Chapter 666 - Tempest (I) (Patreon)

Occasionally, I have stupid thoughts.

... okay, I have stupid thoughts often. Most of the time they are like a salmon in a sharknado, in that they're relatively easy to ignore. They come and they go, with no one being wise to them but me. Sometimes, though, their stupidity astounds me so much that they hang around for a while, rattling around inside my skull, not unlike those cringe onset moments you get in your thirties when randomly remembering a stupid thing you did in high school.

Alas, the latest hot topic of stupidity of my thoughts is: what if this chariot was a convertible? It came out of nowhere, I didn't work on it, I wasn't even thinking about anything either chariot or convertible-like or adjacent, it just... appeared. Rather, the thought was so stupefying, I kind of forgot what I was even thinking of before it appeared.

It did come with a lot of associations, at least, which is why it's difficult to simply... ignore. It was about a week after Yasmine first got diagnosed. I was still in my mother hen mode, reading ninth page of google results looking for something, when she woke me up one morning and dragged me out of the apartment. Just outside, perched slightly on the sidewalk, was a 2012 Ford Mustang V6 Convertible. Sleek. Black. Roof already retracted.

Apparently, while I was trying to look for ways to help her, she was looking for ways to spend a lot of money. Which we did--we blew through a good chunk of our savings taking the trip to the Rockies. All in that goddamn Mustang. Though I was somewhat annoyed and a bit of a bitch for parts of the journey, those few weeks we spent together are my most precious memories of us.

It was as if she knew, because not a week after we came back, she got sick. And weak. And she simply... never got much better. Just progressively worse. Even now, over a decade--no, it's closer to two decades now than one--removed from it, I can't help but smile whenever I think about it. There's nothing more important in life than memories, I realized. Every day, every hour, every minute.

Looking out over to the kids, some of whom were discussing the fights they had over at the auction house, some of whom were meditating, and some of whom were eating... there will come a day, however far off into the future, when one of them will leave. And then another. And then another.

It's hard. No, for now, it's perhaps outright impossible for me to let go. However pathetic it may be, it does come from the same mind that conjured up a convertible chariot, after all.

Do they feel the same way? I mean, it's different, isn't it? Though the system might tell me I'm gonna live for 40,000 years, and though I keep meeting people who've lived for many, many more years than that... it all still rings hollow deep down. They are used to stories taking centuries, to lives being tens of thousands of years long, to all connections being like karmic ties that span ages.

I still keep thinking that life is a blip. Blink and you miss it sort. Or, perhaps, time in every sense is relative; despite having thousands of years, they are still not enough. Even eternity isn't enough.

Haah.

There was a time in my life not too long ago when I'd steer clear of philosophy-adjacent thoughts. Oh how I miss it.

"Master, where are you off to?" Long Tao asked. He'd always sit across from me, occasionally meditating and occasionally pretending not to be listening in on the conversations of other kids.

"The hell that is my head," I said.

"Sounds awful."

"It well and truly is."

"Are you worried about the island?" he asked.

"Hm, among other things," I nodded.

"What other things?"

"Oh, so, so many," I chuckled, glancing over at him. "Refining my next lesson for you that I will inevitably barely stutter and stumble through, leave you all more confused than you were when you came in. Figuring out how I'm going to live without you lot to bother me once you all grow your wings and fly off to conquer the world. And, most of all, when is my dearest Tao'er going to find a hairstyle that actually suits him."

"..." he grinned for a moment, leaning back. "You really think they will leave?" he asked.

"If I do my role correctly," I nodded. "It's one of those things I never quite understood throughout my life. My parents all but kicked me out of the house as soon as they could, but then call--wrote letters to me practically every day. How are you? Are you eating well? Did you make any friends? Then, when I got let go from my first job, my mother mysteriously happened to be around my place every other day, with a meal or two she accidentally made."

What I was saying clearly made no sense in the context of 'Lu Qi's' life, but I knew these pigeons well enough to know they'd ignore it, this old monster included.

"It sounds like your parents loved you a great deal, Master," he said.

"Some things you recognize too late, I learned," I said. "And some too soon. What about your assortment of family members, Tao'er? Seeing how much heritage they left you, they must have loved you a great deal, too."

"... in their own ways, I suppose," he said, his voice trailing slightly. "But I fear what Master sees as love and what the rest of us saw it as... are very different things. You once mentioned that you had a Dao Companion," he added, his fingers tracing gently as Qi shuttled between us. It was a soundproofing array of sorts, I recognized immediately. "My Mother was Father's fourth," he said. "And my Father was Mother's second. Though it sounds warm and comforting, and as if bound by some higher law of the heart, Dao Companions are... fleeting. Whether by choice or force, the one you are with becomes your Dao Companion. Most Emperors and Empresses will have had literal hundreds, if not thousands, before they perish, sometimes dozens at the same time. Love is a lot like trust to us, Master: we choose whom to give it, how much of it to give, and for how long."

"..."

"They might fly away," his lips drew out a smile. "But I promise you, they will always come back to annoy you."

"Aah. Another thought to agonize over. Thank you very much, Tao'er."

"It's your own fault. Ordinarily, once a Disciple leaves their Master's shadow, they spend a lifetime trying to escape it wholly."

"Well, at least it will be quite easy for you all."

"Hm?"

"I don't cast that large of a shadow."

"..." wow, he actually rolled his eyes.

"Tao'er, you can come back anytime you want too, you know?"

"Eh? What gave you the impression I'd be leaving, Master?"

"... please leave."

"Where else in the world can I possibly wake up to a feast of Divine-tier arts and methods? The only reason those idiots will leave is because they're idiots. Once they realized how much of an idiot they are, they'll all be back."

Well, being annoyed and wanting silence after explicitly breaking it is par for the course. At least we are only half a day away from our destination, and hopefully boarding the damn ship over to the island.