The joy in Feng Jie Hong's narrow eyes was infectious, as was his jubilant shouting.
"I'm not lost, after all! I'm not lost, after all!" he kept crying amid the whispers in the cold wind.
Yun Jieshi didn't know what to make of that, but he didn't stop the man from enjoying a well-deserved (at least Yun Jieshi thought so) win.
Feng Jie Hong kept doing a little dance on the scarlet surface of the ruan's neck. He must have been relishing in the fact that it wouldn't suddenly give out under his feet or that he wouldn't suddenly slip and fall from it, as was the case with his 'tightrope'.
He found amusement in everything. The dreamy nature of his outline trailed behind him – truly like an ink-wash painting. He leaped over the giant strings of the ruan and struck them. They were sturdy – immovable even. He grew enticed by the yellow string in particular after a time and stroked it for a few minutes, wondering about its glow.
He only hurried after Yun Jieshi when the little monkey beckoned to him, angrily complaining about how they were losing daylight. He had allowed the phantom to mess around for longer than even he could have imagined possible.
Again, Yun Jieshi was surprised by how quickly he lost respect for the mystical creatures in this world. He had only regarded Hua Dongmei and Honghuo as godlike beings of ice and fire respectively for the better part of… two minutes. Afterwards, he had seen them for what they truly were: immature elemental forces.
Feng Jie Hong was a little different. Rather, he could be excused. He must not have entertained anything but the deep, welcoming darkness of the Great Gap for so long, and thus, his reactions to seeing other uncommon sights – like the ruan – with his heart less burdened were exaggerated.
"This is a beautiful creation. Did you make it yourself?" the phantom asked the monkey but gave no room for him to answer. "I cannot even begin to imagine what kind of wood was used to make this ruan. Zitan? Huanghuali? And these strings. They are tough. They are like mesh at a glance, but they must be capable of producing sweet music, are they not? Sadly, I can't seem to be able to make any of them budge. But surely you can. You must be a brilliant musician. Would you mind playing for me once we cross? And of course… after you restore your ruan to its common size?"
Yun Jieshi smiled sheepishly.
'Musician? I wish!' he thought and he steered the conversation elsewhere.
"You don't seem very surprised with the properties of my ruan," he said to the phantom.
"Why would I be? This world is very different from where I come from and I vaguely remember seeing all sorts of treasures here. Many of them were beyond anything that the craftsmen in my world could make." Feng Jie Hong was beaming, stroking an ebony string.
"I see. Where exactly do you come from?" Yun Jieshi asked. He remembered the old sagely voice saying the phantom belonged to a man who lived in the natural world. But what was that really?
Feng Jie Hong himself had mentioned a few more places that might have pointed to this natural world too, but the little monkey couldn't make a clear connection.
Yun Jieshi wanted to inquire about everything else he could besides, but he felt like Feng Jie Hong's point of origin was the best place to start. The fact that the phantom didn't recognize him as a Sage emboldened him to practice all the ignorance he desired.
"The natural world, of course," Feng Jie Hong said. "I'm surprised you don't know that. The creatures here were not in the least surprised when our army made it here. They knew about our kind, and were daring."
Yun Jieshi gave a little frown, a nod, and a breath that cast a steamy cloud against the chilling air.
By now, the two had far surpassed the limit of Feng Jie Hong on his 'tightrope' by now. A few hours more and they would be on the other end of the Great Gap.
The air had turned noticeably colder, but it was nowhere near the point where Yun Jieshi could consider it a hazard.
"So, the natural world is the human world?" Yun Jieshi asked. It felt a little redundant to ask this, especially with the context from Feng Jie Hong's earlier narration, but he still felt he needed that bit of clarification… just in case there were more parodies here than he had imagined.
The phantom's brows rose and he looked at the little monkey.
"No one calls it that. Humans have been rivals to many dangerous species for a long time in the natural world," he said and he suddenly grew somber. He narrowed his eyes. "But what are you? I have never seen a creature of your kind before. At least one that feels so strange. You even guessed my name."
Yun Jieshi scratched the skin behind his furs.
His list of questions only grew longer and now he was forced to answer a question he didn't know how to answer. He didn't have the Sage gimmick adorned to bail him out.
As impressively as he could, under Feng Jie Hong's piercing eyes, he smiled and looked into the distance before uttering:
"Behold, dear primate
Your fanciless cousin –
laid bare by Winter."
The phantom reeled. His lips made an odd 'O'.
"You… you…" His words failed him.
"I am but a simple monkey. We are more alike than you know," Yun Jieshi said with a little smile. "I understand the feeling of losing someone you love. Romantically."
Feng Jie Hong reeled even more.
"You do?"
"Of course. Don't let my size fool you. I suffer the same burning, complicated sensation that comes with losing a woman as you do. The only difference is, while you have a good chance of getting your closure, I didn't bother to try and find it for myself. I let her walk away without returning a single word. I was convinced I was right and that she was wrong. I blamed how I ruined things on a curse I received from my father… A curse that didn't exist," Yun Jieshi said with a sigh. He could scarcely believe it was him speaking.
'Why am I further derailing the conversation from the things I want to know?' he criticized himself.
Was it because he hadn't had anyone to talk to about all this stuff before swiftly being killed? Well, even after he was reincarnated, he hadn't found anyone who could burden themselves with everything that Yun Jieshi wanted to say either.
A big fish – or tortoise – couldn't understand matters of the heart, Yun Jieshi thought.
Perhaps a fairy could, but how could he have gone about spelling out his vulnerabilities to someone who glazed him with praise every chance they got?
As for Honghuo… Yun Jieshi could only sigh.
Feng Jie Hong let out a chuckle.
"You sound…human. That's a very human thing to do. Well, a very manly thing to do. I remember my older brother doing the same thing a few times only to spend hours hissing at me," he said.
Yun Jieshi chuckled too. He found that he could relate.
"That fairy you mentioned… It seems a long time has passed since you last saw her." He sized Feng Jie Hong up and hesitated to tell him that he was a ghost. Somehow, withholding that felt… wrong. "Do you think she's still there?"
The phantom considered the question seriously. The scarlet hue of the ruan seemed to help him sift through what he truly felt.
"I have hopes. That is all. She always said she'd wait for me. She waited until I was strong enough to see her cage and she said she'd wait until I was strong enough to save her from it," he said, but then his face grew dark with fury. "If my brother somehow grew strong enough to break the cage before me over the years, I will still rescue her from him."
Yun Jieshi scratched his head.
He wished he could have given Feng Jie Hong more assurance that definitely… definitely, he would find his happy ending.
But the little monkey knew.
Even in fairytales, darkness could overthrow the light.
Besides, to Feng Jie Hong, Yun Jieshi wasn't a Sage. He was some little creature offering to help him with his goal.
It was almost liberating for the little monkey to not have such a grand burden for success. Almost.
"ARRRGGHHHH!"
Yun Jieshi turned, startled where Feng Jie Hong had collapsed in a heap, his hands planted against his ears.
"H-hey, what's wrong?" he asked the phantom, approaching him warily.
"Take me back! Take me back!" Feng Jie Hong cried. "I can't go on! I can't go on!"
Yun Jieshi didn't know what to make of it.
What was going on now?
"W-what? But we're almost there! Look! We'll be on the other side in less than an hour! Come on, stand up!" he urged while pointing ahead of them.
Panting, Feng Jie Hong looked where the little monkey was pointing and gnashed his teeth.
He closed his eyes tight and murmured something incomprehensible. Then, he got to his feet.
"Alright. Alright. L-let's go," he said, and meekly, he began walking on, his arms wrapped around him.
Yun Jieshi watched him, dumbfounded.
'What the hell was that about?' he thought.
One moment, Feng Jie Hong was expressing impressive resolve and in the next, he was having a meltdown.
What did it mean?
Yun Jieshi followed after him, dragging his giant bow.
He studied the man for a time, and when he made to ask what had just happened…
"No, no! I can't do this! Take me back! If I fail… if I fail…!" he cried and he dropped to his knees.
'Again?' Yun Jieshi frowned.
Once more, he pointed forward desperately.
"Look, damn you! We're almost there! What are you stopping for?" he shouted.
And once more, Feng Jie Hong raised his head, looked to where the little monkey was pointing, and made a dark face. He rose to his feet and nodded timidly.
"Alright, alright."
And he was off again.
The phantom broke into pieces again not long after.
Yun Jieshi donned the darkest scowl a little monkey could afford.
"What's the problem? Don't you want to see the love of your life?" he cried, frustrated.
What was this?
'Is it because of that Disharmony?'
The phantom whimpered and hesitated to look at him.
"But…but… I am a mere ghost. I know that now. I realized. What if she detests the sight of me? I am not the man she loved. Not anymore," he said unevenly.
Yun Jieshi reeled.
Feng Jie Hong… had not known he was a ghost all along.
The little monkey had gathered as much.
He studied the phantom again.
To his surprise, Feng Jie Hong grew darker and darker as though an untalented artist had taken command of his masterful design and was tracing his unrefined ink over it.
And the darker the phantom got, the scarier his visage became.
"You see it, don't you?" he said, his eyes shuddering. "I'm but a ghost. I can't love her. She can't love me. You see it, don't you… Sage?"
Yun Jieshi shuddered.
"…What did you call me?" he asked.
But it was too late.
Tears streamed down the phantom's face, the hope dwindling from his eyes… and then the darkness took him. It turned him into a man-shaped matte of darkness that was quickly reduced to a black sphere, one that spun wildly – freely.
It had a perfect standard of clockwise rotation.
Confused and appalled, Yun Jieshi simply watched, gaping.
The sphere broke apart in the next instant and all its bits, like thin strings of black, rushed into him.
They were a dark reward for a misdeed that the little Discount Sage didn't realize he had committed.
Yun Jieshi reeled. His eyes bulged as fierce pain stabbed into him. It pierced something deep within him – something he had yet to explore. He grabbed his belly and collapsed on the ruan's immense surface roaring in pain.
"AAAAAH!" Yun Jieshi would have ripped open his stomach to extract the source of his agony if he dared.
Something was growing somewhere within him. It was making space for itself while completely disregarding its host's concerns.
Veins throbbed on Yun Jieshi's face. His eyes were glazed with glaring, supernatural highlight, and then suddenly, he could see it.
He could make out the thing growing inside of him. He didn't know why, but he could see it forming.
It was…
It was a…
A pit?