Summary: Yu Ziyuan was not even supposed to answer that early morning call. It was meant for A-Li, for anyone else, really, that wasn't her. She knew that she was the wrong one to be here with him. That would not stop her doing what she had to do, from being the person he needed her to be.
Wei Wuxian is assaulted. During the examination that follows, Yu Ziyuan learns more about him. She learns more about herself as well.
Authors Note: So, I really hadn't planned on splitting up the chapter yet again, but it really was getting too long lol. The good news though is that this resulted in much of the next chapter being written before the split. I hate to make promises, but hopefully it should be out within the next few days!
Heaven Has No Rage
Chapter Five:
Yu Ziyuan was shocked to discover that, upon her return, the room was not silent. She was not unaware just how wrong it was that silence could become so normal that its absence would be genuinely bewildering.
She had not been gone for long, and if it weren't for basic biology inevitably demanding it of her, she wouldn't have left at all. The initial urge to flee, the one that had sent her retreating to the hallway in a state of rage the first time, had been left behind what felt like ages ago. No, she sat in her uncomfortable chair dutifully, watching the proceedings as they unfolded. She sat as the doctor stood the boy over another sheet of paper and combed his hair thoroughly. She sat through the monotonous act of the doctor meticulously scraping under all ten of his fingernails.
She would have sat through even more, but she could not have ignored her need for the restroom any longer.
Once the doctor had stepped out of the room again, Yu Ziyuan had excused herself as well, and made a point to be quick with her break. Of the two of them, it was not her who was entitled to an escape, after all. So, while she wanted to stay locked up in the bathroom, hidden from all eyes that would perceive her, and simply allow herself to process, she did not. The only indulgence she allowed herself was a quick splash of water on her face before she returned back into the fray.
All in all, she had only been away for a few minutes. Yet, the atmosphere of her return made her feel as if she had been gone for ages.
She felt this way because the boy was whistling.
The sound was quiet through the wooden door, but loud enough that it stopped her in her tracks before she could turn the handle. She usually always recognized the melodies he played, but she had never heard this one from him before. It must be a special one, for him to indulge in it now of all times.
The noise of it seemed so... out of place. Not because of its foreign, melancholy tune, but simply its existence at all. Surely such a pretty sound did not belong in that dark, soulless room, and yet there it was, breaking through the silence that had made the place its home.
The boy was fond of whistling, she knew, as she supposed was to be expected from a wind instrument player. It drove A-Cheng absolutely insane—which probably contributed to the frequency in which Wei Wuxian did it. Yu Ziyuan herself, while usually very similar to her son in terms of patience, was not irritated by the constant bouts of song nearly as much. Like any parent, after raising three children even she had grown a tolerance for minor annoyances.
(She had even come to understand that some annoyances were not really annoyances at all. They could even be one of life's tiny, often overlooked, but no less valuable gifts, if one were willing to see it that way.)
Through the window of the door, she could see him sitting there, eyes closed, body just as rigid as it had been for the past several hours. Even so, there was a look on his face that was almost... peaceful, perhaps. Soft, even where his skin crinkled around the 'O' of his lips, as if he had that flute he loved so much physically before him, not just in his thoughts. Or maybe it simply seemed that way with his eyes shielded away, their haunting depths unable to stain everything else.
Her eyes darted over to the corner of the double exit doors, where the long-legged spider still hung, waiting. She wondered, absurdly, if it could hear the melody. She wondered if spiders were ever impressed by such things.
As expected, the noise stopped the minute the handle clicked underneath her grip. His eyes landed on her as she came into view, but dropped away before she even had the door fully closed. Nonetheless she could feel him tracking her, keeping tabs on her every move as she crossed the room. She made sure not to step too close, to stay on the outside of the invisible wall around himself and the exam table, the one that had no place for her inside of it.
(She was not sure when exactly he had built it. She was not sure if it was a new invention, born from all the other things of this morning he was trying to keep out, or if it had been there longer than that.)
When she finally reached her chair and sat, she could practically feel him releasing his long held in breath.
The room was once more filled with quiet, the kind she had long since resigned herself to. Yet, despite this, one could only handle so many uncomfortable, weighted silences at once. She found herself compelled to speak.
"That was not the piece you've been working on," she remarked, after enough time had passed that it was only slightly awkward.
He blinked at her. "What?"
She frowned, suitably displeased by his attempted obtuseness. "The tune you were whistling. That's not the song you've been working on recently."
He blinked several more times, then said, "How did you know...?"
She only barely kept from rolling her eyes, but she was sure that the desire to do so was well known. "We share a home, Wei Wuxian. I can hear when and what you are playing."
For that matter, she had shown up to all of his band recitals alongside the rest of her family, had heard all of his performances of personally composed pieces. While she had never said it, she had felt a deep satisfaction that a child of her home managed to completely captivate the audience with his genius every time. His musical talent was one area where Yu Ziyuan was more than willing to give him the credit he deserved (it was the only one, after all, that no one could compare his greatness to A-Cheng, who wasn't a musician at all).
In any case, she was well aware of what his artistic tone was. As far as she could tell, Wei Wuxian had a very unusual taste in music. Most of the songs he composed had a dark feel to them, the notes shrouded in something that was almost dangerous. If he was not trying to induce terror, then his music was playful, fun, the kind that made you feel light just from hearing it.
Wistful was not a word she would use to describe his tone, and yet that was the one that came to mind as she replayed the tune in her head. Yu Ziyuan was not a musician, but she could pick up that much. She was certain the melody was not one of his making.
"Oh," he said, with his eyes looking quite wide. The expression on his face was... hard to describe. It made her feel the inklings of embarrassment, as if she had said too much.
Before her reaction could turn into something ridiculous, Yu Ziyuan pressed, "Well, what was it?"
"Nothing," he said. "Just... something someone I know wrote."
That he thought he could fool her was an insult to her intelligence. She refused to believe that a song he chose now of all times to comfort himself with meant nothing. She wondered if it was a matter she was at liberty to question him on.
She decided it wasn't. For that matter, she wasn't sure what else she could say. She thought that maybe she could ask him more about the song he was working on; it would be a pleasant enough conversation topic. Yet something told her that that question would be too vague, too open-ended, too likely to have him sweating underneath her attention rather than relaxing under it.
She decided to say nothing, and let the inevitable silence win out once more. That Wei Wuxian did not seem inclined to try and fill it was surely enough evidence that he preferred it. Who was she to tell him how to conduct himself as the time passed and passed, waiting for the doctor to come back and torment him some more?
She turned her head to the side, a not at all subtle attempt to keep from staring at him. From this angle, she could more clearly see the window, could even see the sky through the peek between the curtains. The cracks of color in the backdrop told her that the night sky was surely reaching its end. Even so, she could still see the glow of a single, distant star, not yet hidden by the sun's light.
Yu Ziyuan had never been all that interested in stars. They were nice to look at, she supposed, but she could never get into the lore or supposed divine knowledge obtained solely by their positions in the sky. She had taken an astronomy course once with A-Mei and forgot nearly everything she learned within a day of completing the final exam.
She did remember one story, though, the one of the Pleiades. It told of seven sisters running from a lecherous hunter, who all escaped by being transformed into bright, shining stars.
It had never been Yu Ziyuan's favorite. She would have been more impressed if the seven sisters, who clearly outnumbered the one hunter, had thought to turn around and fight. At the time, she could not see how fleeing was something worth being rewarded. Yet, the most shocking thing was, the tale was not exclusive to the Greeks. It had been told across several cultures, with variations, of course, but its core was almost always the same. A group of people, running from something hurting them, becoming something more.
It was a useless tale to think about. It was not even as if she could see them—early morning or not, the star pattern was only visible in the winter sky. For that matter, she probably would not be able to pick them out anyway. She could stare all she wanted, but she had never appreciated the stars enough to understand why certain ones were special, why they stood out from the rest.
As predicted, the last vestiges of nighttime darkness did not last long. In almost no time at all, the hour of proper morning came. The glow of the rising sun seeped through the curtains of the window behind her, no doubt illuminating the sky in a bright, promising grey. Outside, she could hear the distant hum of cars drifting down the highway, early rising commuters likely on their way to their early rising jobs.
Despite the evidence, it still felt... wrong. How could a new day be dawning when they were still here, still living this moment, still plagued by the sins of the night before? Nothing about it felt right.
Her mind drifted towards her children. She was sure they must have both made it back home by now. She wondered what they were doing. No doubt they were waiting anxiously, too worried about their brother to have dared to rest while they still had the chance to do so. Perhaps they were speculating on what exactly had happened, dissecting the vague words Yu Ziyuan had offered them in hopes of uncovering the truth. A fist fight, they had probably guessed, maybe even a mugging. Maybe they had guessed the truth. Yu Ziyuan was unsure that she herself would have ever come to such a conclusion.
A not-small part of her hoped that they hadn't. They were adults, she knew, more than capable of handling the truth. Even still, Yu Ziyuan was no less their mother. If she had it her way, her children would never even have to wonder about such an evil thing.
Of course, if she had had it her way, neither she nor Wei Wuxian would have ever needed to set so much as a single foot in this hospital, never mind everything else this exam had brought. That they were here, nonetheless, was more than enough proof that life could not always be what she wanted it to be.
Wei Wuxian seemed to have already taken that lesson to heart. He did not complain (had not complained about anything, really, Yu Ziyuan realized) as the doctor directed him to lie on his back while she drew his blood. His brow did twitch from the pain as she slid the needle into his skin, though he still said nothing.
Dr. Lan Yi still gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. We're almost done."
Yu Ziyuan wondered if she meant it. The apology was true, she was sure, but she could not help but to doubt the rest. They had been here for hours.
Wei Wuxian had said it would take as long, so she could not claim that she had not been suitably warned. Admittedly, though, part of her figured he had exaggerated so she would be compelled to leave. She hadn't truly expected that the examination of a single boy's body could take nearly so long.
In all honesty, she hadn't expected a lot of things. The fault was her own, really. The doctor had been very clear on what the examination would entail. Despite that, though, Yu Ziyuan still had not expected it to be so... invasive. She had not expected it to be such an ordeal. Yes, it had all sounded suitably unpleasant when the doctor was explaining it. Unpleasant, but not so—so nearly unbearable.
Looking back, though, Yu Ziyuan should have known that words read off paper would never be able to fully encompass reality. No explanation could possibly compare to living through it. And she hadn't lived through it, not really, but even just bearing witness had her feeling more drained and exhausted than she ever had in her whole life.
She couldn't even imagine what it must be like for Wei Wuxian. She really, truly couldn't.
She had already made it clear that she was proud of Wei Wuxian for making it so far, and she still was. Next to the pride, though, Yu Ziyuan's doubts began to fester. She wondered... if she had been wrong to push him into this. She wondered if maybe this had been a mistake.
She knew that it wasn't. She knew that this needed to be done. Even so, doubt was an inevitable compatriot of guilt, and not even she could fight against the force of it.
Doubt or not, logic had not left her entirely. For that matter, she knew that 'guilt' was the wrong word to use. She had not erred in pressuring him to get proper treatment, in making sure that all evidence needed to bring Wen Chao to justice was gathered. She could not allow herself to believe she was wrong for that. Rather she was...
Sorry. That was the word. She was sorry that it had come to this at all. She was sorry that, because of the evil of others, Wei Wuxian had to go through this. She was sorry that all she could do now was seek justice for a crime that had already been committed. She was sorry that she could not have somehow, someway, saved him from this.
How much longer would it be? How much more would they put him through? She hoped it would be done soon. She hoped there would not be much more. For his sake, she needed it to end.
The blood drawing, at least, did not last much longer. The moment the needle was withdrawn, the doctor covered the point of entry with a thick cotton ball held down by a strip of tape. Then, when all of the materials were gathered up, Dr. Lan Yi left the room, once again promising to return soon.
The silence took over the room again, the only familiar friend that could be found in this place.
Though she supposed that a benefit of silence was that it allowed her to notice things she might have once overlooked. Like now, as she noticed how Wei Wuxian was frowning down at the bandage on his arm. He had been doing that nearly since the moment the doctor had stuck it to his skin.
Yu Ziyuan's first reaction was to question why he was reacting that way. She held it back, though. She reminded herself that she did not need to be made privy to Wei Wuxian's every waking thought. If he was thinking something he felt she should know, he could certainly say it himself.
Sure enough after a few more minutes passed, he spoke up, "Madame Yu?"
"Yes?"
"Do you... think I can take this bandage off now?"
She blinked, a bit dumbfounded. "I can't imagine why not."
"I won't, like, start bleeding everywhere?" Seeming to realize just how ridiculous of a statement that was, he hurried to clarify, "I just—I mean it's directly from the vein, so I didn't know if..."
She blinked some more. Though she supposed it made sense in a way? She had never sat with him during a doctor's appointment, but she had always made a point to look over his medical records. The health of the members of her house was knowledge worth knowing, after all. As far as she could remember, Wei Wuxian had never gotten blood work done, had never endured anything more strenuous than immunization shots, not like how sickly little A-Li had. Other than the aftermath of his time on the streets, he had always been the picture of health.
"No, Wei Wuxian, that won't happen." She jerked her head towards the bandaged spot. "It's making your arm hurt?"
He nodded.
"It has been some time. You're probably fine to take it off."
At least he did not seem inclined to doubt her wisdom. He peeled off the tape, tossing it down to join the bags of vomit in the wastebin by the exam table. Despite the relief, though, his face was still twisted, still etched with discomfort. It seemed very odd to her that this of all things seemed to bother him. She knew very well that it was not the only place he was feeling pain. She knew it wasn't even the worst of the pain he was feeling.
Without a word, she stood and went over to the sink. She ripped off a section of the paper towel roll beside it. She then turned the blue-marked handle and let the water run over it. When the paper was thoroughly saturated, she pulled it away and folded it up into a neat square. With her free hand, she also pulled a cup from the same drawer the doctor had earlier and filled that too with water.
She turned on her heel and made her way towards him. His eyes tracked her once more as she came closer. He seemed willing to grant her entry, but still the look on his face made her think of the rabbit picture still sitting on the desk. She didn't bother with the impossible task of making herself seem less threatening, less like the predator to his prey.
She came up as close as she dared. On the inside of his elbow, she could see the dot of wounded pink on his still abnormally pale skin. She promptly laid the paper square down over it, covering the spot in a cool, wet blanket.
"Better?" she asked.
"... Yeah. Thank you," he said, sounding awkward, but genuine. He reached for the water cup.
"Not yet," she told him, digging her hand around in the small purse that she'd had only thought to bring because it had been hanging on the coat hook right outside their front door. Within the next second, she pulled out a tiny bottle of pills. Her husband's near constant headaches and joint pains had prompted her to always carry around a bottle of pain relievers.
"Hold out your hand," she said, as she unscrewed the cap.
He did not hold out his hand. "I don't know if I should..."
She furrowed her brow. "The doctor said a while ago that it was fine for you to eat and drink."
"No, I mean, if I throw up again it'll be wasted."
That was a possibility, she supposed. That was the reason that she hadn't offered to bring him something with substance to eat, even after the doctor swabbed his mouth and deemed it alright to do so. His periods of sickness seemed to be lessening, but she supposed the sudden nauseating urge to vomit wasn't quite something you could predict.
"An attempt is not a waste," she said, nonetheless.
He looked unconvinced, but still held out his palm.
As she shook the bottle over his hand, one too many of the pills fell out. Without much thought, she reached out and grabbed it. It was not until she was dropping the pill back into the container that she realized how close she had just come to touching him. Perhaps she had, the microfibers of their skin meeting in that split second of a moment.
It was a ridiculous thing to get worked up over, of course, the kind of thing she never would have before. She was not sure how many times she had touched him directly, her skin firmly on his unless she was dragging him (and likely A-Cheng as well) somewhere. Maybe enough times to count on her hands. Maybe more than that. Maybe never. She really didn't know. She had never thought to care about such a thing.
She wondered if Wei Wuxian had ever cared about such a thing.
Other than the slight twitch of his palm, he didn't seem to care now. He slipped the pills into his mouth and took a long sip of his water.
"Thank you," he said after he swallowed it all.
Yu Ziyuan arched a brow. "Are you always so thankful for the smallest things?"
He seemed somewhat taken aback by the question, though it still did little to affect the monotone of his voice. "Should I not be?"
Yu Ziyuan was not the least bit surprised by the response. Of course the boy was humble. So humble that he could make her seem snobbish by comparison with just one sentence. He could probably fill a book with all his positive traits. Fengmian, if no one else, had surely read and reread that book cover to cover.
Fengmian.
The name sent a jolt of anxiety through her heart. She checked the time on her cellphone, and sure enough, his plane ought to have landed by now. If there had been no delays, then he had already gotten off and probably even retrieved his luggage. It would not be long before he was on the road back to their home, completely unaware of the nightmare that was waiting to suck him in.
Yu Ziyuan knew it was time to call Fengmian. She had already told her daughter she would do so. More importantly, it simply needed to be done. He could not be left in the dark any longer. Wei Wuxian would not like it. She knew that well enough already, but Wei Wuxian had not liked anything that had happened in the last few hours. That fact did not make any of it any less necessary. That fact did not make him any less able to persevere.
"Wei Wuxian," she said.
He lifted his eyes to meet hers.
She saw no purpose in beating around the bush. "You know we must call Fengmian."
He knew it. She knew that he knew it. Even still, his face drained of the last remaining color that it had. His mouth dropped open. It closed. His lips quivered around words he was refusing to say.
"What, Wei Wuxian?"
She realized a second too late—as she only ever seemed able to—that the words were too sharp, too harsh. It was a tone that he did not deserve, not here, in this place, with demons lurking from corner to corner, so real it was a wonder how any light made it through at all.
It was a tone he would not have deserved regardless of the circumstances.
"I cannot know what you are thinking unless you tell me," she tried again, calming her tone and hopefully the look in her eyes as well. She did not know if she was succeeding. She did not know how to be warm, welcoming, inviting. She knew how to be strong, formidable, dangerous, even. She did not know how to make herself seem safe.
She did know how to rise to a challenge, though.
With a voice that could not quite be considered gentle, but closer than she had surely ever managed in her life, she finished, "Whatever it is you have to say, just say it."
His eyes seemed to regard her, feeling out the territory, maybe, evaluating the genuineness of her words. There was uncertainty there, but also something like intrigue, and a third thing that Yu Ziyuan could not quite identify. It unnerved her a bit to be so clearly evaluated, but she did not back down. She let him look over every inch of her face, let him see everything she had waiting underneath.
Whatever it was he was looking for, he must have found it. He dropped his eyes again, but his mouth opened and said, "What if he..."
He looked back up at her and saw her raised eyebrow. She was not at all willing to let him end it at that.
Small and defeated, he said, "What if he's... angry?"
Yu Ziyuan paused at that.
It was a simple enough phrase, yet she knew that he did not mean it literally, at least not entirely. She usually did not catch subtle meanings behind words; Yu Ziyuan, herself, did not believe in hidden connotations. If she had something to say, she made sure you knew exactly what she meant the first time around. She never saw the point in hiding her true words between the lines of falsehoods.
Still, some things were hard to say. She knew that quite well. In those cases, she usually just refrained from saying anything at all, held firmly back by the humiliating notion that any thoughts or feelings could be difficult for her to express. As far as she was concerned, the best way to overcome weakness was to ignore it was there at all.
Maybe Wei Wuxian didn't agree with that. Or maybe he did and just expressed it differently. Either way, one method was surely superior to the other. That he could share his true thoughts even a little compared to her never seemed to speak for itself.
"I imagine he'll be very angry," she said, "but that is not what you mean."
His head shook in a small show of 'no'.
She was not a fool. She could see clearly on his face and through his words that to him, for Fengmian—the man who had adopted him, the man who had raised him as his own—to know what had been done to him would fill him with unbearable shame.
What a true crime against a person this kind of assault was. What other form of attack could violate a person so savagely, yet have them feeling as if they should be ashamed? Not the assailant, not the depraved monster deserving of everything all the hells could offer, but themselves, simply for being made the victim.
It was terrible. It was unfair. It was wrong.
"When Fengmian adopted you, he did not do so lightly," she said, even though he had surely already known that. "You may call him uncle, but you are well aware that he considers you a son."
Wei Wuxian did not confirm it, but he did not deny it either. What was there to oppose? Fengmian did see him as a son. Fengmian saw him so deeply and truly as a son that Yu Ziyuan never could have allowed herself to see the same.
"He loves you," she said, that word so much easier to say when not in relation to herself. "Do you doubt that?"
From the corner of her eye, she could see the nail of his pointer finger dig deeply into his thumb. "No."
"Yet you still think he would be angry with you over this. How could you think that anyone would be angry with you over this?"
"Aren't you?" burst from his mouth.
It shocked her so much that her body nearly jerked back from the force of it.
"You think I am angry with you?" she asked, incredulously.
He gave no response, of course, right when she needed one most. Tried as she might, though, she could not understand why he would believe such a thing.
"I am not a fool, Wei Wuxian," she eventually said, still no closer to guessing the truth. "Why would I be angry with you for this?"
"You should be," fell from his mouth, a tone he had not managed once this whole morning. He sounded almost... desperate, frightened, like his lungs were filling with water, like a thousand hands were holding him down on the pavement.
"All of this is my fault," he went on, both like he needed her to understand but also like he had forgotten she was there at all. "If I hadn't left, if I wasn't always—if I hadn't asked for it then none of this—"
"Wei Wuxian!"
He stopped. The silence was no easier to bear than his words.
Perhaps it was wrong of her to interrupt him. She should be listening, letting him release everything that needed to be let out. In all honesty, she hadn't even meant to, but she had heard those words and found herself filled with such scandalized horror that she couldn't keep it in.
Asked for it. He said he had asked for it.
It was a line pulled directly from the articles she had read. It was a line she had overheard ridiculous men say to justify their disgraceful behavior. It was a line she never believed anyone would ever actually say in relation to themself.
Yet, he said it, so surely that she did not doubt he believed it.
Shame was one thing. It was not right, but she was sure that anyone who had known such a violation would feel it. But to feel as though he—deserved it? How could he possibly think that?
He couldn't think that. It was not something she could allow Wei Wuxian to believe. She could forgive him many things, but not that.
She stood, once more, to her feet.
He looked at her with the seeming disinterest that the grey haze allowed him. It changed when she moved towards him. His eyes grew wider with her every step, every line of his body growing tenser and tenser, but she did not stop. She did not stop until she was right before him, shattering the wall he had wrapped himself in, and she felt no guilt for it.
She knew that she was out of her depth, wading out into waters that were nearly too deep to swim through. She had never been presented with such a task, one that she could fight her way through, one she could not dominate with her force of will, one that only the right words could defeat.
Even still, she did not falter. She would break down every wall, would step where she had not been invited, would pull him out into the open, if that's what it took to make him understand.
She bent at her knees, close enough that she could see every individual fleck of brown in his irises. This close, she could see just how dark the exhausted smudges underneath his eyes were. This close, she could nearly feel the weight of every thought breaking through the grey haze. This close, she could see the cracks where he wanted so desperately to be pure stone.
This close, he had no choice but to listen.
TBC