It Remained
When they returned to the stone house, the Dragon Shadow behind Long Tian had not yet dissipated.
As it followed him through the shrubbery at the edge of the pine forest, it automatically adjusted the angle of its wing membranes to fit the gaps between the branches on either side. When it reached the open space in front of the house, Long Tieshan was squatting beside the workbench, polishing an iron object. As the whetstone pushed across the iron surface, he caught a glimpse of that gray-gold silhouette raising its head. His gaze lingered on that dragon shadow, no longer needing to rely on anyone's back, continuously suspended in the air in a complete physical form, its wings folded to its sides, the vertical line on its forehead now quietly closed into a thin slit, its four eyes opening and closing in a slow, rhythmic Dragon Shadow. His hand stopped on the whetstone, the motion of pushing the whetstone suspended in the middle of the iron surface, unfinished.
Mu Shuang came out from behind the house and stopped under the eaves. She looked up at the Dragon Shadow floating in the air without saying a word. Shen Mo peeked out from inside the house, then withdrew, as if there was no need to linger after confirming what he wanted to see. Shen Qiu sat motionless on the threshold, looking up for a long time. Even after his neck was stretched to the maximum angle, he didn't lower his head, maintaining that posture of looking up in one direction, as if he were seeing the entirety of a mountain appear in a place he previously only knew as having trees and Shitou.
Long Tian stopped in the center of the open space. The Dragon Shadow behind him also stopped, hovering about a person's height above his head. Its gray-gold scales gleamed continuously in the twilight, like a lamp that had been burning on a table, needing no one to light it to keep burning. He turned around to face the stone house, to face the direction in which the eyes of the people at the door were focused, and raised his palms from his sides, spreading them flat in the air— the Dragon Shadow's right claw opened simultaneously behind him, palm facing upwards. A layer of gray-gold light spread from the claw upwards, forming a thin curtain of light that covered the entire open space, like a huge, transparent roof being opened up, brightening the darkening sky with a new layer of light.
If Zhao Xiaopang were here, he'd probably jump up and shout something. If Chen Hao were here, he'd probably lean against a pillar, watch the whole thing unfold, and then say, "Alright." If Mr. Wang were here, he'd probably stand behind the window on the second floor of the teaching hall, pressing the bottom of that potted asparagus fern down firmly. They weren't standing here, but Long Tian thought of them the moment he opened his palms—he thought of the entire distance he'd traveled from under the old locust tree at the town's entrance to where he was now, from that inconspicuous child in the back row of Class C, wearing a coarse blue shirt, to now, with a Dragon Shadow hanging behind him, a shadow he'd nurtured, grown into its complete form, and no longer needed to be withdrawn. He thought of Zhao Xiaopang's profile as he slept on the cafeteria table, Chen Hao wiping the old wound on the corner of his mouth across the stone platform, and Mr. Wang's back as he placed his lesson plan on the windowsill on the second floor of the teaching hall. Those images unfolded simultaneously in his mind, like the fine texture of a unfolded velvet cloth, evenly spread out.
Yu Jin stood at the edge of the clearing, within the coverage of the gray-gold light curtain. The dark gray bead was pressed against his collarbone, emitting light automatically—without his intervention. The light was brighter than usual, and more persistent than the light he emitted when he activated his source energy. Like an old lamp rekindled by newly lit sources in the surrounding environment, it shone brightly from within under the illumination of the light curtain passing by its side.
Long Tieshan emerged from the side of the house. He walked to the center of the open space and stopped about three steps in front of Long Tian. He looked up at the complete, suspended Dragon Shadow behind Long Tian, examining the arrangement of the scales, the position of the two heads, the angle of the wing membranes, and the suture line of the closed third eye—he looked at it from head to tail. He lowered his gaze to Long Tian's face, and the father-son eye contact lingered for a moment at the edge of the gray-gold light screen. When Long Tieshan spoke, his voice was the same as when he saw his son off at the blacksmith's shop in Starfall Town —not loud, but every word was precise. "This thing will never come back. Wherever you go, it will follow you. It will continue to exist without your maintenance. Like your shadow, only with color and shape."
Long Tian lowered his palms. Simultaneously, the Dragon Shadow's right claw retracted, and the light screen slowly descended from the air, receding onto the Dragon Shadow's body. He straightened up, said nothing, and turned to walk into the house. The instant he stepped into the doorway, the Dragon Shadow automatically folded its wings outside, hovering directly above the doorway, like a bird perched on a rooftop that had found its place and remained motionless. Long Tian entered the house and sat down by the furnace. The Dragon Shadow hovered quietly in the air directly above the door, its two heads and four eyes slightly lowered, the thin vertical line on its forehead remaining undisturbed, its wings folded to its sides, the wingtips overlapping at the tail to form a closed inverted arc, like a piece of iron that had been repeatedly hammered and finally no longer needed remelting, settling into its final form in its rightful place.
That layer of grayish-golden light continued to fall on the entire path he had walked back along—starting from the main building of the Iron Guard camp, along the main street, through the old alley in the south of the city, through the city gate, across the official road, and extending into the pine forest at the edge of the mountains, all the way to the open space in front of the stone house. The light continued to shine all night without going out, and by dawn it had faded more than half but the traces remained, like an old road surface that had been baked all day and still shone with residual warmth, maintaining a light grayish-golden base color in the morning light, all the way to the end of the mountains where it was hidden by the mountain shadows. If someone walked along that path, they could see the continuously shining traces on the ground along the way. Those traces on the rough road surface were like a layer of mineral veins embedded in the cracks of the stones, shallow and evenly distributed on every section of the road surface. When walking on it, the soles of one's boots could feel a layer of temperature slightly higher than the surrounding ground, like Shitou that had been baked by the sun all day and was still radiating heat at night.
Long Tian sat in the stone house all night. No new firewood was added after the fire in the stove burned out. At dawn, he stood up and walked to the door. The Dragon Shadow above the doorframe adjusted the angle of its wing membranes slightly with his movement—not by force, but like a flag swaying slightly in the wind. He stood on the threshold, gazing at the lingering glaze on the ground, watching the direction the glaze extended. In the distance, a beam of light was rising from behind the mountain ridge, like a slowly rising sun spreading its rays along the edge of the ridge, illuminating the entire mountain range. He stood there watching that beam be illuminated inch by inch by the morning light, and the edges of the Dragon Shadow's wing membranes behind him also lit up in the morning light, like two flags simultaneously illuminated by the same sun. Long Tian didn't turn around to look at it, but he knew it was there, and he also knew that it would always remain in that position behind him, like a shadow that didn't need to be remembered, continuously following him.