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: I was absolutely determined to get this out today, on Lan Zhan and I's shared birthday, (even though he plays a very small role in this).
Also, it has not slipped my notice that all my Untamed fics deal with this topic. I promise I have others planned that do not.
Heaven Has No Rage
Chapter One:
It was nearly four in the morning when the call came.
While she would certainly never admit it, Yu Ziyuan had been nearly scared out of her skin when the unrecognizable jingle broke through the quiet of the kitchen. It was a perfectly reasonable response to have, in her opinion. Who would expect to hear the sound of a cellphone call so early in the morning? Certainly not her, and she was suitably appalled by the sound of it.
She became even more appalled when she took in the color and design of the case, and realized it was her daughter's phone. The girl must have forgotten it down here when she went upstairs for bed, or perhaps when she had come down for a snack during the night. In any case, it was here, and it was ringing, far past the acceptable hour for phone calls.
Yu Ziyuan's first reaction was, naturally, to be quite suspicious. Who could possibly be calling her daughter so early in the morning? She doubted it was for anything good. Yu Ziyuan knew exactly what kind of things young people liked to get up to at three in the morning, especially on a Saturday.
She set aside her unfinished mug of the coffee. One might wonder why exactly she was drinking such a beverage when the sun was not even anywhere near the sky. The only response she could give was that it was not, in fact, so she could greet her husband when he returned from his weeks-long business trip on the early morning flight. It had only been a coincidence that she woke up so early, was all, and her nerves would not let her sleep again any time soon.
She crossed the room and picked up the cellphone from the countertop. No name was shown by the caller ID, only the series of numbers of an unsaved caller. The area code matched their region, though, making her think it unlikely that it was a spam caller. It was entirely possible that it was a prank call, but somehow, she doubted that. Did kids even still do those anymore? She was sure that her own were far too old for such behavior.
She gave the phone a very stern frown. Of all the children in her household, A-Li was the one she had to worry about the least. Even as an almost senior in college, she was still incredibly well-behaved, only concerned with her good grades and the properly innocent relationship between her and her fiancé. A solicit phone call in the middle of the night was something she would more expect from A-Cheng or the other one, not from her too-sweet-for-her-own-good daughter.
And yet, here her phone was, ringing. Clearly this caller, whoever they were, was out to corrupt A-Li. Already ready to give such a lowlife a suitable tongue-lashing despite the early hour, she swiped up the answer button, and held the phone up to her ear.
"Yes?" she said sharply.
There was a pause on the other end, then, "Shijie?"
She blinked. She had not expected to recognize the voice, much less for it to be his.
Wei Wuxian.
He and A-Cheng had gone to a sleepover at their friend Nie Huaisang's home earlier that day. Yu Ziyuan was not an idiot. She knew that by "sleepover", they meant "a party so intense they would probably not manage to get themselves home by the end of it".
Yu Ziyuan had allowed it. They were adults, after all, and once they were off at school (both were set to follow their sister to the same university, as many of the other children of their social status, in the fall), they would undoubtedly indulge in such festivities to their heart's content. At least while they were still home, she still had some guarantee they would not get into too much trouble. She was only a neighborhood away, after all, and furthermore, Nie Huaisang's older brother's fury was certainly not one either boy would be willing to test.
Perhaps she had been wrong in that assumption. That the caller was Wei Wuxian did not mean that the call was for anything good. If anything, she doubted it even more.
"No, this is her mother," she told him sharply, very much skeptical of the integrity of this call.
"... Is she there?" he asked, sounding very reluctant to continue the conversation even this far.
"No, she is not, and I would like to know why you would dare to call my daughter at such an hour."
Long seconds went by in silence. She was about to demand a response out of him, when he finally said, "... I need a ride."
She stopped short at that, taking a few extra seconds to process the words. Once she had dissected each one, anger began to burn white-hot through her.
"And is my daughter your chauffeur?" she nearly shouted, only tempering herself so as not to awaken the daughter in question. "What gives you the right to ask such a service of her?"
She would do it too, Yu Ziyuan knew. A-Li would run out in her slippers and with sleep still crusted in her eyes for this boy, no matter where in the world he was and why. That he knew that, would take advantage of A-Li's kindness, was exactly the kind of unforgivable thing that Yu Ziyuan had only recently begun to accept he would never do. It seemed she was wrong.
"I lost my phone," the ungrateful boy said. "Even if there are any Ubers out, I can't get one without it. There aren't any busses running either. She... She told me to call if I needed her."
Of course she had. Why would she offer anything less to a boy she considered her brother?
"Where is my son?" she asked, heatedly.
"Still at the Nie's. He's okay."
She had not asked that, and she wasn't sure what to make of the fact that Wei Wuxian thought it was necessary to add it. Those words seemed to imply that he, himself, was not.
She chose the words of her next question a bit more carefully. "And where exactly is my daughter supposed to run off to in the wee hours in the morning and get you from?"
"Caiyi hospital."
She froze. Somehow, that he could be calling for an... emergency had not crossed her mind.
Are you hurt? Was her first thought, but she could not bring herself to ask that. Instead, she asked, "Why?"
"... I got in a fight," came a very reluctant response.
A fight was not necessarily so worrisome, yet somehow, that answer made her even more wary. Wei Wuxian was hardly the type to fuss over himself. At least, not whenever a fuss was truly warranted. He had no problem—even now at nearly nineteen years old—with whining to his shijie about ridiculous things like paper cuts or sore throats. Anything more than that, he kept to himself. Once, he had fallen out of a tree and broken his arm in three places, and they only noticed when Jiang Cheng playfully shoved him, and the boy screamed and nearly fainted.
Yet, he had apparently taken himself to a hospital. It made no sense.
That word—emergency—flashed through her thoughts again. Something had happened, something more than a fight. She knew that with certainty. That was the only explanation. Something had happened to him and he was refusing to tell her.
You are the wrong person for this, a voice she was familiar with whispered.
He needs you, said a voice she had never heard before, not for him. It was a voice she had no idea how to respond to.
Before she could even think, her subconscious was already making the decision for her.
"I will be there shortly," she said, and promptly hung up.
Moments later, the screen lit back up and the ringtone played once more. She ignored it and went back up the stairs towards her bedroom. She searched through her closest for suitable clothing to throw on. She could hardly go dashing out in her nightie, could she? Someone would have to be prostrate on their deathbed for that, and the boy sounded fine enough to not warrant such urgency.
(Perhaps it was not urgent at all. Perhaps she was about to make a fool of herself for no reason.)
She tried her best to shut her thoughts off. She thought of nothing as she pulled her clothes on, not even the fact that in all the years he lived in her house, that might have been the longest conversation she ever had with him. She thought of nothing at all.
XXX
She had not even arrived yet, and she already regretted the decision.
At least the morning was a cool one, still safe from the summer sun as it were. The breeze flowing through her cracked windows blew away the last vestiges of lethargy, leaving her mind wide awake as she drove down the nearly empty highway. The screen of her Maps app predicted that there was only another ten minutes left of the half-hour journey.
Half an hour. Not that she had not expected it to take that long given her general understanding of geography, but seeing the time digitized on her screen had only served to irritate her further. To think, that she would drive such a distance in the wee hours of the morning for Wei Wuxian of all people.
She should have called Fengmian, she thought, disgruntled. That his plane had not even landed yet and would not for a few hours still was quite irrelevant.
"Your ward has gotten into another fight," She would have said, scathingly. "While you're on the way, think about how much money we are spending to send him to the same school as our children, just so he can spend every night there doing this very thing."
Better yet, she should have woken A-Li, like Wei Wuxian had been planning to do in the first place. Her daughter had offered the boy her aid no matter the time of day, apparently. Certainly, that meant she was willing to deal with the consequences of that.
She hadn't though. She had left her daughter to her sleep, and her husband to whatever peaceful thoughts he had when he wasn't in her presence. She simply slipped into the most comfortable pants she would ever dare wear outside of her home and came.
She could not say why she had decided to make the journey herself. She had thought about it a lot on the way, but she could find no true answer.
She wasn't happy about it though. No, she most certainly was not.
The hospital parking lot was nearly empty, as she supposed was to be expected at such an hour. Realizing that he may not still be near the payphone—making it impossible for her to contact him—she resigned herself to circling around the building until she found him. He would be waiting outside and ready to go if he knew what was good for him.
She rounded the corner and saw that he was, indeed, waiting outside. He was sitting on the curb near the Emergency Room entrance. His knees were drawn up and his head was buried in them, only the scruffy top of his hair visible. Despite pulling up only a few yards away, he did not seem to notice her at all.
She opened the door and called out sharply, "Wei Wuxian."
His head snapped up. His eyes were very wide.
"Madame Yu," he said, the title admittedly archaic, but she had never once corrected him on it. Just as the formal title would have suggested, he was looking at her like he had never seen her before. Rather, like he could not believe she had actually come.
It was fair, she supposed; she could not quite believe it either. Even so, the expression (just like nearly every other expression his face could make) rankled her.
Not long after, though, his eyes dropped again. This was not wholly unusual. Boisterous as the boy was, he had no problems remembering his place when in her presence. Even so, somehow, this show of deference did not appease her. If anything, she found herself even more put off. Perhaps it was because he did not seem to be doing it out of true respect for her, but rather...
Fear.
She could not even remember the last time she saw such a look on his face.
"Tell me what happened," she demanded.
He replied, "I got in a fight with Wen Chao."
"I can see that," she said, a touch derisively. She certainly could see that. His left cheek was bruised pink, as was the skin just next to his right eye. Below that was another bruise, right near his mouth, and from the opposite corner trailed a line of dried blood.
Nonetheless, they were not particularly bad injuries. At least, not bad enough that she thought Wei Wuxian would escort himself to a hospital over them. True to form, there was no evidence that he had even been seen by a doctor at all. His wounds were all uncovered, clearly untreated, and she could see that both of his wrists were bare—no patient bracelet in sight. It seemed that in all likelihood, he hadn't even gone inside the building.
Her mouth opened to demand more, when she registered the rest of what he had said. The name gave her pause, and she realized that perhaps that was information she should have already asked before she came.
Wen Chao. It took her a moment, but she managed to identify him as the second son of Wen Ruohan.
It was not the first time her boys had had altercations with Wen Ruohan's sons. In fact, it seemed the two Wens rather delighted in tormenting whomever was in their path, and neither Jiang Cheng nor Wei Wuxian were the types to make themselves scarce for the sake of peace.
Naturally she did not think very highly of either son of Wen Ruohan (or the man himself for that matter). She felt that their behavior was grossly inappropriate of them. They were, after all, older than Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, as well as the other kids from their year. Far too old to be picking fights with teenagers, for sure.
Not that it made it any more appropriate, but at least their encounters usually did not become physical. The boys often complained of the Wen boys' attitudes, and the shouting matches they often engaged in, but as far as she knew, Wen Ruohan's sons were not so brazen as to come to blows with anyone.
Until now, at least. She looked Wei Wuxian over once more. He had certainly been beaten, there was no doubt about that. She wondered if he had ever been so battered after a fight. She had never bothered to pay attention to that kind of thing when regarding him. Still, there was nothing on the outside that implied he was any worse for wear. That did not necessarily mean he was fine, though. She had heard enough tales about the sons of Wen Ruohan, the kind of cruelties they were capable of.
Unease filtered into her body.
"Are your ribs broken?" she asked.
He blinked up at her, looking almost confused. "No."
"Are you bleeding internally?" she pressed.
Something in his eyes flickered. "No."
She gritted her teeth, suddenly aware that he was being deliberately obtuse. Though instead of the familiar heat of anger his disrespect usually caused, the weight of the unease only grew.
"Then why have you brought yourself here?" she asked. Her tone made it very clear that she would not tolerate any lies.
Even so, he hesitated. He looked away from her, down at the pavement beneath his feet. She only then acknowledged that he had had yet to stand. He stayed curled up on the curb, his body hunched stiffly, like even the thought of moving was painful in itself.
Something rattled underneath her skin, like the jingle of an alarm. If Wei Wuxian had been fighting with Wen Chao, then she had no doubt that A-Cheng would have been just as much a part of it. Yet, he was nowhere in sight. Wei Wuxian had not even mentioned him. She also realized that the neighborhood the Nie family lived in was quite a drive from here, which meant it was an even farther walk. At least two hours, perhaps even more. Why would Wei Wuxian endure such a trek for only a bruised face?
He would not. Neither would A-Cheng allow his brother to fight on his own. Every piece of information slotted together in her mind, almost like a puzzle, only one she had not seen the picture of beforehand. Something had happened, the jigsaw could tell her, but what? What?
Eventually, he said, "I wanted to make sure he didn't... give me anything."
She stared at him. He offered nothing more.
"Give you what?"
An even longer moment of silence. Despite the darkness of the early morning, she could see the air pass harshly through his chest. She could see the words race through his head, almost falling off his tongue. She could see the way the orange industrial lights overhead glowed in his eyes, even though he was not looking at her.
No, his eyes stayed down, watching the concrete pebbles beneath his sneakers, as if they were the only things in the whole world that were safe.
She held her breath, and did not release it until he spoke:
"... An STD."
She released the breath. She forgot just how to take another.
"Excuse me?" she somehow managed to say with no air in her lungs.
He said nothing in reply; dead silence was the only answer it seemed she would get. Even so, it all clicked together, the film over the jigsaw melting away, revealing the picture in all its color beneath.
"He raped you?" came out her mouth next, because she needed to know, needed there to be no doubt in her mind.
Even so, he still said nothing. Just like before, though, he did not need to. She could hear the words he left unsaid in his full-body flinch, could hear them in the stiffness of his muscles, could hear them all over his face, could hear them in the glow of his eyes.
She stood there, the floor only barely remaining beneath her feet, and found herself at a loss.
It only lasted for a moment. Within the next, she was reaching into her purse, and pulling out her cellphone.
That finally seemed to bring his attention to her. "What are you...?"
"I'm calling the police," she answered, as her fingers tapped the dial pad.
"No," he cried, his voice loud and absolutely aghast.
She jerked at the outburst. During the span of her hesitation, he leapt wildly to his feet. He looked like he was only barely restraining himself from ripping the phone from her hands altogether.
"Please... don't," he said.
"Wei Wuxian," she began, slowly. "Wen Chao has committed a grave crime. You intend to let him get away with it?"
"Please," he said again, and never in her life had she seen his eyes look so desperate. "Please, Madame Yu. I can't—I... I just can't."
Once more... she was at a loss.
Her first reaction was to simply ignore him. But would it even matter, if she did? The laws regarding sexual assault (sexual assault. Wen Chao had raped him—) were not something she had ever bothered to commit to her memory. It had never dawned on her that it was information she would ever need to know. She was delving into territory she did not even know where to begin to chart.
Would her calling have any point if Wei Wuxian refused to cooperate?
She thought that perhaps in the case of children, criminal charges were an inevitability with coming forward. Wei Wuxian, however, was not a child (he was though, grown but still so young—), at least not in the eyes of the law. She thought it very likely that Wen Chao could not be brought to justice unless Wei Wuxian was willing to see it done.
It was not something she could force of him, she realized. She could force the members of her family to do lots of things, but Wei Wuxian had always been the least receptive to her control. Partially because she never felt the need to control what was not hers. She imagined that if there were such a thing he would ever outright put his foot down against her on, then it would be for something like this.
She was hit with the sudden thought that it had been too long since she last took a breath. She breathed in, and it hurt going down.
It was too much. (How?) Too many thoughts were swirling around in her head. (How could this have happened?) She had not prepared herself for this, had never even allowed her mind to go down this direction. (How dare he?) Too much at once and she would only send herself spiraling. (He will pay.) She could not decide the proper course of action to take when her own thoughts refused to align themselves. (Breathe.)
Even so, she knew that this must be done. This was not an offense she could turn a blind eye too. No, justice would be sought—she would make sure of that.
"I will not call... for now," she said, sliding the phone back into her pocket. It was all that she was willing to promise.
It seemed enough for him. His shoulders slumped under the weight of his relief. That she had made him so anxious in the first place was almost enough to induce guilt.
Almost.
"Let's go, then," she said, taking cares to let nothing in her voice break.
He nodded, yet he moved towards the car.
"Where are you going?" she asked, and it was only after she said it that she thought that perhaps she should not have made the words sound so sharp.
He looked at the car pointedly, then back at her. "You said 'let's go'..."
"Yes," she said slowly. "Let's go have you seen by a physician."
His face paled. "Madame Yu..."
"Was that not why you brought yourself here?"
"Yes, but..." he trailed off. Evidently, he had changed his mind.
"Wei Wuxian, you must be examined," she said, making it clear that she would not budge, not on this. "It is as you said. We must make sure he has not passed anything... unsavory to you."
And we will need the evidence when we go to court, remained unsaid. They would be though. They would.
He looked like he wanted to argue. She could see it in the clench of his fists and the stiffness of his shoulders. She could see it in his eyes, too. She could see too much in his eyes. There was a heat in his eyes she had never seen before, all the world's pleading, and resistance, and utter pain condensed into two small balls before her.
She fought not to look away, just as he fought to stop fighting. He would not argue with her. He had nothing left within him to argue with.
How could this have happened?, her mind supplied again, unhelpfully. How could that man do something like this? How? How? How?
How long would she have to wait until she could wrap her hands around his neck?
"Come on, then," she decided for him. She turned on her heel and started towards the entrance of the hospital.
A moment later, she heard him follow behind her, like a guilty man being led to the gallows.
TBC
In this modern town, Caiyi and Qinghe are within walking distance of each other, mmkay?