Làng Wū Yáo stared at the black-robed man uneasily as he gripped the sorcerous blade in one hand and the white pipa in the other. He was still feeling the pain course through his body as he struggled to stand. Shāng Bù Huàn, the link between the two year gap and his present state. "You must be the Sword-plundering Nemesis."
Shāng removed the hat, his brow knit into a knot. He felt like he was staring at a ghost. He had spent so much time coming to terms with Làng being dead that staring at someone who looked like him felt impossible. Yet there he was, a ghost of his dead friend in the white robes he took before finding his resolve. "Làng…" he gripped his hat, uncertain of what even to say. "You say that as if you don't know me."
Làng watched Shāng cautiously. Everything about staring at this man confused him. There wasn't an ounce of malice in Shāng, no evil intent for someone who used him for two years then threw him off a cliff. Shāng's stance was uneasy, but for someone who attempted to kill him, seeing Làng alive must be jarring. But those words, they sounded forlorn like someone reaching out to a lost friend.
He grasped the pedestal with the crook of his elbow, refusing to let his weakening hands release either the sword or the pipa. He couldn't show weakness here else he might truly die.
"I can't believe you're alive," Shāng continued, stepping forward. "We…" Guilt panged at his heart. He opened his free hand a bit, balling it up before letting it fall to his side. His face twisted into a miserable knot. Their last conversation wasn't the greatest. Làng had been angry with Shāng for not wanting to strike the seal guardian, and at the time, Shāng was fully certain the decision had been correct.
Then tragedy struck and Shāng had barely been able to handle the guilt of what had happened. He had thought of it so many times, how he wanted to apologize to Làng profusely over and over again. The thoughts pervaded his dreams, but now that he was facing someone who looked just like Làng, he didn't know what to say. He stopped approaching, placing a hand on his mouth before rubbing at his face.
Làng watched Shāng cautiously. This was not the behavior of a murderous villain who wanted to use Làng as a blade and that had thrown him off a cliff. Everything felt off.
"I'm sorry," Shāng finally spoke. "You must be furious with me."
"That you tried to kill me and failed?" Làng accused him.
"Kill you?" Shāng questioned. "Why… why would I? I know it was my fault that you fell, but surely you don't feel that I would kill you." Everything about this felt wrong. The behavior, the words, even the attire that Làng now wore. Was this somehow an illusion conjured up before him to catch him in the act? The empire no doubt knew of Làng's death and would use it against him much as the seal guardian Lián Měi attempted to do.
He was terrible at discerning illusions. That much was easy enough to tell when he nearly ate scorpions. If so, this one was a strange illusion. Làng looked like he could barely stand, gripping a pipa and the sorcerous sword while trying to also hold onto the pedestal and not crumple right to the ground. His expression was terribly confused, and he was beginning to flush red like he couldn't breathe. Shāng could hear the shallow breaths even at this distance.
But everything inside of him screamed that this Làng standing before him was somehow real. He wanted to believe that with his entire being. The guards outside the sanctuary had suddenly fallen asleep, and the only person with a voice with that effect was Làng. He now had taken the sword Shāng had come to claim. Làng wanted something, but Shāng didn't know what it was or what had actually happened to him in the last two months.
Làng watched Shāng cautiously. He was in no state to fight right now with the pain nearly causing him to black out. He wanted to fight Shāng for everything that villain had done to him. But had he? Was that actually the truth of what happened two months ago?
Just seeing Shāng stand before him sent his mind into a knot. Everything he had been told about Shāng felt wrong. Staring at him, Làng felt no malice, no ill intent. Instead he found grief and regret. Shāng was reaching out to him but was it all just a rouse? This villain supposedly took down an entire shrine and had 300 mystical swords he could use at any time. He also had struck Làng with something to change his personality and force him to use his voice for evil.
But did he? Was that the truth that Làng was attempting to remember? He felt the pain strike him through the chest again. He was trying to hide it but it was plastered all over his face. He gripped the pipa tightly.
"Làng, two months ago, we thought we'd lost you," Shāng frowned, staring at the pond between them. "When that seal guardian broke the bridge and attacked you with the Mountain Gale, when you fell into the ravine, when we found Líng Yá and pieces of your robe at the edge of the lower cliffside. I should've listened to you when you said Lián Měi was evil. You knew it, and I just wouldn't listen. It's all my fault, Làng. All of it because I wanted to believe she was good and not evil."
Lián Měi. It was that name again, the one that caused the worst attack several days ago. Shāng knew it. He knew that name. He knew about the mountains. He knew the sword's name. The details of the event were different than anyone else had told him. It sounded like the fall was an accident, that Shāng hadn't attacked him and threw him off a cliff. Someone else did.
Làng felt the pain ripple through him again as he shallowly gasped for air, tumbling forward as he fell to the stone floor. The pipa and the sword clattered to the ground as he grasped at his chest. He didn't care about the pipa. It meant nothing to him. That sword, however. It was his one key to the truth and if he blacked out now, that truth would be gone forever. "Not… not now… stop…."
He reached for it, seeing Shāng approach. This was it, wasn't it? Shāng would kill him and seal that sword away in his Index. He would die not knowing the truth of the two year gap. He had to know who was telling the truth. Was it Shāng or was it Xiào and Cháo Fēng? "The… the sword…. don't seal it away…..."
His hand fell short of it as Shāng approached but he didn't stop for the sword. Shāng kept going. He knelt down, placing a hand on Làng's shoulder. "...Don't…" Làng wanted to fight him, to push him away and survive this. "...I can't…" He couldn't die here, not when he was so close to finding out the truth. It felt like he couldn't breathe again as he clawed at his chest.
But the hand on his shoulder felt friendly and familiar, like Shāng had put a hand on his shoulder before. Then came something unexpected. Qi. Shāng was using his own qi to heal him. This was everything contrary to what he'd been told, what he'd been led to believe despite what his own sense was screaming at him. And yet now he felt like he could breathe again as the pain subsided, thanks to the person he was told had tried to kill him. "You… healed me?"
"You sound so surprised," Shāng said, sitting down next to him. "I'd like to think we were something more than traveling partners. I dared call you friend for the past two years, after all."
This definitely wasn't the villain Xiào had made him out to be. Why heal someone if you intended to kill them? Why call them 'friend' for two whole years? Làng stared at the sword on the ground, listening to Shāng beside him. There was relief and guilt, worry and concern. There was still no malice, no evil, no signs of ill intent. "This… this doesn't add up. Nothing makes sense."
"I don't know what's happened to you in the past two months," Shāng frowned. "But whatever it is, something is binding you. I thought maybe you hit your head when you fell, that you lost your memories and forgot everything we've done in the past two years, our friendships and adventures, but I can feel it. Something is affecting you. It's… It's almost like it's stolen your will from you. You would never return here unless something like that had happened. You always said you felt trapped here."
Làng stared at the blade on the ground some more. Xiào had mentioned those words before, about his will and his memories. He certainly had felt trapped too, and no one else would know that unless they knew him personally. The Resonant Memory crushed someone's will until nothing was left. Xiào had told Làng it was to make him forget horrible memories, but that conversation at the koi pond hadn't sat right with Làng at all.
Nothing did.
He rubbed at his face. Everything right now felt strange. He still felt no malice from Shāng, unlike every time he spoke to Xiào or Cháo Fēng.
Làng weakly pushed himself up, feeling the pangs in his heart attempting to force him back to the ground. He leaned on shaky arms, attempting to keep himself upright and not black out. This was his chance to understand what had happened. Everything he'd observed from this villain had contrasted everything he was told. Xiào was conniving. Cháo Fēng was nothing but evil. The conversation he'd overheard told him they had done something to him, to make him theirs, to make him forget himself. "What happened two months ago?"
Làng could nearly hear Shāng's heart skip a beat. That response told him more than any words ever could.
"I helplessly watched you fall from that cliff knowing that I couldn't reach you," Shāng replied. "I wanted to dive into the ravine after you, to stop you from falling to the bottom. But there was no way of knowing how deep it was, and there was no way I could've leapt across that gap in time to grab you."
Shāng's face twisted into a knot. Just recalling it felt so painful. He felt so much regret about that day. "Until a few moments ago, I was certain you had died on that cliff. It's my fault, honestly. I know you can perceive things we cannot, and you warned me that she was evil. But I wanted to believe that seal guardian was good, but she tried to kill you and nearly did. I wanted to believe that the seal guardians were still protecting Xī Yōu, but you were absolutely right about her. I have spent the last two months believing you were dead and trying to deal with that. Even if I had two years, I don't think I ever would've fully dealt with it, especially since I had caused it by not believing your judgment."
The words and the actions were starting to add up in Làng's jumbled mind. Shāng was not the man that Xiào made him out to be. For the first time, Làng felt like someone might actually be telling him the truth. His words, his actions, his unconscious movements. This man was not someone who tried to kill him.
"There he is, the Sword-plundering Nemesis!" The guard surrounded the sanctuary. "And he's got the Court Virtuoso!"
Shāng huffed, rubbing at his face. "It really was only a matter of time before they'd catch up to me. They always do." He took to his feet, stepping over the sorcerous sword on the ground. "Hang in there for a moment longer, Làng. We'll find a way to fix this, but I'll need to take care of these guys first." He withdrew his sword, the blast of qi threw the waterlilies from the pond and rattled the scrolls on the walls.
Làng stared at the guard gathered near the door. He had to make a choice, and it was becoming more and more obvious what had to be done. These past two months had been a lie, and the only person that seemed to be honest was the one person he was told not to trust. None of this was right. He could feel it down to his very soul. Shāng was a good person, not the worst villain in all of Xī Yōu. There was more to this story, and everything was locked away behind that two year memory gap. He had to find out what he lost and there was only one person who felt like he could help him with this.
He stared at the sorcerous blade on the ground, but instead of reaching for it, he grasped the pipa nearby.
Everything hurt in his body. That meant this was the right choice. Each time he thought of that gap or thought something willful, he felt it. Shāng had said Làng left this life of a songbird behind, and everything pointed to this actually being true. That feeling he had deep inside his soul that he couldn't ignore, the one that caused him immense pain as whatever was left of that forgotten self was being crushed. He was something more, something greater than that miserable face in the mirror. Whatever he'd lost, he needed it back.
Làng pulled on the pipa strings, channeling whatever qi he had left through them. The sonic attack whipped past Shāng, throwing the guard back and knocking them backwards. Even in his weakened state, they were so easy to dispatch.
"Làng!" Shāng turned. His friend was still in there somewhere, fighting against whatever had happened to him in the last two months.
"Help me," Làng said weakly. Shāng felt like the only person he could trust right now. He didn't want to stay in this palace of evil anymore. At this rate, if he stayed, he'd likely die. "Help me regain my memories. Help me find what I've lost."