Mud and Rain

White light.

Then, gravity.

Then, a splash.

Luo Yi woke up coughing up water. He was lying on something hard and wet. He blinked, wiping sludge from his eyes.

He was in a rice paddy. A very muddy, very mundane rice paddy.

The sky was gray. It was raining—a soft, drizzling rain.

Luo Yi sat up. He checked his chest. His core... it wasn't shattered. It felt strange. Not heavy, not light. Just... messy. Like a room that had been ransacked but was still standing.

He looked down at his wrist. The red cord was gone, burned away by the lightning. But a faint red mark encircled his skin like a tattoo.

"Shen An?"

He looked around frantically.

A few feet away, lying face down in the mud, was a figure in white robes that were now decidedly brown.

Luo Yi scrambled over. He turned him over.

Shen An groaned. He opened his eyes. The gold in them was dimmer, mixed with flecks of gray. But he was alive.

"We're not dead," Luo Yi whispered, checking Shen An’s pulse. "How are we not dead?"

Shen An sat up, wincing. He looked at his hands. "My karma... it is gone. I cannot feel the gold."

Luo Yi checked his own aura. "My jinx... it's quiet. I think... I think we crashed the system. The lightning hit both of us and got confused."

They sat there in the rain, two broken cultivators in a muddy field in the middle of nowhere. Their swords were snapped. Their money pouches were gone. They had fallen out of the sky and lost their destinies.

Luo Yi started to laugh. It bubbled up out of him, hysterical and relieved.

"Look at you," Luo Yi gasped, pointing at Shen An. "The Jade Sword. Covered in pig muck."

Shen An looked down at his ruined robes. Then he looked at Luo Yi, whose hair was standing on end from the static.

Shen An smiled.

It wasn't a small smile. It was a real, bright, eye-crinkling smile.

"You are no better, husband," Shen An teased softly.

Luo Yi stopped laughing. His heart did a complicated flip. "Husband? You're moving fast, Golden Boy. I haven't even bought you dinner."

"You have no money," Shen An pointed out.

"True. I'm broke. And powerless. And probably lost." Luo Yi leaned forward, resting his forehead against Shen An’s. "Regret it?"

Shen An reached up, wiping a smear of mud from Luo Yi’s cheek. He leaned in and kissed him again, slow and gentle, tasting of rain.

"The mud is fine," Shen An whispered against his lips. "As long as you are stuck in it with me."

Luo Yi grinned, interlacing their fingers. "Well then. Which way to the nearest tavern? I think I can charm us a free meal."

"I think we will wash dishes," Shen An corrected, standing up and pulling Luo Yi with him.

"Buzzkill," Luo Yi said affectionately.

They turned and walked into the mist, hand in hand, stumbling over the uneven ground, arguing about who loved who more, while the rain washed the past away.