Snow Flower, Fire Storm

XV

THIS YEAR, THE HEAVENLY REALM

There were swirling patterns on the ceiling: threads of gold, strings of silver, chains in every gemstone hues that twirled and wound around each other in hypnotic circles. If you looked at them too hard they started to move, started to go round and round until you felt giddy from the motions, but you still wouldn't be able to look away, because if you looked hard enough you noticed that not all of the patterns moved in tandem, that there would always be one thread that diverged from the group and trailed a different path, cutting across the circles and sometimes leaving the ceiling altogether and streaking up and down the walls, sketching strange pictures, sometimes writing out the verses of the Heaven's Accord, and if the string thought you weren't looking, it even scribbled out a swear word or two.

Sicheng guessed the point was to keep the occupant of the room from steeping in boredom. The room he was in was heartlessly bare: there was a single, exceptionally soft mattress on the floor and nothing else, except for the moving threads on the ceiling. Sicheng couldn't figure out the purpose of the mattress—deities didn't sleep. Nonetheless, not long after he had been brought into the room, he had thrown himself onto the mattress and never put a foot out of it again. He just kept staring at the ceiling as paroxysms of rage and listlessness racked his mind.

This was what the heavens called 'gentle imprisonment'; wherein a heavenly dweller who was suspected of a crime or was potentially about to commit a crime was put into an enchanted room that sucked away his cultivation. Sicheng guessed he was the latter kind. He had went on a rampage when the officials brought him back to the heavens, fully intent on striking down as many deities as he could on his way to find Wuxian. He was going to kill Wuxian, and damn him so that the next time he reincarnated he wouldn't be a deity, but he would be something that crawled in the dirt and ate filth.

But then the Jade Emperor had to intervene. He tried to talk Sicheng out of it, but he refused to listen. What did the Emperor know? What did it matter what the Emperor did to him after he killed the War Deity? What did it matter anymore? He would have kept going, blowing up smooth-stoned pavements and bringing down castles with his waves, even flooding the entirety of the heavens if he had to, only if, unexpectedly, the Emperor hadn't fallen to his knees and begged him to stop.

It took Sicheng aback, to see the ruler of the realm bow to him, and despite himself he stalled his attack. The guardians didn't waste time in arresting him and putting him in this empty room so he could think and reflect on his actions.

Nobody visited him during his restraining days except for the heavenly maidens who brought him food. He refused to eat, so that whoever was watching him would know he wasn't pleased with the situation. However he was also wholly annoyed by the awareness that this childish rebellion couldn't really hit its mark, since going without food wouldn't kill an immortal like him. It only made him hungrier and moodier. What was the point of starving himself anyway? It couldn't bring Xie Xiao back.

Suddenly he wished the room wasn't so empty. He wished there was something in the room that could break, something he could throw against the damned walls and see it shattering. He clutched at his own disheveled hair, pulling at it mercilessly. What was he even doing here?

On a side note he couldn't think of a reason why the heavens thought he was harmless enough to just be locked up in this room, but he wasn't complaining. He had only ever heard rumors and hearsay about the real dungeons of the heavenly realm. He'd heard it was the kind of place that made you want to eat your own soul.

The door to the room opened on the fourth day of his imprisonment. Sicheng didn't bother to lift his head and see who it was. It was probably more maidens, bringing him delicacies he wouldn't deign to eat.