Jin spent a solid hour meditating and trying to divest himself of the filth he’d acquired from touching the kidnapper’s soul. He didn’t dare get near Mei with that slime sticking to him. Once he was done, he went back home to his room and to Mei.

Yan Li was sitting in a nearby chair while Lu Shao had fallen asleep next to his Mother. Without saying a word Jin walked up to Yan Li, and tried handing him back his eyeball.

The moment the eye was in the light Yan Li swayed where he was sitting and went pale. Seeing his son’s poor reaction Jin took the initiative and forcefully popped Yan Li’s eye back in. The moment the eye was back in its socket, Yan Li let out a quiet moan, and slumped forward in relief.

Jin patted the boy on the shoulder before moving on. He went through a door, and came to a closet that was more room sized than closet sized.

This ‘side room’ was filled with years’ worth of clothes. While neither Mei nor Jin were particularly trendy with their fashion, Mei Hua did like to look good. She’d developed a distinct “mountain” style: simple earthy layered hanfus with bright fur, and hide accents.

The fairy seamstress and Mei would often team up together to design some new this or that, even arguing endlessly for hours over details (that he didn’t understand). The only thing Jin contributed to their wardrobe was an occasional accessory that he’d gift his wife when the mood struck him.

Jin looked around feeling bittersweet. Just this morning she’d woken up, and rummaged happily through her heaps of clothes, looking for “Just the thing to wear” to meet up with the Master Musician. She’d been… so lively…

He felt himself choke up and shook his head. Focus, he needed to focus.

What he looked for was a simple, one-layer hanfu. After shuffling around he found an old, undyed hanfu that fit what he was after. It must have been from when they were first married, and the memory made him smile a little. He hadn’t expected her to keep clothing that old. Taking it, he went back to the main bedroom.

Lu Shao was in a tightly curled ball, one hand firmly clasping his Mother’s arm. Very gently, Jin pried the boy’s hands off Mei and set them aside. Lu Shao whimpered slightly but didn’t wake up.

Yan Li saw what his Father was doing and walked over, whispering, “Old Man, do you need help?”

Jin almost refused but then thought better of it. In fact, this would be easier with two. He threw the old hanfu he’d picked out towards his son, “Hold this up so we can get Mei changed into something decent… and keep your eyes looking to the ceiling while you’re at it.”

Yan Li rolled his eyes but did as instructed. As if he wanted to see his own Mother naked! Yeesh! His Old Man got so needlessly jealous!

It took several minutes to get Mei Hua’s old clothes off. Shi Ji’s outer coat had been covering up almost her entire body. When he’d brought her back, he’d only used his qi to do some gentle cleaning, not bothering to take her clothes off because he hadn’t realized how bad it was. Now that he removed Shi Ji’s outer coat, he could see her once beautiful outfit bloodied, and in tatters, the top of it almost completely gone. His stomach clenched painfully as he tried to control the rage and sorrow mixing heavily together at the sight.

Once everything was off he carefully lifted her up to the clean set of clothing Yan Li was holding. It took the two of them working together to get her into the clothes while not needlessly jostling her, and her still poisoned shoulder; Jin was thankful by the end that he’d taken Yan Li up on his offer.

Mei Hua didn’t wake once through the entire thing. If she hadn’t been warm and breathing, one might have thought she was a lifelike doll rather than a living person. Jin put her back down on the bed and arranged the blankets over her.

Lu Shao, who’d been sleeping fitfully with the absence of his Mother, sensed she’d been put back next to him and scooted closer once again. This time he snuggled his face on her shoulder and clung to her entire body. Only then did he sigh and relax into a deeper sleep.

It was at that point that Shi Ji and the Fairy Doctor showed up. (Ye was not with them, which boded ill for the trash.) Shi Ji went over to look at his Mother, and seeing she was still alright, gave a heavy sigh of relief.

Jin turned to the Doctor and asked the question he’d wanted to ask from the very beginning.

“Exactly how do you plan on getting rid of this poison?”

————

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. . .

. . . . .

. . . . . . . .

The first thing she became aware of was a cool darkness. There was nothing in that darkness, neither pain nor light or sound. She could not remember before the darkness, nor could she think of an existence outside of it. Even though it was cold, she didn’t mind because she’d forgotten what it was like to be warm. She was in the darkness and was the darkness at the same time.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Time trickled by slowly.

A tiny, irritating sense of restlessness began to form inside her. It was easy to ignore at first, but the restlessness grew bigger as each moment passed. She very much wished the sensation would go away and leave her alone.

But it persisted despite her best efforts to not pay it any attention.

This spurred her into action and she finally sat up and became aware of her surroundings. She realized this deceptively comfortable place was strange. It felt as though a great weight was pressing on her from all sides, binding her in place so that she couldn’t escape. Huh? Why did she need to be kept from escaping?

The darkness that had once been so peaceful, felt oppressive. The coolness became uncomfortably cold. She hugged herself in the nothingness and wished there was at a least a little light to see by.

As if hearing her, a light appeared above and ahead of her. It was white and pale, only strong enough to illuminate her immediate surroundings. Because of the darkness, she couldn’t tell whether the light was near or far. She only noticed how it rippled and refracted around her in an odd, but beautiful way. For a while she was hypnotized by it.

Suddenly, she realized the light moved oddly because it was reflecting against the water. She was, in fact, in water. That had been why she couldn’t move and felt pressured from all sides. When she understood she was in water, the frail light strengthened and her world expanded.

Suddenly, she could see much further in every direction, but it didn’t matter. The world was empty, except for the water and the light.

This was strange. Why was she in water? It didn’t hurt to be in it, but it was… unpleasant. The water must be very deep, because it felt oppressive and it made her want to stay very still. For a long time, she didn’t even try to move, accepting her circumstances instead and simply enjoyed watching the light play against the now visible sparkling currents.

Something flickered in the current, startling her out of her contentment. She didn’t know what it was and it vanished as soon as she’d seen it, but the flicker reminded her of something. If this was water, she should be able to swim.

The moment it occurred to her that she could swim, the light shone a little brighter once again, and she realized she was sitting on the smooth sandy bottom of an ocean. She ran her fingers through the sand for a moment before pushing off from it.

Her hands cut through the ocean easily, and each kick of her leg had her speeding forward. The water pressed her on all sides, but it also gave her a sense of weightlessness, freedom. She stayed near the bottom at first, near the sand that she could touch and see, the first thing in a long time that had texture and “otherness” to it.

But after a while, she remembered it was cold. The more she thought about the cold, the colder it seemed to get. Until it went from unpleasant to unbearably freezing. She began to shiver uncontrollably. It was so frigid that it hurt.

How did one stop being cold?

. . .

Right, you needed warmth. Where did warmth come from?

. . .

. . . . .

She looked up at the light. It had once seemed neither near nor far, but now it appeared very distant and very high above her. Light meant warmth… usually. But that light up there seemed a bit cold, a bit weak… perhaps it wasn’t warm, but perhaps it was. The only way to find out was to get near it.

So she began to swim upward. It was hard to say how long she swam, because the light never moved and she didn’t feel tired.

At first it didn’t seem like anything changed by swimming upward and she almost regretted leaving the sandy bottom. Even if it was freezing down there, at least there was sand. Here, there was nothing but the vastness of the sea and the light above.

Then she felt it, a very subtle change in the water temperature. Maybe it was because she’d been in the cold for a long time but the moment it got even a tiny bit warmer she could feel it. When she realized it was just a little less frigid by going upward, her confidence was boosted, and she swam more enthusiastically.

The change from cold to warm was in painstakingly small steps. Rather than being impatient, the tiny changes spurred her on. It seems the light up there was a warm one, even if it looked cold.

As the water became warmer, the light did too. Its pale appearance slowly changed into a strong one. Bright piercing rays of light shot through the murky darkness. The blackness of the ocean bottom changed from dark blue to a light blue to a shimmering green.

And then she was there, right under the waves looking up. If she reached out, she could touch the surface. What was above the water? What kind of place did the light live in?

The thought of that unknown frightened her and she stopped. She knew, even though no one had told her, that if she broke the surface, she could not go back down again. This was a one-way trip. Her fear outweighed her curiosity.

She stayed in the green water, where it was warm and comfortable, rather than risk going above to the unknown. This was fine for a little bit, but then she noticed the light was moving. Even if she didn’t want to go above the water, she didn’t want the light to disappear! She hastily followed it.

No matter how fast she swam, the light seemed to stay ahead of her, sinking further and dimming as it went. It wasn’t until her foot hit the sand that she realized she’d unwittingly swam into a shallow part of the ocean. She stopped for a moment, feeling a mixture of fear and frustration.

The light was leaving, but to follow it she needed to leave the sea.

Anxious, anxious, she was so anxious!

But the light made up her mind for her, it dimmed to the point that it was about to disappear. And without its glow, the deathly cold of the bottom of the sea seemed to stretch out its tendrils and began to wrap itself around her again. The fear of freezing became stronger than the fear of the unknown.

She placed two feet on the sand and pushed herself up, all at once forcing herself above the water.

The moment her face surfaced, she felt an overpowering need to breathe. It was as if she’d been holding her breath for a very very long time. The easy swimming underneath the water was gone and now she struggled forward.

After a while, the sea bottom was finally shallow enough she could walk instead of swim. Her body felt like lead, but she was relieved that the air wasn’t cold. In front of her was a beach, and beyond the beach was a dark dreary forest. She struggled forward and sat with a thump on the beach, exhausted.

It would have been nice if she could rest here a bit and listen to the wind in the trees, but that light kept dropping further down. Despite having escaped the depths of the ocean, she hadn’t escaped its cold. The stretching shadows and darkness seemed to turn the air chilly. Shuddering, she stood back up and began marching through the forest.