Be Gentle, Immortal Master

I stared at him with round eyes, terrified that drinking in such haste would trigger another episode of coughing for him. Fortunately, he seemed to have handled it well enough, and he simply leaned back onto the pillows defeatedly after he was done.

Was feeding him really that bad? I took the bowl from his hand speechlessly, rinsing it clean and refilled it with water. "Do you want a candied date?" I asked as I passed him the bowl again. I remembered how bitter that potion was, and I had always chewed a candied date afterward to cover up the taste.

He took a sip of the water. "I'm not a child," he said flatly.

He sure acted like one though. Even more headstrong and impossible to reason with than most … But I kept that thought to myself. Putting everything away, I reheated the bed-warming stones and replaced them, then slid under the blankets next to him.

His body tensed the moment I got into the bed. I paused, giving him a frown that I wished he could see. "You don't expect me to leave you by yourself all night, do you?" I continued shifting the rest of the way until I was as close to him as possible. "Tomorrow, I'll start looking into those books in the library and see if I can find some clues … but it's late now, and you need rest. I'll just lie here next to you and keep you warm."

Leaning against the wall for the moment, I plucked his hands out of the layers of fabric and held them. He was already feeling less icy than earlier, and I rubbed my palms over him, trying to give him a little more heat. He didn't resist, though he didn't relax either, and he still looked displeased like he did all day.

I contemplated in the silence that stretched between us. I could keep things going this way, and I knew by now that he would eventually submit to whatever I made him do, albeit unwillingly. But that wasn't the way I wanted it. I wouldn't deny that I wanted him to live because of my own wish and guilt, but I wanted him to do it for himself as well, out of his own will.

That goal might be even harder to achieve than finding a solution to save him, I thought with an inward sigh. Nevertheless, I had to try.

"Bai Ye," I ventured, clasping my hands around his. "I know you've made up your mind to repay for our mistakes with your life, and I don't want to force you against what you want to do … but even if you insist that the fault was truly yours, death isn't the only way to atone for it. Oftentimes, it isn't the best way either."

I paused, choosing my words carefully. "The master at Azure Dragon Palace told me that there was a limit to how much a soul can be saved from a demonic sword. The ninety-seven souls trapped in Twin Stars will suffer from consequences if we simply bring them back like this. That is why I'm determined to keep trying and find a different solution … not just to save you, but to save all those people we've wronged as well. It's the same thing that you've been trying to do for over two hundred years, and I want to do it together with you … not only because I want you by my side, but also because I need your help to succeed.

"I don't ask for much. I just want you to give me a chance … to give yourself a chance. If you are still determined to follow your current path after everything is done, we can make our decisions again then—" that was a mere excuse to appease him, of course, "—but don't shut the doors to other alternatives so hastily, will you? Because if we miss this opportunity … if it really becomes too late to save you …"

I stopped, too afraid to say the rest.

Another long silence. I didn't expect him to respond, and I quietly rubbed his hands again, ready to repeat this conversation over and over in the next few days. But then he spoke. "It's not about that, Qing-er."

I stilled, looking at him in puzzlement.

"That's not the only reason," he continued. "If there is a way to make everything right, I want to try it too, and I want to be able to—" He paused, shaking his head. "But there isn't a perfect solution to this. I don't want to see you wasting more time on it, only to be disappointed in the end."

He spoke with such certainty that it almost sounded like he knew it for a fact that a solution truly didn't exist. I frowned. "How could you be so sure?" I argued. "There is always a first time to everything. Unless you've tried every single method that possibly exists in this world, how could you know there is no way out of this? The solution we need may not be easy to find, but it's too early to give up trying, and too early to lose our hopes."

There was no expression on his face. After a little while, he sighed. "Hope is a dangerous thing … It makes you want more, and the more you hope, the more you despair when you realize that all your effort is in vain."

I winced at the bleakness in his tone. Was this his revelation after two hundred years of trying? Was this how heavily our past weighed on him? The dull pain in my heart throbbed once more. "Bai Ye." My grip over his hands tightened. "I'll have to disagree with you again. I might not be able to promise that I can succeed, and I might not be able to guarantee that I won't be disappointed in the end. But if I give up trying because of fear, then I know for a fact that I will never succeed, and I will surely be disappointed."

Turning aside, I looked into his unfocused eyes. "Hope is not dangerous," I said softly. "Hope is what makes things possible.. It is what we live for."