Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
"Hello, Binghe," Shen Qingqiu said.
It had taken him a while to begin to speak after settling in front of the sword mound a shichen ago. "It wasn't you but, I guess... I just. I saw your face today. In your shishu, Shang Qinghua." Shen Qingqiu glanced down at his hands.
Shang Qinghua had laughed at something that Shen Qingqiu had said and all of a sudden, all he could see was Binghe, Binghe, Binghe in the wrinkle of Shang Qinghua's nose, in the bouncy curls of his hair, in the shine of his eyes.
"He's not you, of course, nor are you him. I know that. I told myself that." There was a soft rustling of leaves and a whisper of Shizun? into the wind, but when Shen Qingqiu looked up, searching for his lost disciple, there was nothing there but a breeze.
Another grief-induced hallucination, is what Mu Qingfang would call them, though Shen Qingqiu hesitated to say the same. That would meant things about his attachment to this world that he disliked to think about.
He sighed, and got to his feet. His other precious disciples had been hounding him about trying to do something other than stand in front of the sword mound, and he hated to see the looks on their faces when they caught him here again.
Before he left, he brushed a hand over the top of the mound and said, "Still. I can't help it when I see your Shang-shishu. You look so much like the one who created you." He turned and swept away.
Having hidden around the corner upon realizing Shen Qingqiu was lost in thought at A-Luo's grave again, Ning Yingying stared after her Shizun, not knowing what to think.