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The door of the emergency exit elevator opened with a quiet hiss, and Yi stumbled outside into the more familiar area.
The whole escape from the prison was… Intense. Now, that the rush of the adrenaline was gone, he could feel the strain this whole thing had put on his body. He could hear it in his own heartbeat - erratic and uneven, like the electric shock was too much to handle to keep everything inside of him together. An occasional shiver passed through his tired limbs.
It didn’t truly matter, though. Yi couldn’t afford to just stop and rest. He had work to do, places to go, Seals to take, and a pavilion to protect, which could be attacked by the deranged, transmutation-obsessed degenerate at any moment.
He took a few shaky steps in the vague direction of the pavilion when blood filled his nostrils, and he had to stop and cough to clear his airway. Which was… Fine, this happened sometimes when his body was under stress.
The next step brought ringing in his ears. Which didn’t happen a lot, but it was fine, he could deal with a minor inconvenience like that.
Under the third step, his knees buckled and he faceplanted right into the hard ground.
Okay.
That was less than ideal, then.
The ringing in his ears grew so much that he didn’t even properly register the footsteps approaching him, until someone - or something - started poking him in the arm. And shaking him. All Yi could do was grunt in response. He should have opened his eyes. Get up. Finish what he started.
But the darkness was beckoning him to rest. Almost like a melody. A lullaby, perhaps?
A gentle sound, on a familiar, wooden flute.
And the flute meant…
“Heng?” he asked the darkness, but the darkness did not reply.
But Heng was…
…
Yi shot up with the start, gasping for breath, with a flurry of colors suddenly all around him. It took him a few minutes to register what was going on. He was on a bed. In the Four Season Pavilion. Shuanshuan was right next to him, frantically waving his arms around, trying to get Yi to lie back down.
“Yi, please don’t get up. You are very hurt.” the kid pleaded, sounding almost on the verge of crying, and that alone made Yi settle down a little bit.
Right. No time to get disoriented with something as insignificant as fainting. He inhaled and exhaled, gathering his thoughts, and let his gaze sweep around the room. A hand-woven blanket was on the floor - probably thrown off the bed by his rapid scramble to get up. The screen outside was currently generating nighttime, but there were candles lit around him, illuminating the room with a gentle light. A very primitive way to generate light, so it was definitely Shuanshuan’s doing, but Yi... Appreciated the gesture. The bright screens and lamps used on the ship would not be great against the headache pounding behind his eyes.
It was peaceful. No sight of Jiequan attacking or anything going wrong.
“Are you okay? What happened to you, Yi? Do you need anything? Herbs? Water?”
“I’m fine,” he grunted. “Relax. I will stay on the bed, just stop fretting so much.”
Shuanshuan relaxed with a small satisfied smile on his face. “...I still think you should sleep some more, but just sitting in one place is a good compromise. And I'm bringing you herbs, anyway! Abacus said your organs got damaged… It sounded very bad.”
Yi hummed. That explained the pain and why it was so hard to focus. Damage like that would take a lot of energy to recover.
Shuanshuan disappeared for a short while, to return with a cup of some foul-smelling herbs. Yi scrunched his nose a little when it was placed in his hand and Shuanshuan snorted.
“Ah, you never liked those! This brings back memories of when I first found you,” the kid said with a soft smile.
“...I guess I get found with missing organs more often than I should,” Yi huffed in amusement.
“No, that’s not funny! You should really find something better to do...”
It was a little bit funny, he mused, swaying the cup in his hand and staring at the liquid move back and forth. Just his luck. Three times, on the verge of organ failure.
They spent some time in comfortable silence for a bit, the artificial wind outside the pavilion breaking the silence occasionally. Yi sipped on the herbs, slowly, while Shuanshuan picked up a blanket from the floor and settled down on the bed, covering them both. Yi started dozing off, against himself, until Shuanshuan piped up:
"Hey, Yi, can you... Tell me who Heng is? You were calling that name in your sleep."
His eyes snapped open. Was he? He supposed it was possible. He did not remember his dreams anymore, but every sapient being needed those to function properly. And Heng was certainly always there at the back of his mind.
Not that she should be.
"No one you should concern yourself with" he finally answered, perhaps a bit unkindly, but Shuanshuan was undeterred.
“You always say that about the most important stuff, Yi!" the kid pouted. "And it's not healthy to bottle up your feelings like that, you know? So who is that? The same person that flute belonged to? I was playing it earlier...”
Yi sighed heavily, leaning his heavy head back to lean on the frame of the bed. "You can be surprisingly perceptive, you know?"
"It's one of my best qualities!" the kid grinned.
Yi mulled the answer in his tired brain for a while. But it was not like the kid wouldn't understand. Quite the opposite, perhaps. The Apemen might have been more primitive in many aspects, yes, but they experienced grief just the same way as the Solarians did.
"...My sister. She is not around anymore."
"Oh... You probably miss her a lot?"
"I don't know about that. I still think about her, but... It's foolish of me. She died a long, long time ago."
Technically he spent most of that time sleeping, but that was the truth. He should not be clinging to the messages from the past as much as he did. Shuanshuan seemed upset at his words, though, clenching the blanket tightly.
"It’s not stupid! It doesn't matter how long ago it was. I still miss my parents, even though I barely even remember them anymore…”
Yi's eyes widened, and he immediately berated himself for the wording he used.
"I'm sorry. Of course, it isn't foolish to grieve, it’s just… Different. Me and Heng didn't quite leave on good terms. And I broke a promise to see her, one last time." Shuanshuan hummed a little in response for him to continue. "...You know, I designed this place to look like our home. The soil would let Heng grow her own crops, the seasons would change, just like they did on Penglai..." he looked outside the window, but he couldn't see far into the artificial landscape. "But even if I would come back for her, she would not want to come with me. I know that. But I still wish..."
“That you could see her again? One last time?" Shuanshuan finished, his voice sounding small.
"Mhm."
“You know, it's okay to make mistakes. And break promises, even! As long as you just… Try to do better, next time. I'm sure your sister would understand.”
And wasn't that the truth? In the messages she left, she never sounded angry. Just sad. It would be much easier if she would just get angry at him.
“…Yeah. I should just try to do better, huh.”
“And keep your promises next time!" Shuanshuan nodded eagerly. "Hey, can you tell me more about you and your sister? Like your stories, back in the village.”
“They are not that interesting,” he countered, but he already knew it was a lost cause. If the kid wanted a story, he would get a story no matter the odds.
Shuanshuan shifted next to him to be more comfortable and leaned on the Solarian’s shoulder. Yi was not a touchy-feely person. He never quite understood the appeal of it, but he allowed it. The kid was missing his parents and sought out comfort wherever he could. It was fine.
***
It was not easy to figure out how to keep his promise to Shuanshuan. To see the ocean together. To embark on a new journey, as Heng put it in her last message.
The New Kunlun was gone. It hurt; to set up a bomb, to see it go off, to destroy the years of suffering and hope with a simple push of a button Kuafu created last minute. But it was also strangely peaceful. Soon, he and Kuafu would follow, and the Solarian race would finally rest forever, no longer struggling against the Tianhuo.
But first, he had a promise to keep.
The pod with the apemen landed quite a distance away from any big bodies of water - the ice would start melting very soon and with it, the water levels would rise, so the small human settlement was set up deeper into the land. It took Yi and Shuanshuan a long time to get to the ocean. But that made it even more rewarding when they finally got there; traveling on foot, through wind and cold, sometimes carrying a tired child on his back. But finally, finally , the ocean could be seen, and even Yi could feel his breath hitch a little at the sight.
It was not like on Penglai; that much was obvious. The water was calmer, the colors less vibrant, and the distance in the waves not quite right. But it was still beautiful, with the way the sun danced off the melting ice and how it almost seemed to hum melodically with each wave reaching the shore.
“Yi, Yi!” Shuanshuan shouted, having run excitedly ahead of him. “It’s beautiful! Why is the water moving so much?”
Yi quickened his pace to reach the shore as well. “They are called waves. They are created by energy passing through water, causing it to move in a circular motion…” he started explaining, but the kid was not listening, running barefoot straight into the icy water. Yi’s ears flattened against his head a little. “Careful, you will catch a cold.”
“B-but I want to learn how to swim!” he rebutted, even though he was already visibly shivering.
“I told you, it's too cold for that. But it will steadily get warmer, now that the New Kunlun is gone. Give it some time.” Yi looked up to the sky, up to where the shadow of the giant ship would be if it hadn't been destroyed. “We can come and see the ocean again.”
“Fineee,” Shuanshuan pouted a little, but got out of the water obediently.
"Come on." Yi gestured at the kid to follow. "Let's make a fire so you can warm yourself up."
Shuanshuan smiled and grabbed his hand.
As they walked away from the shore, Shuanshuhan seemed to study his face for a bit. “Yi… Do you feel guilty that you came here instead of staying on the ship?”
“...A little bit,” he admitted, looking away. What gives me the right to be here? Right at this moment? A promise, to some Apeman kid? Repenting a broken promise to see his sister?
Shuanshuan squeezed his hand more tightly, almost like the kid was trying to comfort him.
“You know, I saw with my own eyes how big the world truly is. It’s huge! But look, how it connected the two of us, and Uncle Chubby, and the villagers. I’m sure you will see your sister again, too. And I will see my parents. No matter where we are.”
“Hmm. You are a smart kid, sometimes.” He ruffled Shuanshuan’s hair a bit, earning a small giggle. “I just hope you are right.”
They made a small fire, close enough to still see the shore from afar. The ocean that he had promised to take Shuanshuan to. And he did.
Yi's heart felt lighter than it did in a long, long while.