Quèfēng’s love for Fènghuáng is such that she volunteers to become immortal like her, even though it means a thousand years of torpor.
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“I love you.”
Quèfēng has shared an apartment with Fènghuáng for two years, and two years before that, they were college dormmates, but it’s only now, after she’s said it, that she realizes just how true it is.
Fènghuáng stares at her for what seems like an eternity. “I’m sorry.” She stumbles with her words. “I think it’s best if we don’t become involved with each other like that.”
Quèfēng steps forward and grasps Fènghuáng’s hands in her own. “Is that because you don’t feel the same way, or is it because…” she trails off.
“A bit of both,” Fènghuáng admits. Romantic relationships between a mortal and immortal never end well. She is young still, yes, but she has heard her progenitors’ warnings and read enough literature to understand that the girl in front of her will disappear like a chrysanthemum bloom in winter. That is normal for mortals. They wither and depart. But for immortals, there is no end. Yes, she has a certain affection for Quèfēng, but immortals love differently.
Quèfēng is silent for a moment. “Then make me like you.”
Fènghuáng is dumbfounded, but Quèfēng is adamant, and the immortal is struck by the girl’s earnestness. No one, not her progenitors, not her brothers nor her sisters, has ever argued to stay by her. And Fènghuáng is still young, still in her mortal years. She does not understand that by acquiescing to Quèfēng she is sealing her fate.
Quèfēng’s conferment is the first time Fènghuáng has seen so many immortals in the same place. They gather from all corners of the world to acknowledge the girl grasping at eternity. Perhaps they meet only to ogle at this oddity who thinks she knows what she is doing. It is perhaps an amusing distraction from the tedium of forever. As they mutter amongst themselves, Fènghuáng squeezes Quèfēng’s hand. She’s not sure whether it’s for her or Quèfēng’s sake.
Over the last year, Quèfēng has taught Fènghuáng how a mortal loves, and Quèfēng has become someone precious to Fènghuáng. She might be the only person Fènghuáng truly treasures. Her “family” is certainly not on that list of candidates.
“I bet she’ll crumble before her first hundred years,” Raven notes from afar, though not far enough for Fènghuáng to mishear him.
“I give her five hundred,” Lugh counters, laying down a Cherry Coke on the table. It is a worthy wager because it is as equally trivial as the matter before them; or maybe everything is worth a can of soda. Carbonated beverages have become something of a novelty among the older generations.
“The two of you should be quiet when the little ones are listening,” Ishikara Kamuy chides. She is the oldest immortal in attendance.
Raven snorts. “You think she’s laudable for doing something so foolish?”
“I think she’s laudable for why she’s doing this.”
“In that case, then you should be praising the other girl instead.” Fènghuáng feels Raven’s eyes gesture to her. “She’s diving straight into her first heartbreak. She hasn’t learned yet that mortals are meant to be loved sparingly.”
For her part, Quèfēng does not pay her “in-laws” any mind. Instead, she dotes on her niece, Míngyù. Her older brother Lǐyú is quiet while Quèfēng tickles his baby’s tummy. “Who knows, maybe she’ll live long enough to see me on the other end.”
“It’s a thousand years,” Lǐyú whispers. He and his family are Quèfēng’s only relatives who show up to the ceremony. Quèfēng has been written out of the will and the family register. It has been like that for a long time, ever since her second year of college when she brought her girlfriend over for New Year.
Quèfēng nods. “And maybe they will have figured out how to extend human lives that long by then.” After all, the immortals are not the only ones who have been invited to her conferment. At the back of the hall huddles a group of scientists. Quèfēng has decided to loan her body for study until she wakes up again in a thousand years. Maybe they will have discovered something in the millennium it takes for her to become immortal.
Fènghuáng does not agree with the plan. She believes it degrading and dangerous. She doesn’t want anyone to touch Quèfēng while she is sleeping, but Quèfēng is willing to do it for the medical advancements it might bring. Still, she files all sorts of legal documents and contracts so that Fènghuáng has the final word over all her procedures, at least until she emerges from her slumber. She trusts Fènghuáng.
In the year they have been together fully, Quèfēng has fallen even deeper in love with the immortal. And even in the moments where she tries to grasp a thousand years without her lover, she thinks back to each kiss and hug, whispered I-love-yous and the moments lying in bed next to each other. They are soft and warm, and worth more than all the fighting and aggravation that now decorates their lives. As her conferment draws ever closer, she’s never been more sure of her decision. Rather than live a lifetime of happiness and leave Fènghuáng to suffer for eternity, Quèfēng is glad to wait a thousand years and spend forever with her lover.
But for now, the chosen moment arrives, and Fènghuáng walks Quèfēng up on stage. It’s almost like a wedding, Quèfēng thinks. When they reach the center of the stage, Fènghuáng turns around and grasps Quèfēng’s other hand. She gazes at her girlfriend, and Quèfēng has never felt more loved.
The scientists crowd around the stage, bumping into each other as the immortals traipse through them, surrounding the couple themselves and blocking the scientists’ view anyway. Lǐyú averts his eyes while Míngyù giggles in his lap. His wife grips his hand and he grips back.
Then Fènghuáng kisses Quèfēng, holding onto her so tightly Quèfēng feels her fingers go cold.
“You’ll wait for me, right?” Quèfēng leans her forehead on Fènghuáng’s and whispers jokingly.
Fènghuáng nods, her throat thick with words. “I love you,” she finally manages.
Quèfēng kisses her. They are the last words she hears before immortality.
Becoming immortal is not so easy as waving a wand or making an ardent wish. It is a thousand years of cold, dark isolation. No, it is a thousand years of sensory deprivation. Truthfully, there is no cold or darkness to remind Quèfēng that she is alive, and maybe, she isn’t. After all, immortals don’t have the same view of living that mortals do.
The nothing doesn’t bother Quèfēng at first. It is nothing. There’s no other way to describe it, but soon Quèfēng realizes the magnitude of what she’s done. There is no way for her to tell the time. She has no beating heart, no fluttering of her eyelids, no arms to punch, no voice to count with. And as those thoughts settle inside of her, she understands that a thousand years is as meaningful as ten minutes right now, whenever that is.
Meanwhile, Fènghuáng feels Quèfēng go stiff and realizes that her lover is no longer beside her. She pulls back and waits.
The ring of immortals around her loosens and drifts apart, each carrying part of Quèfēng’s mortality, her sight and sound and self. What remains can hardly be considered more than a shell. There is nothing left in Quèfēng’s body for the scientists to measure.
“Good luck, kid,” Raven mumbles on his way out.
Lugh lays a hand on Fènghuáng’s shoulder and says goodbye.
Ishikara Kamuy merely nods.
Then the scientists gather around Quèfēng’s body and wait for Fènghuáng’s signal to let them move it.
Fènghuáng makes them wait.
They can wait, she thinks bitterly. At least as long as she will. At least as long as Quèfēng.
She makes them wait well into the night, until at least half of them have collapsed from exhaustion.
By then, she’s realized that she isn’t human, that she is very different from the weak animals waiting to pounce on her lover, and she wonders just how much more she will learn about herself in the time it will take for Quèfēng to emerge.
And she will emerge, Fènghuáng says to herself. She will. They promised each other.
When she finally breaks down and lets the scientists cart Quèfēng away, Lǐyú is waiting for her. His wife has already taken Míngyù back home, but he remains deep into the night.
They do not share words.
When Fènghuáng looks into his eyes, she expects to find pity. Instead, she finds a cold understanding. It does not mock her, but it does not comfort her either. He empathizes with her pain, but they both know she is the reason Lǐyú will never see his sister again.
Fènghuáng does not reach out to him like she did with Quèfēng.
She has learned her lesson.
In the nothing, Quèfēng tries to keep herself sane by reminding herself why she is there in the first place. She gathers her memories of Fènghuáng, weaves them into the brightest tapestries she can. They glimmer in the void, brilliant, but they too fade. It is hard to remember what a kiss feels like when she can’t even feel her own lips.
She begins to wonder if she really knew someone named Fènghuáng at all, and Quèfēng panics. She doesn’t want to lose Fènghuáng too. She’s the only one Quèfēng cares about now, or at least she’s sure she did, but she can’t quite recall, and Fènghuáng’s face is always changing in her mind’s eye. Soon, she doubts whether or not she’ll still be able to see anything when she leaves. She doubts whether she could see in the first place.
It is anyone’s guess when she’ll be free anyway, and in the end, that means it’s just her guess, because she doesn’t know if anyone else actually exists. She doesn’t know if she exists.
Who is Quèfēng?
It sounds like a beautiful name, two clear tones ringing out in the nothingness that she is.
Fènghuáng visits the laboratory every day. The scientists can’t stop her. For all her shortsightedness in the face of eternity, Quèfēng understood the mortal world’s bureaucracy. Fènghuáng waves her paperwork and the guards let her through. Eventually, they stop stopping her and she walks in without pause.
The scientists are uncomfortable with Fènghuáng’s presence. Some of them whisper that she’s trying to sabotage them. They believe that the immortals want to keep their secrets away from humanity. Fènghuáng doesn’t pay them any mind. These men and women don’t have even a fraction of Quèfēng’s courage. If they really wanted immortality, they would have followed her example and splintered themselves into their barest form. Becoming immortal is not just a physical transformation but an untethering, and only those so determined will ever find their way back.
So Fènghuáng watches Quèfēng and prays, believing, like Quèfēng, that love will be the tether that brings her home.
In the nothing, something dreams of nothing. To be immortal is to be undone. Time does not touch their bodies nor their minds. They are left behind.
A dream of nothing is not nothing itself. It is a patch of velvet black or a square of plush warmth. It is only nothing because in the void, those words and textures and sights don’t have reference or meaning.
One day, when there is light and sound and feeling, the something will see itself for what it truly is.
But until that day, which the something can only dream of dreaming, the nothing will remain nothing.
Fènghuáng does not bother keeping track of time. What she notes however is that the whispers stop. Or at least, they quell.
Now, she is “the forlorn lady.” Instead of suspicion, pity stalks her.
Towards winter, a few of the scientists invite her over for the holidays, and she politely declines but they refuse her refusal, and so she reluctantly attends the New Year’s festivities. At one scientist’s house, the children fawn over her.
“You’re so pretty!”
“Where is your husband?”
“Are you dating anyone?”
Fènghuáng smiles placidly at them like she does with their parents. This seems to delight them and they crowd ever closer. Soon, she is telling them about her lover and how amazing she is. Even the adults stop to listen. They have never heard the forlorn lady speak so much in the decades they have known her. Perhaps some of them think they can glean something important in her words, some insight or secret to the problem occupying years of their lives. Others are interested in the woman herself.
The scientists themselves have changed. Many have left the team and few have joined. In the beginning, most were drawn by the prospect of fame and wealth. Pharmaceuticals from all over the globe clamored to fund their research. The thought of being the one to discover the secret to eternal youth was irresistible.
Now, after years of testing and cell samples, diagnostic scans and every method they can devise, immortality’s luster has waned, or at least its pursuit has. The humans now gathered around Fènghuáng are more interested in the problem itself rather than the solution.
Still, the ones in the back, the ones eavesdropping, wonder about what to do with Quèfēng.
Sometimes, the nothing hears something, and it is sometimes and something. The nothing is sure of it now, because it can hear. Only rarely, but it can, and that’s enough for it to understand that something exists.
It doesn’t understand what it hears, and still too is it blind and unfeeling, but it can hear. What is it searching for? The nothing doesn’t know, but how it longs for a sound familiar.
“Here.” Raven finds Fènghuáng on a side street and tosses an aluminum can at her.
Fènghuáng catches it, perplexed. She has not seen Raven since Quèfēng’s conferment.
“I owe you this. It’s been a hundred years.”
She glances down at the faded lettering on the can. It’s a Cherry Coke. “Where did you get this?” Fènghuáng hasn’t seen this design in decades.
Raven shrugs. “You have to plan ahead, dear. We play the long game on this earth.”
Fènghuáng frowns. “Did you come to chastise me?” She knows she has not been as discreet as the other immortals are, and she also knows that she has not been paying enough attention to her own welfare, only Quèfēng’s, though she needn’t worry. Her lover’s body is already immortal, she is just waiting for Quèfēng herself.
“I came to pay you back.” Raven paws the ground with his boot’s toe. “And to give you a warning.” He does not wait for her permission to give it. “That girl of yours is stronger stuff than I thought, but don’t place your heart on her any more than you have. You’re only a tenth of the way there.” Then he pauses and looks straight into Fènghuáng’s eyes. “And if she does make it, she won’t be the same girl you fell in love with, Fènghuáng.”
It is the first time Raven has used her name.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replies icily.
The sounds are sometimes words now. The nothing can tell because they have a rhythm, a shape. There are pauses and stops, tones and breaths.
Still, it does not know the language. They are too disconnected to piece together or too foreign to place. It is like grasping drops of water. The nothing can hold a few precious notes, but the more it gathers, the more they blend together, and soon they flow back out into the silent void, leaving the nothing as alone as ever.
Soon, Fènghuáng is talking to more than just children. Now research is a token effort and most of Quèfēng’s time is spent on a stage or in a spotlight. The companies have decided that if they cannot turn a profit on medicine perhaps they can turn a profit on a story.
Fènghuáng follows her wherever she goes, an unwilling accomplice. Perhaps Quèfēng didn’t understand the mortal world perfectly. Now Fènghuáng grasps the lows humans are willing to delve for their own self interests. But she will never let them have Quèfēng. She attends every exhibition, every showcase, busts on stage if she needs to.
She gives speeches and presentations, tries to paint a picture of who Quèfēng really is.
She plays right into their hands, but what is she to do? She wants people to understand Quèfēng, the woman who gave up a millennium for her, who believed that love was strong enough to carry eternity. She wants them to understand that Quèfēng is human.
Spectators weep and huddle together, and Fènghuáng feels that she has lost. Her speeches turn Quèfēng into a hero, and the shows, because that is what they are, grow more popular, her speeches more polished. She despairs. Telling Quèfēng’s story has become her job.
She tries to take legal action with all the ill-gotten funds from her speeches but it is no use. Technicality upon technicality prevails, and as the appeals pile up over the years, fewer and fewer mortals are willing to take up her cause. It is made only worse by their sympathizing looks and apologies. There are too many precedents to overturn, and she has become the lead actor of the longest running drama in the world.
The nothing shivers as something brushes its cheek. Now it knows it has a cheek, just as it knows that it has something called a hand and a toe. It can’t tell whether the thing that brushed it was soft or spiky or wet, but it knows it was touched. That is good enough.
One day, it dreams that its whole form will be revealed, and then it will stop being nothing. Perhaps then, it will find its own thing to brush and love.
“Amazing,” Lugh comments after a tour. Fènghuáng does not recognize him at first. He has a new haircut, no longer a long straight silver but a platinum buzz. It makes him look older, she thinks. At least, from the back. His face still looks the same. She only realizes it’s him after she finishes speaking and the rest of the tour group departs.
“Are you applauding her too,” Fènghuáng bites back.
Lugh studies her, a ghost passing over his face. “I suppose I am.” He offers an aluminum can to her. “Though it gives me no pleasure in seeing her alive and well. I had hoped she would die by now. It would save both of you quite the burden.”
Fènghuáng glares at the can, but takes it anyway. It is rude to reject an elder’s present.
“Five hundred years,” Lugh muses, watching Quèfēng slumber. “Empires rise and fall in that time.”
“Not Quèfēng.”
Lugh shakes his head. “You don’t believe that yourself.” He gestures to her “uniform,” the clothes Fènghuáng has worn countless times trying to appear professional and level-headed. Wearing the same thing every day helps preserve a bit of her sanity, a bit of her willpower to stomach seeing Quèfēng’s body over and over again. “What are you going to do when she wakes up?”
“I still have five hundred years.” Fènghuáng cannot tell if her words are an excuse or a bitter retort.
“To get over her or to think of what to tell her?”
Fènghuáng does not meet Lugh’s eyes. She knows she will betray Quèfēng again soon. It is simply too much to bear on her own, but she swears that she will return, always.
The something can see now. It is a weak light, dark orange and fading, but it is different from the nothing that the something used to be. There is a dimension to the void. It came slowly, so slowly the something didn’t even realize it was not nothing anymore. Time crept in, and suddenly, there was light.
But the void remains numb, and the something waits for another sign.
“This is Quèfēng?” Angela asks. Fènghuáng has never looked so old to her before. They are sitting in a museum, maybe three or four meters from the body. All kinds of devices are hooked up to the girl. Heart monitors and brain scans and x-rays. All attest to the undeniable truth that the body in front of them is, in fact, alive. Their screens pulse rainbow, charting the mysteries that scientists still haven’t uncovered. Humans live longer now, almost one and a half centuries, but it is no thanks to Quèfēng.
Fènghuáng nods. The two of them are friends, more than friends, and she knows Angela wants to be even more. She wants to be more for Angela too, just as she has wanted to be more for so many other men and women. That’s why she has come back to Quèfēng, almost as if she is asking for her blessing.
She doesn’t visit Quèfēng nearly as much as she promised she would, but it has been so many years. So many long years, and surely, isn’t she entitled to a little bit of happiness? But Fènghuáng feels that nothing will ever work unless her partner understands who she really is, and Quèfēng is so much a part of her. Fènghuáng has come to resent that.
The others accuse her of cheating or of playing with their hearts. They cannot abide that there is another person in her life or they believe that she will eventually forget them when Quèfēng wakes.
How selfish, Fènghuáng thinks, how very mortal. She is just as vulnerable to love as they are, and they will hold her heart forever, even the ones who broke it.
Especially the ones who broke her heart, because now she admires them more than ever. If only she could have been more like them. If only she could have said yes and no clearly. Maybe then, Quèfēng could have remained a bright spot in her memory.
“Are you okay?” Angela squeezes her hand, and Fènghuáng nearly shatters. It is rare that anyone tries to comfort her anymore.
Fènghuáng squeezes her eyes and shakes her head. She is far past the need to lie to anyone, including herself.
Angela draws her in and hugs her. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave.” And Fènghuáng decides then and there that Angela will be the last one. It has been eight hundred and twenty three years. When Angela dies, Fènghuáng will return to Quèfēng’s side. She will not love a human who will live to see Quèfēng wake.
Soon, the something realizes that it has eyes, and that the orange it sees, and the blue and green rivers that span it, are its eyelids. It can’t move them, but it knows that it has them. It knows it has things called arms and legs, and it knows that it hears with its ears. It even occasionally understands the sounds around it.
…
Yes
…
…
She
…
Nine hundred thirty-one
It doesn’t know why the last phrase is so terribly exciting. It feels like it is close to remembering why.
Fènghuáng stands guard over Quèfēng as she did nearly a millennium ago. It is hard to believe that in less than twenty years, Quèfēng will be coming home. Fènghuáng was not old when Quèfēng locked herself in the void for her, and waiting for Quèfēng has consumed almost all of Fènghuáng’s life. She does not know if she is anxious or relieved that Quèfēng will be awake soon.
Around the two of them, scientists bustle about, moving equipment and sorting through records. Fènghuáng is not the only one waiting for Quèfēng. Many people have been anticipating this moment. Researchers are hoping for a breakthrough, hypothesizing, hoping, that the waking process will yield more data. Journalists are crowding for new photos and to report on a project that seems to be shaking itself out of death. Some biographers even knock on Fènghuáng’s door, hoping to complete this long chapter of history, the first documented mortal to immortal conversion.
Fènghuáng entertains them with one of her practiced speeches, a “classic” as the visitors call them. She doesn’t really care, and when the interviewers leave, she realizes that she is just as ragged as her memories, and the same feeling of anticipation and anxiety fills her. Is Quèfēng even the person she remembers?
One word sticks out to the something in the void.
Quèfēng
Two tones. One falling, one flat.
It is a beautiful word, one that rings.
Many voices speak it, but only one particular voice matters to the something, a soft one. It is a familiar voice, one the something has heard for a long time, as long as it has been able to hear it realizes. The voice says the word often, and the something likes that. When that one voice says that one word, the something feels safe.
Quèfēng
Quèfēng
Eventually, the something realizes that the soft voice is talking to it.
And then, it realizes that she is Quèfēng.
The day Quèfēng wakes up, Fènghuáng is the only one within ten meters of her. She will not abide the cameras and reporters, shoves them out of the room. The scientists at the edge of the room are only tolerated as part of Quèfēng’s contract. As soon as the day is over, Fènghuáng will sever all ties with them. She has waited long enough, a thousand years, for this moment, and she will not share it with anyone else. As Quèfēng begins to unfreeze, her eyes rolling underneath closed lids, Fènghuáng reaches over and grasps her hands.
Quèfēng shudders, her body trawling in the first real breath it has had in centuries, and her eyes flutter open. For a brief moment, Fènghuáng is reminded of how guilty she really is. Of course, Quèfēng is fragile right now. “Quèfēng,” she whispers, “Quèfēng,” as if it is a magical spell that will return her lover’s consciousness to her more quickly.
Quèfēng is very confused. She is still holding Fènghuáng’s hands, but she is lying down in a bed now. She is sure that a long time has passed, an impossibly long time, but Fènghuáng looks the same. It is only as her eyes wander the room and snag on the scientists peering at her through their glasses that she realizes what has happened.
“Quèfēng.”
Quèfēng finally turns back to face Fènghuáng.
“Are you alright? Are you okay?” Fènghuáng whispers something to her, clutching her hand as if she might disappear, but Quèfēng does not understand. Her lover’s voice is so familiar, and yet she can’t understand anything Fènghuáng is trying to say.
“Fènghuáng.” Quèfēng’s tongue is thick and dry in her mouth. “Fènghuáng, what happened?”
When the two of them exit the room, they are ambushed by the ravenous flashes of journalists and their cameramen. Fènghuáng growls and kicks her way through them, trying her best to shelter Quèfēng’s head as her lover cowers in fear. It is late at night, and the hoard has been waiting the whole day for them to emerge.
Quèfēng clutches Fènghuáng’s arms the entire time, wishing she could shut her eyes and ears off again and disappear into the void. Even her clothes scratch at her skin. She doesn’t know it yet, but they are replicas of her conferment outfit, made to last decades instead of for casual wear. Walking through the crowd of reporters, she is the perfect subject, a finally living, breathing immortal mortal. It is as if she has stepped off the cover of a biography or the stage of a play. There are a thousand years of mystery to unravel for the media, and Quèfēng’s fear only seems to sharpen their appetite.
“What an amazing gap! I would never have guessed –“
“Look how Fènghuáng protects her!“
The cameras become the most willing villains they can be for these lovers. Bring out the cuteness, the anger, the drama!
By the time the two immortals make it to their escape vehicle, Quèfēng is weeping. Fènghuáng holds her close while the city’s lights blur past the windows. Eventually, Quèfēng’s shoulders stop shuddering and she drops off into true sleep. They swap cabins two more times, Fènghuáng carrying Quèfēng and paying transfer fees while they zigzag around the area, just in case anyone else is following Quèfēng.
It is nearly four a.m. when Fènghuáng finally opens her house’s door and tucks Quèfēng into bed. As she watches Quèfēng’s chest rise and fall, Fènghuáng thinks about all the things she wanted to tell Quèfēng but couldn’t. It has been so, so long, and there are so many things she needs to say
But she has waited a thousand years. She can wait a little more.
Fènghuáng gives Quèfēng one last look and cups her cheek before getting up and closing the bedroom door between them.
Emerging from sleep is a much more pleasant experience for Quèfēng than regaining her consciousness. It takes her almost an hour to do so, yet even that is a breakneck pace compared to the void. All the while, she relaxes in the warm softness of Fènghuáng’s comforter. It is an amazing thing, she feels, to be alive again, to feel things like warmth and softness and smell the savory crack of frying meat in the other room.
Slowly, she opens her eyes and lets the light flow into them. That too is a small miracle. Her memories are a mess, but she can still recall moments from last night and the void, and the difference scares her. She is not sure if she is ready to be part of this world again.
As Quèfēng props herself up in bed, Fènghuáng opens the bedroom door with their breakfast. “Good morning.” She smiles and brings the tray over along with a chair to sit at Quèfēng’s side.
Quèfēng shrinks back. The woman in front of her looks like Fènghuáng, but Quèfēng has no idea what she is saying. It sounds like a greeting, and the woman seems friendly, but is she really Fènghuáng?
“What’s wrong?” The woman leans forward, worry etched on her face.
“Fènghuáng?” Quèfēng asks, scared of the reply she might receive.
“Yes?” The woman responds, nodding, which Quèfēng interprets as an affirmative.
“Fènghuáng,” Quèfēng shudders. “Is it really you?”
The woman frowns, and Quèfēng’s heart stalls. She can see the other woman trying to process her words. Eventually, the other woman nods. Quèfēng isn’t sure whether to be comforted or not. “Then, was it a success? Has it been a thousand years?”
Fènghuáng nods. “Yes.” She says it slowly, trying to press it into Quèfēng’s memory. It will take a long time before Quèfēng is able to speak to other people again, and Fènghuáng knows she will have to teach her lover.
“Then, am I…?” Quèfēng trails off, unable to finish the question.
Fènghuáng takes her hand and squeezes it gently, nodding. “Yes.”
Quèfēng closes her eyes, breathing heavily trying to calm herself. Immortal. She is immortal. She never thought that she would be unable to understand Fènghuáng. Tears leak out of her eyes as Quèfēng realizes her idea of immortality was merely a life with Fènghuáng and her family, but the world has moved on without her.
Suddenly, the thought seizes her and she grips Fènghuáng’s hand. “Have you had another woman?”
Fènghuáng stiffens, though Quèfēng already knew the answer before she had asked it. Perhaps she does still understand Fènghuáng. “Many?”
Slowly, Fènghuáng nods, and Quèfēng hates herself. It is not jealousy drowning her, but self-loathing. She remembers her last words to Fènghuáng. How could she have asked something so ridiculous of her? “I’m sorry.” Quèfēng bows her head. “I’ve been a terrible partner.”
“Don’t say that.” Fènghuáng whispers. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known how things would have turned out. We couldn’t have known.” She brings Quèfēng’s hands closer to her.
Quèfēng hears Fènghuáng’s words, but she doesn’t know what to do with them. Finally, she steels herself and locks eyes with Fènghuáng, asking her the last miserable question in her mind. “Do you still love me?”
She watches Fènghuáng’s heart shatter in her eyes. “Of course! Of course I still love you!” Fènghuáng’s answer is thick and rough, unpracticed, but it is in their tongue.
When the two of them share their first kiss in a thousand years, Quèfēng pulls away. Fènghuáng leans forward, biting Quèfēng’s lip lightly, begging for entrance, and Quèfēng is scared.
Fènghuáng is passionate and hungry, and both of those things terrify Quèfēng. “I’m sorry,” Quèfēng whispers, pushing her girlfriend away. “I’m just not ready yet.” It has been three months now and Quèfēng knows she has been making Fènghuáng wait, but she can’t help it.
It is not so much the intimacy that frightens her. Before she became immortal, Quèfēng never shied away from physical contact, and she is happy that Fènghuáng still wants her in that way, but Fènghuáng is simply too intense. Quèfēng is unsure if her girlfriend’s desire is genuine or if it is simply the result of being forced to wait for a millennium. And even if it is genuine, Quèfēng is terrified that it will burn out. If she sates Fènghuáng now, will the other woman eventually tire of her? They have years and years ahead of them, literally an incalculable amount of time, and Quèfēng doesn’t know if she can handle an eternity where Fènghuáng no longer loves her.
Perhaps what she is most afraid of is growing bored herself. Now, she is an immortal, and the same stretch of time and tedium is something she will have to bear too. Yes, they have waited a thousand years for each other, but what is a thousand years compared to ten or a hundred thousand, and Quèfēng is so scared of losing her love for Fènghuáng. It is the only thing she has left.
“It’s okay,” Fènghuáng pulls back, thankfully. “We can go as slowly as you need to.” She wraps her arms around Quèfēng and hugs her.
Most days, Quèfēng wanders outside. She cannot abide staying in Fènghuáng’s house. Standing still or sitting for too long reminds her of the void, and in the deep of night, she will almost invariably wake up heaving, lungs and heart pounding on her chest, trying to startle her back into motion. Fènghuáng does her best trying to guide Quèfēng through her panic, but she is not always around, and when the walls close in around her, Quèfēng cannot help but flee the building. It is a crushing type of fear, and Quèfēng is not keen on reliving her millennium of annihilation no matter how long she lives.
The outside is depressing though, and as Quèfēng drifts, she realizes that almost none of her hopes have been realized. Lǐyú is a footnote in the books discussing her life, and Míngyù has been dead for centuries. Humanity has not gained anything from studying her body, and her family has dissolved over the intervening centuries. Even if it hadn’t, she knows she would not recognize herself in any descendants and they would not know anything about her. Míngyù never even got the chance to meet her properly. Now, how many generations must separate her from her family’s last children?
Sometimes, Quèfēng asks Fènghuáng about the people they used to know, the friends she made in college and the few scant years she was a working woman. Fènghuáng has not bothered keeping track of them or their families. Secretly, Quèfēng wonders if Fènghuáng ever cared about them. At first the thought is a bitter accusation, but it softens. Quèfēng cannot bring herself to blame Fènghuáng. After all, what she is asking for is a long dead past.
But it is hard for her to accept that she is alone. Alone except for Fènghuáng.
That is perhaps the worst part of her new life.
She resents Fènghuáng for being the only thing she has left. She has no other friends or family. She has no more dreams or aspirations. Her education is horribly antiquated, and she is barely literate after months of studying. The only thing she has left is Fènghuáng, and Fènghuáng is a reminder of the biggest mistake she has ever made. She is Quèfēng’s only comfort and greatest tragedy, and it is not Fènghuáng’s fault.
The only thing she might reasonably pin on Fènghuáng is her newfound stardom, but she does not blame Fènghuáng for it. It is one of the countless things Fènghuáng has apologized for, and Quèfēng knows Fènghuáng was only trying to protect her. If she is being honest with herself, it even gives her a small amount of joy to know that Fènghuáng fought for her as much as she did, but that joy is gently flayed away by the whispers that swirl around her as she walks through the streets.
They call her 千年少女, Millennium Girl, an infantilizing title, she feels. Somehow, her thousand years of torment has morphed into something romantic and heroic. She is a young girl in their eyes, an ignorant girl who does not what she is throwing away in order to pursue her love, and to be fair, she was.
But Quèfēng is no longer that girl.
That maiden died a millennium ago.
Still, she can feel people’s words crawling over her, comparing her to the only version of 千年少女 they know.
How Quèfēng wishes she could bark back at them, let them know that she can understand their whispering, but her tongue is unwieldy and cannot form the right words in her mouth. It would be like a duck talking to a chicken, and it is already a cruel enough punishment to be stalked in the streets by drifting eyes and rumors without squawking like an idiot to onlookers, so Quèfēng glues her mouth shut and keeps walking.
“Hey.” Quèfēng is glaring at her reflection when the stranger’s voice reaches her ears. She does not turn around. Instead, she shifts her gaze to catch the black-haired man in the mirror.
“Why are you here?” Quèfēng does not know how he got inside Fènghuáng’s house. Fènghuáng herself is out running errands. Still, she doesn’t care. Clearly, he is an immortal. She can see it in the way he leans against the bedroom’s door frame. Immortals treat everything carefully and callously, with the vague sense that anything could crumble around them in an instant.
“Straight to the point, aren’t you?” The man whistles. “No wonder you made it back.”
Quèfēng narrows her eyes. “Who are you?” She has the feeling that she’s seen him before, not recently, but when she was still mortal.
“Your new brother or sibling or uncle,” he shrugs. “Raven.”
Quèfēng turns around to face him. “You were at my conferment, weren’t you.” It is not a question.
Raven nods. “That’s why I’m here, to apologize.” He lets Quèfēng chew on that before explaining. “If I had known you would survive, I wouldn’t have helped you.”
Quèfēng folds her arms and snorts. “Then why did you.”
“I thought it would be a good opportunity for Fènghuáng. I’ve said it before, mortals should be loved sparingly.”
For Quèfēng, it is just the reverse, immortals should love sparingly. “Have you ever loved a mortal,” she finally asks.
Raven is silent for a full minute. Quèfēng counts the seconds until his reply. “Kid, I used to dance with Iris. We would slice through the sky like a peal of thunder and paint a rainbow for the mortals below. I loved humanity. I even stole the sun for them, like my brother Prometheus.” He sighs and runs a hand through his long black hair. “But there’s always a price, isn’t there.”
“It didn’t stop you from turning me,” Quèfēng growls.
Raven gives her a sad smile. “I said it before, right kid? I’m sorry.” He bows low. “I salute you, Quèfēng, fellow inmate. May your woe melt like honey under rain.”
Quèfēng turns Raven’s words over in her mind as she watches a movie in bed with Fènghuáng, the contents of which aren’t terribly interesting. It’s there more to fill the void between them than to entertain. Fènghuáng has certainly seen enough movies in her life.
“I think we should break up.” Quèfēng says finally. She feels Fènghuáng stiffen beside her. Then her girlfriend backs away, panic lining the edges of her eyes.
“Why?”
“I…” Quèfēng struggles with her words. She has thought this moment over so many times the words have become thick and muddled. “I don’t think this is fair for either of us. I don’t think I’m being fair to you,” she corrects herself.
“Is it, is it because you don’t feel the same?” And the way Fènghuáng whispers it breaks Quèfēng. The woman next to her has waited a thousand years for them to be together, has sacrificed her heart and sanity and reputation countless times for their sake, and Quèfēng realizes that she does still love Fènghuáng. She doubts if she ever could stop loving Fènghuáng. But…
“A little,” Quèfēng admits, and a wave of déjà vu washes over her. Perhaps the whole world is a cycle and they are merely repeating their mistakes. “I just… I need to be on my own.” And it’s not fair to Fènghuáng, Quèfēng knows this. “I need to figure out who I am now before I can love you the way you deserve.”
Fènghuáng’s jaw clenches. “So you’re leaving me again?”
And Quèfēng feels the same pang of guilt that stabs her every time she pulls away from Fènghuáng. But even that is less painful than the constant burn of her muscles, reminding her that she is trapped here. It’s not that she doesn’t love Fènghuáng, it’s that Fènghuáng is all she has left. So instead of apologizing, Quèfēng nods her head.
“So you’re leaving me?” Fènghuáng echoes. “After all of that? After becoming immortal and waiting a thousand years and all this heartbreak, you’re just going to end things like that?” she chokes, breath uneven and ragged.
“I -“
“Do you know how much I sacrificed for you?” Fènghuáng shouts. “I gave up so much for this! I could have left you! I could have moved on and forgotten about you! But I stayed! I stayed so we could have this and you’re just going to throw it away?”
“I’m doing this for us!” Quèfēng yells back.
“That’s your problem!” Fènghuáng is crying. “You’re always waiting for things to be perfect! I could have loved you as a mortal! I love you now! Why can’t you just appreciate that? What more do you want, Quèfēng?”
Quèfēng recoils from the hidden accusation. How could Fènghuáng think she doesn’t care about her? Then anger overtakes her for the first time since she has awakened, and she lets her emotions wash over her, heedless of if they will burn her out. Instead she shoves Fènghuáng down and kisses her. It is the first time she has taken the initiative in a thousand years, and it is less a display of love and more frenzied desperation.
When they finally pull apart, Quèfēng glares down at Fènghuáng. “I love you. I will always love you,” she pants. “It’s just…” And it takes her seeing her own tears on Fènghuáng’s face to realize she is crying. “I want to be someone you can actually love.”
“I do love you.” Fènghuáng’s face is twisted up in pain. “How could I not?”
“Then wait for me,” Quèfēng wants to say. “Wait for me so that I can love you properly.” But even she is not selfish enough to ask that of Fènghuáng again. “Then don’t wait for me. Don’t take me back until I deserve your love,” she gasps, choking back the slurry of frustration and longing and a dozen other emotions in her throat. “Because I need to do this. If not for us, then for me.”
Slowly, Fènghuáng nods. “Okay…” She grips Quèfēng’s arms before the other woman can pull away. “But spend tonight with me. Let me have that before you leave.”
And Quèfēng is finally ready to give herself to Fènghuáng. She bends down and kisses Fènghuáng, and a selfish part of her wants to make sure that her lover never forgets tonight. Maybe she does want Fènghuáng to move on, but Quèfēng cannot help but feel unreasonably possessive, and at least a small corner of her heart is determined to leave her memory embedded in Fènghuáng’s flesh.
Quèfēng is a long way from home, though truthfully, she hasn’t had a real home for many years. Maybe, she never had a real home, even as a mortal. She can still remember the violent shade of red her father’s face turned when she told him that she wasn’t going to bear him grandchildren. “You’re a disgrace,” she mouths as she holds up the scarlet petals that reminded her of his face. They are both a boisterous color crying out in a desperate bid to persist. If only they could enjoy what they already have. Quèfēng smiles. Perhaps Fènghuáng would be proud of her.
Quèfēng stands up and dusts her pants off. This is progress, she thinks. Remembering is difficult for her, at least the emotional parts, but slowly, slowly she is beginning to piece together who she must have been before she became immortal. It is a good feeling, like rediscovering a song she used to love or reuniting with a long lost friend.
“What are you doing here, child?”
Quèfēng turns to face the stranger. She had been wondering when they would come out to greet her. She gives a quick bow of deference to her elder. “Uncle.”
The young man laughs. “Oh, I like you!” It is a light laugh, one unmarked by the weight of years. The immortal tosses his head back, shaking his long locks of hair and grins, wide. It is a stark motion against the stillness of his body, each black strand quickly replaced by a brother in an afterimage of its motion. “Did Yuè Lǎo send you? He always sends the queers to me, funny old man. It must be his hobby shepherding mortals down their family line. Best to leave the others to little brother Xōchipilli. So,” he lets his head settle back down, hair coming to rest against his dyed robe. “What can this uncle do for you?”
Quèfēng shakes her head. She has not spoken to Yuè Lǎo, and she did not expect to meet another immortal up here in the mountains. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I was only wandering through here.”
Xōchipilli cocks his head and studies her.
Quèfēng does not like the way his pupils deepen. She feels his eyes take in her form, and it reminds her of the people in the city. He is endlessly curious, and now she is the subject of his curiosity.
Suddenly, Xōchipilli smiles and nods his head. “Okay.” He straightens and turns around, gesturing for Quèfēng to follow. “Would you like something to drink? We’re a long way from any towns.” And then, without waiting for Quèfēng to respond, he walks away.
Quèfēng follows him, of course, and he leads her to a squat hut. It is half exposed and half in the earth, and when Quèfēng enters Xōchipilli’s abode, she is met by a warm breeze. At the opposite end of the room is a lit fireplace, crackling in the half darkness. It is not unwelcome, Quèfēng decides. They are high in the mountains, and while it is no longer early spring, a chill still lingers in the air.
“Here.” Xōchipilli hands her a steaming ceramic mug. Quèfēng can’t see what’s inside, but it smells vaguely sweet. Xōchipilli gestures to the table by the fire, and both of them sit down. “I don’t get many people like you,” Xōchipilli notes.
“Do you mean immortals or something else?” Quèfēng clutches her mugs, pressing her fingers into its warmth. She can hear Xōchipilli’s grin. It is hard to see in the half light, though not nearly as unbearable as the void.
“I guess that too,” Xōchipilli shrugs. “You remind me of the butterflies in my homeland. Beautiful and diligent, like the flowers they tend.”
Quèfēng does not know what to say and instead drinks from her cup. It is a thick drink, almost starchy in the way it sticks to her mouth.
Xōchipilli nods. “But you’re not as carefree. You have a steel to you, like a hummingbird. My cousin would like you, I think.” He hums and drinks from his own cup.
They sit there, the two of them, finishing their drinks in the hut while the daylight outside dwindles. By the time Quèfēng is done drinking, the sun is setting, and its light fills the room. “How do you do it?” she eventually asks.
“Do what?” Xōchipilli nods, caught between falling asleep and watching Quèfēng, his eyes half lidded but wide and knowing.
“How are you so…” Quèfēng gestures. The way Xōchipilli sits without his years. He is utterly relaxed.
Xōchipilli chuckles. “I wear my immortality lightly. Humans only have so long on this earth to fret and love, but I think we are not so different. One day the world will end, and then our time will be up too. All the things that we love or hate will disappear, and then what? It has already happened many times, I assure you. Until then, there is little to do but enjoy what we can while we still can. Live freely, love freely, and forget the sad things.” He laughs. “But I think that is not so good an answer for you. You strike me as someone very serious.”
Quèfēng bows her head. “Thank you for telling me regardless.”
“Yes, yes.” Xōchipilli pulls a deep breath in his chest. “But what kind of uncle would I be if I didn’t give you some advice?”
Fènghuáng’s fingers ghost over her bass’s neck. Once upon a time, when she was still in her mortal years, someone had scoffed and told her to pick up a zither instead. “Stay in your country, freak.” And unfortunately, she had listened. Even more unfortunately, she had been good at it. Back then, her fingers would glide over the strings, summoning a forlorn breeze within the halls of the music department. But after graduating, there was little reason for her to keep playing. There weren’t any teachers to push her forward and she couldn’t afford more lessons anyway.
But with Quèfēng gone, Fènghuáng has had to find new ways to occupy herself, or rather old ways. It really is an absence more than anything, Fènghuáng realizes. Even when she was asleep or out of the house, Quèfēng consumed her life. It is… relieving in a way to be free of Quèfēng. Fènghuáng is lonely, but at least it is a clear loneliness.
A comfortable loneliness, and Fènghuáng has not tried to find anyone else after Quèfēng. Angela was her last mortal, and even though Quèfēng has told her not to wait, Fènghuáng has not felt the need to know another person in that way. Perhaps the others were right and she was using them to fill the void in her heart that Quèfēng left. Fènghuáng does not know, but she is content.
She might not always be, but she is learning to forgive herself for that too. Immortals are far from unchanging. And as she rests her right thumb against the pickup, Fènghuáng feels that she is finally allowing herself to be somebody.
It strikes Quèfēng as she is stepping out of the carriage into the warm winter afternoon. For the first time in a very long time, she feels… comfortable. It is an alien sensation, one that coils itself around her limbs and settles inside of her marrow, a deep pulse that shields her from the season’s chill. She realizes that it has been beside her for years, but it is only now, in the strangely clear shadows of a short day, that she notices it.
It has been five years since she has moved out to the countryside, a pitiful amount of time, one might think, to an immortal, but Quèfēng already feels like it is time to move on. To her surprise, it is not because she has grown bored of the corn fields and rundown buildings lining the streets. No, in fact the rust worn streets still bring her a soft smile in the aberrant glow of the winter sun. There is something to the plainness before her, laid bare by afternoon. It is not pretty, but it is perfect in a way.
For these past five years, Quèfēng has been teaching at an elementary school. Nobody knows that she is immortal. She is simply one of the annual contractors assigned to the neighborhood, and her work is rote. The lessons repeat, and the paperwork and grading never cease, but Quèfēng is happy. There is something special to these tiny slices of time where she is suddenly aware of how amazing the world really is, of her students growing and living.
Becoming immortal has been too many things, but stepping down the road, Quèfēng is finally comfortable in her own skin. Instead of heading to her lease, Quèfēng walks to the local park and sits on a worn bench. This is nice, she thinks. The world is beautiful.
Perhaps, it is time to start living herself.
Fènghuáng sighs. The city has been her domain for a long time, and now, she is leaving it. A thousand years of waiting for Quèfēng and who knows how many more without her, Fènghuáng is about to set them all down. She didn’t know when it snuck up on her, but now something is telling her to move. Perhaps she has been here too long. Fènghuáng has always thought of herself as a homebody, but now that Quèfēng is gone, she has begun to wonder what else has changed. Now, an impatience scratches at her legs. It burns her shins and thighs, muscles aching to carry her far away from here.
She is scared.
Or maybe excited.
It could be both things too.
All that Fènghuáng knows is that she isn’t the same person she thought she was and that the city is no longer where she wants to be. Perhaps it will make things difficult for Quèfēng. After all, Fènghuáng isn’t sure when, if ever, she will return to the city, and Quèfēng has no way of contacting her.
“We need a clean split.“
Fènghuáng grins and traces the phantom kisses along her neck. How rarely humans act cleanly, and she has come to realize that they are very much human. Immortal, yes, but so very, very weak too.
“Don’t wait for me,” Fènghuáng whispers. Okay.
When Quèfēng returns to the city, it is empty. The few locals still inhabiting the ruins of their old house don’t have much to say about Fènghuáng. Immortals rarely leave paper trails or impressions deeper than the eccentric at the end of the road. Quèfēng had expected as much but that does not make Fènghuáng’s absence any less disappointing. She isn’t about to give up though. They have all the time in the world to find each other again. She just needs to keep trying.
Funny, Quèfēng thinks. Now she is the one chasing after Fènghuáng’s memory. It fills her with a small kind of sadness, but that in turn gives her a small kind of joy. It reminds her of how she used to be, of the queer echoing in her chest when she discovered Fènghuáng was immortal. Maybe that was the reason the woman had been so reserved and not because she didn’t feel the same way Quèfēng did. New possibilities and new problems.
Quèfēng turns around and walks away from their old house. She has an immortal to find.
One day, Fènghuáng finds a beautiful sunset. It is in the far aftermath of a cataclysmic on the other side of the planet. The world is finally emerging from a small ice age, and Fènghuáng is warming her arms in the bronzed light. A long time ago, she remembers reading a book on disasters. Apparently, chemical explosions enhance the colors of the setting sun. Watching the magenta pinks and blood red oranges dye the horizon, Fènghuáng thinks it might be true.
Behind her, she hears the panicked shuffling of feet. Someone is sprinting up the staircase to join her on the observatory platform, maybe a photographer hoping to capture the sunset. She turns, half-smiling at the human’s anxiousness, and a bob of messy black hair emerges from the stairs.
It is Quèfēng.
The two immortals stare at each other, Quèfēng panting and Fènghuáng stunned.
Then Quèfēng straightens and crosses the deck. Her breath is still ragged. Immortality does not confer peak athleticism and she sprinted here as soon as she heard that a strange woman had been wandering the streets around dusk. “You know, you’re a very hard woman to find.” She grins, hand on her hips as she takes in Fènghuáng’s silhouette against the setting sun.
Fènghuáng smiles and shrugs. “I thought you told me not to wait.”
“Fair enough,” Quèfēng laughs.
Their conversation dries up, and Quèfēng has no idea what to say next. She was sure that finally seeing Fènghuáng would give her the words she needed, but now she can only pull on silence. It’s not really Fènghuáng in front of her, at least not the Fènghuáng Quèfēng knew, and she isn’t the same person herself either. They haven’t been those people for millennia.
So it is Fènghuáng who breaks the silence. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Quèfēng sighs. It almost sounds like a chuckle. “Maybe? I don’t really know.” She takes the last few steps up to Fènghuáng and offers her hand. “I’m not sure if I care anymore either.”
“Then how about this?” Fènghuáng places her hand in Quèfēng’s. “How do you feel about us?” Her eyes glow with the molten light of the dying sun, searching Quèfēng’s face. “Is it the same way that you used to?”
Quèfēng shakes her head, still holding Fènghuáng’s hand and eyes. It has taken a long time to get here, too long, but if there is one thing the two of them can afford now, it’s time. And perhaps, she needed to take this long to understand why she is shaking her head at Fènghuáng’s question herself. “Probably not,” she smiles, and when neither of them stiffen at her reply, she knows that her next words are the right ones.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” Quèfēng holds out another hand and her grin widens as Fènghuáng joins with her other hand as well. “At least, I’m ready to start loving you.” It has taken a long time to finally set aside the people she thought they were.
“Idiot,” Fènghuáng sighs, chuckling and pulling Quèfēng into a hug. “You kept me waiting long enough.”
Quèfēng buries her face in the crook of Fènghuáng’s neck and wraps her hands around the other woman. “I love you too, Fènghuáng.”
And Quèfēng still doesn’t know just how true those words are.
