After Granny's death, the wanderers found me. War raged outside, they said. Carrion-devouring insects swarmed …
After Granny's death, the wanderers found me. War raged outside, they said. Carrion-devouring insects swarmed the land. They pleaded for my help. So I went.
For a year, I drove back the swarms. But instead of gratitude, those men followed me home, demanding the Everlasting Parasite.
Their greed angered the Deer Goddess. The mountain split open, and our village plunged into the abyss.
We screamed for help. No one came. So I planted the Everlasting Parasite within us all, waiting for the day we might return to the surface.
But immortality changed me. I no longer mourned the dead. I no longer cared to leave this place.
Then Chen Huaiqing came, battered and bleeding. He'd heard rumors that the Immortal of Longevity had ascended from this very abyss. I knew he wouldn't last. "Do you want to live forever?" I asked.
"No," he said. "Life is like the seasons—bloom once, fade once. The mercy of death is rebirth, to return as man or woman, as a white deer or venomous insect. But immortality? It traps you in one shape, unchanging."
I could not grasp his wisdom then. "I was of no more use to you," I told him. He left me the lamp and walked away. Inside was his life's work. A formula to undo immortality. If he truly was my disciple, then perhaps this was what the Han call "outshining the mentor."
The kindness I'd given long ago had returned to me. Holding that faint light, I felt something, flickers of a mortal heart. Once the pill is ready and our endless life is broken, I'll leave this abyss. I'll pass on all I've learned to him. And if I don't live to see the dawn? Well, this formula will remain for those who someday wish to shed eternity.
When Granny gave me the Everlasting Parasite, she said, "Immortality is both priceless and worthless." Now, at last, I understand. Life is like the seasons, which bloom once, fade once.