#oyzz

Being a sect heir comes with many perks. The most obvious is, of course, financial freedom. The money. If you're the son of a sect leader, even if it's a smaller sect, cash racks in and you have nearly unlimited access to it.

Ouyang Zizhen has never been a frivolous spender, though - well, if you don't count his propensity for books, that is. He does have a large, diverse library of literature of all kinds, from all lands that merchants sell from, and he has no qualms adding more to it whenever the chance arises. He loves to read nearly as much as he loves to write.

That's another thing he splurges on - writing brushes and fine quality paper. He always argues that the quality of his stories should be reflected in the medium they are written in - a bit of an arrogant assessment considering most of his stories are... adult commissions, to put it elegantly, but this has historically been the only way for his father to be convinced that his son's hobby shouldn't be done away with in favor of something else, "more useful".

Well, to Zizhen, writing is very useful. Not only does he make some extra cash of his own on the side (that he doesn't have to account to anybody for, unlike his sect money), but it also makes him happy. He likes creating worlds, characters and convoluted situations to put them in. It's like mentally playing with dolls - or at least that's what Jingyi says, and Zizhen agrees.

The second best perk of being a sect heir is the fact that, with some exceptions, he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. He can even use the guise of "furthering sect relations" to travel to his heart's content, visiting his friends in Gusu, or even taking the trip to Lanling to gossip with Jin Ling.

He's been enjoying this perk a lot more than usual now that the days are longer and the weather has warmed up. The discussion conference is next month, which means his father is particularly busy setting up his long list of insufferable complaints, so Zizhen is free to roam the land for a few more weeks until his old man remembers about him.

Zizhen doesn't mind this one bit. He gets to visit high mountain peaks and beautiful cliffs overlooking the sea, fairs and festivals, faraway places he's only ever read about.

The third perk of being a sect heir is that he gets to help people sometimes only using his status. As annoying as his father can be, sect leader Ouyang has managed to gain quite a bit of a name after he sealed some advantageous trade deals and doing away with unnecessary expenditures (bless his new advisors!) - so now people respect his name more than they ever used to. In fact, after Zizhen's lectures in Gusu, he himself has encouraged his father take in more people to turn into disciples and set out for more frequent night hunts in the area. People needed help, and if the Ouyang sect could provide it, benefits on both sides would come pouring in.

Zizhen has always been like that - so very aware of his privileged position in the world and seeking to use that privilege to help the less fortunate. He knows the way the world works, has seen it firsthand in his many travels. The rich and powerful live in a world of their own, unwilling, or at the very least unaware, that, in fact they share that world with everybody else.

Zizhen has seen it all - the beatings, the abuse, the mockery. And so he swore to himself he is never going to be an accomplice to that. If there's anybody that can help, it's those that have the means to - politically, financially, through cultivation. And he's one of those people. He wants to be.

So, he doesn't regret this. It would be hypocritical of him to. In a way, he's always expected it would happen like this - because being a sect heir doesn't only have perks.

There are perils too.

He takes in a deep breath, and tries to sit properly against the tree, feeling the soft caress of the moss against the nape of his neck. It makes him smile, how he's never appreciated it before.

The wound in his stomach seeps blood over his ornate robes much like the nearby river seeps water down tall rocks, crystalline in the faint moonlight. He wonders if his blood glistens like that in the diffuse lighting, like fireflies dancing on top of a lake...

He smiles again. He really can't help being poetic, can he? Whatever could be poetic about somebody dying alone, in a forest far away from home, after allowing himself to believe a sob story about people needing help nobody else had bothered to provide?

Zizhen has always believed the world is full of good people, and so he has forgotten that there are bad people out there too. Bad people that hate him without having ever met him, people that want him dead just because of his name or the conditions he was born in. People that don't know how much good he has done, or the plans he has to reform his sect and help those that nobody has ever paid attention to. How much he disagrees with his father, though he loves him, how much he wishes that the name he carries will only be associated with kindness.

Zizhen doesn't regret this, no. He doesn't regret standing up for that young lady in the streets just now - those thugs were so much stronger than her, and they would have taken her away and hurt her had Zizhen not intervened. Who knows what horrors she would have had to endure had he not charged at her assailants?

It's better that it's him and not her, right? ...right?

There was no way for him to know who they were and what vendetta they had with his father. He would have still defended that young lady even if he knew, no doubt about it - but he would have tried to hide his face or conceal his identity in some way.

But he didn't, and it's too late for that now. At least the young lady managed to run away. Now that he thinks about it, Zizhen's dying a hero. An unsung, nameless hero, but a hero nevertheless.

He wonders if anyone will notice he's gone. They're used to him being away for long periods of time, so they probably won't. Father is busy with his sect business, mother is... not around. He doesn't have any siblings... his friends are all busy, living their lives in their own homes and sects... It will be a while before anyone realizes Zizhen has been gone for too long, and even more so until they find his body.

Or whatever will be left of him. There are many animals living in this forest, the moment they pick up on his scent, they'll probably...

Zizhen feels tears slide down his face. He really wishes he wasn't alone right now... He's always tried so hard to make friends and keep them close just so he wouldn't feel so lost and abandoned all the time. He always wrote everyone letters and invited them over and shared his passions with them - tried so fucking hard to surround himself with the love he always felt he was missing.

But such is life - the more you chase something, the further away it gets.

It shouldn't be so cold, it's the middle of summer. But Zizhen feels chills climbing up his spine, and a muted terror settles into his bones. He's going to die, he's really going to die, any moment now. He's going to die without having ever fallen in love, without having had a family, without having achieved anything at all. He's going to die and there will be nothing left of him in the world, nobody will remember he even existed in a few dozen years.

He won't ever get to see his father again, his home, his friends, he's won't ever get to finish all the books he's collected, he won't ever get to live again.

He wishes he could scream, but it all hurts too much, and his body feels numb and distant, his vision blurry at the edges. He thinks he almost sees them, his family, his friends, running through the foliage to find him, to hold him in his last moments.

But he knows that's not true. Nobody is coming for him. Nobody but death.

But there is something Zizhen doesn't realize, not as his eyes turn glassy and opaque, not as his chest stills and his heart stops beneath his ribcage. Not even as the tears and the blood dry, not even as, despite his last thoughts, his loved ones rush to look for him and break down in tears when they find him.

He doesn't realize he'll always live on, in the stories he has written, in the world he has created, his soul weaved into every word, his voice laid down in dozens upon dozens of pages.