The path towards the mountains was different from the rest of the lands. Most of the land was barren since the trees and grass were dead. But the land north of Guancheng was nothing but a complete desert. Before, it was a grassland: a plain. Now it was a pit of dirt dusting into sand. With his footprints pressing against this sand, Xiaojun continued his journey.
His bones ached as he looked to the distant mountain. Clouds covered the peaks like a curtain covering his prize. With his joints feeling shattered, he walked on, holding onto his weapon. Running away was not a choice for the warrior.
Man-sized vultures circled above him just like how normal vultures would. At random intervals, one would swing down and swipe at the man only for Xiaojun to react quickly and block the attack. The vulture would then return to its flock in the air and continue to stalk Xiaojun in his journey.
He continued to travel along the sands as he remembered the days with Hua. They were short, but they were still eventful. “Her blood would be useful,” his mind uttered, feeling each and every wound in his body. Shaking the memories out of his mind, he carried on. His journey was far from over.
As he continued to walk, he noticed another figure following him. Blinking, he noticed the figure was gone. “It’s not a monster,” he knew, “it is simply a trick of my mind.” He’d move on, still seeing the nonexistent figure in the corner of his vision, knowing that if he turned to look at it, the figure would disappear.
Xiaojun would camp in this desert, the vultures finally giving him time to rest as they, too, were exhausted. Sitting by a fire, Xiaojun would watch the flame cackle with its embers flying about. Looking up, the figure was right there again. It was him, like the perfect reflection he fought in Guancheng. “Why are you still fighting?” the figure asked him. “You are exhausted, tired, and you have no one. It would be use to just accept the past and move on.”
Xiaojun blinked, and the figure was gone. Then turning around, he found the figure sitting behind him. “Years of violence. Years of sin. You have become no better than the beasts you strive to defeat. If you retire now, you can leave with your honor.” Xiaojun laid on his back, hoping for a cent of rest.
“No one would blame you,” the figure added, “most people haven’t gone through what you’ve gone through. You can go off and rest. Forget about it all. Isn’t that what Nina would want?” Xiaojun closed his eyes, taking a deep exhale as he allows peace to be his inhale.
“I wish it were that simple,” he said, “but I’ve learned some things recently,” he said to the figure. Even though he knew he was talking to himself, like how a lunatic would, he continued on. “Hua is a foolish girl, if that’s what you want to call her. She was alive because she was eating human flesh through trickery.”
“She was a monster,” the figure responded, “she should’ve died.” But Xiaojun just shook his head. “She stopped eating humans. Even though the taste of humans is far richer compared to the meat of any other animal, she still chooses to never hunt humans again.”
The figure stood to his feet, snarling at the sitting Xiaojun. “What are you trying to say? That monsters are redeemable? At that point, you might as well end your quest and let them rule the world! Sure they may kill anything in their path, but you’re saying that they can somehow turn gentle and nice?”
“No. But people are just the same as these monsters. At least many of them are,” Xiaojun said. “Most of the humans I’ve met have either robbed me, tried to kill me, or spat on me. Even before I was sent to the Diyu, many humans acted as monstrously as these beasts do. They murdered. They pillaged. They raped. Even now, with these creatures inhabiting different corners of the world, humans still kill and butcher.”
Xiaojun took a breath. “And yet, despite these monsters in human flesh, there are people who counteract the plain evil of nature and of man. The people who hold their children close and sing them songs to sleep. The people who build houses for those living in the cold. The people who toil and work in labor for those other than themselves. The gentility of man that contrasts against the cruelty of man.”
Xiaojun watched the fire continue to burn as he stared into it, coming to his conclusions. “I must not fight this war against the beasts because of hatred, even though that disgusting feeling continues to ruminate in my heart. I must fight this war to protect the little goodness that exists. If the Envoy of Humanity doesn’t fight the sins of humanity, then that little glimmer of beauty will vanish like a flame smothered by smoke.”
He looked up. The figure was gone, but Xiaojun knew that he would be back. He closed his eyes, his hand still on his weapon as he slept slouching forward. There wasn’t much rest to be gained, but there was a long journey ahead of him. Every second, whether it was spent on moving, fighting, or even resting counted. The warrior had to continue his journey.
The next set of days were the same monotonous march forward. The sun beamed with redness akin to the insatiable heat echoed by human rage. Still wearing his hot and thick armor, he continued to hobble through as his body dripped with sweat. He could hear the human vultures returning to their circling, hearing their little shrieks which sounded like a mangled human scream mixed with that of a bird. In the end, the warrior had to continue his journey.
The nights felt like they were getting shorter and shorter, as did the amount of rest he received. The figure would keep stalking him, and continue to berate him. “It is not worth continuing your journey. It will never end,” it would say. And Xiaojun would have to ignore it, as words do nothing to a mind at war with itself. Exhausted the next morning, the warrior had to continue his journey.
Walking along the sands, he reached for his canteen and attempted to drink from it. There was but a small portion, one that was barely enough to keep even a plant alive. With his lips still dry, parched, and with the taste of sand, he was forced to put the canteen away and continue his journey dehydrated. But still, the warrior had to continue his journey.
Xiaojun to trudge through the endless sand as the mountain looked barely any closer to when he started. It was as if he were stuck on a treadmill and each one of his steps was just a useless and futile continuation of his suffering, all while being taunted by a nonexistent figure. “Just give it up,” the figure said, “you’re not too late to give up now.”
But Xiaojun would still ignore the temptations presented to him. “If I give up, I will die,” he told himself. “If I give up, Hua will die,” he iterated. His wrinkled and exhausted eyes blinked as they lost focus and energy. No food. No water. Just a continuous trudge towards a mountain he had never really seen.
A long time ago, there was another time where he felt this level of desperation. It was when he was a boy on the streets of Dajing. His stomach had been run empty, and any attempt to save his hunger was fruitless. “Get your own damn food!” people would scoff as they’d kick the hobbling boy away from them.
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It was a time where Xiaojun didn’t even know that humanity was capable of kindness. For all he knew, that word was a myth, like a god nobody could see and yet everyone believed in. In a word, Xiaojun didn’t have a single bit of faith in humanity when he was that desperate child. That was why turning to banditry and mongrelism was so easy.
But Xiaojun had long changed. He had tasted far more brutality than the basic streets of Dajing, as the battlefield didn’t have a cent of mercy. However, at the same time, he had tasted small drops of kindness. Jin. Nina. Even Hua. All of those names provided a strange sense of warmth that proved hotter than the sun beaming down on Xiaojun. So, in the end, the warrior had to continue his journey.
As he got closer to the mountain, more obstacles presented themselves. For one, the sand seemingly turned black. He could even see a literal line where he saw the basic tan suddenly transform into an ashy dark. That, alone, was enough to say that evil was coming. For another, he started noticing distant horsemen, ones that were real and not like his mental apparition. They were human, but that didn’t make them any less monstrous.
The Hongbei were also known as the wastelanders, for they were the one people capable of surviving the treacherous plains and steppes of the north. Even before these plains transformed into sands, the area was still a wasteland where life could only exist for those who decide to chase it. The Hongbei were those chasers, capable of adapting to any set of hell presented to them.
Xiaojun had heard of the Hongbei as well. How these barbarians would raid the lands of Jiaguo and take whatever silk, tools, or women they could. For the Hongbei domain was a land dominated by cruelty, where the one who survived was the cruelest.
At this point, the man-vultures stopped stalking him. The Hongbei stalked Xiaojun instead. In both day and night, they had patrols watch the warrior from a distance, their bows seemingly ready to pluck the exhausted man where he stood. Sun or moon, Xiaojun found the horsemen always looking him down from afar.
Eventually, Xiaojun found his body to be at its worse set of exhaustion. His body didn’t even have enough water to salivate his mouth, making his throat dry and hoarse. Similarly, his starved body felt as if it were eating itself, for it had nothing else to digest. Then, suddenly, Xiaojun collapsed.
With his knee on the ground and his hands supported by his guandao, he stopped to catch his breath. But before he could receive some rest, he heard the sound that he dreaded: the sound of clopping hooves and charging men. Arrows flew from their direction as they barely missed Xiaojun. Standing up, the warrior stanced himself against the group.
He used his guandao to deflect incoming arrows as the horsemen drew closer and closer. He counted their speed, waiting for the right chance to strike. Xiaojun watched as they holstered their bows and retrieved their sabers. Xiaojun closed his eyes as he visualized his defense, and then he acted.
He struck the first rider off of his horse, using the rider’s speed against him as the force launched him backwards. Barely dodging the next rider, Xiaojun immediately followed with a sharp thrust which heaved the Hongbei warrior away.
But with Xiaojun’s back turned, a saber sliced against the warrior’s back, the saber cutting through the damaged armor. With blood dripping from his body, Xiaojun refused to even wince as he instinctively struck the rider’s arm, knocking him off of his horse as well. In the end, there were two dead riders, and one left at Xiaojun’s mercy.
Xiaojun looked at the Hongbei warrior would was squirming on the ground. The rider cursed in his native tongue as he held pressure on his bleeding limb. As Xiaojun continued to look at the defeated warrior, he could see his ghastly apparition return. Standing above the defeated warrior, the figure gave his tempting words.
“These men tried to kill you. They have probably slain many before you and will continue to butcher if you leave. Since you have already killed two of them, why not finish the job and kill the third?” the voice said. Xiaojun readied his guandao, preparing to stick the blade into the man’s throat like a stuck pig. But, in the end, he put his weapon down.
“There has been enough red blood for this black sand,” Xiaojun said aloud, “go in peace, so that there is less bloodshed for today’s sun.” The Hongbei warrior, though he didn’t understand the Jiaguonese tongue, seemingly understood Xiaojun’s gesture. He rushed back to his horse and rode away, leaving Xiaojun with two dead bodies as their horses had already run off in fear.
Hungry and thirsty, Xiaojun scavenged the little supplies he found on the corpses. Small canteens and little packages of stolen Jiaguonese bread. He mixed it all together to create a soupy sludge that he devoured insatiably. At the very least, he had a little more energy to continue his journey.
The night was a little more peaceful, since he didn’t have the Hongbei stalking him. But there was a feeling he felt that was different from the feelings he had years ago. “You offered the man mercy,” the apparition growled, “why have you become so weak?”
“I was not weak.” Xiaojun looked at his hands. Even though they were caked with black sand, he could see the blood that stained them. “When I was offered the choice to give life or death, I chose the right option. As I said, there is enough blood that heaven witnesses on a daily basis. I ensured that there was one less body.”
“What does it change?” the apparition demanded. “You! You pretend as if you’re a hero for sparing the life of one man! You must realize that the man will be humiliated! He will stop at nothing to take your life! You have signed your death!”
Xiaojun maintained his calm as he closed his eyes and cleared his mind. “Humans are fragile things. By simply being born, we are signed into a contract where our life is forfeit and we are guaranteed an eventual death. That is why some say that we are already dead: that we are walking corpses. But in the end, everything in our life revolves around the little choice that we have. I had once chosen a life of cruelty. I now chose a life of mercy, even if I try yet fail.” The apparition was gone and Xiaojun got his rest.
The warrior continued his journey, this time seeing the mountain was so much larger and closer than it had ever been. It was the same feeling that an artisan feels when his sculpture slowly reaches the figure it was always meant to be. The slow satisfaction that suddenly appears like a titan landing onto the earth. Just a couple more days, and surely he would reach the mountain.
The days got even longer and the nights even shorter. Every step felt like a lifetime as his injuries and exhaustion multiplied like a plague. Each little movement was a murderous trudge with his eyes set on the distant mountain. “A few more days,” he said to himself, “and I will reach the mountain.”
More steps. More injuries. More exhaustion. It all coalesced into its own little mountain that felt as if it were pressing down on Xiaojun with every step that he took. Having to grunt and scream for every movement, Xiaojun mustered every last bit of his energy as he felt the burden of his journey. He was so close. He could see the base of the mountain right in front of him.
Step. His knees felt like overburdened buttresses barely capable of holding his weight. Step. His back felt broken and shattered, like a destroyed glass table. Step. Blood and sweat mixed to create a burning sensation in every wound in his body. Step. But in the end, he made it to the mountain that he had set his mind to reaching. With a final step, he touched the rock of the mountain, feeling the coolness of the stone touch his hand. And then he collapsed to the ground.
With his knee on the ground, he panted and groaned. Xiaojun felt as if he had finally reached the titanic goal he had set his mind to. As if he were accepting of death if it came for him immediately. “But I cannot end my journey here,” he said to himself, “just as the journey ends at the height of a mountain, I must not end at the base of it.”
But his body was overburdened. He couldn’t stand up, even if he commanded and forced his body to do so. It took a heave of energy just to breath. He fell backward as he hyperventilated for more air. Then, looking to the right, he saw distant horsemen galloping towards him.
He tried to sit up with his weapon, but he didn’t have the energy. Perhaps if Hua were here, he would’ve been able to sip on her blood and continue moving. But she was not here. Xiaojun was alone. He went slightly unconscious as he watched the Hongbei arrive to his position.
Xiaojun saw the warrior that he had spared: a young face and a bandaged arm. Next to him was a taller and larger warrior, one that was fit enough to be titled as “Khan.” Speaking in their native tongues, they heaved Xiaojun onto their horses and rode off with his unconscious body. The warrior made it through the Northern Wastes. He could die happy that the first step of his journey was complete.