to the herbs with her fellow disciples, as she lay awake at night.

The apparition of Fàn Bì'ān still whispered to her at these times. "Dà jiě, please don't forget me."

"I want to forget. I want him to go away," Zéyì told Yuān Mù, as they sat one warm night under a new moon, the only light from a single paper lantern they had brought outside with them. Fàn Bì'ān sat with them too.

"Why is that, shī mèi?"

Zéyì looked at her shī fu strangely. "Because he's not real. I'm seeing him there, so clearly, but he's not... Of course we should make him go away."

She was getting agitated. She could feel the demonic energy lurking through her body begin to rise up, and she fought to suppress it with her spiritual force.

"Shī mèi... You've lived for so long... but not truly. What is the path of the Still Water Heart?"

"To meditate on the existence and the essence of still water. To learn from it, and embrace it as the way of being."

"Is water always still?"

"No, of course not. The ocean is pulled in and out by the moon, and rivers..." Her eyes grew sad.

"Exactly, shī mèi. Water is not still. Stillness... what is still? That which is dead, is still. That which has never lived, is still."

"Then why do we seek stillness?" Zéyì cried. "Is this your misunderstanding, shī fu? I know the Still Water Heart was not your original path-"

"And to this day it is not my path," he agreed, "but I swore to guide you, as the last of the Wǔ Xiàng's (1) disciples, before I too left for the Divine Realm. I realise that your learning has been... unusual. It is hard for me not to bring some of my Fool's Way of the Mountain path into my words. But all paths hold universal truths, and although your master Zhí Míng (2) was not my Master, there are some things that we all come to understand, in time.

"In moments of stillness, we transcend ourselves, and see the world differently. But we do not belong there, shī mèi. We are alive. We have lived. And so..." He patted her shoulder gently. "Do not force an unnatural path. Guide it with love, accept that which is difficult and shameful, and bring it to stillness to observe and release it. Your friend... You said he reminds you of His Highness Měng Huàn?"

"... yes."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because Měng Huàn was my closest sibling. He was... my best friend. We helped each other through... Because..."

"And so, in your hardest times, you brought to life a best friend to help you. What's wrong with that, shī mèi?"

"Because he's not real!"

"But he is. Didn't he help you?"

Zéyì turned to look at the boy beside her. He didn't look anything like Fàn Bì'ān anymore. A boy with large dark eyes and the same shaped nose as Zéyì sat beside her. He was wearing the imperial robes of the Old Chūn Kingdom, as he had the last time she had seen him, the day before her wedding.

Zéyì chewed hard on her lower lip. "Fàn... Huàn dì."

"... Yì jiě."

His voice was her brother's too now, a light, easygoing tone unlike the real demon prince's sharp and sarcastic manner.

".. Hey, Huàn dì... I... really miss you."

"I missed you too, Yì jiě. Until... I missed you too."

"I'm glad I got to see you again."

"... Any time." A cheeky little grin curved the lips of her brother's face.

".. Thank... thank you." Zéyì bowed to the ground to hide her tears. She thought she felt the lightest touch on the back of her head. She spoke from the very depths of her heart. "Thank you for helping me. Thank you for everything."

"Good luck, Yì jiě. You'll be okay."

She remained prone until the sensation was gone. When she final sat up, there was only her, and Yuān Mù, and the light of the lantern shining off the water.

The demonic energy had not gone. She still felt it there, sifting through her blood, her meridians, but it felt... right, some how.

Her body was wracked by a deep, shuddering breath. Yuān Mù nodded approvingly.

"Good. That's good. Your body is returning to the right path. You will never remove the demonic energy... in truth, no-one can, but you can manage it, watch it, and use it to become a stronger person. Shī mèi, how do you feel?"

Zéyì's soft eyebrows drew together. A thought was rising in her mind, and a feeling was creeping through her limbs.

"... shī fu."

Yuān Mù raised his eyebrows at her tone of voice. "Yes, Yì shī mèi?"

"Can you... help me with something?"