Yip Chor sat in a meditative pose on the surface of his soul gene. As he looked out, he witnessed a fascinating sight: a megalithic stone wheel circling him and his inner world, itself circled by a larger wheel. His wheels of life and the wheel of fate. Both wheels were adorned with ancient inscriptions and glowed faintly, creating a mesmerising display as they quickly spun around their individual axis and slowly rotated around each other like a gyroscope. Their weight was palpable, causing them to move with great deliberation.
Embedded within the outer stone wheel were two tiny pinpricks of light, each radiating a slightly different hue.
The little god had disappeared after his final announcement, though Yip Chor questioned whether he had been truly present through the whole encounter or just his voice. He even entertained the thought that all of this might be a dream or a hallucination, a product of his frozen existence on the gravestone he had collapsed upon in that forsaken cemetery of rejection. The thought was immediately dismissed.
In this ethereal realm, Yip Chor found solace and tranquillity as he meditated on the little god's words. This was his soul realm, and if he cultivated and grew this realm, he would one day surpass all things to find answers to the deepest mysteries. According to the little god, the way to cultivate this soul realm was to grow his inner world, and the way to do that was to cultivate the strength of his connection to his soul's spheres... his connection to the outside world.
The world he had known, the world that could shape him, tugged at his consciousness with increasing strength. The pull to exit this space and re-enter the physical world grew stronger with each passing moment. Within the words of the little god, he had hinted at the method of leaving.
"-- Cherish these spheres, they represent the gates to your divine experience, through which your soul finds sustenance. Three spheres there be... body, spirit and universe three."
Turning his attention towards the two stars embedded in the wheel of fate around him, his eyes followed them as they tracked a path across the dark sky. After a moment of focusing especially on his spirit sphere, images and visions seemed to enter his mind, and with a pop, his consciousness re-entered the mortal realm once more.
---
Yip Chor, trapped within the confines of his unresponsive body, tried to open his eyelids, but to no avail. He struggled to move his arms, attempting to feel his face, but his limbs remained elusive. Everything felt foreign and doubts crept into his heart. Was his experience prior to this merely a figment of his imagination? This world seemed more tangible, more real than the one he had just been in. It felt like awakening from a dream that was quickly fading away, slipping from his grasp. He lay there, a prisoner in his own body until he heard a familiar voice in the distance.
It was a female voice, shouting and crying out. Though muted, it struck a chord of recognition within him. He attempted to reply, but his body refused to obey his commands. He was confined in the cold, dark coffin of his own body.
"Chor'er, Chor'er!" As the crunch of footsteps in the snow drew nearer, their frequency quickened until they became a flurry of movement.
"Chor'er! I have found him, Lixin!" It clicked in his mind—Yip Jia and Yip Lixin had been looking for him.
"Oh, Chor'er, oh no!"
"Is he alive?" asked Lixin.
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"I don't know! Help me!" cried Yip Jia. She searched for his pulse but couldn't find one, causing her to cry out, "Ahhh, I cannot find his flow of blood! He is dead! Dead Lixin!"
"Hush, let me try!" said Lixin, his voice heavy with resignation.
Yip Chor felt his brother lift him out of the dirt, brushing his face and body, attempting to locate a pulse. After a moment, Lixin let out a heavy sigh. "He has passed."
Yip Jia sobbed uncontrollably, her cries filling the air.
Yip Chor, filled with frustration, tried to call out, to signal that he was alive, but he could only rage within the cold darkness of his body's prison.
"It looks like he tried to dig himself into this grave for warmth in his final moments," Yip Lixin stated with another heavy sigh that bordered on tears. "He did not deserve this fate, regardless of his weakness."
"Come, let us carry him to our ancestral home. We cannot let Quinfan know we have retrieved him."
"Damn Quinfan! I'm going to kill him!" cried Yip Jia with resolute anger.
Lixin sighed as he lifted his brother out of the hole in the dirt.
"Make an attempt, and you will surely join Chor'er in death!"
---
Yip Jia had discovered the truth about what her younger brother, Quinfan, had done after the fact. Her father had trudged through the snow, straight for the stables to prepare the carriage for a journey home. He had stayed silent through the process, her mother's worried questions not finding answers. They had left together for their ancestral home that very night.
Yip Jia, tension filling her gut, had then confronted Quinfan asking for answers, and he had casually told her what had occurred. Furiously, and with an empty threat of violence, she commanded the location of where they had left their brother, but he did not respond, fully engaged in signing documents in silence. Knowing she couldn't change his mind once set, she stormed out of the study and began a desperate search for her Yip Chor. Throughout the night, she combed through the surrounding icy mountains, stumbling on a village at the bottom of some cliffs.
Midway through her search, Lixin had joined her, driven by either compassion for his sister or remorse for what he had done. He had informed her that Yip Chor had headed toward the cemetery. And so, in the first light of dawn, they stumbled upon a trail of blood in the snow, leading them to a shallow hole in the earth where they found Yip Chor.
His extremities were blackened by frostbite, his arms and legs worn down to the bone in a desperate attempt to burrow into the frozen ground. His body was a mere skeleton, ribs and backbone protruding through his papery white skin. When Lixin lifted him, it appeared as though he held a stiff, white branch in his arms.
As they carried Yip Chor toward their ancestral home, memories flooded Yip Jia's mind. She reminisced about her older brother, the wise and imaginative storyteller who had filled their childhood with wonder and hope. His narratives had painted a world of magic, inspiring them all and instilling a sense of possibility and grandeur.
She couldn't shake the feeling that his true potential had been thwarted by his delicate health and lack of motivation. If only his constitution had matched his intellect, she was certain he would have excelled in the Qilin Iron Gate examinations, securing his place in a top immortal sect. Unfortunately, his fate had dealt him a different hand.
Upon reaching their ancestral home, their mother rushed out to meet them, her heart heavy with worry. Their father was nowhere to be seen. Tearfully, she learned of Yip Chor's fate.
The day wore on, steeped in mourning and sorrow. Neighbours and old friends of the family came by to pay their respects, bringing food and condolences mainly as a way to improve relationships with the wealthy Chor family, rather than from any connection to Yip Chor. Finally, the priests of their village temple came to prepare the body. The customary rites were observed, and Yip Chor was placed on a pyre, ready to be consumed by flames.
Before lighting the wood, members of his family came forward whispering their grief-stricken farewells. It was around this time that His father finally came out of the house, to stoically place some paper money on his son's body. This was his firstborn son, and he wanted him to be prepared for the afterlife. Bingwen, the family steward also approached, eyes downcast as he placed a red lotus on Yip Chor's body. He had known the young master since birth and their relationship had always been close, developed over years of his patient support.
As the sun began to set, the pyre was ignited, engulfing Yip Chor's remains in a solemn blaze.
As darkness cloaked the surroundings and the flickering flames waned, the reverent priests carefully extracted Yip Chor's intact bones from the fading pyre. Enshrouded in burial garments, they handled the sacred remains with the utmost care, bearing them with solemnity to the hallowed sanctuary of the ancestral crypt. There, amidst the hush of eternity, Yip Chor's bones were tenderly laid to rest, destined for everlasting repose.