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Freedom came with a cost.
Li Lun felt it as soon as the chains that bound him broke away; right behind the exhilaration of being liberated came the agony of the ever-burning wood ripping through his body once more.
It was worth it to step out into the world in the flesh again. It was worth it to see Zhu Yan brought so low, lost to himself and set upon by his so-called friends. It was worth it, Li Lun told himself as he fled from a puppet and a pair of humans in his pathetic weakness. As he screamed and screamed and screamed.
Toying with Zhu Yan's little pets amused him. This one hated him still, of course. But now she knew the truth about her beloved master's fate. Now, she must see finally Zhu Yan for what he was and hate him just as much.
"He betrayed us both," he reminded her, and her answer shouldn't matter. None of her answers should matter.
But he was right, of course. Mortals were hypocrites above all else. And she was right, he thought, blinking her pathetic powder out of his eyes: their lying tongues were capable of more evil than any yao.
"Li Lun," she taunted, as though such petty tricks would be enough to hinder a great demon, "how many times have you been deceived?"
Her expression was both pitying and smug. Intolerable. He would crush that condescension out of that frail human body. But in this, too, it seemed she was right.
He never learned.
"Is it hard to choose?" Li Lun wondered. "Zhuo Yichen is your enemy."
It was a simple truth. Zhu Yan shouldn't need to be reminded. And yet that brat hadn't killed him during the blood moon back on Kunlun. The vicious enemy who murdered his family standing before him, a clear threat to all those he now loved. And somehow, he still resisted the killing blow. Even more miraculous: Zhu Yan had not killed him.
It was a puzzle. Zhu Yan possessed no mercy while under the influence of the blood moon. Li Lun knew that very well. And though Zhuo Yichen was merely a human, Li Lun would not have thought him so incapable. One of them should be dead.
A puzzle, and Li Lun did not like puzzles. Nor did he like how Zhu Yan was looking at him now: not with anger or hatred, just great sadness. Worse—disappointment.
"After all these years," he said, chiding, "you still haven't grown up."
As if it had been Li Lun's choice to be trapped in stasis all that time. As if Li Lun was the irrational one, throwing his lot in with the very man destined to bring about his own destruction. But then, Zhu Yan had ever courted death. And Li Lun had ever been the one to keep him tethered to this world instead with blood, bond, and oath.
Until not even those had been enough.
"Zhao Yuanzhou," Li Lun told him, making sure the name was vicious as a curse on his tongue, "don't think you're human just because you have a mortal name."
You will never belong to them, he meant, not truly. Your heart beats in tune with with the wilderness. It burns with a yao's passion. You were never meant to cage yourself into such weakness.
"You couldn't understand," Zhao Yuanzhou said, a look of sickening fondness on his face as he listed his killer's virtues. Dignified and righteous. An unbreakable will. A character as strong as gold.
Finally, they agreed. This, Li Lun would never understand. But he would make Zhao Yuanzhou understand him. Make him Zhu Yan again.
"Didn't you say I have nothing?" He smiled over the burn of that betrayal, as fresh now as the first touch of his hand, all those years ago. "Don't worry. Soon, you will be just like me."
But Zhuo Yichen came back to fight by Zhao Yuanzhou's side.
Wen Xiao looked Li Lun in the eye, viciously triumphant as she destroyed his rattle drum.
Neither of them was smart enough to abandon Zhu Yan as they should. They both deserved their fates.
"It was your choice to go our separate ways," Zhao Yuanzhou said. So Li Lun made his choice.
Dying was excruciating. He let his body burn away, thousands of years of cultivation gone to ashes in a matter of moments. It was a relief, in a way, to let go. These were the hands that knew Zhu Yan's hands, that had brushed his silver curls from his cheeks, traced every inch of his body. This was the face he'd lied to and betrayed.
These eyes were watching him cry now, these ears, hearing him plead and beg.
Worth it, Li Lun thought, letting himself sink quietly into the corner of the boy god's mind.
He almost meant it.