In ancient scrolls, deep inside the library of Chāng (meaning "prosperous"), tucked away in the heart of the Yao Empire, there tells a story of an Emperor far beyond the others. One who stepped into power at a young age and unified all of the Xingese clans (once fighting endlessly for their own taste of power but now living in piece as one whole), an emperor that ruled with an iron fist and had the most adored armies that protected the country from foreign invaders, an emperor that helped establish strong relations with surrounding countries and helped the whole country prosper with foreign riches that they never knew existed.
All with the help of something every emperor had sought to find but failed.
Each preceding ruler has tried many remedies, one involving the consumption of lead and another involving a highly toxic mixture of mercury, sulfur, and the salts of mercury and arsenic. One emperor supposedly sent out sixty ships with five thousand crew members and three thousand children, along with Alkahestrists and craftsmen of various backgrounds to find the secret to this. But all have failed and all were executed due to this revelation. Many have prayed to the numerous gods in the Xingese cultures, and many have made sacrifices in the hope of them granting immortality onto their Emperor. But all have not prevailed.
In the early twentieth century, the Emperor during that time has fallen ill, causing the forty-three heirs of the throne to engage in a war for the throne. Amidst all the chaos during this time, two of the heirs, with hopes of being the one reigning overall and to help their clans, set out to the neighboring country of Amestris to find the safe haven known as the Elixir of Life, or the Philosopher's Stone. After being involved in the foreign country's affairs, causing one to consume an artificially created human and another to have one within her grasp but lose it as fast. They made comrades, enemies, and everything in between until the male, named Ling Yao, was successful in finding the secret to immortality, and his half-sister, May Chang, to fail.
Having what he needed to secure his spot as ruler, they (Ling, his vessel and deceased vessel, and May Chang) ventured across the scorching desert that separates the two countries back to their homeland of Xing.
He who successfully found the secret to immortality informed the emperor whose years of life were dwindling to a small number, and a grand celebration was to be thrown with a buffet going on consistently for a period of eight days, along with grand parties and parades and joyous music. Lanterns were to be lit and sent to the gods in the sky as wishes for the new Emperor to be successful in his reign. The other scions, siblings of the successor and the next ruler in line after their father, congratulated their half-brother, telling them he would be successful though they were in a quiet rage that they weren't in his position. Events as far as an assassination attempt was inflicted upon the Yao heir, and the man, one of the vessels from one of the clans, was executed immediately as a sign of how powerful Ling Yao, the former twelfth prince and the newly announced emperor, was and is.
In the first decade of his reign, he formulated an army so powerful, so victorious, with his prized vessel, Lan Fan, at the top. In the first decade of his reign, one woman from each clan was sent to be wedded with him to bear a heir to the throne, though Ling secretly knew that he wouldn't need a successor. For he is immortal, and he cannot die. In the first decade of his reign, he established a whole country that wasn't disrupted by the plentiful clans waging in war with each other.
With all the power in his hands, with a spy system and an army so great that it outshined the others by far, with plentiful wives and plentiful children as part of his whole family, Ling Yao of the Yao Clan was a great, inspiring ruler of Xing and the Yao Dynasty, shaping the once disrupt country to a powerful one for the greater good.
But, one day in this youthful eternity blessed upon him, he felt tired, tired and aged.
Wrinkles began to grow on his face – around his eyes once filled with eternal life and happiness now aged and weary, and around his lips that would always be in a carefree smile or a deep frown of disappointment. He began to lose energy, and he grew sick easily. He asked the top alkahestris in the country, his half-sister May Elric (she had married the former Fullmetal Alchemist's brother with Ling's consent and now had a bouncing baby boy she was teaching Alkahestry to). She informed him about his draining Philosopher's Stone. Too much energy was being exhausted from his Elixir of Life and it was punishing him for him taking the stone for granted and using as much as he can in the first decades of his reign as the Xingese emperor. Ling demanded for another stone, but no one would dare to make another, knowing what was used to create such a glorious jewel.
The emperor grew mad, mad and insane, knowing that his death was drawing near. His hair grew the shade of the ash he spread onto the floor of the sacred room of worship inside the Gusuku. He witnessed all his beloved comrades he made in Amestris and the ones he had since birth die naturally of old, weary age. The heirs, his children, saw this as a sign, and the clans once again began to wage in the battle for the throne, knowing their father will die and pass on to the hands of the gods soon.
The population of Xing began to demand answers from their supposed-immortal emperor, about why he was staying inside the castle more often, why the clans' peace was disrupted again with talk of a new heir to the throne. He knew he couldn't face the people of Xing without seeing the faces of citizens that were let down when he promised so long ago that he found the secret to immortality and that Xing would prosper beyond imagination.
He couldn't face them. And he didn't.
In the year 1998, after a prospering seventy-nine years of Ling Yao's reign, he died.
The death was sudden, the offspring of his comrades feeling despair and panic at who was to be ruler of their country. The head of the spy system, Lan Fan and her husband's daughter, Jiàndié Yao appointed herself as the new, temporary Empress of Xing until one of the heirs was to be the official ruler of the country that was falling at the seams without their immortal emperor. In her place, she appointed her brother, Zhìnéng, as the temporary head of the spy system until the new emperor was decided.
At the funeral of Ling Yao, the Elders walked, shrouded in white, letting incense burn in the air as choirs sung mournful hymns of their fallen emperor. Plentiful women and children wept, some going to the point of running to the casket of Ling and caressing it, a lost expression on their faces. In his will, Ling Yao wrote that he didn't want to be buried in the same place of his father, and of his father's father, and of the fathers and mothers before them. He stated that he wanted to be buried in the heart of the Yao Clan, in the bustling city of Chāng, with something grand and majestic built that everyone can use. A library, of some sorts. He stated that information and wisdom was more vital to the human mind than immortality was, and that he wanted people to share information and wisdom. That would make my passing at ease, he wrote.
And, still there today, stands a library of books and scrolls named Túshū guǎn de Ling Yao (The Library of Ling Yao). And, still tucked away from the average citizen's eyes, are scrolls of the Immortal Emperor.
Author's Note:
So, a few weeks ago, I was watching a documentary on the Qin Empire and one emperor was drinking lead in hopes of becoming emperor. And BAM! Inspiration. After finally remembering about the documentary (I didn't write down the idea after that), I sat myself down and wrote this. And here it is!
Review, maybe?