Calling Myself the Solitary One, the Widowed One

Wind and snow were muted, heaven and earth drained of color. The rings of time turned soundlessly. At some unknown moment, the corpse in his arms lost its warmth. The Buddhist hall grew shadowy and indistinct, the drapes hanging from the beams danced in the wind, and his entire world began to spin. The Buddha's compassionate face twisted into a snarl, and the grim chill of heaven and earth came crashing down once more like a tidal sea.

Li Zhaoyuan heard the northern wind outside the window sweeping up the snow. He heard the vast majesty of heaven prostrating itself at his feet. But when the candlelight illuminated the fine lines at the corners of her smiling eyes before going out, his mother's final breath seemed to brush past his ear again—the same little Western Regions tune she had hummed to him in his childhood.

He began to waver. He wanted to roar, to flee without regard for anything, to annihilate everything around him.

Yet though the thoughts in his heart surged like raging waves, he remained seated still.

Because—

"He is watching."

Time was silent.

He held his mother, just as she had held him before the spirit hall of that cold palace.

Time passed without a sound. Through the Buddhist hall, he saw the wind and snow subside. He saw day and night alternate. He saw a Mystic Eagle bearing a magnificent palace take flight from the south of Di'an City on a southern tour, and the young man in bloodstained robes standing within it.

That way, he would no longer need to look up at that man.

Yet in a daze, he heard that family's reluctant farewells, heard the joy of their whole family reunited before parting.

Li Zhaoyuan did not know when he had left that