Chapter Two Hundred Nineteen: Xiwei's Vigil — Yuanji's Support

Volume Six: Spirit-Life in Dahuang — Dao Grace Everlasting

Xiwei had found her rhythm. Each morning she would fly a circuit, surveying the conditions across the whole land. Then she would return to the hillside she favored and let out a measured radiance, allowing the plants to photosynthesize. In the afternoons she would walk through the forests, sometimes holding silent eye contact with the bolder animals. At dusk she would fly to the heights to watch the sunset. At night she would draw in most of her light and rest.

Yuanji was her opposite. Most of the time he remained sunk in the deep earth, sensing the flow of the Earth Veins, the movement of groundwater, the shifts in stress across the strata. He spent long stretches beside Pangu's Original Spirit, that faint glimmer of light that did nothing — simply radiated heat and warmth there, just enough to keep the Earth Veins in motion, to keep them from cooling and freezing solid.

Xiwei in the sky above; Yuanji in the earth below. Each guarded their own half of the world.

But she was not always at peace.

She had not been born accustomed to this. In the deepest hours of the night, when all between Heaven and Earth lay silent, when even the wind had fallen still, she would sit upon the highest peak and gaze down at the slumbering land. Those Living Beings — the ones born from Pangu's flesh and blood, the ones she watched over every day — were curled safe in their burrows and rock crevices. Their breathing was faint, their heartbeats slow. None would lift their head to look at the sky, and so none would notice that a faint light was watching over them in the darkness.

She had tried making herself brighter. She had thought: perhaps if she shone brightly enough to be seen, some fledgling just out of the nest, some fish leaping from the water's surface, some lost young beast — might chance to look up and see a light in the sky that was not the sun. But every time she let her radiance flare, she sensed something go wrong — the moisture in the Earth Veins would accelerate its evaporation, the nocturnal insects would burrow into the soil in alarm, the flowers that bloomed at night would close their petals too soon. Her very presence would alter this world, and alteration was not always good. So she would draw her light back in and quietly return to being the light that no one saw.

There was an old ape she had watched for a very long time. Its left leg had been injured, and it walked with a pronounced limp. It held no high place in its troop; at feeding time, it was always the last to eat. But it was clever. It knew which cliff's southern face stayed warmest in winter. It knew which stream's stones hid the most insects beneath them. It knew which leaves would curl over before a great storm came. Through this knowledge, it had survived — survived longer than companions far stronger than itself. Xiwei watched it limp through the autumn rains, searching for shelter. Watched it curl into a tight ball against the rocks in the bitter cold of winter. How she had wanted to make that crevice let through just a little more of the earth's heat, to warm the old ape a fraction more. But she did not. Because that was not her duty. Her duty was to tend the whole, not to favor the individual.

This, perhaps, was the deepest loneliness of a guardian: you loved every one of them, but you could only pretend not to care.

Sometimes she would fly to where Yuanji dwelt. Deep beneath the earth, the faint pulse radiating from Pangu's Original Spirit beat with the steadiness of a great heart. She needed no words; she only needed to sit there and feel the vibration rising from below, and she would feel less alone. Yuanji never asked why she had come. He simply waited, like a silent mountain — when she arrived, he would let out a small tremor by way of greeting; when she left, he would sink back into his boundless perception. He was her only companion, the only being in all the world who knew what she was doing.

Once, she flew to a stretch of far wilderness she had never visited before. The land there was barren — only a few sparse clusters of withered grass. Yet at the very center of that desolation, a single flower was in bloom. It was impossibly small, nearly transparent, its petals thin as cicada wings, its pistil glowing with a faint, blue light. It should not have been growing there — there was not enough water, not enough nourishment, not even the right kind of soil. But there it was, blooming. Xiwei landed beside the flower and bent down, letting her light fall across its petals. The petals trembled faintly, as though they had felt something. And she thought, suddenly: perhaps, in every lonely corner, there are lives waiting to be seen. They simply cannot say so.

From that day, she adopted a new habit. Every morning, when she looked down from the heights upon the land, she would make a point of seeking out its most remote, its most easily forgotten corners — the damp, shadowed valley floors, the sheer cliff faces, the forgotten rot-wood deep in the densest forest. The lives in those places were often the hardest, and also the most tenacious. They struggled to live in such conditions, needing no one's pity, needing no one's notice. But she went to look anyway. Because she knew: someone in this world must know that they exist.

And Yuanji, deep in the earth, did the same work in his own way. He sensed the warmth of every Earth Vein, the course of every water-channel, the pressure within every stratum. He knew where forces were gathering to thrust up a new mountain; he knew where the earth was quietly cracking to form a new canyon. In the depths of the earth, he wove an invisible net, holding everything steady. Not a single living creature on the surface knew he existed, just as not a single one knew Xiwei existed. In two separate worlds, for a single purpose, they kept their silent watch.

This, perhaps, was the fate of those who had founded the beginning — after all had been set in motion, after every living being had begun to live its own life, those who had created the beginning withdrew behind the curtain, becoming permanent observers. No gratitude, no offerings, not even a farewell.

But Xiwei had no regrets.

When she saw that injured old ape limp out of its cave as spring arrived, saw the tender new shoots rising; when she saw that old ape stand at the edge of the cliff and loose its first ringing cry into the distance — she knew its leg was fully healed, knew winter would not take it. In that moment, something warm surged up in Xiwei's chest. It was a satisfaction deeper than being seen.

She did not need to be seen. So long as they lived — that was enough.

Sometimes she wondered what she would do if Yuanji were suddenly gone. The thought only flickered past, but every time it left a residue of cold. She could not imagine this world with only herself remaining in it. That emptiness — not the emptiness between Heaven and Earth, but the emptiness of existence itself — was the one thing she feared. And so, whenever he sent up those low, earthquake-like rumbles, she would answer in silence, flickering her light in response, as if to say: I am still here.

She remembered when Pangu was still here. It was ancient beyond reckoning now; her memories were blurred as though seen through ten thousand layers of mist. But she could dimly recall a feeling — the feeling of not needing to worry about anything. Because Pangu was there. He was the root, he was the source, he was the answer to every question. And now, she and Yuanji were the answer. This made her heavy, and also made her feel a certain pride.

In the deepest hours of those nights, when she had drawn her radiance down to the faintest ember, she would curl into a hollow in the rock of the heights, close her eyes, and imagine that she too was an ordinary creature living in the forest below. She would imagine having warm fur, four legs to run with, teeth to tear food — a pair of ordinary eyes, not meant for surveying the whole land, but only for finding fruit and avoiding danger. Her days would be long but simple: find food, take shelter, bear offspring, then, at some quiet moment, die. No burden of memory, no duty of guarding an entire world.

She would imagine it, and a faint, bitter smile would rise at the corner of her mouth.

Then she would open her eyes and let her radiance flow forth again. Because dawn had come. The living creatures slumbering in the forest were stirring awake; they needed light. They did not know the source of that light, but that did not matter.

What mattered was — the light was there.