You're 15 years old and you hear his name for the first time. He defeated the demon of the Blood Realm, they say. A prodigy. The fastest sword in the jianghu. The promise of your generation fulfilled. A hero.
You have no use for heroes.
You're 16 years old and fighting your way through the list of the most skilled martial artists of the day. Some survive you, some don't. It makes no difference to you. None are worthy of your skill. None are enough of a challenge to help you become stronger. Strong enough to—
It doesn't matter.
His name appears on the list that year, right at the top, the shining star that he is. His name is on everyone's lips after that, unavoidable. You have more important matters occupying your time than to wonder overly much if his blade really is as fast as they say. You'll get to him soon enough.
You're 17 years old and have a cadre of fighters behind you, now—strong, skilled, united. More than enough to accomplish your goals, to maintain your independence. You have plans to lay, treasures to find, a protective circle to build for you and your people, misfits all, and already a danger to the almighty Sects of the jianghu.
You begin to hear his name again.
Sigu Sect. Your equal and opposite. The rising star to your dark one. None of it matters. The morality of good and evil is trivial, unimportant. It only matters that you reach the top. Only then can you protect what is yours. Only then will you have your freedom.
In the end, he finds you.
He is fire and lightning and the wrath of the gods, and he is just as fast as they claim. Battling him is a thrill beyond the desire for conquest. There is a light in his eyes that draws you in, flays you open to lay your secrets bare. You trade blows like the steps of a dance choreographed for you long ago, a dance you know so intimately that you couldn't miss a step if you tried. He is fast. You'd like to say that you are faster, but you've never been one to lie to yourself. You are equally matched, and you don't want the duel to end.
But end it does.
You exchange no promises, no threats, no boasts of future victory. You only give him your name. It seems only fair as you've had his for years already.
You're 18 years old and the names of the Sigu Sect and the Jinyuan Alliance are famous now, as famous as the names of their leaders, but none of that matters when you meet in combat. You want to defeat him, to declare yourself number one in all the jianghu, of course you do… but it isn't so terrible to have this thing remain between you. Fighting him is still a thrill, still the only true risk you face, and it enlivens you like nothing else does. Each wound is an adrenaline rush of joy, each scar a cherished gift. If you defeat him, you'll never need to fight him again, and you don't want that, even if you don't know why.
You're 19 years old and still not tired of fighting him. He is brilliance. He is grace. He is exquisite in ways you fear no one else could possibly understand or appreciate. He is beautiful. You duel together in the rain, lightning crashing to ground so close you're in more danger from the storm than each other, but you don't want to stop. You can't.
You crowd into him, leveraging your height to give you an advantage, backing him up against a convenient tree. You don't know who dropped their guard first—you hope it wasn't you—but he's surging against you, now, biting at your lips and sucking on your tongue, as wild as the storm as he pulls you close.
You are 19 years old and too tightly wound and it's over far too fast and it's a good thing it's still raining because neither of you got out of your robes. Lips kiss-swollen and wet robes clinging to every inch of his body, breath coming in heaving gasps as his eyes go distant, glazed, a flush rising to his cheeks… he's beautiful like this as well.
You don't linger; it isn't safe, and you don't know what to say to him now that this thing between you has become so complicated, so suddenly. You think you hear him call your name, a diminutive that tumbles from his lips and jars you down to your core.
You don't answer. You can't.
You don't know who "A-Fei" even is.
You're rapidly approaching 20 years old and you fuck as often as you fight, neither of you able to resist the pull of the other for long and neither of you wanting to. You indulge yourself in this one thing because if you understand nothing else in this wide world, you understand this: he is your match. No one else will ever see you, see into you, the way he does. And you like it that way.
But there are rumors in the jianghu that have sinister seeds at their heart. For the first time ever, when his name reaches your ears, there is doubt attached, uncertainty. There is a snake in his den, undermining him, casting his name into the mud, and you can't have that. You won't.
The truce is your idea, the only way you can eliminate one front in the war he doesn't realize yet that he's fighting. The Alliance doesn't like it. They don't trust it. They argue against it. But they obey. Mostly.
You've never fully been able to trust her; she's been the snake in your own den from the beginning. She would own you, cast you down at her feet and bind you to her in whatever way she could if you gave her the opportunity. You know her kind. You did not win free of them once just to allow yourself to be bound a second time. But you need her. You need those who come with her. You need their strength. For now.
Your people mistrust but they obey, even her.
His people obey as well, but only on the surface.
His shixiong undermines him at every turn. His woman says nothing, but she mistrusts the truce, too. She has caught your eyes before in the heat of battle, and you think she knows. But she also understands enough to accept, to realize that no one can hold lightning in a bottle and to try will only get you burned. Lightning chooses its own path to the ground and to try to redirect it is madness.
But try you do.
You fail.
His shixiong's death is the warning note that everything is coming to a close, faster by far than you wanted. And it's wrong. All of it. The letter. The apparent disobedience of your people. The easy way his shixiong fell. You need to understand. If you are going to salvage any of what you've come to value most, you need answers. But his friends have filled him with poison and his shixiong's death has hardened his heart and he doesn't understand and doesn't want to listen.
He arrives at the Eastern Sea and there is death in his eyes. For you. For himself. For you both. You'll go down together, neither of you ever beating the other. It's only fitting. But this duel is an offense against everything you've been to each other. The thrill is twisted upon itself into a gnarled, rotten thing. There is no joy in his eyes as you maneuver yourself in close, no teasing hint of a smile as your blades clash. It's as though you've lost him already. Or he's lost himself.
You are 20 years old and desperate not to lose the one thing that has ever given your life meaning, but you don't know how to keep him without destroying you both.
He is 20 years old and just as desperate, his qi fluctuating wildly and out of control, the grace in his movements long turned jerky and erratic. This duel is ugly, everything you hated about your childhood, the end result the only thing that matters.
So you do what you were trained to do.
You survive.
He does not.
You are 20 years old and you speak his name for the last time, heart broken. There is no joy in the win, no thrill in finally being the best. You retreat from the world.
It has nothing left to offer you anyway.
Epilogue
You are 30 years old and you hear his name for the first time. A false name behind another false name, but you know it better than you know your own, and you would recognize it anywhere, even unspoken.
It should surprise you—it doesn't—but he knows the name behind your false name just as easily.
He smiles, and lightning goes to ground straight through your heart in ways it hasn't since you died 10 years ago.
But with that single strike… you are alive again.
And so is he.
You smile.
Perhaps the world has one thing left to offer after all.