Chapter 27 Yiran
Yiran
It’s not him. It can’t be him.
There was a grave, a tombstone, annual visits to the cemetery with Ash and his grandfather—
But they didn’t find a body.
Song Liming had gone down twelve years ago in a battle with Revenants at the old seaport across the river. A massive electrical
fire had erupted on the site, complicating the mission and the recovery. No survivors were found, just ash and bone.
Yet here was the man in the flesh.
How could he be alive? More importantly, how could he be the leader of the Hybrid Revenants—and still remain human?
Curiosity gleamed in his eyes as Song Liming rested his hand on Yiran’s shoulder. “In a perfect world, we would not be meeting
like this. I would have been there for you from the start.”
His words were meant to build a connection, but instead, they unlocked a torrent of fury in Yiran. How dare this man waltz
back into Yiran’s life like this? How dare he put his own son’s life in mortal danger?
Glaring, Yiran smacked his hand off.
Surprise crossed Song Liming’s face.
“Oh, come on,” Yiran jeered. “Did you really think I was going to give you a big hug and say, Hey, Dad, nice to finally meet you?”
Liming’s jaw ticked briefly with irritation before he attempted a cajoling smile. “I understand it’ll take time for you to
accept this. But you should know that your mother and I—”
“I don’t want to hear whatever sorry excuses you have about my mother!
” Yiran shouted. He’d been on the verge of passing out earlier, but a different kind of adrenaline kept him going.
“I want to know why you’re alive when everyone thinks you’re dead.
I want to know why you are leading the Hybrids. ”
Liming seemed to understand that his son was in no state to reconcile, and he dropped all pretense of trying. He straightened
his jacket, voice sharp with calculation as he spoke. “I suppose it’s unexpected that someone who was once the face of the
Exorcist Guild would also be the person thwarting their efforts. But you must admit, there’s some poetry in the irony. What
and whom the Guild created will ultimately destroy it.”
“Save your rhetoric,” Yiran snapped. “I want the truth.”
Liming spread his arms, as if in welcome. “The truth is all I wish to share with you.”
Yiran wasn’t falling for that. But he was curious. “Go on.”
“From the moment of their discovery, the Guild Council hid the existence of Hybrids,” Liming said. “But there were a handful
of Exorcists, myself included, who thought the Hybrids might be the key to discovering the source of the Blight and getting
rid of it for good. If we could figure out why Blighted humans who survive the transformation retain aspects and traits of
their humanity, perhaps we could find a way to reverse it. A proper alliance with the Hybrids might be impossible, but it seemed to me that an agreement of some kind could be made.
But the Council was against any discussion. The old fools were reluctant to rock the boat, even if it meant the possibility
of eventual peace.”
There was some reason in what Liming was saying. Since the Blight was the source of all their troubles, wouldn’t it make sense
to target it directly? But Yiran wasn’t sure if Exorcists and Hybrids could ever work together, and he wasn’t surprised that
his grandfather would be against something so risky.
As if reading his thoughts, Liming went on.
“We clashed, your grandfather and I, more often than you’d think.
The Council sticks to their tried and tested ways.
They look to history to guide them, but they don’t learn from its lessons.
The world changes quickly, and progress does not come without forging new and unexplored paths.
Progress cannot happen without disruption, without pain—” He threw a loaded glance at Yiran. “Without sacrifice.”
Yiran tensed at the last two words. Was there a hidden meaning he was missing?
“As for your question about my presumed death—it was a Hunt where everything went wrong. Because of faulty intel, the Guild
sent in a small team, and the Revenant nest turned out to be bigger and the creatures more vicious than expected.” Liming
lowered his head, nodding to himself. “We fought hard, but it wasn’t enough. My team was badly wounded. I was the strongest,
so I lured the Revenants away, thinking I could manage on my own while my team found safety. I didn’t count on running into
another nest along the way. By then, my spiritual energy was mostly spent. I was hurt, close to death when she appeared.”
Yiran frowned. “She?”
Liming looked directly at him. “It was a Hybrid who saved me that night.”
“A Hybrid?” Yiran shook his head in disbelief. “Even if that’s true, you can’t throw away the lives of the rest of humanity
because of one Hybrid. Maybe she was after your spiritual energy and—”
Liming’s glare was so cutting, Yiran shut his mouth. But there was something else in his father’s anger.
Sadness.
“The Hybrid was a child,” Liming said, in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. “A young girl, hardly older than Noah.”
An image of Noah’s crumpled form flashed in Yiran’s mind, and he trembled, trying to erase the memory.
“She was astonishing, in control of her weapons and completely human in the way she looked,” Liming said with hushed awe.
“Perfect, like she was touched by a higher power. The girl knew it was my job as an Exorcist to kill her, but she still wanted to
help, and she said she would stay with me until some of my strength returned in case more Revenants came. She also told me
something that shocked me—she could control her hunger for yangqi.”
Like Yuki, Yiran thought. Was that why Liming took him in?
“I was her enemy,” Liming continued, “but she extended a hand. It made me think that maybe it was possible to have an alliance, that there were other ways that people with magic—different kinds of magic—could live together
without strife. She gave me hope that the world I envisioned stood a chance. But my comrades found us.” Bitterness distorted
his features as his hands curled into fists. “I assured them the Hybrid girl meant no harm and that she’d saved me. That she
could help us vanquish the Revenants despite possessing yinqi.”
Liming stopped, as if the memory caused him pain.
“What happened next?” Yiran couldn’t help but ask, engrossed in Song Liming’s narration. He hated to admit it, but there was
a charisma about the man. When he spoke, you listened. Yiran felt this way with his grandfather, and to a certain extent,
with Ash. He was beginning to understand why a bunch of ragtag half humans might follow someone who, as far as Yiran could
tell, had remained completely human.
“They killed her.”
Yiran could feel the pain in Song Liming’s voice, see it in his eyes.
“She tried to tell them—I tried to tell them, but they attacked anyway. My former mentees, people I thought I knew well, people I thought I’d trained
well. One of them was a fellow Captain I respected. They did not listen. They killed her out of fear. Murdered her even though
she was a child, even though she made no move to defend herself—even though there was something so clearly human about her.”
Liming turned away from Yiran. “I’m not proud of what I did next, but I did it because I had to.”
He didn’t have to spell it out. He killed his team, Yiran realized in horror. He set the fire himself.
“And then you decided to fake your death instead of telling the truth?” Yiran demanded, his voice shaking. “Why didn’t you
come clean with the Council? Why not tell them about what happened with the Hybrid girl?”
“Do you think they would have believed me?” Liming scoffed.
“That they would believe a Hybrid like that existed?
One who would fight alongside us? Besides, I had no evidence; her body turned to ash.
And even if the Guild believed me, would they have stopped hunting the Hybrids?
I had friends I cared about who suffered greatly because
of the Guild, people the Council wanted to control because they feared what they were capable of. I couldn’t trust the Council.”
Friends who had suffered because of the Guild? Was he talking about Matthias Lin? Was the Guild Council the reason why Matthias never graduated from the Academy? And why
he seemed like a shell of a man now?
“I knew how the Guild operated—I was part of it.” Liming studied a stunned Yiran intently. “You know your grandfather, so you tell me what he would’ve done if I’d gone to him with the so-called truth.”
Yiran didn’t respond. His brain was still piecing together information he’d just heard and what Matthias had shared with him
at the cemetery. There were gaps in what he knew, but one thing was indisputable: Song Wei and the Guild Council had a pattern
of wanting to control the narrative and discarding those who doubted their story. Song Liming was no hero, but neither was
the Council.
“That night at the seaport changed the trajectory of my life’s purpose,” Liming said. “I knew there had to be more Hybrids
like that girl. More importantly, I knew the Guild had to be torn down. There is no reasoning with indoctrination. Closed
minds are formed, not born. If I cannot get rid of the root of humanity’s problem, if the Blight itself cannot be destroyed,
then there are two courses of action. One, we find a way to immunize every human against a Revenant attack—”
“But how?” Yiran cut in.
“By mixing yang and yin. If a person possesses yinqi, it theoretically decreases the chances of them being a Revenant’s prey.
Two, by making sure even normies can defend themselves against the Revenants. There aren’t enough people who are born capable,
with naturally strong spirit cores and the ability to wield magic.”
“What are you saying?” Yiran asked, even more disturbed by what he was hearing.
“Don’t you see?” There was a fervor in Liming’s eyes. “The Hybrid girl who saved me opened my eyes to possibilities. She was someone who possessed those two qualities.”
It took several moments for his words to sink in.
They’ve been experimenting with a new spell that’s similar to the one the girl cast on you. . . . The spell worked, and the kid transformed. . . . This new talisman can be used again and again. . . .
There aren’t enough people who are born capable, with naturally strong spirit cores and the ability to wield magic.
His father wanted to transform normies into Hybrids in some warped attempt to save them.
Yiran took a step back. “You’re batshit insane.”
“On the contrary, I prefer to think I have been enlightened.”
He’s serious. Song Liming hadn’t been influenced by the Hybrids nor persuaded to help them. He was the grand mastermind of the revolution.
Liming gestured at the assembly hall. “Believe it or not, what happened earlier in the Simulator was all you.”
“That’s not possible,” Yiran insisted.
“Amazing how your mind refuses to accept that you are indeed capable of more—of greatness. What did your grandfather do to
you? How did he take a child so full of life and potential and turn him into someone so full of doubt? Think carefully about
what he did to you. Was he really trying to draw magic from you?”
Yiran didn’t have a response. His feelings toward his grandfather were too complex to parse.
“Perhaps you are not yet ready to open your eyes to see yourself,” Song Liming said, almost sadly. He pointed at the exit.
“You won your fight. I’m a man of my word. You are free to go; no Hybrid will stop you.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Yiran stumbled through the exit, reeling from everything he’d just witnessed.