"You just see the depth of how hurt this guy is, and how dangerous that can be." - (DVD Audio commentary by movie makers – Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Melissa Cobb, Raymond Zibach, Rodolphe Guenoden about the final scene between Lord Shen and Soothsayer)
6. Remorse and Resentment
The sun was high in the sky, but dark clouds were gathering. A clear sign that it would rain soon. Still, Ai had preferred to go on some errands in the village. She really wanted to be distracted. But no sooner had she been away from the house for 10 minutes, she became anxious again. As much as she was afraid of Shen's awakening, her concern about leaving him alone with his father was many times greater. Quickly, she did all the shopping, although it was not easy because the most villagers had gone to Gongmen City to celebrate the victory over Shen. Once she even heard a part of a conversation between two village sheep, who reported that, despite everything, the city was still quite turbulent. Someone would be causing a disturbance there. There was also talk of Shen's people who did not want to leave the area at all. But Ai tried too hard to get back home quickly. She dropped all conversations and contacts with others and ran through the village back to the hut.
As chaotic and loud as it might be in the city, the quieter it was in the hut that the peafowls lived in. Lord Liang had barely closed an eye all night. Although he had slept through the night until dusk yesterday, but he still felt extremely tired and exhausted. He felt like he had aged 20 years again. And no sooner, Ai had left the house, he collapsed at the dining room table and closed his eyes for a brief moment. Actually, he just wanted to doze a bit, but then he fell asleep within a very short time.
Several minutes passed. Outside, a strong breeze occasionally blew through the treetops above the hut. Nothing else seemed to disturb the calm. Everyone in the house was sound asleep. Until suddenly a low moan came out from behind the curtain. The body of the white peacock in the bed jerked slightly. But it was only his muscles that reacted reflexively to the destruction in the flesh and nerves. He didn't feel the pain yet. It just did when his subconscious was gradually replaced from the consciousness that educed the former warlord a deep, gasping breath. Shen tensed up briefly. Unfortunately, he moved his fresh operated wing too violently. The white peacock gave a choked cry. Reflexively, he struck next to him. Did someone attack him? Was he in a fight?
He reached under. His finger feathers dug into the blanket and pillow. Like a blind man, he felt his surroundings, making extremely hectic movements. This unfamiliar environment briefly panicked him. He couldn't figure out how to understand the relationship between lying in bed and pain. Usually, he never had pain in bed. Except at the beginning, when he always had to train and after hours of arms production...
He squeezed his eyelids together as the pain in his head hit him. Breathing hard, he tried to get this level of pain under control. He couldn't remember the last time he was in such severe pain.
Had he misjudged one of his experiments?
His feathered hand wandered to the source of the pain on his face. He felt bandages. The lord winced at this touch and this elicited another wailing sound from him.
Finally, he managed to breathe in and out with steady force. After his tension had subsided somewhat, he managed to open his eyes a little. Although his facial muscles ached extremely, the urge to know what was around him overcame the pain threshold.
There was a dark wooden ceiling above him. There was a wall next to him and a curtain on the other side.
Shen wanted to straighten up immediately, but a blazing pain made him sink back. His wing wandered again and he felt more bandages around his injured wing and on his stomach under the blanket.
Suddenly, he realized that he was not wearing anything. He pulled the blanket aside. His robe was gone! Quickly, he covered himself up again.
Who on earth had dared to take off his clothes? Nobody was allowed to see him unclothed.
Outraged by this humiliation, he tensed his back muscles again, but the fresh wound on his stomach forced him to lie down.
For a while, he stayed like that. His chest rose and fell sharply. There was still total chaos in his head.
What was he doing here? And most importantly, how did he get here? What happened?
Then he remembered and now not only his body hurt, but his soul as well. He had lost. He had lost everything. There had been no way out. He had seen no other option than just to follow his original goal...
The last thing he remembered was when the cannon fell on him. He had closed his eyes and switched off all feelings in his body. It hadn't hurt too much. The heavy weight of the cannon must have been so enormous that he hadn't felt anything. There has been just a loud bang... and...
Shen blinked harder. But what was he doing here? That couldn't be the life in the hereafter. It was impossible to feel pain afterwards. Where was the painlessness?
He groaned and turned his head to the side and searched the crack in the curtain with his eyes. When he finally found it, he lifted a wing with difficulty. The room behind the fabric was not bright. But it was enough for Shen to see something. He was clearly in a hut. In front of him stood a table and several chairs around it. And at this table sat a slumped figure.
Shen narrowed his eyes. It was a green peacock, but the strange thing about him was that he had no long tail feathers. How could that be? He tried to get closer to the gap in the curtain, but he couldn't.
Suddenly, footsteps could be heard on the terrace in front of the door. Quickly, he let go of the fabric and sank back down on the pillow. Somebody opened the door. A person entered and a woman's voice whispered into the room: "Liang?"
The white warlord thought the accident has completely destroyed his brain now. That was... no, that couldn't be... but that voice... and that name.
"Liang? Are you awake?"
Somebody mumbled something. "Mm, I'm sorry, I probably nodded off for a moment."
Shen closed his eyes. His senses must have gone completely crazy. Or was it all just an unreal world? Had he ended up somewhere in an in-between life or in another dimension in the universe? He was hurt. That could only mean that these were traces of the explosion he still remembered, but why did he hear voices now that sounded like his parents? He also heard the name of his father. Shen shook his head. No, there were many who were called that. It could only be a coincidence. But those voices... Shen screwed up his eyes. It couldn't be real. He turned his head alternately to the right and to the left. He didn't want to hear their voices anymore. They should get out of his mind.
"Did he wake up?" the voice of his supposed mother continued.
"I haven't checked yet," the person replied, who the woman had called Liang. "Wait a minute."
Shen was on the fence. Footsteps approached his bed. But as soon as he heard the rustle of the curtain, he quickly closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
He felt the person's glance. He really had to fight against not opening his eyes. He was relieved to hear that the person closed the curtain again.
"He is still sleeping."
Somebody let out a sigh of relief.
"I guess it's better that way," the woman's voice said, which sounded like his mother. "However, it will probably not stay that way forever."
One of the two sat down on a chair while the other person paced quietly up and down the room.
"What should we tell him?" the female voice asked.
"What do you think?" the voice, that sounded like his father, said. "The truth of course, he will not accept anything else."
"But will he be able to cope with the truth?" the woman voiced her misgivings.
Liang sighed heavily. "We did it together. We knew that the day would come sometime when we had to tell him."
There was another period of silence before the woman continued the conversation. "18 years are a long time. We kept it from him for 18 years. How will he deal with it when he hears that parents are hiding from their child that they are still alive?"
Shen thought his heart would stop. No! That couldn't be! None of this could be real. In what part of the universe did he end up?
"He'll understand," Liang's voice said. "Somehow. We have to hope for the best, Ai."
When he heard his mother's name, the white peacock pressed his wing on his beak. It was only with great effort that he didn't cry out loudly. His beak shook, and later his whole body. He found it difficult to regain control. He just didn't know what to think. But before he completely collapsed inside, he heard his mother say: "I'll make us something to eat now."
He felt relief as they left the dining room. He swallowed several times before taking the shaky wing off his beak and peering through the curtain again. Then he saw them. They had turned their backs on him and their plumage was different, too. But it was them. Their voices, their faces that had been burned into his mind since he was born.
He watched tensely as they disappeared into the kitchen.
At first, he lay there like frozen for a while, then he narrowed his eyes.
What kind of game are you playing with me?
It was late in the evening. Outside it had started to trickle a bit, but the big rain was still holding back.
The couple had retired to the bedroom. Before that, they had checked in on Shen. He was still unchanged. Ai was worried, hoping he hadn't fallen into a coma. When it was time for them to go to sleep, they went to bed. Ai set a candle on a dresser while Liang shook out the bedspreads and pillows. As Ai helped him to pull the blankets aside, she noticed a movement in the door frame. Immediately, Ai looked at the door and was startled. Liang noticed her reaction and looked at the door, too. The parents froze when they saw the somber face of their son, who was staring at them with hostility. His wings were supported on the door frame. He was still a little weak, but completely conscious. And that what his consciousness saw and understood was beyond his grasp. He had put on his old robe, too. Ai had washed it, but there were still slight blood stains on it.
Shen's mother was the first one who broke out of her emotional numbing. He was different from the day before, when he had been passed out. Now his eyes were open and clear. Ai was so overwhelmed by that sight that she didn't know whether she should cry or cheer. The eyes which she had thought she'd never see them again. But then her insides changed again into deep dismay. The last time she had seen those eyes they had parted in hatred.
"Shen," she breathed. She didn't know what more to say.
"You don't look... so dead… at all," Shen gasped icily. He was still in a lot of pain, but he'd learned to control it over the hours he'd regained consciousness. His cold gaze wandered to his father.
"That's not the afterlife, is it?" Shen inquired gruffly. "You look a way too lively for that."
Liang swallowed hard. His son looked at him so angrily that he hardly had the courage to say anything. Shen looked like he was going to scream any minute, and he knew it would come that way. Finally, Liang raised his head. He didn't want to look like a confused old man and started a formal but toneless greeting. Even if he was his son, he had to maintain his dignity as a former noble ruler and not forget what a terrible crime Shen had committed.
"It's nice to see you again..."
"YOU LIED!" Shen yelled at him.
That made his father flinch, but immediately he recovered. "If you let us explain, you will understand it. There is no reason to be upset..."
"I shouldn't get upset?!" Shen snapped. "I shouldn't get upset?! Over the years, I have lived with the thought that you are dead! What did you expect?! That I cry at your grave? Did you want to see me begging for forgiveness?!"
Ai shook her head in dismay. "No, but we found that this was the only way to be with you."
For a moment, Shen just stood there, breathing loudly. Then he smiled coldly. "Oh, fine. Okay, you saw me. Then you can disappear again."
Ai gave Liang a look for help, but Liang was careful with what he said next. Finally, Ai walked around the bed and was now a little closer to her son. She tried to smile at him. "Shen, you are ill. We can't leave you alone now."
Her son's cutting gaze literally froze her.
Ill. Ill. Ill. Ill.
A word that was at the top of his hate list. The peacock's lips began to quiver.
"I'M NOT ILL!"
"I meant your wounds. Your wounds, Shen," Ai tried to soothe him. "You are injured…"
She stretched out her wings for him. But he avoided her as if she had fire on her feathered hands.
"Don't - touch - me - …. mother. Or should I still call you like that?"
Ai pressed her wings to her body. She looked so lost. Shen's glance moved to Liang. The father caught the gaze of his son and both stared at each other darkly. A tension developed between the two peacocks that was as great as the strongest dynamite. It only took a spark to detonate the whole thing if one of them didn't give in.
In the end, it was Liang, who withdrew from the skirmish. With his head bowed, he went to his wife and pulled her close to him.
"Son, it's late," he said in a firm voice. "We'd better continue talking tomorrow. Now you have to recover first."
Shen narrowed his eyes angrily. "My mind is absolutely clear! - In any case better than YOURS!"
"Shhh!" his father warned. "We are on the outskirts of a village. Nobody shouldn't find you here."
Shen hissed loudly. "Just not me - or not you either?"
Liang took an extremely deep breath that hurt his lungs. He was about to burst into tears like last night. But he controlled himself at the last moment. He wanted to avoid a quarrel. Not only to quench Shen's anger, but also to keep his wife from falling into despair. In the end, he couldn't think of anything else than to say: "Would you like something to eat?"
In retrospect, these words felt foolish to Liang, which his son immediately denounced.
"Is that all you have to say about it? Father?"
Liang did not reply to this. He didn't want to say anything more. For him, the discussion was over. Shen knew this gesture from his father all too well. But turning his back on him in humiliation, he didn't want to make his father that favor. Instead, the white peacock backed out of the room, always keeping his eyes glued to his parents. There was nothing in return that he showed them in his glance. It was contempt. Just scornful contempt. Eventually, he disappeared from the light level and his parents were left alone with their misery.
Suddenly, they heard the door being thrown open and someone ran outside.
"Shen!"
Immediately, Ai ran to the open door. But when she stood on the terrace, Shen could no longer be seen. The peahen flapped her wings in front of her beak in dismay. "Oh no."
In the next moment, Liang was next to her and stared stunned outside into the dark night. His glance wandered to the sky. The scattered raindrops were still falling, but he knew the weather wouldn't hold back the water forever.
Ai pressed herself against him and started crying. Her husband caressed her back soothingly. They had suspected that it would come this way. But what should they do now?