They holed up in a home that had seen better days if not better years.


    Those who had been living there vacated the home the moment Hua showed any interest in it. On a good day, you gave a Cultivator every courtesy you could. On a bad day, you kowtowed and prayed you were too unimportant for their fury. And today, you simply fled, because a world breaking was far, far safer than a furious Cultivator.


    She was grateful Qing did not fight her over the abrupt eviction. Either Qing was too tired to argue with her or realised that this wasn’t worth fighting over. Hua led her to a bench by a table and made her sit. Hua could commend the peasants who had called this rickety building home for managing to keep it clean. It was without dust, the fabrics hanging on the walls lovingly made by hand, each successive one showing the styles of successive generations.


    Further exploration revealed some steamed buns wrapped in cloth. They had spilt off the wood shelf at some point between the minor tremor and the deluge of lightning. The one Hua tried was perhaps the worst thing she’d eaten in a year, but it wasn’t poisoned, that much she could be sure of. The pot of cold tea was much the same. Unpoisoned, that is. Somehow the quality of Pu-erh was worse than the buns.


    If mortals had to eat like this regularly, Hua could understand why they were so eager to commit suicide by Cultivator in all the stories.


    “Eat and drink first. Talk after.”


    Qing not even scowling was worrying. Hua sat across from her on the bench, knees knocking together. She watched Qing chew through the first bun without complaint, grinding through the low-quality wheat to find whatever made up the meat medley in the centre. Qing chased it with the tea and followed that with the second bun.


    “Why did we stop here?” Qing asked once she’d swallowed down the third bun, setting down the cup.


    Hua took Qing’s hands between her own. They were still trembling, those elegant fingers. There was strength to them, callouses that remained but would soon fade as Qing’s body adapted to Qi. She waited until the trembling calmed and then let them go with regret.


    “You’re tired. Emotionally, yes, but also physically. Burning through your Qi. Took me a while to notice but you’ve been keeping the ground stable for me. Unconsciously, I would assume, otherwise you intentionally exhausted your Qi.”


    “I never noticed.”


    “I know. It’s my fault. I should have been paying more attention but it’s… the world is so loud and bright right now. Like I can see more than I should, more than just the Qi around us. It’s been… distracting. And your Qi is so similar to the earth, anyway, that I struggled to see it past everything else. So, sorry, I would have noticed any other day.”


    “You were struck by lightning, Hua. Even I could tell that bolt was gonna hit me. It would have killed me, but you saved me. At least let me do something as simple as helping you walk.”


    Hua smiled. As if she’d let something as simple as divine lightning harm Qing. “Being near you is all the strength I’ve ever needed.”


    Qing glanced away, lips pursing. Her hands dug into her thighs, scrunching up her robes. “Don’t say things like that if you don’t mean them.”


    Hua reached out and laid her hands over those fists Qing made. She coaxed them free and let them rest on her palms. “I’ve never said a single thing I didn’t mean to you.”


    “Thank you.”


    “Always,” she said automatically, squeezing Qing’s hands. “For what?”


    “For being there for me. I know it isn’t in your nature to… well, not care, you care about your clan a lot. But I know it’s hard for you to do kindness. So, thank you for being kind to me. Putting up with me despite everything. I know I’m not the type of Cultivator you approve of but—”


    “That’s never mattered to me. I just needed you to be you. Qing. Who you are now is the only person I need. Even if I don’t agree with everything you do or like what you think, and it would be easier if you agreed with me a lot more, I still wouldn’t change any of that about you.”


    “Hua, don’t say things you can’t take back.”


    “I know you’ll forgive me if I ever said something I couldn’t take back. When we’re old, I’ll still be complaining that you’re too nice to people who don’t deserve it, and you’ll be trying to make me behave like a mortal, but I’d be happy because you’re there. Everything else, we can figure out together and—”


    Qing leaned up and pressed her lips against Hua.


    They were dry, and chapped, but so warm. Hua could do nothing, so shocked was she that her brain had broken. Her thoughts scattered away to the four winds as she processed, in the abstract realm of physical sensation and Qi intermingling, what was occurring. Her only tethers to normalcy were the hands squeezing her own, applying pressure enough to crack bones. Familiar and yet ever so strange for the context that they made.


    What am I meant to do? She asked despairingly, uselessly.


    Qing pulled back, watching Hua carefully.


    Hua felt the separation between them more keenly and wanted to pull Qing back. Find a way to merge them together until nothing at all remained separate, no gap between their selves and souls and qi. But she didn’t know how. Could only settle for the hands she held and bony knees knocked against each other.


    “Sorry. I’ve always wanted to do that,” Qing said simply, as if she hadn’t entirely upended Hua’s worldview. The chaos in Heaven was less shocking than this.


    “Since when?”


    “Since always.” Qing swallowed, biting at her upper lip. Hua could not believe she had tasted those lips even if only for a moment. “You always tell me Cultivators are selfish creatures. Well, I’m being selfish. I don’t want it to go unsaid. I know, you’re going to get married to some important Cultivator and do important Cultivator things. I get that but I don’t care. I’d follow you wherever you went. Even if I had to swallow my heart and suffer each day watching you love someone else. I just… let me be selfish for a moment.”


    “You could never be selfish,” she whispered, because it was what she believed. How could you be selfish with something given freely?


    She cupped Hua’s cheek tenderly, staring at her with a gentle warmth. Like lying on a rock heated by the sun, Hua melted. Her thumb pressed against Hua’s lips. Those points of contact, each of them undeniable. Each of them engraved in her memory.


    The smile Qing wore was painfully bitter but carried an undeniable sweetness.


    “Tell me no and I’ll stop. I’ll never mention this again.”


    “I could never say no to you.”


    When Qing brought Hua’s head down, Hua was barely ready to taste that bittersweet smile.


    Hua did not know how to give a kiss and so she pushed forward, pushed against but never away. She wanted to lick across Qing’s teeth and taste every crevice. To confirm if she would taste like bad tea and cheap buns, or if there was some ineffable quality that endured. A distillation of taste that was unique to Qing alone.


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    There were fingers in her hair, stroking her silver strands. The brush of fingertips on her scalp. Shocks spread across her nape as those fingers explored. Hua’s hands were drawn to Qing’s waist. They had danced like that before, Hua leading her, Qing following, but now Qing could only desperately hold on against the tidal wave.


    It was lips and teeth and warmth, Qi seeping through flesh, imparting a thousand feelings and emotions. A decade they had known each other, and Hua regretted them now more than ever. She regretted the years before they met, when she was empty and unfulfilled and did not yet know it. She loathed each day they had been apart and only the memory of Qing walked with her.


    Those Dojos she challenged were worth less than this. Every lesson from her teachers, every second with her siblings, the very act of cycling Qi a waste of time because it meant one moment less with Qing.


    “And no, you don’t have to love me back,” Qing whispered against her lips. It sounded like a lie Qing said simply to endure. “I know you don’t understand how love works, and you’d never do anything that wouldn’t bring your family an advantage. That’s not your fault, you’re just a product of your clan. But I can only act as my heart tells me. So, don’t send me away. Don’t run from me.”


    I loved you from the moment you broke my nose and kicked me in the mud. I loved you when you shared that first mooncake you stole. I loved you again when you let me teach you how to dance. I love your smile and your laugh, your stubbornness and anger.


    I love you and I don’t know how to fucking say it.


    “You’d stay with me if I asked? No matter how far I had to go? Even if it meant leaving our home. You’d stay with me?”


    “Always. There was nothing you could have ever done to push me away. I’d be happy to make a home anywhere with you. By the sea, a small plot in a forest, in a slum or a castle, so long as you were there it would be home for me.”


    “Qing, I—"


    The world shook with such undeniable violence that it stole whatever words Hua had thought she could say. Stone grinding, earth juddering. A great upheaval so powerful, so potent, it was as though the Trigram Zhen had replaced the very bedrock as the world Shook.


    For a moment, one mad moment, she reached her Qi outward to the world, thinking foolishly that the trigram did exist, that one part yin and two parts yang now ruled the world. Because if that was so, if the Thunder Trigram Zhen reigned supreme, then surely a daughter of lightning could force the world to be still?


    The ceiling made the decision for her as it caved inwards. Stone bricks and wooden beams fell, revealing a glimpse of the heavens being torn apart by ruinous lightning.


    She shoved Qing away just as a beam would have struck them, struck her. The weight sent Hua to her hands and knees, but that was fine. Qing was safe. Hua forced herself up, shoving aside wood and stone that had fallen upon her shoulders. Across the small house, she saw Qing battling to maintain stability. So great was the destabilising force, that even Qing could not endure it fully. Hua’s heart caught in her throat. Get closer, get to her, everything else could wait.


    The shaking ended abruptly. Hua tripped, unable to compensate for the sudden change from instability to sudden stillness.


    Qing reached out to her.


    Hua reached back as she always would.


    The ground beneath them sheared in half with a grinding sound so loud it deafened her surer than divine lightning. Where there had been a moment of stability, now there was a gaping emptiness that would swallow whole the table and bench and every piece of rubble. Anything that had existed above that darkness would vanish.


    Including, Qing.


    Her hair was rising as she fell. Across the gap, Qing’s eyes were wide, horror and fear contorting her delicate features as she realised what was happening. The earth had betrayed her, betrayed them.


    Whatever the reason, Hua reached forward, Qi surging in her bones and muscles. Faster. She needed to be faster than the traitorous earth. To reach, that was all that mattered. Everything else could vanish so long as Qing lived.


    Their fingers just brushed. Just missed. Never close enough. Qing fell into the darkness that had emerged.


    Hua flung herself into the gaping emptiness carelessly, never hesitating for a moment. Always reaching for Qing.


    War. The eighteen Hells. A hole in the ground. Whatever it was, Hua would follow so long as Qing was on the other side. She descended into the dark after her because nothing else was acceptable. No other option could be permitted.


    It was inevitable.


    They were inevitable.


    The dark world groaned again. A slab of stone jutted out and struck Hua in the side. The pain was immediate. Bright spots bloomed in her vision as she was flung aside, further away from Qing who was vanishing into the darkness. Hua hit another wall and tumbled uncontrollably. She scrambled to get a hold of anything, any ledge or handhold. Her nails scraped stone, her finger pads were torn bloody. No matter how she reached, nothing reached back.


    The ground came far too abruptly for Hua to react.


    One great flare of pain. A flash of agony. Then, true darkness.


    She fell unconscious for a time. Hua could not tell how long it was that she swam in the murky border between waking and the emptiness of unconsciousness. It was a lifetime, it was a moment, it cared not at all for Hua’s burning need to wake. There was a desire in her so strong that it woke her Qi and that in turn urged her to rise. Lightning in her veins, sparking across nerves, jolting her unconscious body into a waking state.


    When she woke with a spasm as he muscles contracted violently, the world was dark. She knew she was awake only because everything ached. Her Qi stopped prodding her with lightning and went to cycle through her body, soothing her bruised flesh and cracked bones. Only Body Tempering and Qi reinforcement kept her alive, she knew, and only because so many things had broken her fall.


    Focus. Find Qing. Do that and nothing else.


    That imperative lay in her very soul. And so, Hua rose with a groan, feeling sharp spikes of fresh agony. Unimportant. Worthless pieces of information. What did she need to know that her ribs were cracked, her flesh bruised, and her tendons strained. So long as she could stand, could force sludge-slow Qi to strengthen torn muscles and fill the cracks in her bones, the pain was just a distraction from her goal. The only one that mattered. Finding Qing.


    The darkness lifted slightly, an endless void becoming a pervasive greyness. It was a miracle at all that she could see anything at all in this murk and the thick dust choking her. They could have been in any of the myriad hells for all Hua knew. Did that matter? Could Hell stop her from reaching Qing? No, she wouldn’t let it.


    Instinct made Hua lean back just as something fell in front of her. The object broke on impact, sending splinters of pain that stabbed Hua in the feet. She cursed and glared at it. It was… a broken support beam? One large chunk of it had speared through a piece of fabric.


    It was one of the wall hangings in the house she had been in. She looked up and saw only the palest crack of light, one so thin but also blindingly bright.


    She was surrounded by stone walls so tall she could not tell if she imagined the crack of light above her.  It was warm to the touch, not cold as she expected by the moisture licking across the rough walls. The longer she looked, the better her eyes adjusted. Soon, she could see the patches of darkness for what they were. The undulating path forward, narrowing and contracting abruptly, dipping and rising. As her gaze drew up, she found a path of rocks jutting out, stone overhangs, and crevices born from the violent contractions that would lead her to the light above. Freedom.


    All she had to do was climb.


    Hua looked away from certain freedom and headed into the deep dark.


    “Qing!”


    It hurt her chest to shout. Her voice echoed against the walls, bouncing in strange patterns that made no sense to Hua. She was hearing her voice coming from behind herself.


    “Answer me damn you. Qing!”


    “Hua.”


    The voice echoed from all directions. Hua did not let that stop her. She looked and she looked and she looked until she saw a place where dust was falling faster than the rest. She headed in that direction, leaning against the wall for support. Her feet ached with each step as splinters lodged deeper in them, her fingers leaving bloody prints on the dark walls.


    She ducked beneath a low opening and shimmied her way through the dark recess. It was too narrow to fit properly. Her body was at an odd angle, most of her weight on her left side. With one arm, she dragged herself forward. Didn’t care if small stones cut her flesh and dress. Didn’t care at all that the darkness ahead was all-consuming.


    Some things were more important than fear.


    “I’m coming,” she promised, hacking on dust. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there soon.”


    “You can’t follow after me.”


    Qing’s voice was strangely wet, like she’d been drowning. Hua moved faster, fingers bleeding deeper and nails cracking as she dragged herself forward. There was only the tiniest of lights, a weak golden glow that might have been the sight of crack promising freedom imprinted upon her vision, tempting her with a lie.


    There was something true in the depths of darkness. So long as Hua reached for it, the world would be fine.


    “I always will! Don’t you dare think I won’t.”


    It was abrupt, how quickly the crawlspace ended. Vaguely, she could see the outline of a human in the murk. Hua pushed herself forward and tumbled down a steep incline. Rocks and gravel rolled with her and she landed in a pile. She dug herself out, coughing harshly. Made her way forward until she could see Qing.


    There she was. Lying on the ground. Waiting with a small smile that was almost swallowed by the dark.


    It was here, in this hellish darkness, that Hua learned the true nature of her worst fears.


    “I’m sorry Hua. You can’t follow me this time.”