He Juzu

In the third year of Kaiyun, shortly after the Well of Heaven disciple He Juzu perished, the youth Po bore the dead man's visage upon his own face, as if the fallen had returned to life. The Water Lady's disguise techniques were truly sublime. From the broad contours and muscle textures to the tiniest moles and pores, every detail was recreated with absolute precision. Gazing at his current appearance in the bronze mirror, Po stared blankly for a long time. He forced his mouth to stretch into a feigned hearty smile; shockingly, he now bore a nine-tenths resemblance to He Juzu. As for the remaining one-tenth: a ghastly, terrifying scar ran from his brow, tearing straight through his left eye, and settled upon his cheek. The blood scab had recently fallen off, revealing tender, pale-pink flesh. It had not yet fully healed. Standing aside, the Water Lady observed him with a detached tone, telling him he should depart tomorrow and need not wait for the wound to heal. Po was bewildered, asking why. The Water Lady let out an almost imperceptible sigh, explaining that the wound was too deep; even if He Juzu had survived, this scar would never have fully healed. It seemed the heavens had ordained a mystical parallel. Po had mutilated his own left cheek to evade pursuit, and He Juzu had suffered a strike to his left cheek on the battlefield. Born in the same year, bearing the exact same wound; it was as if dictated by a destined pact. That night, the Water Lady's boatman pushed his long pole, ferrying Po away from the Still Shore. The boatman looked at him and sighed, then looked again and sighed once more. He fished out a few pieces of broken silver, hired some porters, and had Po carried all the way back to the Well of Heaven. Having been a fugitive for so long, enduring endless starvation, the youth who was once strong enough to lift a cauldron was now reduced to a gaunt shadow. After surviving the grueling trek, his body was a canvas of new wounds layered over old. By the time he arrived at the mountain gates of the Well of Heaven, he was practically a disjointed skeleton, barely distinguishable from a ghost. The bitter cold of the North caused the wound on Po's face to bleed and freeze over repeatedly, leaving him looking utterly tragic. He lay flat on his back in the bedchamber that had once belonged to He Juzu. Through a bloody mist clouding his vision, he faintly saw a figure with greying temples approaching him. From the lips of a disciple nearby, he heard the title "Chief Shen." A sliver of doubt arose in his heart: He Juzu had explicitly told him that Shen Hanying was quite young. How could she appear with a head full of white hair? Shen Hanying examined his wounds, instructed a senior brother to attend to his daily needs until he recovered, and spoke not a single superfluous word thereafter. For a fleeting moment, Po was almost certain she had recognized him as an imposter. Yet, in the end, Shen Hanying said absolutely nothing. She merely sat in silence by his side, keeping watch until the stroke of midnight. The piercing night wind bit to the bone, gnawing at her much like the recent news of the three hundred disciples' deaths. Po could smell the metallic, cold scent of blood on her armor; it smelled like snow, and it smelled like blood. Two survivors who had plummeted into the dry crevices of despair had nothing to say to one another. They could only remain silent, waiting for the aftershocks of death to subside. Grinding a brick to make a mirror, cooking sand to make rice; futile as it may seem, it is still better than having all hopes turn to ashes. Po did not know when Shen Hanying left, but he knew he was safe. He fell into a deep, heavy slumber. In his dream, he did not see his brother Zhi, he did not see his enemies, nor did he see the starving corpses and wailing refugees that littered his path of exile. Instead, the sunlight flooded the city, and the spring wind rustled brightly. He and He Juzu were riding side by side along the cliff where they first met. It was the two of them in an era of peace, where no one had to march to war, and no one was reduced to a refugee. As they rode on, He Juzu vanished. As he rode on, he became He Juzu. The next day, he awakened, astonished to find that the howling wind outside the window had ceased. The exact same sunlight from his dream spilled across his face. In a daze, he remembered that today seemed to be the Start of Spring. "Spring takes its turn, and the bright sun shines clearly." The senior brother tasked with his care was turning the pages of a book nearby, reading the text aloud with solemn reverence, as though reciting a profound secret yet to be unveiled to the world.