"If the world is a lie told by the strong, then perhaps mercy is the last lie the weak can afford to believe. Not mercy to change the world—it won't. Not mercy to be thanked—it won't be. But mercy because when everything has been stripped from you, even dignity, even love, the last thing you can choose is to be better than what broke you. Even if it kills you."
- Ruoxin
The rain had ceased. The sky was low and swollen, clouds streaming like mourning shrouds over a battered horizon. The wood was quiet now, as fog uncoiled from the ground, covering the world in a cold shroud.
Barefoot, the boy stepped out of the cave mouth, steam curling from his skin, wet hair slicked and glued to his head like oil. The old man's voice trailed behind him.
"Go on, kid. I'll be sleeping. Regaining power or some crap. What you have to do now.....it's up to you."
"Don't disappoint me, little bastard. Make it bleed. Make it mean something."
He walked.
He had chosen _____________________.
It was not a sin of wrath. Nor greed. It was not blind slaughter.
It was desecration of the act of _____ itself.
He walked in silence.
Mud clung to his feet like guilt. Each step pulled a soft squelch from the earth, as if the land itself begged him to turn back. But there was no going back. Not for him. Not anymore.
....
Ruoxin's POV
I live in a house that has a leaking roof during rains. And I've learned not to care. The beams groan like dry bones, and occasionally in the winter, the wind finds its way through the crevices like a ghost seeking shelter.
But I light a fire. I say, quietly, "Stay if you like. Just don't extinguish the flame."
No one answers, of course. But in this quiet existence, I've discovered the art of accepting silence. I repair the roof every year with rice paper and worn-out straw mats, hammering them down with prayers and wrinkled hands.
It's a hut, some would say. A shed, at least. No — it's a sanctuary. A tiny, obstinate defiance of a world that would otherwise forget gentle things.
I rise before dawn. Not by willpower — not like those dawn-shouting military cults that scream to get up with them — but because I like the time before dawn. When the sky is pale and indefinite as yet. When the world is still uncertain what kind of day it shall be. That's my favorite time. The hush before everything.
I wash my face in stream water. Cold enough to bite. I don't flinch anymore. I let it remind me, I'm alive. I'm still here.
My reflection wavers in the basin. Some days, I think she looks like my mother. Other days, like no one I've ever met.
I brush my hair with a carved wooden comb, a gift from Old Lan in the village. The teeth are uneven, but I love it. He made a little flower on the handle—because he wanted to, not because he had to.
That matters.
The kettle is dented around its body and has a single unstable leg. It still sings when boiled.
That's enough.
I make porridge with whatever I have. Millet sometimes. Mushrooms that are two weeks dried in the sun. A pinch of wild market salt, unless I've already spent it on salves. I hum as I cook — not because there's a song in my head, but because stillness is heavy, and I'd rather fill it with something gentle.
One morning, one of my neighbors handed me a half-steamed bun wrapped in a cloth. I wept that morning. Not out of hunger, but because I was remembered.
I eat slowly. Always. I think that food has memory — and if you hurry, you lose it. I eat with my fingers. The chopsticks I once had broke last winter. I always intend to whittle some new ones, but there is always something that needs doing. A wound. A shivering child. A leaky roof.
Still, I say thank you before I eat.
I bow my head and whisper, "Thank you, field. Thank you, hand that picked. Thank you, day, for allowing me to remain."
It's a little ritual. My own personal prayer. Not to gods. I don't think they listen anymore. But maybe to the world. Or to whatever small kindness still lives in it.
Outside, the plum tree remains. Bent. Bark flaking. Ghost-like blossoms in winter.
I sometimes talk to it. I tell it things like, "If you could still bloom, then I guess that I could too."
"Do you think they remember me? The individuals whom I helped?"
"Today, I want to believe the world can be kind."
It does not reply. But it hears. And that is more than many do.
I sweep the floor after breakfast. I sweep whether the floor is clean or not. There's something sacred in it. The rhythm. The control. In a world with so many things I am unable to heal, sweeping is something I can.
I hum while I work. Not named songs. Just little noises that are round and warm in the mouth. Sometimes I can see a kid humming along with me. A niece, perhaps. Or a daughter. Someone who would welcome me with bare feet and beaming eyes as Auntie Ruoxin. She'd assist me in harvesting herbs. Chasing chickens I don't have. Braiding my hair.
She doesn't exist. But I give space to her in fantasies. I have a special place in my heart for her.
Just in case.
The villagers address me as "Sister Ruoxin." Some with kindness. Some with compassion. A few with suspicion, as though I must have committed some transgression to have lived so far from riches. Let them believe what they wish. They have no idea that I once sat upon silk cushions, reading verse under carved lanterns. That my mom's smile was like the rain that descended, and my dad would kiss my brow and say, "You will change the world, little one."
They have no idea what it takes to walk away from all of that. To leave security for integrity.
I don't crave luxury.
I miss being a daughter.
At around midmorning, the villagers start knocking. A cough that won't go away. A burn from spilled oil. A screaming infant — or one who refuses to scream. They come with calloused hands and tired eyes. Some just don't say anything. They just leave the wound open and wait.
I try. I do. I crush herbs. I bind bandages with fingers raw from washing linen in icy rivers. I whisper to the fever. I kiss the children's foreheads, though I know it will not stop the pain.
But I do it. Because someone must. Because kindness — real kindness — is not loud. It doesn't wield a sword or expect thanks. It stands by you at night and utters, "I'll remain. Even if I'm scared."
Now, I am someone's healer. Not because I was schooled in a sect. Not because I have on me a jade token. But because I stayed when others left. Because I said it softly when others shouted. Because I remembered how to hold a person, even when their fever burned on through to their soul.
There's a boy—Xiao Fei—who just recently broke his arm chasing a chicken. I set the bone myself. No talisman, no Qi. Two hands, steady despite shaking. I sang over him as he cried.
He brings me wild onions nowadays. And once, a half-eaten cake he salvaged from the market. It was stale. I ate every bite.
His mother curtsied to me. That was odd. I'm not wise. I'm just....a girl with skinned knees and chipped fingernails who thinks bleeding people shouldn't be alone.
Some days, I question. I stand in my garden—if five pots and a pilfered cabbage bed qualify as a garden—and I question the clouds if I have erred.
"Is this the life meant for me?"
"Will I die here in silence and obscurity?"
"Will my kindness ever matter?"
There is never an answer. But then a child laughs outside the courtyard next door, or a sparrow alights on the broken fence, or someone knocks on my door and says, "My brother's sick — please, Sister Ruoxin…"
And I recall; That to be gentle is in itself a rebellion. That to heal one person in a world that is founded on violence is to spit in the face of Heaven itself. I don't need credit. But sometimes I would like the stars to wink at me and say, "We see you."
In the quiet moments between the sick and the chores, I tend my garden. It's small. Pitiful to some. A sloping piece of land at the back of my hut. But to me, it's a miracle.
I speak to the plants when I'm watering them. I give them names — not fancy names, just names like Hope, Little Fool, and Please Don't Die This Time. There is a sprout of basil that I have been nurturing for two years now. It doesn't grow. I continue watering it.
Because sometimes you cling to hope even when nothing blooms. Maybe especially then.
I used to have grand ambitions. I wanted to be a physician. Not a healer with root paste and herbal remedies, but someone who studied. I would imagine walking the Sky Pearl Medical Academy's tile-lined halls, my robes clean and white, my name written in ink with masters.
But dreams get smaller with age. As with cotton left out in the rain, they fade. They lose form. Now, I wish to buy an excellent kettle. To own a new blanket by the next frost. To hold someone's hand without trembling.
Still… I tuck those old dreams beneath my pillow. Some nights, I take them out, smooth the creases, and whisper, "Maybe. Maybe one day."
I light a lantern at dusk. The paper is torn. The frame bent. But when it glows — oh, how it glows — it feels like a heart refusing to go out. I sit by the fire and mend torn sleeves for children who are too small to mend their own. I hum again.
Sometimes I talk to the stars. Not in words. Just in longing. I think, "If someone up there is listening to me, send someone kind. Not for me. For the world." And occasionally I picture someone hearing. Not a god. Not a hero.
Just....someone like me. Someone tired but trying. One who thinks that even the smallest act of kindness remains sacred. Someone who would come knocking at my door not because they need saving but because they don't want to go anywhere else.
At night, I write little prayers. Not to gods. Just....to something greater.
I light a candle and whisper, "Let Old Mei's lungs endure the cold."
"Make the child in the red house stop crying."
"Let the river flow high so that the crops may not perish."
I place the paper under my pillow and fold it. I know it won't be counted. But imagine if it did.
What if wishing were, by itself, an act of healing?
And the thing is… I am lonely. Not like aches all at once. More like an insistent thread that tugs at me in the dark. I miss laughter echoing off walls. I miss hands holding mine at meals. I miss someone knowing my dreams without asking. Sometimes I read them aloud, just so they don't vanish.
"One day, I'll go to the city again."
"I want to open a real clinic, with books and copper tubs and a garden that never dies."
"I want to show someone the stars and say, 'You see that one? That's ours now.'"
I've never really said this aloud, but I think I want love. Not the burning kind that devours cities. Not the tragic, fate-woven kind that poets bleed over.
Just....the type where someone sees you sweeping your floor at dawn, and instead of walking by, they say, "Let me help."
The kind where silence is not hollow. Where food are shared. Where pain is diminished, and laughter remains. I need someone who will remember the names I assigned to my plants.
Who cares when I'm too exhausted to smile? Who will stay? But even if nobody shows up —Even if I become old and lonely with my garden and my faulty kettle —I will still believe.
Because this world teaches you how to hurt.
But I refuse to forget how to hope.
Still. Even now. Even here. I think the world can be better than it is. That monsters are not born, but made. That cruelty is a wound, not the truth. That even a shattered heart can learn to beat anew if we hold it gently enough.
So I keep my hands open.
My fire warm.
My door unlocked.
I wait.
And on the day he arrived in —the kid with bloodstains on his shirt and desolation in his eyes. I did what I had always done. I opened my arms.
I whispered, "You're safe now."
And I believed it. Because if I didn't....If even I drove him out…Then who would be left to believe the world could be gentle?