Green Mung Beans & Red Dates (Peregrine x Nemopedia)

[Peregrine]

Where was he going?

The question seemed to stab at Lin Jingyi, targeting his heart in a way that no sword could. After so many hundreds of years his family was an obligation more than they were a connection, branch families built upon branch families that relied upon the support of Jun Ming Temple's name to maintain a strangle hold upon their little town. They'd hand him over to his pursuers in a heartbeat if they thought it would guarantee another ten generation's prosperity.

What he wanted to do? Up until a day ago, Jingyi would have said cultivation itself gave him all he would ever need, that his life was made complete by the presence of the Dao. Yet he'd severed that future with his own hands.

He was little more than a shell now, fighting to survive on some base, animalistic instinct he hadn't known he'd still possessed. Yet all it would mean was a few more decades to whither away.

"No. I have nothing."

His future. His comrades. His cultivation. Even his path. It was all gone, as empty as the spot where his dantian had once rested.

The emptiness felt like it was consuming him. Like the maggots that would one day chew into his skin, devour his organs, leaving behind nothing but bones. And then the earth itself would grind his bones to dust, and no trace would exist that a man named Lin Jingyi had once walked this world.

"Zhou…"

A place he'd never heard of. A place he knew nothing about. It was as meaningless to him in that moment as his own existence. He could no longer feel the cheap robe Du Yuyan had offered him rough against his skin. Could no longer feel the rattle of the cart under his rear, although he knew it still existed. No longer noticed the faint, cool rush that passed through his nose when he breathed in, if he was even still breathing at all.

That's right. He had nothing left to confirm his existence, so why should he even exist at all?

He was nothing. So how could he notice the way the guards eyes skated over the space he had once occupied, the way that everything that might have once proved he was there faded away, until it ceased to exist altogether.

 

[Nemopedia]

Nothing. The word pronounced summoned a feeling of emptiness so vast Daying felt her throat swell and her heart plunging into her stomach. The familiar feeling of the abyss of her own mind swallowing her whole and some more following after. A chilling sensation that Daying tried to fight, but found herself unable to do so as she had no idea where it came from, whether it was from within or outside, up or down.

And then for a moment Daying forgot that she had company next to her, that there was a man dressed in her robes sitting next to her as the soldiers asked her what she came to do, shaking her from her own daze.

"I do- I mean, business," she found herself mumble at first, snapping herself out of it when realising the danger of not having an answer ready while she showed them two tags, remembering that she needed to show them two identity tags and not one, but she couldn't quite place why.

"Where is the other?" the soldier naturally asked, frowning at the second tag and Daying blinked, not quite recalling why either as she pointed with her thumb to the cart, a chill rising up again as she wondered why she had given two tags again, but felt unable to find a reason other than her own quick wit.

"Inside, sick. I'm hoping to find medical treatment here, we are from Zhou," Daying found herself smoothly lying before the soldiers gave her another eye, their eyes turning over to the fabric hanging in front of the door of the carriage before deciding to let it go as the crowd was large and their days long.

"Better not be anything infectious," the men tell her before handing back the ID tags and allowing Daying through, her mind still as mystified as to why she procured two of them instead of one, wasting a good disguise for the future as the feeling of looking down the abyss remained, leaving her side chilled to the bone before her arm swept to that side, as if swatting away a fly before her hand landed that on the frail shoulder of her recently procured company.

Li Jing. Right. Blinking Daying felt her breath return as if she hadn't been breathing all this while, swallowing thickly before tightening her hold onto Li Jing's arm, her eyes narrowing before pulling him closer.

"How?" she hisses, feeling a panic rise within her chest that felt more like an empty hole than anything.

Dialogue colour: #a21e1c

 

[Peregrine]

There was the same level of absence as floating in a still pool of warm water, surrounded by darkness, ears filled with cotton. Simultaneously real and unreal, mind separated from body, body separated from the world.

Lin Jingyi could not understand how they passed by the guard, rolled in through the city gates. Even though he knew time had passed, it seemed to have no relation to him. Everything was separate from him. He was part of a different reality.

And yet, Du Yuyan's hand pierced unerringly through that division, grabbing him, dragging him back to the present, back to the real world, back into being.

One day, he might be ground into nonexistence. But that day was not today.

"I..."

Yuyan's panic seemed to claw into his heart, and his hand reached out unconsciously, wrapping around the fingers that had dug into the fabric of his shirt.

"It was nothing."

No, those words didn't seem to mean what he intended them to mean.

"I... became nothing."

 

[Nemopedia]

"Nothing?" Daying sounded incredulous asking the question, eyes narrowing while she refused to let go of Li Jing. "How did you become nothing?" she hisses, a panic rising within her, though she isn't sure why the idea of Li Jing becoming 'nothing' upsets her so much. He was a cultivator, one of 'them', even if he had abandoned them.

"Nothing, as in you became a ghost?" Daying continues to prod, then as if realising something, she takes a deep breath and lets go of Li Jing 's sleeve, eyes turning back to the road as she has Donkey stop near an inn. "Just," the word came out airy, uncertain, "don't disappear on me again," she demanded before retrieving a towel from the cart to wipe down Donkey.

"Do you know how to fix a room and order a meal for two?" she asks the man. No matter how much she wanted answers Daying could feel it in her gut that she wasn't ready now.

Dialogue colour: #a21e1c

 

[Peregrine]

"No."

Even a ghost was something, a soul formed of yin energy. Although normal people might not be able to sense it, a cultivator would have no problems identifying such a large mass of energy. Ghosts could impact the world, and many things in the world could impact them. Fire and yang energy in particular would have a large impact on a ghost. It was something.

"I..." Lin Jingyi faltered again, all his practice in explaining the Dao completely failing him. How could he explain nothing? What words was he supposed to use, except to continually say what it was not?

Yet the panicked expression on Du Yuyan's face demanded he at least try.

"I didn't become a ghost."

And that was it. The moment was gone. Yuyang released him, hopping out of the carriage, grabbing a rag, and beginning to tend to the horse. "...I'll try."

Even thinking about what had happened moments ago made him feel as though he was turning faint. Lin Jingyi dug his fingers into his thigh for a moment, focusing on the pain from his energy-weak body. He existed. He was flesh, bone, and blood.

As soon as he felt stable, Jingyi got down from the carriage, beginning to walk towards the inn. It shouldn't be that hard to get a room and food. He just needed to find someone who worked there and repeat what Yuyang had asked him to get.

However, a few steps away from the carriage, and a long-forgotten memory surfaced in his mind. Jingyi turned back towards Yuyang. "Don't I need money to do that?"

 

[Nemopedia]

Not a ghost. As if that made the trick any less creepy. Shivering Daying shook it off her, forcing the thoughts to the back of her mind for a more appropriate time, whenever that was, as she continued to wipe Donkey dry. The horse nicked at her playfully, communicating that she was hungry, taking a strand of her hair into its mouth which Daying allowed, knowing that she wouldn't lose any hair over it.

What she didn't allow, or expect, was the question of money, her arms slacking and eyes turning back to the man that claimed to have become nothing with a look of; 'really?' before realising that he was a cultivator before being nothing and that it came with wonderful perks.

"Were you planning on bullying the host?" she questioned, her smile teasing and her words accusatory. It felt appropriate to make now, even if she knew that Li Jing wasn't the type to, she had figured that much from their ride.

"If you have nothing I can cover it, consider it your first debt and pay," Daying continued, the corners of her mouth sharpening into a blade-like smile as she could already think of all the wonderful things she could do now that she had a little help.

"Ever been a lion's ass before?" Daying questions, her eyes warily checking out the arms of her new comrade and help though her grin remained all the same. She would have to put faith to test and pray that Li Jing was more than just a cultivator in name.

Dialogue colour: #a21e1c

 

[Peregrine]

Li Jingyi pressed his lips tightly together, fighting the urge to retort. Only this morning, something as petty as an inn payment would have meant nothing to him. A noble elder of Jun Ming Temple had more than enough funds at their disposal to buy out this entire village, let alone rent a room for a night.

If he was still an elder.

If he had his storage artifacts.

If he could even access storage artifacts without any qi.

Now, even the clothes on his back didn't belong to him.

He had nothing. He was...

Du Yuyan's final comment was enough to barely snap him out of the slow downward spiral of his thoughts. "I..." His expression twisted into one of utter confusion. "What?"

 

[Nemopedia]

"A lion," Daying repeats herself, climbing back into her carriage before pulling out a decorative lion head out. The ceremonial piece was huge and it was heavy, with all of the extra decoration, but manageable with two, and it was worth its money, for young and old both always had a coin to spare for the mischief of these make-belief guardians. "I don't think I can carry you, so you will have to take the back," she continued to explain, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

[Peregrine]

That lion head and strange, dancing figures from a long forgotten memory haunted Jingyi's sleep that night—a fitful, unfamiliar night's sleep on an uncomfortable bed, for one who had long since grown used to nights spent in the depths of cultivation, in a room he couldn't even pay for—but he still found himself in a field outside the edge of the town the next morning.

He stood awkwardly to the side, looking at the flat stones Yuyan had placed on the ground, carefully spaced apart in sets of two. The lion head, which had been carefully settled onto a tarp on the side of the little practice area, seemed to watch him with a mocking gaze.

There were no lion dances in Jun Ming Temple. Outside of the fact that Elders could be in seclusion for years at a time, what interest would most cultivators have in watching enrobed mortals dance on the end of a stick? Should any of the little disciples have interest in such things, they could always go down to the cities that had built up around the outskirts of the Temple.

But he had no right to refuse, no pride to try and protect himself from the humiliation of pretending to be an animal, no courage to strike out on his own when he was still being hunted in an unfamiliar world. He had nothing, so he could only be quiet and obedient.

With a slow, calming breath, Lin Jingyi stepped up to the edge of the stones before squaring his shoulders. "What am I supposed to do?"

 

[Nemopedia]

Daying wasn't unreasonable. Not entirely, she felt. She also valued her own life, hence why she had decided to train the man first instead of throwing him into the deep. "I'm about to entrust my life to you, but you will need to trust your legs," the merchant that went by the name of Yuyan had claimed, pointing at the path created. "If you manage to hop, skip and jump across these stones I will give you a Ming vase to carry," she exclaimed, the idea of a valuable vase being shattered into a thousand pieces daunting her in a way that she hoped the cultivator could appreciate as well.

And otherwise Daying comforted herself with the idea that the Ming vase wasn't a real porcelain vase but rather a well-made replica. For what sort of merchant would she be to so easily hand out valuables?

"And if you manage not to rack up your debt with me more," Daying continued, actually not having thought much beyond that yet, "maybe I will place some point blades underneath the stones and see how you fare under pressure before carrying me," came the jest, though there really wasn't much room for jokes either when the performance set for the upcoming festival was meant to be her main source of income this time around.

"You have seen a lion dance before, right?" Daying finally asked the man, realising that she has never asked the man outright if he had or not, just assumed that he must have. After all, young cultivators in town weren't uncommon and neither were their boastful challenges that tend to follow after, if felt the need to boost their own image as the biggest and strongest around.