Chapter 3: Light Fading in the Shadows

The faintly cracked Spirit Jade shimmered slowly, as if welcoming Jawoon.

When souls are sealed, they become Spirit Jades of varying sizes and colors.

The jade kept in Yeongbo Hall had a particularly brilliant light.

The Heavenly Emperor, moved by that light, made it a treasure of the celestial palace.

Souls were meant to be reincarnated, but a soul turned into Spirit Jade could not enter the cycle of rebirth.

It could only remain trapped inside a round orb, waiting for eternity until its seal was undone, or collapse under the weight of time and vanish.

Every moment Jawoon thought of his beloved’s soul trapped like that, his heart ached.

He wished he could smash everything around the jade and free the soul, but the Heavenly Emperor knew Jawoon well and had stripped away his right to enter the celestial realm entirely, leaving him to ask permission for each visit.

For the Azure Dragon, one of the Four Guardian Beasts who aided the Mother Goddess in protecting all creatures when the world was created, this was the worst humiliation.

Nor did it stop there.

To enter the heavenly palace, he was forced to reseal eight-tenths of his remaining power, which had already been whittled down to a tenth after his primordial spirit was stolen.

The strength of the Azure Dragon Lord, who once ruled the eastern sky and earth, had long disappeared.

Even so, Jawoon endured the humiliation, begging the Heavenly Emperor every time.

Whenever the permission came down, as if granted out of charity, he went to the celestial palace.

Jawoon looked at Neungso’s Spirit Jade, blinking its slow light, with tender eyes.

“It’s been easier to come this time. I dreamed of you last night, and to see you here today is truly a precious thing.”

In the dusty warehouse, Jawoon and the jade looked out of place.

Because of the Heavenly Emperor’s command, he could not touch the jade directly, so he stroked the old wooden shelf, carefully, as if it were the jade.

The shelf had worn down in the shape of his hand.

“On the cliffs surrounding Cheonryeongji, the trumpet vine buds have been forming one by one. By the time I go back, they’ll be in full bloom. I thought about making them bloom all four seasons, but didn’t you say flowers are best when they bloom in the right season? So I let them bloom and wither on their own terms.”

Jawoon laughed softly, looking at the slowly blinking jade, as if he were praising himself.

It was a smile more relaxed and gentle than usual.

“Neungso.”

He bowed his head slightly and pressed his cheek to the shelf.

“When will I hold you in my arms again?”

He closed his eyes.

Vivid memories rose over the darkness behind his eyelids.

‘You’re watching the flowers under the Thousand-Li Cliff again.’

‘Lord Jawoon.’

Neungso, seated lazily under the cliff, looked up at Jawoon, who had come up behind him.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Jawoon looked up at the flowers blanketing the cliff.

‘Before you came, these flowers bloomed all year round. Should I make them bloom like that again, so you can watch them whenever you like?’

Neungso waved his hands.

‘Flowers are prettiest when they bloom and fall in season. Nothing is uglier than a flower that doesn’t know when to fall.’

As he spoke, he looked back at the blossoms falling off the cliff.

Seeing the falling petals reflected in his eyes, Jawoon asked.

‘Neungso, do you love this flower that much?’

At his question, Neungso turned his head.

‘Yes, don’t they fill the Thousand-Li Cliff beautifully? I love beautiful things.’

By then, Neungso was not looking at the flowers.

He was looking at Jawoon beside him.

Jawoon sat down next to him and, just as Neungso had been doing, tilted his head back to gaze at the crimson flowers spanning the cliff.

‘Yes, they are beautiful. I can see why you like them.’

‘I have a weakness for pretty things.’

Neungso smiled and put one arm around Jawoon’s back carefully.

‘And that’s why I like you as well.’

Jawoon laid his hand over Neungso’s and asked.

‘Am I pretty?’

‘Yes, you are the prettiest in the world.’

‘Prettier than those flowers?’

‘That’s why I’m looking at you instead of the flowers.’

Jawoon felt his heart ripple like the surface of a lake whenever Neungso looked at him that way.

The unfamiliar stirring made him nervous, and he blinked slowly, looking back and forth between the flowers and Neungso to hide his awkwardness.

But he could not keep a smile from slowly spreading across his face.

When their eyes met, his eyes curved and his lips drew a gentle arc.

The face of the one who called him pretty was itself pretty.

A neat forehead, clear eyebrows.

Big, sincere eyes shone black, and the faint color in his cheeks gave his face light.

Even the scar on his brow was endearing.

Jawoon loved his lips, neither too thin nor too thick, and every word they shaped.

‘In my eyes, you are the prettier one.’

‘I am the handsome one.’

‘Is there a difference?’

At Jawoon’s words, Neungso only touched his earlobe for a while, then finally spoke.

‘Pretty is what someone like you is. Handsome is what someone like me is.’

Jawoon picked up a flower lying on the ground and tucked it into Neungso’s ear.

Neungso, like his namesake, suited flowers.

Neungso rose quickly, went under the cliff, and picked a flower.

He blew on the petals to shake off any dust, then placed it in Jawoon’s ear.

When Jawoon lifted his hand to touch it, Neungso caught his wrist.

Jawoon raised his head.

Neungso, holding his wrist, pressed his lips to Jawoon’s.

The feeling of thin skin touching thin skin.

Neungso’s lips were so warm that Jawoon felt he might melt into them.

“Neungso.”

The moment his eyes were closed was brief, because time spent looking at Neungso’s jade was precious.

“I’m sorry.”

He was someone who had wanted so badly to live.

Jawoon had wanted him to live.

But in the end, he couldn’t protect him, and his beloved was now sealed as a Spirit Jade, denied the right of rebirth, abandoned in this dusty warehouse.

Jawoon let out a long breath.

And then he frowned slightly.

He noticed a subtle change in Neungso’s light.

Even if it wasn’t bright before, the jade had always gleamed a vivid crimson, but now that color had dimmed just a little.

“This…”

A dimming light meant a weakening of the soul inside the jade.

Jawoon’s heart sank into his stomach.

He knew that a soul trapped in Spirit Jade for too long would sometimes fail to endure and dissipate.

Even the soul of an immortal who had cultivated for a long time was subject to this, and Neungso had been only an ordinary human.

It had been a long time since Neungso’s soul turned into jade, and it had held on for an age longer than the rise and fall of continents.

Its imminent dissolution wouldn’t have been strange.

Jawoon reached for the jade, desperate.

Crack.

His hand was knocked back by a loud snap.

Blood welled from split fingertips and streamed down.

Forgetful of the wound, Jawoon looked at the jade again.

It glowed as usual, as if nothing had happened.

“Did I see incorrectly?”

He watched the jade carefully.

It was still the same.

Only then did Jawoon let out a breath.

The blood on his fingertips dripped to the floor, one drop at a time.

The wound, torn by the barrier, would not heal quickly.

Hiding his injured hand behind his back so that the wound would not be seen, Jawoon said:

“It’s nothing. Seeing you after so long must have made my excited heart blind my eyes. If you are fine, I am fine.”

Blood from his fingertips stained the purple robes he wore, but Jawoon did not seem to care.

He just kept looking at the Spirit Jade, endlessly.

What finally moved Jawoon, who seemed like he could gaze at it forever, was the sound of flapping wings from outside the door.

“Master of Cheonryeongji. Are you there?”

The voice was similar to the white crane’s who had brought him here, but slightly different.

Jawoon answered without turning his gaze.

“What is it?”

“I apologize, but your time is over.”

A trace of reluctance crossed Jawoon’s face.

He smiled at the Spirit Jade.

“Time is truly cold-hearted. When I wait for a day to visit you, it stretches on without end, but when I am with you, it is too short.”

If only time would stop right here.

But he didn’t say that out loud.

“I should go now.”

Even as he said it, his feet wouldn’t move easily.

At every step, he turned back time and again, several times over, before he finally managed to leave Yeongbo Hall.

“Master of Cheonryeongji. It has been a while.”

Waiting at the door was an attendant who looked just like the white crane, except that the white crane wore white clothes, while this one wore black clothes and had black wings.

“Heokhak.”

Heokhak folded his black wings, which grew where his arms should be, and bowed respectfully.

“The Heavenly Emperor has summoned you, my lord.”

“Is that so? Let me go right away.”

“I shall escort you.”

Heokhak bit the tip of his wing and pulled out a single feather.

He blew from his mouth, and in the empty place, a round door appeared.

When Heokhak swept his right wing from side to side, the door opened.

Behind it was darkness, pitch black.

But Jawoon stepped through the door, as if nothing were out of place.

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