矢志不移 (shǐ zhì bù yí) – an arrow cannot change course; i.e. once a decision has been made, do not turn back.

  “As long as you need,” Gong Lau Yan said gallantly.

  “Even if that’s forever?” The ghost fluttered Zéyì’s eyelashes.

  “I should be asking you that.” She lifted the back of Zéyì’s hansd to her forehead. “In spite of everything, will you stay with me forever?”

  The ghost laughed. The sound was sad and startled, too loud and too tired. “Is this what it feels like? It’s so beautiful and so heavy all at once…” She removed Gong Lau Yan’s hand from Zéyì’s forehead. “I had forgotten about my brother. He was the only family I had, and I forgot him. I wonder how long I’ve been lingering here.”

  In the muffled silence, with the weight of the earth pressing down on them, the ghost said, “I thought I needed romantic love. The kind you hear about in stories all the time. The kind that makes you want to hand your very heart to another even with the fear that they might crush it beneath their feet.”

  Zéyì’s heart beat painfully.

  “It’s beautiful. It truly is. I searched for it, even as I lived every day in the Incense Quarters, thinking that perhaps that kind of love would come and find me. And now I feel it, between you and her. And it frightens me. It’s so very, very heavy.”

  The air was stale. Every breath was stuffed with darkness and loss.

  “The gentle, familial love my brother gave me… that’s all I need. Your love is for heroes and Immortals. For stories. You’re not human, are you, darling? No, I realised… But you were so very kind to me. Thank you for letting me catch a glimpse.”

  The ghost shone through Zéyì’s skin. She was slimmer than the woman she had possessed, with whiteless black eyes, and diaphanous robes of red and pink. “I think I’m ready to leave now.”

  “Do you remember your name?” Gong Lau Yan asked.

  “The last name I went by was Gu Ting.”

  “Like the flower? It suits you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gu Ting closed her eyes. Like fireflies vanishing into the night, her form dissolved, soundless, leaving behind only Zéyì. She was quiet for a long time.

  “Are you alright, A Yi?” Gong Lau Yan asked gently.

  “I don’t know what to say. Where do I even begin? I’m so-”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I need to speak with you clearly and truthfully. It’s what you need and deserve.”

  The chuckle that left Zéyì’s throat was more of a mournful gurgle. “I’m too sensitive and needy. Don’t…”

  “Don’t what? Should I just ignore what you want, A Yi?” Gong Lau Yan knelt, never mind that the ground was filthy, and Zéyì immediately tried to pull her upright again. “I’m strong enough for this, at least. Stronger than even I realised.”

  “Why are you being so dramatic? Come on, stand up.”

  “There’s somewhere I want to take you, Lian. Will you come with me, and talk to me?”

  Zéyì immediately took the hand that was extended to her. “What about all the people down here?”

  “Until the curse on Dzue is lifted, there’s nothing we can do.” Gong Lau Yan’s expression was dark. “I could exhaust myself replenishing every luminescent pearl here, but…”

  “Where are we going, then?”

  Gong Lau Yan squeezed her hand. “To see my grandmother.”

  The way out of the underground was long. Gong Lau Yan’s memory was excellent, leading them unerringly, but the corridors were murky and silent, the bright hopeful beauty that they had seen with Gu Ting faded away. They held each other’s hands tightly, as though a single slip could have them drifting apart into the dark.

  Zéyì didn’t ask if they should see Gou Gin Gam before they left. What would they have to say to him? What would they have to say to anyone here?

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll save you all’? ‘Just wait a little longer, you’ll be free soon’?

  She listened to Gong Lau Yan’s breath, growing drier and raspier with each step. She looked inside herself and saw her inner demon, staring back at her.

  They could barely look after themselves. What could they promise the people in this dying city?

  She felt the curse creep closer as they rose higher through the city. They paused in an empty corridor, gazing together into the dark. Gong Lau Yan licked her dry lips.

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  “We need to move quickly… Let me carry you.”

  Transformed, the loong extended her back, letting Zéyì jump on. They turned to look back the way they had come. The way down the corridor, in whichever direction they looked, stretched away into unknown gloom.

  “We’ll come back,” Gong Lau Yan promised, whether to herself or to Zéyì or to the people below. And then she took off, rushing at impossible speeds through the winding labyrinth.

  Two ghosts crept out into the corridor that Gong Lau Yan and Zéyì had just left behind. Gou Gin Gam followed them.

  They listened in silence to the retreating sounds of the loong flying away.

  Gong Lau Yan only paused for a moment as the small square of light that was the exit sped towards them. In that moment, she was humanoid again, her arms around Zéyì, and then they were bursting through that tiny bright square and rushing through the almost painfully bright desolation of Ming Yuet. Between one blink and the next, she was in dragon form again, desperately racing north towards Dzak Hau, the spine of mountains that formed a geological wall around the city.

  Over the dried riverbeds, the empty lands, to the line of peaks, they flew until Zéyì began to feel something subtly different in the air, a kind of relief from the harrowing dehydration of the Dzue curse.

  Gong Lau Yan descended on the tallest peak, slowly her course by zigzagging back and forth, and at last they gently landed at the foot of the mountain. Extending her hand, Zéyì placed it on the enormous pile of rocks that towered above her, the remains of some old rockslide, perhaps.

  But below that cradling relief that she felt, there was another, more familiar, even more gentle sensation.

  “Lau Yan… Did Master Yuan Mu ever come here?”

  “He was the one who sealed Grandmother away, at her request, two hundred years ago.”

  Both of Zéyì’s hands were now on the stones. “Their energies are… so similar. There are differences, of course, but…”

  “Grandmother was Yuan Mu’s Master, when he was a young man.”

  Of course. Held by the energies of her Master and Grandmother-Master, the noises in Zéyì’s head were smothered to silence. She felt clear-headed, as she had not felt in over one hundred years.

  “A-po.” Gong Lau Yan bowed to the rockslide. “I’m sorry I haven’t been a good granddaughter. I can’t even remember the last time I visited.”

  Zéyì bowed too, down to the ground, feeling content to remain there with her head pressed to the dirt.

  “Do you remember this lady? She goes by the name Zéyì, these days. I asked her to come with me today… I wanted my two dearest people to meet each other.” She knelt by Zéyì’s side and placed a hand on her back.

  The late afternoon sun was setting over the mountains, limning a single cloud in the pale blue sky orange and pink. The light caught Gong Lau Yan’s eyes like sunlight on a river.

  “I thought I was better than Mother all this time, but I’ve just run away, the way she always did. I suppose I was just more sly about it, to the point where I even deceived myself. I left behind Zéyì several times, even when I had wanted to stay by her side from the start. And yet she’s always waited with open arms each time. Isn’t that amazing?

  “A-po, I want to save Dzue. I’m not as strong as Dze-dze was, but I want to try. Only, I’m tired… We’re both tired, and sick. So I beg you, can you help us? Please, just give us enough strength to keep going a little longer.”

  There was no response. Zéyì looked up. “Can she hear us?”

  “She’s sleeping very, very deeply,” Gong Lau Yan said. “And I haven’t visited in a while…”

  Sitting fully upright, Zéyì pressed her hands together, her words a jumble of Dzue and Xiǎng. “Grandmother-Master, your Granddaughter-Disciple Ch… Dzue Dzak Yat greets you. Meeting you for the first time… I wish the circumstances were different.” She reached for Gong Lau Yan’s hands. Their fingers entwined together.

  “I want to live together with Lau Yan. I want to walk together through the Dzue that she remembers. As much as I hate to admit it, I want to understand my mother and what she did. I want to understand my father and what he did.” The words flowed forth, the dam broken. “I want to save the citizens trapped beneath Ming Yuet. I want our children to wake to the ocean and mist every morning. But we need just a little more strength, a little more comfort. Please, Grandmother…”

  “I’ve made the right choice this time, A-po,” Gong Lau Yan chuckled. “Do you hear that? Children. Plural.”

  Zéyì almost choked on her own tongue as she realised what she had said. “Lau Yan!”

  “Dzak Yat?”

  “I mean… I meant…”

  Gong Lau Yan dropped her head onto their entwined hands, laughing.

  “Stop laughing at me!”

  “Did you mean it?”

  “I… Well…”

  “Hm?”

  “Yes.” Zéyì’s voice grew stronger, almost angry. “Yes, I did.”

  “Then please marry me,” Gong Lau Yan said, raising her grey-brown eyes to meet the ying-yang of Zéyì’s.

  Zéyì gaped for some moments like a fish. “I… Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, Shu Kui told me something interesting, once.”

  “Did she?”

  “She said that there are very few male loong, and that female loong seem to be able to have children without them.”

  “That’s true.”

  “How…?”

  “Would you like to find out?” Gong Lau Yan asked slyly. Her expression softened at the look on Zeyi’s face. “I won’t do anything you don’t want, Ah Yat.”

  “Is what Gu Ting said… true?”

  “What are you referring to, exactly?”

  “That you’re not interested in…”

  “Oh, that.” Gong Lau Yan examined the way their fingers were tangled together. “Not particularly. Sex isn’t necessary for loong to reproduce, so there’s no real reason for us to find pleasure in it. Not to say that there aren’t loong who aren’t interested, it’s just rare. Is that a problem?”

  “You just tease me so much, I was scared…” Suddenly, Zeyi realised that tears were spilling out of her eyes.

  Gong Lau Yan held her tightly. “Ah Yat, Ah Yat, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I don’t know if this is just how I am, or if it’s because of my cultivation practice,” Zeyi whispered, breath hitching, “I want to hold your hand and lean against you and hold you, but beyond that… beyond that…”

  “We don’t have to go beyond that, Ah Yat,” Gong Lau Yan murmured, rocking her gently. “We don’t need anything else. This is all we need.”

  In each other’s arms, a stillness cocooned them. They didn’t move, only their eyes turning towards the rockslide. Slowly at first, but gradually increasing in speed, tiny golden dust began to filter through the gaps in the rocks. The golden motes settled lightly over them, until their hair and skin sparkled in the last orange rays of the sun slipping over the mountains.

  Gong Lau Yan’s lips were still cracked. Zeyi could still hear her demon whisper in the depths of her mind.

  It didn’t matter.

  “We’ll go and find my Junior Sibling,” Zeyi said. “And they’ll help us bring back Tsaam Lei, and… well I don’t know how, but maybe Haat Ngan Wan and Master can heal him…”

  “We’ll work it out,” Gong Lau Yan laughed. “We don’t have to have all the answers right now.”

  “You’re right. We don’t.”

  “Shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s go.”

  They bowed to the mountain, where the Dragon at the Centre of All Things lay in eternal sleep, then took to the air once more.