📖 Tales Lost to the Wilds

The sky is as blue as water, the clouds like sheep's milk. At noon, the cattle and Gu insects are drowsy, and so are the people. Behind the Yeli tribe's summer pasture, a little girl lies quietly, reciting the mantra taught by her Granny. At times like this, she uses her ability to multitask, placing half her soul into the world within her mind. A boundless world where no one tells her what a "shamaness" should or shouldn't do. A world far larger than the grasslands, without end. Without endless rules. Perhaps the flowers are blue, the sky is green, and Ruyin can freely tell Sumu that she prefers spending time with the Gu insects over talking to him. Granny always says that Sumu is destined to be the tribe leader, and Ruyin shouldn't anger him. There are many things she shouldn't do: like learning anything other than the "Soul-Lost Gu," leaving the tribe's land, or disobeying Granny. Ruyin thinks that if she could be the tribe leader, she would make sure the Yeli tribe members live far apart, so no one sees or interferes with anyone else. Everyone could do whatever they want. If someone wants to go far away, they could travel as far as the clouds in the sky. Perhaps being a cloud is more carefree than being a person - no rules, no form. How many worries would that save? Thinking this, Ruyin becomes lost in thought again. She often gets lost in thought, and no one can guess what she's thinking. Another phrase Granny often says is that Ruyin is the strangest shamaness she has ever seen. "Wrong, wrong!" Suddenly, Ruyin hears a voice call out. Ruyin opens her eyes, and the mystic world disappears. She sees someone standing before her. This boy is about her age but wears the robes of an outsider. His eyes are bright and dark, as if they can see right into a person's heart. "What's wrong?" "You recited it wrong." "Where did I go wrong?" "The first line is wrong. One gathers the mystic spirit, two condenses the soul light, three pours the mystic water, four transforms the decayed essence... isn't it?" He speaks with authority, having listened for who knows how long. Ruyin knows he's right, but she dislikes being told she's wrong. Ruyin thinks for a moment and retorts: "How did you secretly memorize someone else's mantra? Are you a little thief?" "I'm not a little thief; you recited it aloud." The young lad shows a displeased expression. Seeing his displeasure, Ruyin laughs instead. When she laughs, a shallow dimple appears on her cheek. "Alright, you're not a little thief. Aren't you afraid of me?" "Should others be afraid of you?" he retorts.

"They say I'm disobedient. Disobedient children aren't good children, and naturally, they shouldn't play with me." "That's funny, my father often says I'm disobedient too." This reminded him of his time among the Tuoba tribe. Whenever he showed curiosity about things from the Central Plains, his father would say this, and his brothers would laugh and mimic him. He sighed softly. "Why do people always want others to listen to them?" Ruyin felt a sense of closeness seeing him like this. Her eyes darted around, and she confidently said, "They must be under the influence of a powerful Gu. When I grow up, I'll definitely develop an antidote for it." Hearing this, the person before her forgot his earlier displeasure and looked at Ruyin with wide-eyed curiosity. "Don't you believe me? Come again tomorrow, and I'll show you the Gu I raise," Ruyin announced loudly. She jumped up, brushed the grass off her hands, and patted the boy's shoulder. He smelled a scent that was both bitter and sweet. "I, I can't come..." The Tuoba tribe was negotiating with the Yeli tribe, and he wanted to explain that he had sneaked out, but the other party wouldn't listen. Ruyin smiled mischievously: "You've been affected by the Gu now! If you don't come tomorrow, you'll turn into a big bug!" Before she finished speaking, she ran off quickly. After a few steps, she remembered something, turned back, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted: "Hey what's your name ?!" The wind picked up. Tuoba Chong had to raise his voice to send his answer back to Ruyin's ears: "Tuoba Chong " He saw Ruyin smile again, her dimples faintly visible, as if saying she understood. Tuoba Chong realized he didn't know the girl's name. "I haven't promised her I'd come tomorrow..." he murmured, encountering such an unreasonable person for the first time. The slanting sun sank westward, dyeing the evening clouds gold. Tuoba Chong squinted to look. Ruyin's figure gradually shrank at the horizon, soon disappearing into the radiance.

Tuoba Chi was a little drunk. The journey from Tuoba lands to Yeli had been long and grueling. He and his clansmen, his brothers, had been traveling for days. It had been ten years since the Tuoba tribe last set foot here and things were no longer the same. Their tribe's power now blazed like wildfire, stronger and more unrelenting than ever. The Yeli tribe's pride in their ancient Gu magic was no longer enough to hold that fire back. He thought of his father's gaze before their departure, and the whispers in the clan about who would become the next chieftain. The wine burned down his throat like smoke, curling and searing from within. Then, Tuoba Chi caught sight of his brother among the crowd. Tuoba Chong had always been quiet at gatherings like this. He wasn't like the other sons of their father, whose eyes were filled only with horses and bows. His younger brother looked at the world with a broader vision one that stretched far beyond this endless grassland. Because of that, even though he rode well and shot straight, he never won much favor among the tribe. This brother of his some called him foolish. Yet he had always been the quickest learner among them. Some said he was clever, but then he'd go on about "changing old customs" and urge the tribe to follow strange new ways from the Central Plains. He spoke of medicine, strange words from that distant land... To the tribe, this might as well have come from another world. The thought made Tuoba Chi chuckle under his breath a scoff more than a smile. "Chieftain! What do you say we liven things up with a bit of song and dance?" someone shouted from beside him, the air now buzzing with energy. The bonfire roared, flames crackling, logs spitting sparks. Tuoba Chi narrowed his eyes at the Yeli chieftain, who had lost to him earlier that day in the mounted archery. "Then call Ruyin! Her music's said to stop wild geese mid-flight!" laughed Su Mu, clapping his hands. It was the first time Tuoba Chi had heard that name. And then she stepped forward from among the Yeli people a young woman in a crimson robe. Her clothes were different from everyone else's. She wore the sacred garb of a Yeli shamaness. Firelight danced in her eyes. But she didn't look at Tuoba Chi. Instead, her gaze swept past him and landed on the quiet youth pouring his own wine. A few sparks flared into the night, only to be whisked away by the wind. "Send out your best singer, your finest musician," Ruyin said, back straight, chin lifted, her voice clear and bright. Tuoba Chi studied her, but didn't notice at that very moment, Tuoba Chong had looked up too, his eyes fixed on her with quiet intensity.

"Ruyin, Ruyin!" The voice came soft and sudden, and for a moment, she thought she'd imagined it. How did he find her here? "I knew it. You really were locked up." Ruyin hugged her knees tighter, curling up beneath the narrow window to hear Tuoba Chong better. "What's there to fuss over? I've been grounded more times than I can count. Granny will let me out soon enough." Ruyin said it lightly, as if it didn't bother her. But in truth, her heart felt hollow, like stepping off solid ground into a long fall. Ruyin wasn't foolish she could feel it: as her eighteenth birthday approached, the rules wrapped tighter around her, and her grandmother's stern gaze grew harder to escape. She held herself tighter, as though bracing against something just out of sight a fate that felt both terrifying and strangely familiar, like a dream half remembered. But in front of Tuoba Chong, her voice stayed as careless as ever. And that somehow made him feel both comforted and heartbroken all at once. There was a pause from the other side of the wall. Then his voice came again, low and careful: "Ruyin, what you said last night does it still count?" "What did I say?" "You wanted to hear me play the zither." "Sure it counts. But there's no zither now." "Ruyin." "Hmm?" Behind the wall, Ruyin heard the faintest strains of music gentler than any plucked string, more lingering than any real zither. If not for the quiet pauses between phrases, the soft shifts of breath betraying the performer, she might have believed he'd somehow brought a real instrument with him. From behind the small, round window in the wall, the boy played with no strings his throat the zither, his breath the melody. With nothing but the skill of his voice, he conjured a melody so vivid it blurred the line between illusion and sound. Ruyin had never heard anything like it. The music stole her away, her heart drifting along its unseen thread. When the last note faded, she sighed content, yet unwilling to let go. "If you weren't the Tuoba chieftain's son," she said wistfully, "you might've made a fine traveling performer." Tuoba Chong only smiled faintly. He said nothing. But she heard that silence, and gave a small scoff. "What? Afraid a life of performance would tarnish your noble blood?" she teased. Tuoba Chong replied: "No. I was only thinking... if I really had wandered from tribe to tribe across the grasslands, playing for strangers how long would it have taken before I found you?" The words caught her off guard. Inside the wall, Ruyin froze. Her heart gave a startled beat, then another. It took her a moment to respond. "And if you had?" she said quietly. "Found me, I mean... what difference would it make?" Tuoba Chong didn't hesitate. "In the books of the Central Plains, they write of melody of nature, a rare confidant... If not for you... then who would I have played for?" He fell quiet after that, surprised perhaps by the truth of his own words. But once spoken, they felt inevitable like a path he'd always been walking, whether he'd known it or not. Ruyin turned his words over and over, letting them settle into the corners of her heart. They stirred something soft, something deep. Joy and sorrow, braided so tightly she could no longer tell one from the other. She opened her mouth once. Closed it. Then again. But in the end, all she gave was a sigh quiet, fragile, honest. Neither of them spoke after that. They simply sat there, a wall between them, silence wrapping gently around the things they didn't know how to say. Above them, the sky stretched wide and endless, stars scattered like silver dust. Tuoba Chong drew his knees to his chest, resting quietly in the night, listening to the sound of her breathing on the other side of the wall. And in that moment, he realized: this just this was worth more than all the years behind him. Moments he once thought precious seemed pale now. Because with this one moment, they all became something lesser. Something... wasted. If only the world could hold just the two of them only this breath. This silence. This feeling. And one girl, on the other side of the wall, who truly heard him.

Ruyin turned and saw Sumu's face. Too late. She knew then: there was no escape. A sharp pain bloomed in her chest. She looked down an arrow, embedded deep. She recognized the markings instantly: the Gu marks of the Yeli chieftain. She'd seen it since childhood. Raising her head again, she saw Sumu's lips move. But her ears were ringing, her vision tunneling sounds blurred, as if coming through water. He seemed to say: "A shamaness may not stray beyond the Yeli lands. To do so shall suffer this Gu." Of course. There were so many things a shamaness was never meant to do. And yet... she had done them all. And she did not regret it. Numbness crept through her limbs. The light in her eyes began to fade. And strangely she felt no fear. Yes, it was a smile. It was indeed a smile. Her own people had turned their blades and arrows upon her. Tuoba Chong's brothers had turned their backs on him because of her. But Ruyin pitied Sumu. And all of them. How could they know life could be more than this? How could they imagine the vastness of the world beyond the grasslands? She knew what awaited her when they took her back The blood-curse, the pain that eats you from within. The suffering meant to break body and soul. What a shame, she thought. She wouldn't get to see the Emerald Flowers. But Tuoba Chong would. He would see them. And not only Emerald Flowers, but every medicinal herb written in the books. He would see the willows of spring, the lotuses of summer, the rivers, the mountains, the open skies of the Central Plains... He would see it all. For her. Fortunately, she had sent him out alone this time. Tuoba Chong... Don't come back. Keep going. Go far. Far from here. ... The last man fell before him. And at last Tuoba Chong saw her. It was the most crimson world he had ever seen. The air was thick with blooming flowers, but not the delicate scent of Emerald Flowers only the scent of her blood. Ruyin lay still in the heart of that scarlet field. The curse had devoured her. Her blood had long since dried. She would not wake again. And she would never cry again.