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—Great Middle Empire, Tianshi territory, Alfheim.
It was said that someplace somewhere east within the Great Middle Empire that the Tianshi called their home, there was a peculiar mountain. What made this mountain special and set it apart from every other mountain in the world? Who even knew. It had always just been there for as long as anybody could remember. It was just a very peculiar looking mountain and so the people agreed that it was a very peculiar mountain.
It twisted like the body of a great loong and, whether it be rain or shine, clouds always surrounded the peak of the mountain. Of those who have seen this mountain in person, some have even come to convince themselves that the eternal Celestials lived atop this mountain.
However, the truth was nothing of the sort. It was just a very peculiar looking mountain, formed under very peculiar circumstances, and absolutely no Celestials ever lived atop its peak.
…
…
Atop Da Loong Peak, there was a lake. In the middle of this lake was an island. And in the center of this island, there was a pond filled with delicate water lilies.
Seated quietly on a wooden raft on this misty pond was a youthful man who had the bearings of an elder— a Tianshi who lived in the clouds. He wore long silken robes, sat with his back rigidly straight, and his long hair, faded from the once glorious black that it used to be, was untied and flowing freely. Though, upon closer inspection, one would find that there were still several strands of hair that still kept their color as though fruitlessly struggling against the inevitability that was old age.
His eyes were closed in meditation and in his hands was a single bamboo fishing rod.
All was peaceful and still: the pond, the air, and the world.
…
“Great patriarch, please come back to lead us!”
A man in red robes was currently kowtowing before the youthful old man. His head touched the surface of the water and his figure was pressed as low as physically possible. From the indifference of the one dubbed patriarch, this was likely to be a usual scene. Nothing strange about it. However, the only thing that may have been strange to a normal onlooker would be how the man was kneeling on the surface of the pond as though it was as solid as ground.
“. . .”
The pleads fell onto deaf ears as the patriarch kept his eyes closed as if not acknowledging the man’s existence.
“Great Patriarch, please, we need your guidance now more than ever. I implore you, come back! Ever since your departure, the internal affairs of the clan have been in a state of total chaos! Four different factions have sprung up and each are vying after the other’s throats. All they do is fight and compete to see who can one up each other! We cannot continue like this! If nothing is done then the twenty thousand year legacy of our clan will surely be doomed! Great Patriarch, you have led us since the inception of our clan, and many have only ever known you as our leader. If you decide to come back, no one will dare object! With just a single word you would be able to easily set things right. There can be no one aside from you who can lead our Leiyu clan!”
“. . .”
Still, the old patriarch did not listen. It was something he had heard a thousand times, and will probably hear another thousand times come the next opportunity.
…
“I shall not move an inch from this spot until you decide to come back, Great Patriarch!”
The man in red robes shouted his intentions once more for his patriarch to hear.
“Enough,” finally, the patriarch said, his tone neutral and unassuming, but anyone who knew him well would be able to tell his great annoyance.
“Great Patriarch!” the man brought his head up, hope glimmering in his face that perhaps he had finally managed to convince his patriarch.
That hope was something that quickly broke into fear as the patriarch opened his electric blue eyes that crackled with raw mana.
“First you scare away the fishes and now you tell me you won’t move until I come with you? Since when did you have this much authority?”
“Great Patriarch!” the man quickly brought his head down again, smashing it against the surface of the pond in what was somehow an even deeper kowtow than before. The dread that he experienced as he met with his patriarch’s eyes was great and chilling— far worse than if he had just been doused with an entire cauldron of freezing cold water.
With a wave of the patriarch’s hand, the ripples that disturbed his pond and shook his raft ceased to be.
“Is that the only thing you know how to say? There are toddlers who know more words than you!” the patriarch finally snapped, and his angry voice rang like violent explosions in the red robed man’s ears.
“I beg for your forgiveness!”
“Enough! If you were here for a cup of tea, then I would have gladly welcomed you to sit. Instead, you come here to spout endlessly about nonsense. I have no hospitality to give out to you. Now leave!”
“Great Patriar—”
“Begone before I throw you off this peak myself!” the angry patriarch interrupted the man with his final warning.
“I— Understood…!”
…
It was already dusk after the red robed man flew away on his treasure sword.
Taking a look at his darkened surroundings, the patriarch waved his palm across the air. Immediately so, the surface of the misty pond sprung to life with thousands of flickering flames. These were the lights from the candles which he had previously placed atop the lily pads floating on the water’s surface.
Satisfied with this ambience, he stood on ceremony and bowed his head respectfully.
“This Junior greets you, Senior. I apologize for the poor sight you had to sit through.”
“Leiyu, you noticed?” replied a figure standing atop the waters from deep within the mist.
“How could I not? You weren’t trying to hide from me, after all. From the very moment you stepped onto Da Loong Peak, I could sense your presence. There can be no other like it. Because of that, the injury I sustained all those years ago is aching again,” Leiyu replied wryly.
“Is that so. I’m sorry for that,” the figure responded regretfully as she revealed herself. Her sorrowful eyes were deep like the shade of freshly spilled blood and her hair was like the second coming of sunset. Although she walked across the water, her footsteps caused no ripples on the pond’s surface.
“Senior, someone of your status should not lower her head towards anybody. I was fully aware of the consequences and I regret nothing. I simply challenged the heavens and was struck down by lightning. Even had I died back then, I still would not have regretted anything. That’s because it was part of my luck and fortune to have received your guidance. What you taught me then, was the greatest lesson of all— humility. Without that lesson, I would not be the man I am today.”
“I see. I see. I see…”
Thrice, his senior repeated.
“If you say it so, then I can only accept your words as it is.”
…
Seated comfortably on the raft, the two conversed, surrounded by the firefly glow of candle light.
“Tea?” Leiyu offered.
“Certainly.”
Hearing this, Leiyu waved his hand and a single lily pad with a lit candle drifted towards the two of them. At the same time a simple white teapot and a handful of black tea leaves flew out from behind him and drifted over the flickering flame. He then waved his hand a second time and a part of the mist swirled to condense into liquid water to fill the pot. Satisfied, he left the pot to slowly come to a boil.
“Senior, what brings you here to this humble Da Loong Peak?”
“Enough with the whole ‘senior this’ and ‘senior that’ already. It’s quite annoying to hear. You’ve never called me that before, why start all of a sudden?”
“You are my Senior, so it is only natural that I, as your Junior call you Senior.”
“Open your damn eyes, Leiyu, do I look like a senior to you,” his senior frowned.
Leiyu laughed merrily at being told off like this.
“Hahaha. Indeed. If it is outwardly appearance you speak of, then no one is as youthful as you. Your shine has not changed since the day I met you. Meanwhile, my hair has all but turned completely white.”
“Your hair and attitude is the only thing that seems to have changed though. Are you sure you are the same Leiyu I know?”
“I most certainly am. But, perhaps, it seems like you also finally decided to change a little as well,” he mused quietly. “You’ve become taller, your face more mature, and… Perhaps most of all, you’ve become more like a person now. You are no longer the stoic machine that you used to be, who was incapable of understanding the toils of the mortal world. I do not know how long it took you, or what you had encountered to make you change, or who you met that managed to change you, but I do know that you have definitely changed. All this… even though I had been led to believe that Celestials were eternal beings incapable of change.”
“Forget about me, not even the Aesirs are immutable. I can’t remain like a child forever, Leiyu,” his senior simply said.
“I see, then Senior has found a reason to change. As someone who had the fortune of meeting you not long after you first descended, I cannot be more glad.”
…
After the time needed to boil a pot of tea… tea was served, alonged with a plate piled with popped water lily seeds.
It was dark, luscious, and shimmering like the pond as it reflected the mellow glow of the candle lights.
Leiyu poured the tea by hand this time, no fancy techniques, just by his own two hands, into two identical vessels, at two identical water levels.
“Please,” Leiyu bowed as he offered the cup out with both hands as per tradition for a junior towards a senior.
Nodding, his senior accepted it. It was only after she took a sip after indulging in the pleasant aroma that Leiyu also picked up his cup to drink.
“It’s nice, fragrant, has a subtle bitterness that grows more pronounced the longer I let it sit in my mouth, and yet it lacks any astringency. I don’t know how many years it has been since I’ve had the opportunity to drink tea like this. Thank you,” she said.
“Your words praise me too much,” Leiyu responded as he gently set his cup back onto the raft.
“Did you grow these yourself?”
”It’s a hobby,” he nodded, “one that I’ve come to enjoy since my recluse. Naturally, it also means I have been delving into uncharted territories. Through my experimentations I have found that just about anything can be turned into tea: from the dried peels of fruits, flowers, herbs, and even roots and bark.”
Saying this, Leiyu waved his arm across the air and the mist atop the pond cleared, revealing the island within the greater lake which the pond stood in the middle of. It was abundant with rare and precious plant forms that even kings and emperors would kill to get their hands on. Their gathering from across the world was the result of the hard work and cultivation by Leiyu himself.
As a matter of fact, even the water lilies floating on the pond’s surface were not something that just anybody could get their hands upon. The seeds of these water lilies were a prime ingredient in a life extending elixir, the concentrated extract of which was something that someone had once used to create their magnum opus, an item dubbed the “Philosopher’s Stone.”
“Tea is a wonderful thing, I believe,” Leiyu spoke as he filled his senior’s cup a second time, “I’ve spoken about the Dao with many teachers, made many allies, and have even ended life long grudges, all over what but a pot of tea. Tea is something that brings calm to one’s mind if one allows it to, and so it is not something that should be rushed. It takes time to brew, and yet that span of time is not so great that even the most impatient of devils would be able to sit for it. Yes… the time it takes for a pot of tea to come to a boil, that is the perfect increment of time.”
“Hahaha, it is strange to hear that from you, the prideful and arrogant Leiyu, ‘The Magnificent Thunderstorm,’ ‘Eastern Demon Lord,’ and the ‘Patriarch of the Leiyu Clan.’ These were names you took so much pride in. In the past you would have even gone so far as to raze an entire clan to the ground if anyone had dared to slander them.”
“Senior,” Leiyu sighed meaningfully, “if even the eternal Celestials are not immutable, then who am I to dare and try to be?”
“Yes, I know, and now you’ve renounced everything to take a vow as a hermit in order to live out the rest of your life in seclusion.”
Leiyu closed his eyes as he quietly contemplated himself.
“Twenty thousand years. For me, it was all that ever was: my birth, my glory, my entire life. But for you, it was only just twenty thousand years.”
When he gazed at the earth, it was his entire world, yet when he gazed into the sky, it was filled with an uncountable number of stars, each of which he had no doubt were entire worlds of their own.
During his life, he had cut ties from his clan of birth—
—He traveled the Great Middle Empire and sought guidance from many teachers on his path of enlightenment.
—He unveiled the deepest secrets of cultivation.
—He unified the east as the Eastern Demon Lord, becoming one of the few Peerless Under the Heavens.
—He then met his soulmate who was orphaned as a victim of his past conquests…
—And towards the end of his thousand year long journey, he came face to face with the Great Dragon of the East, Leiyu the Magnificent Thunderstorm, and managed to slay it using everything he had in his repertoire. Afterwards, he took its name as his own and with what he gained from that battle– the treasures, wealth, and reverence– he finally settled down and founded a clan of his own.
But, at the end of the day, had what he had done in his life even mattered?
“Have I accomplished what I was born in this world to accomplish?” Leiyu voiced his doubts seriously. “Did my deeds have meaning in them? After I am gone, what part, if any, of my legacy will remain? Even if my grandchildren remember me, would their grandchildren remember me? And would the grandchildren of those grandchildren even know of me? These were questions I would ask myself constantly with the passing of each day.”
He took a sip of his tea and savoured it thoroughly so.
“After thinking about it for so long, I eventually came to the conclusion that these worries of mine never really did matter in the greater scheme of things— for I am not eternal. The earth may be vast, however the stars are infinitely greater. The monuments that I leave behind here won’t truly matter. Even the sturdiest mountains may be eroded given the passage of enough time: Even if my deeds leave a great footprint that lasts a hundred thousand years after my death, it will still eventually be buried under new history.”
Leiyu paused to look at the tea leaves lingering at the bottom of his cup.
“That was when I decided to just do what I wanted to, without having to be urged on by the invisible hand that masked itself as my destiny— the destiny of all imperials to rule, the destiny to unify, the destiny to be great. I had already done all that and what was it I was left with? A mountain of doubt questioning whether or not I had done enough yet.
“As a man, my bloodline ends with me. It cannot be helped, as a child inherits their mother’s blood and strength. Many were opposed to my marriage to Xiyue for this very reason, as they strongly believed I should have chosen a wife who could produce an heir suitable to carry on my imperial lineage, and if not that, then at least take on a concubine to sire a proper heir. But that kind of loveless and faithless approach, I could not betray Xiyue for it. When they realized I could not be swayed, they sent assassins to kill Xiyue. She died shortly before she was to give birth to our second child.
“…Perhaps I had already grown too soft by then, by the idea of being with my Xiyue, by the idea of starting a family… But after that incident, I reminded all my oppressors just exactly why I held the name of The Magnificent Thunderstorm and Eastern Demon Lord.”
—Clak.
Gently, Leiyu set his cup down. Although he had been talking for quite some time now about his own past, his tone and expression told a different story. It was as though he was an outsider recounting another’s history and not his own.
Even the seething rage that had once burned within his body had simmered down through the passage of enough time.
…
…
“Senior, would you like to try a different variety of tea? It’s something I’ve been experimenting with recently,” Leiyu asked.
“No, I think it’s about time I left,” his senior shook her head politely, “I only came here to greet you because I was nearby. I’ve done what I came here to do.”
“I see. In that case, here, take this with you.”
Saying this, Leiyu handed her a small pouch of dried tea leaves, the ones which he had been planning on serving just now.
“Oh? Thanks. I’ll make sure to try this under a good moon.”
“Farewell, Senior, and take care on your path.”
“I will, Leiyu, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know, Senior. I know.”
…
Looking at him, his senior paused. Truly, Leiyu had changed into a different man now. From what he had once been– brash, arrogant, and hot headed– he was now calm and commendable as an elder… truly, time could change a person.
“You’ve done well,” his senior told him simply. With straightforward words lacking in embroidery or decept, she praised him.
“From the bottom of my soul, thank you, Senior.”
Leiyu closed his eyes in gratitude. Perhaps… after all this time, after all his feats and accomplishments, that was the one remaining thing he had been waiting to hear.
As she turned to leave, Leiyu stood up and bowed fist to palm. This was the greatest show of respect he could give anyone.
“It was good to see you one more time, Senior.”
“Yeah,” smiling, she replied all too simply.
“To us— to all of us who are a part of the Fey, your existence is the closest thing we have to our gods. Without you, and those of your kin, we of the Fey would never have come to be. You are our ancestors, you are our past, and you are the vessel that carries our will far unto the future. I may have lived twenty thousand years, and I may live twenty thousand more, but one day my end will come. And when it does, please, even should you forget about me and all I stood for, at least remember these words. Eternity is a long time, so do not fall into despair. Do not give into resentment. And do not come to hate this world which took you so long to come to appreciate. Take care of yourself, Senior.”
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“Oh! Just one last thing!”
As his senior’s back was about to fade into the distance, Leiyu called aloud as though he had just remembered something important.
“Hm?” his senior turned around, curiosity on her face as to what it could be now.
“Children, stop hiding and give Senior a proper send off!” Leiyu instructed in an equally loud voice.
What came to happen after that, was something quite unusual, but most definitely magical.
Dozens of loongs, all a hundred meters long, shot out of the lake. They all danced in the air and their breaths lit the night sky with fireworks of flame, frost, and raw mana.
“Good grief,” she sighed with an amused smile, “now it makes sense, you sly kid.”
She had noticed them when she first arrived, these loongs hiding within the lake, but she never made the proper connections until now.
The reason Leiyu had secluded himself up here atop the remains of the Great Dragon Leiyu was not because he had grown tired of the world, but it was to nurture the brood which Leiyu had left behind. He had taken up the Great Dragon’s everything after all— its name, treasures, and essence, so now it was his turn to repay that debt. And this was his way of repaying it, to raise the next generation of loongs for the future.
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Fairy Song 