Soaring to the Heavens

He loved her for ten thousand years. They once planted wisteria together and brewed wine beneath the plum blossoms. When the mood struck, she played chess with him, listened to him play the zither and recite poetry, and often drifted into a light sleep amid the fragrance of wisteria. "Chongguang, if one day you discover that you owe someone an immense debt of gratitude, one that no means in the world could ever repay, what would you do?" "There are very few people like that in the Three Realms." "But what if there really were?" "In this world, no kindness is given without reason. Those who give peaches hope that one day the recipient will repay them with plums. But that's precisely why causes bring about consequences, and fate moves in cycles. As long as you want to repay it, there's no such thing as a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid." "But what if the repayment comes too late, when there's no time left...?" "Then there are only two possibilities." "What are they?" "First, the one who gave the kindness is certain the recipient can't give them what they want in return." "Ridiculous. And the second?" "They've fallen into an obsession, like a moth to a flame, offering up their life for the sake of adding the faintest glimmer of warmth, casting aside life and death. If they do it willingly, they naturally have no interest in being repaid." "More sophistry." Chongguang's expression shifted, as if mocking himself, but in an instant he was once again calm and untroubled. He smiled faintly. "In a realm as vast as the Three Realms, a few fools born of heaven and earth are only to be expected." Chongguang x Lingxiao. Two ascetics caught in a love-hate relationship. This is a rambling, pointless piece I wrote for practice years ago, so please don't take the plot or writing too seriously. Thank you _(:зゝ∠)_ It was only meant to be a prelude, and I probably won't write the rest. Seeing all the unfinished stories in my collection is exhausting, so I'll just post the whole thing. This is a fantasy cultivation story born from my obsession with ascetics of ten thousand years. I hope you'll bear with me. Theme: