Love Beyond the Grave

Duan Xu laughed, shaking his head as he finally settled into a comfortable position against the bed curtains. "Revenge? What revenge? My master treated me quite well—like treasuring a fine weapon. Though I never wanted to be a weapon, it’s not something I’d hate him for."

"My master was born into the high nobility of the Huqi people and couldn’t tolerate even a hint of stupidity. In his eyes, foolish Huqi were trash, and fools from other clans didn’t deserve to live at all. That’s why Heaven Knows only selects those with exceptional talent, regardless of lineage. But once inside, we all had to become children of the Azure God, swearing lifelong devotion. When I was living on the streets, his palanquin had already passed by when he suddenly turned back and plucked me from the beggars to take me to the palace. He must have valued my innate gifts highly."

"Life in Heaven Knows... was far more comfortable than my days on the streets. At least there was no worry about food or clothing, and priests would come to recite the Scripture of Azure Words to us. Everything about the Azure God had to be committed to memory. I’ve had a photographic memory since childhood—before arriving in Danzhi, I could recite most of the Four Books and Five Classics even if I didn’t understand them, let alone the Scripture of Azure Words, which I could recite backward."

"So my master favored me somewhat. With hundreds of disciples in a single cohort, he had no time to teach personally—only appearing for assessments. Over seven years, he probably couldn’t even recognize most faces. Yet he occasionally tested me alone, even going so far as to lend me his military treatises and personally instruct me in strategy. I heard he had no sons—perhaps he saw me as half a son to him."

The bright morning light fell on Duan Xu’s face, lending him a lazy air as he described Heaven Knows in a lighthearted tone, as if it were merely an interesting episode in his life—one he even seemed nostalgic about.

He Simu sipped her tea leisurely. "What a touching father-son bond. And yet you still had the heart to blind him and flee."

"We had fundamental disagreements—though I never voiced them, and he never knew." Duan Xu fell silent for a moment before shaking his head with a smile. "No one should ever delude themselves into thinking they can change another person."

"Then what exactly do you want by throwing yourself into this war?" He Simu asked.

Duan Xu looked up at her, blinking innocently and confused. "I’ve said it—many times. I want to reclaim the seventeen states north of the Guan River."

He Simu’s brows furrowed dangerously, and the dimly lit room suddenly felt charged with an impending storm.

Ever perceptive, Duan Xu immediately raised a finger to his temple and said earnestly, "As I just promised, I’m telling the truth. I swear everything I’ve said is sincere."

He Simu scoffed, unconvinced. "When you entered Heaven Knows, I’m sure you also swore lifelong loyalty to the Azure God, didn’t you?"

"I’ve never seen the Azure God. How can an oath to something whose existence is uncertain hold any weight? But I’ve seen you, Your Highness. My vow to you is absolute."

Duan Xu’s tone was utterly unapologetic.

Yet he knew such an answer was unlikely to satisfy He Simu. After a pause, he continued, "The first few months in Heaven Knows were pleasant—aside from pretending to devoutly believe in a god I didn’t, everything else was fine. But after those months, our real training began."

"Or rather, we began to kill."The smile in Duan Xu's eyes faded as his fingers tapped absently on his knee, his gaze drifting into the distance.

"Seven- or eight-year-old children holding swords and knives, with rows of low-ranking Han commoners who had committed offenses tied up and kneeling before us—we would go down the lines killing them one by one. At first, we were all terrified. Some cried and refused, unable to bring themselves to do it. Then the child who cried the most was killed right in front of us. The rest who wept were punished, and those who killed too slowly were punished too. After that, no one made a fuss anymore."

"And then, everyone got used to it." Duan Xu retracted his fingers, pointing to his own chest with fingers still bruised purple, and said slowly, "Me too."

"At first, I was afraid too, but gradually, I began to see it all as natural. Later, when I killed, I felt nothing at all. Killing and killing, I even started to think—how exhausting. My arms ached. Why weren’t they all dead yet? If only they’d all die at once."

Here, the narrative about Heaven Knows finally shed its lighthearted shell, revealing its true, brutal form.

The morning light slanted in, partially blocked by the bed curtains, casting a sharp divide across Duan Xu’s nose. His eyes remained in shadow, while the exposed skin from his jaw to his upper body gleamed pale and stark in the sunlight.

Just like the impression he gave—half in light, half in shadow, ambiguous and indistinct.

"Soon, we initiates began drawing lots for duels. Our performance in daily assessments determined the quality of weapons we’d use in these fights. In every duel, one of the two had to die. Back then, none of us saw anything wrong with it—as if striving with all our might to kill those beside us was the most natural thing in the world. Winning a duel meant stepping closer to the Azure God. These duels went on in rounds until the Nether Examination seven years later."

"About two years into this, during training, I was killing low-ranking offenders as usual. Normally, their hands and feet were bound, their mouths gagged to silence them. But that day, one man’s gag wasn’t secured properly. As I stood before him, the cloth blocking his mouth fell away."

"He looked at me, trembling with fear. The sunlight that day was beautiful, streaming down into the execution courtyard, dust motes floating in the air. As if resigned to his fate, he shivered and said to me—'Sir... the weather is lovely today... Please make it quick.'"

In the morning light, the corner of Duan Xu’s lips curled slightly, as if recalling the man’s desperate words. He continued leisurely, "At that moment, I glanced up at the sky. The sunlight was bright, the leaves rustling in the wind—it really was a beautiful day. It was like waking from a long, relentless nightmare. I was so terrified my whole body shook. I thought—what am I doing? Why am I killing this man? Why does he have to die by my hand? Have all these people we’ve killed truly committed crimes? Why... why had I never questioned any of this before?"

"This was a person, someone alive in this world just like me. He too liked fine weather—yet all I cared about was how tired my arms were from killing him."

Duan Xu drew a soft breath and said with a faint smile, "In that instant, I suddenly realized—I was becoming a monster. Even if I didn’t end up dead at the hands of my peers, what meaning was there in living on as a monster?"The place where he stood was filled with malice and filth. He was being tamed into losing his mind and heart, his thoughts and conscience—turning into a monster, a weapon, just one step away from eternal damnation.

It was at the edge of the cliff that he suddenly awoke.

He Simu was silent for a moment before asking, "So, what happened to the person who spoke with you?"

Duan Xu's face showed no storm, not even a hint of a smile as he faintly curved his lips.

"I still killed him. The instructors were standing right behind me. If I didn’t kill him, I would be the one to die. After him, eighty-three more died by my hand. Later, I began carrying out missions, working for the Danzhi Royal Court. The more I learned, the more blood stained my hands."

In moments of clarity, fear clung to him like maggots to bone.

He realized he was living in hell, surrounded by people who believed they were in heaven, with no way to escape.

The absurdity was that only he saw it as hell.

For a time, he thought he was going mad. If the doctrines and beliefs instilled in him by Heaven Knows were false, how could he be sure the Four Books and Five Classics he read as a child were true? What kind of world was he living in? What was real, what was false, and what principles should he follow?

Just over ten years old, he didn’t know what he would become. He knew he was changing, starting to enjoy killing, craving violence, despising life. But he didn’t know how to become human again.

The poetry and essays he had once memorized—words he hadn’t understood at the time—now surfaced from the depths of his memory, clashing violently with the brutality Heaven Knows had cultivated in him.

Amid this struggle, he painstakingly pieced together what he believed the world should be.

He broke his own twisted bones, cut away the rotting flesh, yet still had to pretend to be hunched and deformed. He acted colder, more fanatical, more devout than anyone else—just to deceive his masters and peers.

He bound the beast in his heart, telling himself over and over: Stay awake, stay awake. You can’t become a monster.

One day, you’ll return to the sunlight, reclaim your name, and live as a proper human being.

Seven years like this—two thousand, five hundred, and fifty-six days and nights.

"When I left Heaven Knows, I swore that one day I would reclaim the Seventeen Provinces and put an end to the absurdity of the Northern Territory."

He Simu set down her teacup. Sitting by Duan Xu’s bedside, she traced the scars of varying depths on his body before lifting her gaze to meet his.

The young man’s eyes were calm and unguarded, like a bottomless icy pool suddenly illuminated, revealing a glimpse of its dark depths.

He Simu thought, perhaps he wanted to untie the ropes binding the hands of those Han people, remove the gags from their mouths, and let them stand and live in the sunlight. He wanted to ensure no one would ever again be slaughtered like livestock.

Perhaps he also wished that no one else—like him, like Shishi—would nearly or truly lose themselves in lies and bloodshed.

Saving those lost Seventeen Provinces was like trying to save Seventeen from Heaven Knows all those years ago.

Time slipped away like a white colt glimpsed through a crack, yet beneath the surface, it was a struggle to stay afloat.He Simu's eyes held little pity, only calmness. "So did you succeed? Are you no longer a weapon—are you human now?"

Duan Xu's lashes trembled slightly, a rare hint of uncertainty flickering in his otherwise resolute narrative. He smiled. "I suppose I am. Just... not quite normal."

He Simu stared into his eyes. Suddenly, she laughed and patted his cheek—not too lightly, not too heavily. Duan Xu hissed as the touch grazed his wound, only to hear her say, "You hammered and stitched yourself up like some object, growing up like this. Yet after all these years, in such wretched filth, you didn’t turn crooked."

Duan Xu paused, then chuckled softly. "Is that so…?"

"What’s normal, and what’s not? Little General, Little Fox, my Curse-Bound Person—you live well, pass through this life, fulfill your wishes, and then die without regrets. That is the most normal life there is."

Duan Xu fell silent for a moment. Then he leaned closer to He Simu, emerging from the shadows of the bed curtains to let sunlight fall into his eyes.

Perhaps the light was too bright—his eyes narrowed slightly, glazed with a thin sheen of moisture.

Softly, he asked, "Are you comforting me?"

"No. I didn’t intend to comfort you, nor do I pity you. Little General, I’ve seen far too many tragic lives in the Ghost Records. Yours hardly stands out. So you can trust that I’m telling the truth." He Simu’s expression was serene and firm.

Duan Xu gazed at her for a long moment. For an instant, it was as if he glimpsed the vast stretch of time behind her—a river long enough to drown all his suffering. Suddenly, he laughed, his eyes crinkling like a sky full of stars.

He reached out, tugging at her sleeve as he often did when pleading, and swayed it gently. "Thank you, Simu."

He Simu momentarily ignored his overly affectionate gesture, raising an eyebrow. "Simu?"

"Your Highness, may I call you Simu?"

"I am nearly four hundred years your senior. I suggest you think carefully before speaking."

"I really like..." Duan Xu trailed off.

He Simu asked, "Like what?"

He smiled brilliantly, the very picture of a bright-eyed, radiant youth.

"Your name. I’ll make a wish to you—trade my senses once more. In return, let me call you Simu."