(4) A Deep and Lasting Devotion — The Hardest Part of Meeting Is Parting

"Xiaoyi, I'm sorry! It's all my fault, this must hurt so much." Anu wept as she blew, her heart aching with the realization that she had no idea what she could do to ease the pain of Xiaoyi's wound, and so could only blow on it like this — just as her mother had done for her whenever she was hurt as a child.

Though blowing on it likely did nothing to actually ease the pain, Xiaoyi's heart had long since melted with an emotion beyond words at this gesture from Anu. However fierce Anu's temperament might be, her heart was, in truth, genuinely soft, and gazing at her now, nestled close beside him with such concern, Xiaoyi felt an immeasurable warmth in his heart. How he wished time could simply stand still in this moment, that he need never return to the deep forest, that he could remain by Anu's side forever from now on — but this was an utterly impossible thing. Having forcibly taken human form today, laboring under the strain for the better part of the day, and having also cut his own flesh to use as medicine, the spiritual power he had consumed would likely take who knew how many years to replenish; the longer he lingered here now, the further and further back the time when he might truly achieve human form would be pushed. His heart was tangled in knots.

At this point Xing'er came over, kindly reminding the two of them that a Celestial Crown Prince was still waiting outside for word that Anu had safely recovered; now that Anu was no longer in danger, it was only proper for them to politely inform him and offer their thanks, and see him out of the Mist Forest. Though she was reluctant to disturb these two, reunited only after more than four hundred years apart, seeing off the immensely dangerous Celestial Crown Prince was now the most pressing matter of all.

Anu, hearing this, went blank for a moment — she had been unconscious at the time and had no idea at all that the Celestial Crown Prince had saved her from mortal danger and brought her back to the Mist Forest. The Celestial Clan was already the greatest taboo of the Mist Forest, let alone its Crown Prince; if he lingered too long here, she feared it would only invite complications the longer the night dragged on.

"I'll go invite the Celestial Crown Prince in now. Xiaoyi will probably have to return to the deep forest shortly after — you two should make the most of the time you have to talk." Though Xing'er was timid by nature, she was also thoughtful and gentle at heart, and seeing the two of them so deeply devoted to one another, only able to meet in such haste before being torn apart again, she found her own heart filled with reluctance as well. And so she left the space to them and went outside herself to invite the guest in.

"Xiaoyi has to go back to the deep forest again?" At the thought of this, the tears Anu had only just managed to still slipped free once more in an instant.

"Mm!" Xiaoyi nodded, troubled. He, too, did not want to leave, and yet he had no choice — his own eyes were nearly brimming over with tears as well.

"Now that you've come today, do I have to wait even more years before you can truly come back?"

"It's alright — it's probably only delayed by a few years? It'll be quick! I'll be back in less than a hundred years, much faster than the last four hundred..." Xiaoyi pulled Anu into his arms, unable to bear watching her cry, and unwilling to let her see him cry either, and so could only hold her and weep together with her, naively believing that as long as he held her close, Anu would not be able to see his tears, and so would never know he was crying.

He was always that same foolish Xiaoyi — every single time, failing to properly comfort Anu, only to end up crying right along with her in the end, hopelessly.

On the morning he had bid farewell to his master to return to the deep forest, Anu had silently tugged at his sleeve, following behind him the entire way without a word. As they passed the pavilion and the rainbow bridge, Anu had finally been unable to hold back any longer and burst into loud sobs.

"Xiaoyi... can't it be something other than five hundred years? Five hundred years... five hundred years is truly too long..."

He had already been forcing down his own feelings of helplessness and reluctance, and now, hearing Anu's cries and her question, he could no longer maintain his composure at all — a wave of bitterness broke through all his defenses. Five hundred years truly stretched out into an endless distance! The days with Anu passed like a fleeting moment; the days without her would surely feel like an eternity — let alone five hundred whole years...

He had not dared look back the entire way, fearing that the moment he saw Anu's face he would find himself utterly unable to leave — his composure was nothing but a fragile shell, his heart within it far too vulnerable to survive even the slightest blow. His resolution not to look back was nothing short of a fool's dream; with Anu crying so hard, how could he possibly turn a blind eye and simply walk away? He spun around at once and pulled Anu into his arms.

"I don't want this either... but my master has already given me the fastest method there is, it would normally take much longer... I... I..." He found himself too choked with tears to even speak clearly anymore. Even if Anu could not see him crying, there was surely no way to hide it from her now.

"Xiaoyi... don't go..." Anu wept with utter despair, and though she knew perfectly well there was no way he could simply not leave, she still spoke the very words most heartbreaking to hear. It was as though a sharp blade had been driven straight into his heart, the blood flowing without end, threatening to pour out entirely until he withered away and died.

Where would he ever find the courage to simply turn and walk away? He couldn't do it...

In the end it was the Queen who came, soothing Anu, explaining that Xiaoyi had to leave now in order to bring her home five hundred years hence. The Queen pulled Anu away and drew her into her own arms, waving her hand to signal him to hurry and go.

Even to this day, he still remembered clearly the sharp, needle-like pain of every single step he took away from her that day.

"You must take good care of yourself, and stop hurting yourself — then I can come back all the sooner." Xiaoyi, thinking of the parting soon to come once again, feared the suffering of over four hundred years ago might well be about to replay itself all over again, yet no matter what, he had to comfort Anu first. Over four hundred years ago, the Queen had at least been there to share in resolving these troubles; now there was only him left, and on top of that, there was now also this troublesome Celestial Crown Prince to contend with. The Asura King and Queen had guarded against every possible threat, and the one thing they had guarded against above all else was the Celestial Clan; the Queen had even decreed that whenever Anu left the Mist Forest, she must either disguise herself as a man or else cover her face entirely — there were, after all, precious few men in this world who could lay eyes on Anu and retain enough composure not to be moved, and one feared it might set the whole world astir, bringing endless trouble in its wake. But it was plain that today, when Anu had been brought back, her face had not been veiled at all — the Celestial Crown Prince had already seen her true face, and a foreboding sense of unease began to rise in Xiaoyi's heart.

"When the moment comes, Anu need only politely thank the Crown Prince for saving her life — nothing more than that, do you understand? Just to be safe." Xiaoyi tenderly wiped away Anu's tears, instructing her carefully and in detail.

"Alright. I understand," Anu said, nodding.

The two of them worked hard to hold back their tears and steady their spirits — the arrival of the Celestial Crown Prince felt to them like facing a formidable enemy, and now that Anu had been properly treated, they would finally have to face this troublesome matter head-on. At this point, none of the three of them — Anu, Xiaoyi, or Xing'er — had any idea that Ziyuan already understood Anu's true identity perfectly well; their attempts to hold their ground and resist were, in truth, entirely useless. Before long, Xing'er had already led Ziyuan inside.

"Greetings to Your Highness." Seeing Ziyuan enter, Xiaoyi was the first to rise and bow to him.

"My thanks to Your Highness for your righteous assistance. Miss Anu is no longer in any real danger and needs only rest quietly to recover." Xiaoyi's words were a tactful way of expressing both gratitude and a polite hint for their guest to leave. At this point, examining Ziyuan closely for the first time, he found himself all the more uneasy. Earlier, his mind had been entirely fixed on Anu's condition, leaving him no attention to spare for Ziyuan; now, looking closely, he saw that even in the plainest of attire, Ziyuan's bearing, his features, his very presence, were so transcendent, so far beyond ordinary reach, that Xiaoyi's sense of foreboding only grew even greater.

"Not at all. Miss Anu was fortunate; Ziyuan merely lent a modest hand — there is no need to dwell on it," Ziyuan replied with equal courtesy, returning the bow.

Having returned the greeting, Ziyuan stepped closer to the bed, leaning slightly to look at Anu, whose complexion had already returned to its usual healthy glow, and said to her with relief, "It's good that you've woken. I do hope you'll be more careful from now on, and not get hurt again."

"My thanks for Your Highness's concern. Anu is deeply moved, and shall certainly remember it." Anu's heart raced with unease, unsure how to respond, and so simply gave a hasty, offhand reply to Ziyuan. But Ziyuan found her response rather amusing — it sounded almost as though she were reciting something memorized, a certain stiff, cobbled-together quality to it — and this brought a hint of a smile to his face.

Xiaoyi, meanwhile, felt something less than pleasant stirring within him at this. Though Ziyuan's smile was gentle and carried no hint of provocation, and his words and conduct betrayed not the slightest impropriety, Xiaoyi simply found himself displeased all the same. Were it not for fear of losing face for his master's sake, he swore he would never have allowed Ziyuan to draw so close to Anu.

"Then please, Miss, rest well and recover — Ziyuan shall now take his leave and return to the Celestial Court." Having said this, Ziyuan gave Anu another smile and bowed.

"Farewell, Your Highness." Anu returned the bow, feeling that courtesy required her to offer Ziyuan a smile in return, and so forced one onto her face as well.

Seeing Anu's forced smile, Ziyuan felt a rush of delight — she truly was such an interesting girl. The strange atmosphere filling this room was entirely on account of their wariness of him, a member of the Celestial Clan, fearful that the princess Anu's identity might be exposed. That girl, who had been so proud and haughty back in Qingxi Town, now spoke and expressed herself with such stiffness it was almost comical — but he could see through it without letting on that he had, and so, straining to hold back his laughter, he turned and made his way out of the room.

"Please, follow me." Seeing Ziyuan turn to leave, Xing'er, nearby, hurried to catch up after him — after all, with no one to guide him, the Mist Forest was hardly easy to navigate.

Seeing Ziyuan off felt almost like sending away a plague spirit — both Xiaoyi and Anu let out a sigh of relief. And yet Xiaoyi could not truly bring himself to relax; he sensed, vaguely, that something was not quite right. There had been far too much meaning packed into Ziyuan's parting smile, meaning neither of them could quite make out — perhaps he had noticed something, after all. And there had been, in the way Ziyuan had looked at Anu, a certain tenderness impossible to fully put into words, faint and elusive, leaving him with a prickling, uneasy sensation he could not shake — perhaps the way Ziyuan looked at Anu was not so different from the way he himself looked at her.

But what he feared most of all was precisely that Ziyuan might feel the very same thing.

A powerful sense of unease kept spreading outward in ripples, one after another, and yet what could he possibly do about it? He would have to return to the deep forest, unable to see Anu again for decades — how could he possibly hope to control any of this? As the saying goes, the affairs of this world are ever uncertain, and he found himself terribly afraid of the parting soon to come with Anu. At least four hundred years ago he had still held some steady hope to cling to; now, though, all he carried was this unease. He could only hope his feeling was simply his own excessive worry — Ziyuan was, after all, the Celestial Crown Prince, and if something truly were amiss here, it would be no small matter at all, nor something the Asura King and Queen would ever wish to see.

Xiaoyi sat back down at the edge of the bed, gazing at Anu with reluctance to part, and taking her hand, sighed. "I have to go now too." No sooner had he spoken than his tears began quietly welling up once more.

Hearing that Xiaoyi was about to leave, Anu gripped his hand tightly and began to sob once again.

"You must take good care of yourself, and stay far away from the Celestial people — do you understand?" This parting instruction felt particularly powerless to Xiaoyi even as he spoke it, and his own tears once again spilled forth despite himself.

"Xiaoyi..." At the thought that Xiaoyi, whom she had only just seen again, was already about to leave once more, Anu's weeping threatened to spiral entirely out of control.

"Xing'er will be here! With her keeping you company, decades will pass by quickly enough..." Xiaoyi tried to comfort Anu, pulling her into his arms and gently stroking her head and her back — though he could not even convince himself of the truth of "decades will pass by quickly enough," he still had to keep up the pretense, deceiving himself as much as her.

But how else could he comfort Anu, if not by deceiving himself in this way too?

So this was the truth of that old saying — meeting is hard, but parting is harder still. What was he to do? And who could ever tell him why his love had to be so agonizingly difficult?

By now Anu's tears had already soaked through the front of his robe; fearing that if he lingered any longer he would truly be unable to tear himself away at all, he steeled his heart and rose to his feet.

"I'm leaving now. You've only just woken, and your body is still weak — don't get out of bed to see me off."

In truth, Anu's body was already perfectly fine, and getting out of bed would have posed no problem at all, but Xiaoyi could not bear to let that old, painful scene of years past — that agonizing, unwilling parting — play itself out all over again, and so had no choice but to deceive Anu out of kindness.

"Xiaoyi..." Watching Xiaoyi's retreating figure as he turned and walked away, Anu's sorrow lingered, unable to settle for a long, long while, while Xiaoyi pressed his own hand against his chest, feeling a pain far more unbearable than the wound on his left arm could ever be. He dared not look back, and could only let his own tears stream down freely, unchecked...