Work Text:
Shen Yuan was weaving.
Shen Yuan was always weaving, his hands never still, always itching to continue his craft, to the point where even his dreams had an undercurrent of clack, clack, clack, the rhythmic sound of his loom like a heartbeat under the veils of sleep.
He didn’t remember how he died. He did, however, remember what made him cling to life with everything he had.
When he was lying on his deathbed, he’d had a dream.
Some dreams feel like a lifetime, more real than anything you have ever experienced before. Then you wake up and see your fate slipping through your fingers like smoke.
Maybe it had been designed to give him one last bit of happiness before death claimed him but, instead, Shen Yuan had surged up and up and sunk his bloody fingers into the dream, determined never to let it go.
It had turned him into something else, something inhuman.
For the longest time after, he had been bodiless, floating through dreams, barely more than a thought himself. The spark in him had grown, however, until it became a wildfire, every flame chanting the same thing: he had to make the dream real. He had to reach that happiness again.
Eventually, he grew strong enough to form a body in the waking world, weak at first, dissolving at times and making him slip back into the dreams of humans, but becoming more stable every day.
It was not in the waking world that Meng Mo found him, but in the world of dreams. An older dream demon and, with all the knowledge that Shen Yuan didn’t yet have, he tried to introduce him to his new reality.
There weren't many like him out there, so when Shen Yuan bolted, Meng Mo pursued him in a relentless chase for the chance to teach another dream demon. In the end, Shen Yuan was too young and inexperienced to be much of a challenge and was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a school of all things.
***
“What is it this time?”
Shen Yuan looked up from his loom to see that Meng Mo had come to stand next to him. She was in a female form today, a stately older woman looking down at his work with a raised eyebrow. It was unusual that she joined him when he took his loom outside, into the grassy hills just beyond the academy. She preferred the comfort of soft seats and drinks at hand.
He looked back down at the tapestry stretched over the loom before him. Red and black and silver threads interwove to create the beginnings of a vivid scene. Slowly, he covered it with one of his wide sleeves. “Don’t look, it’s not finished yet.”
“Tell me what it’ll be when it’s finished, then.”
“It’s a depiction of the three principal relationships in a demon’s life.”
As always, Meng Mo jumped at the chance to start lecturing. “Ah, yes. The relationship between a teacher and their student, the one between a lord and their servant, and the one-”
“Between lovers, yes,” Shen Yuan interrupted her, annoyed at Meng Mo teaching him about his own project.
“Getting rather conventional in your storytelling now, are we?”
Shen Yuan looked up through his eyelashes. “Not everyone can be as… unconventional as Shizun.”
Meng Mo bared her teeth at him. “Don’t get cheeky now, boy.”
He just shrugged. “If you really cared about what the other demons think about you, you wouldn’t have accepted me as your disciple.” Not when Meng Mo must have known how much of an outcast he would be. After all, the fact that he had been a human and only became something else after his death made him more ghost than demon, which meant that he was other. Lesser, in the eyes of most demons.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Demons as a rule are short-sighted. They don’t understand long-term investments. I do. One day, you’ll be stronger than all those who are scorning you now. If you train hard and keep developing your cultivation, you might eventually be able to weave reality itself. And what will they say then, hm?”
“That this one was Great Master Meng Mo’s disciple?” Shen Yuan guessed, not trying very hard to banish the sarcastic tone from his voice.
Meng Mo squeezed his shoulder hard before removing her hand. “Exactly.”
“If you say so.” Shen Yuan wanted her to leave so he could return to his work.
Suddenly, awed cries came from a group of students near them and they turned around to see what the excitement was all about. The students were pointing towards the sky, their faces lit up in wonder.
“Ah,” Meng Mo said. “He’s showing off again.”
In the far distance, Luo Binghe, the son of the emperor and untouchable prodigy of the academy, had transformed into his dragon form and was surging up into the sky, all shining black feathers and enormous beating wings. The sunlight glinted off his horns and Shen Yuan’s hands fell from his loom as he watched, fully captivated.
Luo Binghe was, without a doubt, beautiful, no matter the form. When he was a dragon, however, he looked like something ancient and wild. Something that, and Shen Yuan made sure to keep that thought firmly under wraps, you might want to capture and keep.
He abstractly knew that most heavenly demons had a dragon form like this, though he had never seen another with his own eyes.
Still, he didn't believe any one of them could measure up to Luo Binghe.
“Don't stare at him like that,” Meng Mo suddenly said.
Shook out of his thoughts, Shen Yuan blinked and forced himself to look away from Luo Binghe and back at his Shizun. “Like what?”
Meng Mo’s expression was, well... One time, Shen Yuan had been weaving in a room by himself when a girl had pulled her boyfriend into the room and started loudly talking about their sex life, without a care in the world that Shen Yuan was sitting right there. That was the kind of discomfort Meng Mo’s face was showing at this moment.
“Like you're a degree of obsessed I'd rather not admit to myself,” she finally said.
Shen Yuan raised an eyebrow. “Just because I'm looking at him? Everyone looks at him. I'm not exactly special in that regard.”
Meng Mo didn't look convinced. “He's not all that great, actually, you know? Having him as a disciple tries my patience every day. You wouldn't be so… fascinated with him if you spent even one shichen alone with him.”
“Oh yes?” Shen Yuan raised an eyebrow. “What's he like, then?”
She hesitated, visibly torn between her duty to be diplomatic and the chance to vent. “Let's say it that way: he still has a long way to go before he'll be able to display the restraint and dignity expected of a future emperor.”
Shen Yuan just snorted and went back to his weaving. Eventually, Meng Mo had to admit that there wasn’t much more entertainment to be found here, huffed and left.
As soon as she was gone, Shen Yuan raised his head and searched the sky until his eyes found Luo Binghe again.
He watched him for a long time.
Evening came and red light spilled over the hills. Slowly, one student after the other made their way towards the academy and finally, even Luo Binghe landed on the ground again. Shen Yuan couldn't see how he transformed, he was too far away. But he waited until he could be sure Luo Binghe was once again safely in the building before he finally rose from his stool.
Instead of heading towards the academy, he walked towards where Luo Binghe had transformed. It was a small meadow, surrounded by a group of trees.
The high grass was littered with soft, shiny black feathers.
Shen Yuan took one off the ground and held it up, watching how the moonlight glinted off of it.
“You know,” he mused to himself, “I've never tried to weave with feathers before.”
***
Binghe opened his eyes to find himself in a bamboo forest.
He could smell a stream bubbling next to him, wet soil under his feet, could hear the wind in the bamboo leaves and-
There was someone here with him.
As soon as he had thought it, there was the sound of steps ahead and, when he raised his head, he was looking at a man in green robes, long raven hair flowing down his back.
Abruptly, Binghe realized that this was a dream.
It was almost unbelievable that it had taken him that long to notice. He wasn't a master at the dream arts yet, but he wasn't that far off either. It had been a long time since he had mistaken dreams for reality. That he hadn't immediately noticed told him two things.
One, this wasn't his dream.
Two, whoever was creating this dream had to be a master at their craft, to be able to make it that realistic.
Was this Meng Mo testing him? It wasn't his usual style, but Binghe would wait and see and act accordingly.
“Let me tell you a story,” the man in front of him said.
Without thinking, he picked up his pace and said: “A story, Shizun?”
Then, he froze.
He hadn't called the man ‘Shizun’ because he thought it was Meng Mo. He had called him that because the dream was influencing his mind. So slowly that he hadn't noticed, of course, and now he was already starting to act how this person wanted him to.
Was this not his home, this bamboo forest, this peak, this human sect in which he was the secret intruder with his hidden demonic heritage? Was this not his beloved, respected Shizun, his master and teacher and the person Binghe wanted to please the most in the world?
But no-He shook his head. Binghe had never been a disciple in a human sect, never had to hide his demonic heritage and he had never met this man before in his life.
This subtle shaping of his mind should have made him want to break free as fast as possible. If he wasn't even able to protect his personality from this man, then he was way in over his head.
The question was: Did he want to flee? Or did he want to play along and see where this was going?
Sometimes, when Binghe was about to make a reckless decision, he could almost hear Meng Mo in the back of his mind, yelling at him.
He silenced that voice without hesitating. Sinking into the role he was supposed to play felt as easy as breathing.
The man hummed.
Binghe had caught up and was looking at him from the side but still couldn't see much of his face besides a pair of amused, dark eyes. He was hiding the lower half of his face behind a gently waving fan, painted with a lotus pond and elegant cranes landing in the water.
“I’m sure I have told you the story of the Crane Wife before.”
“Shizun has,” Binghe quickly said and, eager to impress, added: “It’s a story about a man marrying a crane in the form of a woman. But he is poor, so the wife secretly weaves a brocade out of her own feathers and they sell it for a lot of money. But she becomes ill from it and eventually, the husband discovers what she was doing and is devastated. But the wife tells him that love can’t exist without sacrifice.”
His shizun laughs and pets his head with a gentle hand. “Binghe remembers so well. You’re right, of course. That is the most well-known story.” Then, his voice took on a strangely sharp edge. “But the story I want to tell you today is not a story about sacrificial love.”
They came to a halt and Binghe looked down at their reflections in the pond. Next to him, his shizun said: “The crane wife is, like I said, the most well-known version of the story. It is, however, not the only one. There are countless variations of the motif of the supernatural wife across the whole world. Some are closer to the Crane Wife story you know, and some are very different. In some stories, she’s a different kind of bird, a crane or a swan, a goose or a duck, in others she may be a snake or a seal or a fox. In all of these stories, these animals have the ability to throw off their hide and transform into a human.”
He looked up from the water at Binghe and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “The oldest theme that connects these stories might be quite different from what you know. In these versions, there’s no gentle courtship. The woman takes off her animal hide and goes to take a bath in a pond.” He turned his head a little towards the dark water. “Maybe one quite like this. Secluded, the leaves of the bamboo dipping into the water. Clear and cool.”
For no discernable reason, Binghe’s face abruptly grew hot. Maybe it was something about the way Shizun’s voice had turned deep…
“As she bathes, a man sneaks up and watches her from a hidden spot. He’s enchanted and, full of desire, steals her hide. Unable to transform back and flee, she's easily captured and forced into marriage. With her hide safely in his possession, he possesses her as well.” Shizun grew quiet for a moment.
“These stories always end the same way. Eventually, the wife finds her hide again and transforms back into her animal form to flee. Even if the husband finds her, she never ends up staying with him. That is the end.”
The clearing was silent besides the rustling of the leaves.
“Why is Shizun telling me this?”
“Maybe I just wanted to hear your thoughts.”
Binghe had several thoughts about it, but he was also fairly sure that most of them were probably not what his shizun wanted to hear. In truth, he thought the man should have treated his wife better so she'd fall in love with him. Or at the very least, hidden her hide better.
Still, he knew what answer Shizun expected. “He shouldn't have taken her hide, should he? You can't expect someone to stay in a relationship when you force them into it in the first place.”
Instead of showing the expected approval, Shizun’s face remained placid. “What if he hadn't been able to stop himself? What if the desire had been too great to resist?”
Binghe stumbled at the question. “What?”
The look Shizun pinned him with was strangely intense. “What if it hadn't left him any other choice, Binghe? Is there anything he could have done differently?”
He felt his cheeks grow hotter. “Could there really be a desire as strong as that?”
At that, Shizun’s face suddenly closed off and he turned away. “Who knows,” he said lightly, waving a hand and starting to walk back in the direction they had come from. “In any case, shouldn’t you be packing?”
Binghe felt his heart swoop. “Packing?”
Shizun turned around, the glint of a dark eye over the fan. “We’re setting off to the Immortal Alliance Conference tomorrow, did you already forget?”
“No, I-” Several tangled feelings went through him: anxiety, a desperate need to prove himself, anticipation, and a vague sense of loss. No matter what the outcome would be, one chapter of his life would be over and a new one would begin.
As his shizun vanished into the shadowed bamboo forest, Binghe couldn’t help but think that this felt like a goodbye.
He slowly walked after Shizun, then faster, not sure if he wanted to catch up to him or not. But, before he reached the end of the clearing, he remembered who he was and the world faded into a white mist around him.
Binghe woke up.
***
Shen Yuan hadn’t expected that him weaving Luo Binghe’s feathers into his tapestry would result in him accidentally sharing dreams with the very same man.
Now that he knew, what he should do was unravel the tapestry, or at least lock it away so the dream sharing would never happen again.
It was too risky. There weren’t that many dream demons around. Although, Shen Yuan didn’t know if Luo Binghe even knew of him. He was so far above him that Meng Mo might never even have thought to mention to Luo Binghe that he had another student beside him.
But even if he didn’t know, it wouldn’t take him long to find out. And then, the repercussions of Shen Yuan attacking the son of the emperor this way… They would be dire, to say the least.
The stupidest thing he could do was to go out, gather more feathers, and continue to slowly weave them into the tapestry. The most dangerous thing he could do was to keep the loom right next to his bed and stare at it while he fell asleep, tendrils of his consciousness reaching out towards it.
So, of course, that was exactly what he did.
***
Luo Binghe found himself back in a dream that was not of his own making.
This time, he was sitting on a throne, dressed in layers and layers of fine cloth, a sword heavy at his side.
Who was he playing this time? As he combed through his head, he found himself tired, desperate, and unstable. He was looking for something important and there seemed to be a limited amount of time to accomplish it.
Before him, rows of servants knelt in a gilded throne room and, on the walls, there was the kind of splendor typical for the demon realm: murals of brutal battles, statues of beasts at every corner of the hall, and blood-red rugs on the floor.
What a strange setting he had found himself in, if even just for how familiar it was.
It was, after all, his father’s throne room.
An endless procession of demons came forward, knelt before him, and reported about skirmishes, food supplies, news about human sects, and other issues. Binghe listened closely, but the details seemed to blur at the edges, like one second, a delegation started to speak and the next, they were thanking Binghe for his advice and stepping back.
Impatience was making him restless. He was waiting for something and only listened to all those endless reports to keep up appearances. It was a ruse he was getting increasingly tired of. Binghe only wanted to hear out one man today.
Finally, the room emptied and a slim figure stepped from the shadows.
He was dressed in tightly wrapped black cloth from head to toe, the lower half of his face covered by a firmly attached black veil. His only distinguishing features were his whip-like black ponytail and dark eyes looking up at him from above the veil.
And, in the background, just for a moment, Binghe could hear a rhythmic, wooden clack, clack, clack. The strange sound ripped him out of his immersion and he came back to himself a little.
The man in front of him, did he not seem strangely familiar? Those eyes, the way he moved… his figure wasn’t quite right, the height just slightly off, but still. Binghe was certain that it was the same person from last time, his strange master of dreams.
He easily knelt in front of Binghe, his hands demurely clasped in his lap.
Finally. Binghe leaned forward, trying very hard not to look too eager. “Do you bring news?”
His servant’s low, smooth voice filled the hall: “This one has looked far and beyond and found a demon clan in the far south that had information about ancient soul-finding rituals.”
Binghe gripped the armrest of his throne tightly. “Tell me.”
His servant reached up and pulled two scrolls out of a bag slung over his shoulder. “I’ve taken them with me for Junshang to read at his leisure.” He stood and walked up to the throne to gently set the scrolls into Binghe’s hands.
He quickly unrolled them and skimmed the text. It looked promising, with actual depictions of summoning circles and diagrams. He would study them more closely in the privacy of his chambers, where he could keep an eye on Shizun.
His hands shook as he tucked the scrolls into his robes. This could be it, the way to finally revive his shizun, to pull his soul from where it had hidden itself from him for so long. His vision blurred as he stood, the relief making him as weak as his exhaustion.
“You deserve a reward for the service you’ve done me,” he said roughly.
His servant, who had gone back to kneeling while he had been distracted, sat up straight. “I don’t need-”
“Everyone always needs,” Binghe interrupted him with a wave of his hand. He wouldn’t normally reward someone that easily but this servant, well.
He had truly helped him. Not only had he turned out to be skilled at spying and procuring the information Binghe needed, but he had also helped him manage Xin Mo’s backlash. Binghe didn’t know what kind of creature this man was, to have qi reserves as endless as that, but he had offered those reserves for Binghe to use again and again, without a single word of complaint.
He would have been more suspicious of that selflessness any other time but, these days, it felt like his mind was enveloped in a permanent fog of grief and exhaustion. Every time doubts about his servant’s motives arose, something else happened that demanded his attention immediately. By now, Binghe had to admit that he had grown reliant on his servant.
“Tell me what you want as a reward. I will fulfill your wish if I can.”
Kneeling before him while Binghe was standing, the man looked small and harmless. “I couldn’t ask for a reward.”
“Don’t try my patience.” He didn’t have a lot of it these days.
His servant lowered his head. “In that case, I have only one thing I want to ask for. It’s a bit of a presumptuous request though.”
Binghe waited silently.
When the request came, it was almost too quiet to be heard. “The only thing I wish for is one of Junshang’s feathers.”
That was unexpected enough that it pulled him out of the fog for a moment. “One of my feathers?”
His servant lowered his head further. “If the request is too forward…”
It was dangerous, Binghe thought. He did not know all the magic in the world and, for all that he knew, even just one of his feathers could be used against him. It would be the height of insanity to invite more danger when he was already so vulnerable.
And yet.
Sometime over the last few months, he had grown attached to this little servant. The truth was that he wanted to fulfill this request, that he wanted to give something back when he had taken so much.
And, further down, in a secret little corner of his mind, he maybe felt a little flattered. Oh, he would never betray Shizun, of course, but it had been a few long, lonely years, with only a cold corpse to keep him company. Was it really that much of a betrayal to revel in this slightest bit of affection, this attention to Binghe himself rather than the emperor of the demon realm?
Devotion was a strong poison, creeping through his defenses and making him want to lower his guard. In the end, he could not say no.
Slowly, he shrugged off his outer robe, undid the ties of the ones below, and threw them over the throne until his upper body was bared and he stood there in only his pants and boots. His servant’s eyes were fixed on him, his body frozen and his hands forming fists against his thighs.
It was easy to let go of his control, let his power flow out of him, and transform his body. The dragon roared in his chest and black horns curled high over his head. He could feel the wind between his fingers and gigantic wings unfolded from his back, drew back, and gave a mighty beat, stirring up a breeze that briefly lifted the other man’s ponytail from his shoulder.
His servant’s eyes glinted under his mask as he stared at the wings and, for the first time, Binghe wondered what expression lay behind that mask.
Then, without hesitation, he passed a hand along his left wing and plucked out one of the long, shining black primary feathers. It would grow back soon enough.
His servant received the feather with both hands and more reverence in his posture than a simple feather deserved. He closed his hands around it gently, careful not to crush it, and bowed again. “I can’t thank Junshang enough.”
Binghe only shook his head. “Don’t mention it. You’re dismissed. I will call you should your services become necessary again.” He hoped they wouldn’t.
The man stood after another bow and made his way to the entrance door. Before he left the hall, he turned around one more time. “Will Junshang be alright?”
Binghe didn’t know if he would ever be alright again. “I will be if this works.”
His servant hesitated for another moment before turning around and leaving the room, his ponytail swishing in an arc behind him. For a second, Binghe thought it looked like a crane’s wing.
As soon as he was alone, he sank back into the rumpled mess of robes on his throne and closed his eyes. In a moment, he would return to Shizun and work on getting him back.
In a moment…
The world around him went gray and Binghe woke up.
***
Shen Yuan was weaving his doom. And yet, he couldn’t stop.
One feather after the other joined the tapestry until it was smooth and shiny.
He knew he was running on borrowed time. Something was happening, people were whispering around the academy. The emperor’s son was behaving strangely. He was searching for someone.
But his tapestry was almost finished and Shen Yuan couldn’t stop anymore. It was like an obsession. He couldn’t think of anything else, he was neglecting lessons and training and eating just to return to his loom. He had to finish the tapestry. He couldn’t stop.
Night filled his room and he lit a lamp before returning to his work. The voices from outside his window joined the clack, clack, clack of his loom, pedals moving and pieces of wood clacking together. Shen Yuan’s hands worked faster than they ever had before, a well-practiced dance of weaving the threads.
Not long now.
He yearned to return to his dreams. But there was only one act left now and he needed to realize it in the tapestry before he could realize it in his dreams.
Soon.
The night got darker and the voices outside faded. Eventually, the only sounds to be heard were the chirping of the cicadas, the wooden clacking of the loom, and the hiss of the tool dragging through the threads like a comb through hair.
Before he knew it, the darkness lightened and as the first, fragile rays of light found their way over the horizon, Shen Yuan fell into bed, watching the nearly-finished tapestry gleam on the loom next to him before sleep forced his eyes shut.
***
Binghe opened his eyes to find himself lying on a soft bed in layers and layers of cloth. It was like he was swathed in gentle, warm waves and he allowed himself a luxurious stretch.
It was another dream. He had been waiting for it while spending his waking hours trying to find the stranger invading his mind. He wasn't sure what he would do when he found them.
Binghe only knew he needed to find them.
But for now, there was nothing more to do than wait and collect more information, so he allowed himself to sink back into the sheets, his eyes half-closing as he stopped fighting the hold the dream had over his mind.
He was waiting for someone. It was a patient, indulgent kind of waiting. He knew it would soon be rewarded.
This was the night Binghe would finally be wedded. All his suffering, all his endless work had paid off and this was to be his reward. Tonight, he would become a bride, would bind himself to the only person that was important in the world.
He exhaled a satisfied breath. The wait almost soothed him into sleep until the only lit candle next to the bed was blown out with a quick puff of air.
“Has my bride been waiting for long?” a smooth voice asked.
It was too dark to see his husband’s features clearly, but Binghe would know that voice everywhere. He opened his arms wide. “I have been awfully lonely without my husband.”
A quiet chuckle. “My poor Binghe.” Despite his words, he did not immediately join him on the bed.
There was the rustle of clothes being undone and dropped, the gleam of a white shoulder in the dim light, before the bed dipped and bare skin slid against his own. Binghe was only wearing a thin robe and it easily came off under the insistent hands of his lover.
Eventually, his husband sank against him with a content sigh until his cheek was pressed against Binghe’s chest. “My bride,” he said quietly, “will you show me your wings?”
Without a single moment of hesitation, Binghe released his firm control over his powers and his wings easily unfolded from his back, stirring the blankets and lifting his upper body, and his husband with it, up from the bed. Then, they settled on his sides, feathers flat against the cushions.
Immediately, his husband’s hands were reaching for them, his fingers stroking through the primary feathers like they were rare silk. “So beautiful,” he whispered. “My Binghe, you must be the most gorgeous creature in the world.”
Binghe listened to the fervor in his husband’s voice and suddenly realized something.
This mysterious stranger-his secretive shizun, his devoted servant, his adoring husband-He was obsessed with Binghe, wasn’t he?
The way he looked at him, the way he touched his hair, his wings, the undeniable truth that his greatest wish was possessing just a single feather from Binghe’s wings, the way he drew him into these dreams again and again…
The realization should have scared him. Instead, he felt himself grow warm.
Spontaneously, he reached up and cupped his husband’s cheek with one hand, wildly wondering what else he could get him to reveal if the bait was tempting enough. “It's only for you,” he whispered. “If I could, I'd let you be the only one to ever see me like this.”
Under his hand, his husband shuddered involuntarily. “Don't say something like this, Binghe.”
His fingertips tickled like they were about to catch on fire. “Why not?”
He could feel a breath being exhaled against the skin of his neck and, a second later, a smooth forehead against his collarbone. “If you say it too often, I might end up taking you seriously.”
“Maybe I want you to,” Binghe said quietly, wrapping his arms around his husband. “Once, you asked me what I thought about a story, do you remember? A crane turned human, bathing in a clear pond. A man watching her and stealing her feather cloak so she would not be able to leave him. I thought, back then, that you meant for me to judge him for his actions, to condemn him for his ruthless greed.”
He stroked his hand over the planes of his husband’s back who had turned tense and still at his words. “Back then, I did not dare say it for fear of your disapproval. But at that moment, I did not see anything wrong with that man’s actions. Maybe it means that there's something wrong with me but, in the nights after, I used to lie awake and think about what you told me. And, the longer I thought about it, the more I started to feel envious of that woman. To be desired so strongly, to be jealously held and bound, even if you try to leave… I couldn't stop myself from wanting that.”
His husband was still. Binghe might have worried that he had said too much, but a strange certainty kept any fear at bay. He was confident, now, that his husband’s madness matched his own perfectly.
After a moment, sharp nails pricked his sides and his husband lifted his head. “My Binghe,” he breathed against his lips. “Binghe…”
“Yes,” he whispered back and, for a second, their lips brushed against each other.
His husband took a breath as though to say something but then, seemed to change his mind and ducked his head.
Their lips met silently, barely a sound in the darkness. Their hands stroked each other’s skin and their legs tangled under the blankets.
Only the night bore witness to their union.
Later, his husband fell asleep in his arms and Binghe’s eyes grew heavy as well. Before he succumbed to the call of sleep-no, before he woke up-he thought he could hear a faint, wooden sound in the distance.
Clack, clack, clack, it went.
***
In the end, Binghe found out in the most unexpectedly simple way.
He asked Meng Mo.
The old man grew very pale when Binghe started talking about the strange dreams he had been having, and then very red when he went into detail.
Binghe had known, distantly, that Meng Mo had another disciple learning the art of dream manipulation from him. But his teacher had never talked about them and, from what Binghe had gleaned, they seemed to be an utter nobody, fading into the background of the student population, barely bright enough to be noticed in the first place.
Now, Binghe was revising his initial opinion.
This Shen Yuan was harder to find than one might think, however. Binghe had been wandering through the academy all day, asking around, but he was only met with confused faces and no answers. It seemed that Binghe had not been the only one not paying attention and that Shen Yuan had cleverly taken advantage of that.
He supposed he could wait in his room for him to return for the night, but a strange anxiety had taken hold of him that his dear stranger might realize Binghe had caught on to him and would flee the academy before they had a chance to talk. No, he would use what element of surprise he had left and seek him out as fast as he could.
He was walking down one of the long hallways when he heard a familiar sound from one of the rooms.
Clack, clack, clack, like pieces of wood hitting against each other.
Binghe came to an abrupt halt and listened, trying to remember where he had heard that particular sound before.
His fingers twitched and he slowly turned around to one of the doors. He was quiet as he made his way to it and carefully pulled it open.
It turned out that it led to a courtyard. There was a fountain in the center and the walls were overgrown with lush green leaves. Near the fountain, a young man sat at a wooden loom, winding threads through each other, his foot on the pedals at the bottom.
Clack, clack, clack, the pedals went as he stepped on them, and the wooden beams as they were pushed against each other.
Silently, Binghe closed the door behind him and walked over. The young man did not look up as he came to a stand beside him but continued his work with a calm, focused expression.
Eventually, though, he stopped, removed his foot from the pedal, and took out a small knife. The threads tying the end of the tapestry to the loom were cleanly cut until the only thing holding it up was Shen Yuan’s slender hand.
“It's finished,” he said and unwrapped the tapestry from where it had been rolled up on the loom. He spread it out and, together, they looked at it.
A teacher and his student, walking together among stalks of bamboo. An emperor sitting on his throne, his servant kneeling before him. Two lovers, wrapped around each other under a canopy of stars. And throughout it all, the gleaming black of feathers that Binghe knew as well as his own hands, his hair, his face. After all, they had been a part of him once as well.
“In the end,” Shen Yuan said with a slight, sad smile, “the wife always finds her feather coat again and flies away, never to return.” He looked up at Binghe and his smile got a little wider, his eyes getting red at the corners. “I suppose I must apologize to you before you leave. I shouldn't have pulled you into my dreams like that. But I must thank you too. In all my attempts, I have never come as close to what I'm looking for as I did now.”
Binghe looked down at this man, so slender and soft, almost blurred at the edges. Who would have guessed that someone like him could contain such strong desires?
“And what are you looking for?”
“Once,” he said, and his eyes were far away, “I dreamed of someone. It was a kind of happiness I had never felt before. Now, I have dreamed of someone again.” He reached out and took Binghe’s hand into his own for a fleeting moment before releasing it again. “I won't say I’ve found my peace. I don't know if I'd even be able to. But I think I found what I was looking for, so I'm content.”
He lifted the tapestry from the loom and, with a cheeky tilt to his smile, wrapped it around Binghe's shoulders. “Here you are, my crane wife,” he said gently. “I'm letting you go.”
Binghe stood still for a long moment, frozen in the embrace of his weaver’s work. Finally, he said: “What a disappointment.”
Shen Yuan’s face fell and he looked up at him in surprise. “What?”
With short, jerky movements, Binghe took the tapestry off his shoulders and stuffed it into Shen Yuan’s arms. “Did you not speak of desire? About not having a choice with how much you want me? And now you're just letting me go like that?” He felt betrayed by how easily Shen Yuan seemed to be able to leave him.
Shen Yuan’s eyes had grown wide and he hastily grabbed the tapestry before it could fall to the ground, smoothing it out like it was a priceless treasure.
But Binghe wasn’t finished yet. “Did I not tell you that I want it? Do you not want to anymore or-”
Shen Yuan had started shaking his head while Binghe was talking. Now, he surged forward, the tapestry almost falling out of his arms as he grabbed Binghe’s shoulders hard. “Silly boy, calm down, won’t you? Who said I didn’t want to anymore? But Binghe, we have never even met before, outside of dreams.”
Binghe slowly deflated as he realized that what Shen Yuan said was true. “It does not feel like they were just dreams,” he said quietly.
“I know.” Shen Yuan was still gripping his shoulders, but his face had transformed into something hesitant and vulnerable. “I know. They did not feel like mere dreams to me either.”
They looked at each other quietly, the confession heavy between them.
Then, slowly, as though he expected to be stopped at any moment, Shen Yuan released him and gathered up the tapestry. Once it was neatly folded, he tucked it close to his chest. “I will keep this then.”
Relief swept through Binghe and made his hands shake. “Yes.”
“You won’t be able to leave me,” Shen Yuan said tentatively. “You will just have to stay with me.”
Momentarily, Binghe wondered how much truth there was to it. What kinds of strange powers did Shen Yuan still keep hidden from him, just how strong was his hold over Binghe?
Then, he decided that it didn’t really matter. He was already lost.
“Please,” Binghe said. “Keep me.”