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天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
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Huā Chéng/Xiè LiánWèi Yīng Wèi Wúxiàn Wēn Níng Wēn QiónglínWēn Níng Wēn Qiónglín Wēn QíngWēn Níng Wēn Qiónglín Xiè Lián
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Wēn Níng Wēn QiónglínWēn QíngXiè LiánHuā ChéngLán Yuàn Lán SīzhuīWèi Yīng Wèi Wúxiàn
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Published:2019-12-07Completed:2019-12-11Words:11390Chapters:4/4Comments:241Kudos:1667Bookmarks:436Hits:12202
The Remnants of our Struggle
Naamah_Beherit
Summary:
Wei Wuxian has disappeared without a trace. It falls to Wen Ning to figure out what happened to him and how he can get him back. With a seemingly impossible task at hand, he sets off to Yiling in hopes of finding information and help—if only there were people willing to help him.
Or: a story of friends lost and friends found, and of justice for the forgotten.
Notes:
Hello, my dear readers, and welcome to the story that wouldn't be born if not for Kit's fantastic prompt and gorgeous drawing.
Beta'd by Vampiric_Charms who's the absolute best
Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Market days in Yiling were—
"Fresh fish! Fresh fish! Come get your fresh fish!"
"Rice! Buy three sacks and get the fourth for half the price!"
"Mantou! Look at these mantou!"
—chaos.
It was chaos contained but uncontrollable. Excitement rose like a tidal wave and swept everything on its way, willing or not. To survive on the market days was to shout ever louder, to keep getting ever bolder, to grab fate in one's hand and make it theirs.
It meant being everything Wen Ning was not.
"Radishes!" he called, but his voice drowned in the screams and shouts surrounding him. He had long stopped trying to match them in volume. "Freshly picked radishes!"
A never-ending stream of people passed him by; some indifferent, others – glancing at him briefly and then looking away. He was used to it by now, this not at all subtle scrutiny he couldn't possibly hope to prevent. Wei Wuxian had spat in death's face and torn him from its grasp, but it came with a price. Wen Ning was reminded about it every time he left the unexpectedly found safe haven of the Burial Mounds and ventured into the world beyond to bear the weight of stolen glances and hushed whispers.
And it was perfectly fine. If that was the price of his continuous existence, he would never hesitate to pay it.
Although, admittedly, it had its downsides.
"Radishes!" he shouted again. This time, it was a bit louder, and that tiny success would have made him smile if only he'd been able to. "Fresh radishes, Yiling-grown!"
Was this what being caught in the eye of a storm felt like? This perpetual, overwhelming feeling of being stuck in an inescapable bubble that blocked even sound itself? Sometimes, Wen Ning wanted to bang his fists against it, to scream as he never had, to break the bubble to pieces and return to the world that shunned him. Enduring it was easier when Wei Wuxian was with him, but alas, Wei Wuxian was...
Heavens only knew where he was.
"Mantou! Perfect mantou! All money will be spent on renovating a dilapidated shrine! Please consider paying more, your offerings will be appreciated and you—"
"What a joke," murmured a passerby as he rushed by Wen Ning. Billowy black robes fluttered on the wind in his wake. One of the Yiling Patriarch's self-proclaimed wannabe students, no doubt. For all the respect they claimed to have for him, it was as empty as the Sects' words of gratitude had once been.
Everyone acknowledged only their impression of who Wei Wuxian was rather than look for the person beneath. Wen Ning would lie if he said he hadn't done that himself. But that was then—before Wen Ruohan had taken the world and ripped it to pieces, before the sun had been shot down from the sky, before Wen Ning had died and returned to what now constituted as life. Now Wei Wuxian was the only thing that stood between the Wen remnants and the cultivation world, armed only with a flute and a borrowed darkness, but Wen Ning had never stopped seeing a friend in him.
That sentiment made the current helplessness even worse.
"Radishes!" he tried one more time. He was going to keep it up till he went voiceless. "Come get your radishes!"
Grandmothers and aunts, gruff uncles and young, boisterous husbands—all of them had always so easily fallen to Wei Wuxian's charming smile and outgoing nature. A greeting led to a conversation, a conversation led to distraction and before anyone even realised, the bag with radishes was empty and their coin sack—pleasantly full. Bereft of Wei Wuxian's assistance, Wen Ning was left with a bag full of radishes and no money to pay for information he desperately needed.
His sister was going to be so disappointed.
"Young master?" someone asked right next to Wen Ning. "Would you like a mantou?"
Wen Ning looked up and saw a smile.
He was used to his sister's dry, barely-there smirk she showed him when she thought he wasn't looking. Granny's smile was wide and toothless, full of sunshine they barely saw these days. And of course, there was A-Yuan with a grin brighter than even Wei Wuxian's.
Other people looked away from Wen Ning, and smiles were non-existent. His appearance caused uneasiness, his presence—disgust, but he ignored both as best as he could.
And yet there he was, a stranger in a white, worn-out robe and a fraying bamboo hat, with a box full of mantou in his hands and a soft, benevolent smile on his face. He was looking at Wen Ning and wasn't recoiling in disgust or shameful curiosity.
He was looking at Wen Ning as if he was seeing him.
Thus Wen Ning eloquently said, "Ah?" as he was prone to when confusion took over his conscious thoughts. "Young master is talking to... me?"
It did nothing to dim that man's smile.
"Of course," he said. His voice was like music, clear and echoing despite the noise of the crowded streets. The tiniest hint of an accent curled his words into a melody Wen Ning couldn't recognise. "Who else would I be talking to here?"
Who else indeed? Everyone gave Wen Ning a wide berth and he sat alone on a street where space was a commodity more precious than gold.
"Oh. I. Young master s-surprised me, is all." His sister would tell him to man up and stop stuttering. Wei Wuxian would pat him on his back and tell him to be brave. Wen Ning could do neither. "I-I didn't think he would offer."
"Young master looks like he's been sitting here for a while now. It would be impolite not to offer. Here." The man extended his hand and in it, lay a misshapen lump of a bun that could pass for a mantou if someone was generous enough to name it so. "Homemade. Fresh. Well, relatively."
Wen Ning opened his mouth but no sound came.
"I..." he finally uttered. "I can't..."
"Don't worry. I'm not selling it to you, I'm just giving it." He shook his hand for emphasis. "A gift."
"It's not that," he said. For some reason, admitting a weakness had never been easier. It might have been something about that man's smile, true, but he also treated Wen Ning like a person and it sparked joy in his dead heart. "I can't eat. Or, rather, I don't."
The man's eyebrows shot upward. He looked so young, even younger than Wen Ning. "You don't? Oh. I thought..." His voice trailed away. For a moment, wistfulness turned his face worried, old, but he shook it off so quickly Wen Ning would risk brushing it off as a trick of light. "Doesn't matter. Is there anyone you want to give them to? I'd hate to see food go to waste. And they're good, I had help in making them."
Wen Ning thought of patches of ground barely suitable for farming. He thought of gaunt faces and determined eyes, of A-Yuan who had learnt what hunger felt like before he knew how to walk. He thought of Wei Wuxian, haggling for every piece of gold, his eyes growing dimmer and darker with every failed attempt at trading. And now Wen Ning was here in his stead, just as unsuccessful if not more, with no prospects of bringing back to the encampment the one thing they solely needed.
He got up—stiff, so stiff, it was always a hassle to force his muscles to move after being motionless for so long—and bowed deeply. "Thank you, young master," he said, still facing the ground. He'd rather not see pity should it appear on the stranger's face. "Your kindness is immense."
A gentle hand guided him up and he allowed it. There was not the pity he was expecting to see—only that soft, benevolent smile and barely noticeable crinkles in the corners of the stranger's eyes. It was the kind of smile that wouldn't look out of place immortalised on a statue. "There's no need to thank me," he said in that voice that rang louder and clearer than any sound Wen Ning had ever heard. "Sometimes all it takes to make things better is one person. If I can be that person for someone, then it's enough for me."
"Young master..." For the first time, Wen Ning really took in the cut of his clothes and the hint of timelessness that clung to the stranger's face. "Daozhang, I. I am most grateful."
All of a sudden, Wen Ning found himself with an armful of the box filled with misshapen mantou of all sizes. Only a genuine intent could have made up so much for the obvious lack of skill. The stranger carried the evidence of his shortcomings proudly and without a sliver of embarrassment. It was the kind of confidence that only came with age he didn't show in the least.
"Here," he said. "I hope it helps."
It was more than the Wens had seen in a while but Wen Ning, tongue-tied as he was, wasn't going to admit it. He only nodded, still as stiff as ever but all the more honest, and accepted the box. The man's smile, up till now just the tiniest bit distant, turned into something precious and beautiful. One would think Wen Ning agreed to look after his heart and treat it gently.
He fully expected the man to turn on his heel and leave now that he had no reason to linger around. And yet he did not—he was still standing in front of Wen Ning, hand clutched around something that hung on a thin silver chain he wore around his neck. If there was anything Wen Ning was accustomed to, it was longing. He had seen enough of it in his clansmen and on Wei Wuxian's face.
It was now also on the stranger's face, and Wen Ning couldn't tell if he was even aware of that.
What had made this young man barely on the cusp of adulthood look like he'd gone through hell and lost the world in the process?
"Is..." he heard himself say. "Is everything all right?"
"Oh?" The stranger shook himself out of his reverie and smiled again. In this alone he was exactly like Wei Wuxian. He, too, seemed to believe that putting on a smile solved all problems and rendered all questions answerless. "Yes, yes, of course. It's nothing you have to worry about." He let go of the chain and fixed the collar of his robe. If Wen Ning hadn't seen him fiddle with it, he would have never assumed this man was wearing any kind of jewellery. "I hope you enjoy the mantou. Food tastes best if it's shared with others."
That implied there was food to begin with, but Wen Ning couldn't really disagree. Even at the rocky, rotten hell of the Burial Mounds that only took and never gave, despite the near-starvation and poverty that would have once been unimaginable and impossible to bear, being together meant still being alive—and that truly was a miracle.
And so Wen Ning clutched the box tighter and tried his best to smile. "Yes. My clan will be very happy to have something new to eat."
Something flickered in the man's eyes as he glanced at the bag full of radishes. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
How he wanted to say yes, to share the worries of the recent days and let someone lift the weight off his shoulders. In a world where everyone bared their teeth and drew their swords at the mere mention of the Wen name, a helping hand was a precious thing he couldn't possibly reject.
"My..." Who even was Wei Wuxian to him? 'Friend' was too plain a term to convey what he meant to Wen Ning, and yet there was no better word for him. After all, words had never been Wen Ning's forte. "My friend is missing. Has been for a few days now. We've searched everywhere we could, but to no avail. And no one here has seen him."
At least that was what he inferred from hostile glares and indifferent shrugs. The Yiling Patriarch was a curiosity best considered from afar. The moment he became a tangible person and entered the world at large, it turned away from him and pretended he didn't exist.
Wen Ning had no money to convince it to look his way again.
"Your friend," the man said. His smile was gone and in his eyes shone attentiveness that promised answers. Or so Wen Ning hoped. He didn't have anything left to lose anyway. "What's his name? Is he someone well-known? Asking around should be the first step."
And this was the moment when his hope was going to die, but Wen Ning already ventured too far to stop. "Wei Wuxian," he said and saw no sign of recollection in the stranger's eyes. "Ah, the Yiling Patriarch?"
This time, the man took a moment to reply. "I'm sorry, I've never heard of him. Could you describe him? Maybe we met in passing on the road."
Wen Ning's hope, that weak, pitiful creature precariously balancing on the brink of death, flared to life like the sun on a cloudless day. 'Wei Wuxian,' he said and people looked at him with disgust. 'The Yiling Patriarch,' he explained and everyone ran away, their fear calling to resentful energy swirling in his body. 'My friend,' he begged but they turned a blind eye on him. How did one look for a man the entire world wanted gone?
And so he described Wei Wuxian as best as he could and as much as words applied to him. He spoke of his laughter and joyful smiles, of the love too big to hold in his heart. He didn't mention the emptiness in his chest that lay where a golden core used to be, neither did he reveal the nights on which he heard muffled sobbing but pretended he didn't. Nowadays, Wei Wuxian was made of regrets and secrets, and of longing so great that it echoed even in the Burial Mounds themselves.
He spoke and the man listened attentively as if Wen Ning's every word mattered. Maybe for once it did, and it was such a wonderful feeling.
"If no one has seen him here, then maybe he never came this way?" The man was running his fingers over the silk band tied around his wrist, over and over again, and—did it move? It couldn't have moved, could it? "Is there anywhere he could've gone?"
Yunmeng? Gusu? Anywhere that wasn't the Burial Mounds with their bleak hopelessness and loss made flesh.
"There is one place," Wen Ning said and every word was a challenge. "But... he should've come back by now."
What he hadn't spoken aloud, the man clearly read between the lines.
"Perhaps something kept him occupied," he suggested gently, as if that was going to stop Wen Ning's thoughts from jumping to the worst possible conclusion.
He forced those thoughts down, tore them to pieces and trampled the remains under his feet. Nothing short of Wei Wuxian could ever stop Wei Wuxian.
"Would you be opposed to me helping you?"
Wen Ning rose to his feet and looked into the timeless eyes of the man whose name he didn't know. "Why would Daozhang do that?" he asked because he had to, because generosity was a commodity he and his clan could no longer afford. "He doesn't know us."
"My friend is missing, too," he said with a soft, wistful smile. How could he still smile? Wen Ning wanted to rage against the world in powerlessness. "No one has seen him either and the last of the luck he leant me has led me here. Even if I don't find him here, maybe at least I'll be able to help you. It's the most dreadful thing, to lose a friend."
He was young, so, so young; and yet in his face Wen Ning saw a shadow of struggles that lasted a lifetime. It clung to him and turned his already ragged robe and tired face even more worn-out and weary.
"What should I call you, Daozhang?" He probably should have started with that, but the stranger didn't seem to mind and Wen Ning... forgot. He forgot a lot of things recently, lost as they were in the ever-present fog of suppressed resentful energy.
"My name is Xie Lian." The soft smile was back, befitting that of a benevolent grandfather. Or so Wen Ning thought, because his own grandfather had never regarded him so warmly. "And what do I call this young master?"
Wen Ning bowed as deeply as he could. "This one's name is Wen Ning, courtesy Qionglin."
Not that anyone had ever used his courtesy name. 'A-Ning!' had called his sister for as long as he remembered. 'Wen Ning,' Wen Chao had sneered and in his eyes had been disdain greater than one would look at an insect with. 'Wen Ning,' Wen Ruohan had said in a distant tone of someone not seeing what had been in front of him. 'Wen Ning!' Wei Wuxian always said with too many emotions that had once almost stopped Wen Ning's heart and nowadays nearly managed to make it beat again.
"Well then, young master Wen. Why don't you tell me more about your missing friend?"
Notes:
I'd appreciate it if you didn't add my fics to Goodreads. Thank you.
I'm on Twitter, Tumblr, and Pillowfort if you'd like to say hello!
Chapter 2
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"A-Ning!"
Echoes carried Wen Qing's voice over the encampment and all the way into the rocky labyrinth of the Burial Mounds, where it died just like everything that went there. Only Wei Wuxian had ever come out and Wen Ning sincerely hoped he would do the impossible again should the worst come to pass.
He had told Xie Lian everything there was to know about Wei Wuxian as the landscape had changed around them. Trees had given way to stones, stones to jagged rock pillars, and soon the mountains rose around them but still Xie Lian said nothing. He simply followed Wen Ning without any hint of discomfort or apprehension and smiled as if they strolled through a flowery meadow in the midst of spring.
His face changed only for the briefest of moments—and if Wen Ning wasn't looking closely, he would've missed it. When the settlement rose out of the mist in front of them, when the meagre tents built on the edges of an empty plateau came into view, Xie Lian's eyes flashed. His face twisted into something raw, painful, and then, in a blink of an eye, it was gone.
When Wen Qing stopped in front of them, that soft, benevolent smile was in place again as if nothing ever broke it.
"A-Ning, how did it go? Did you find him?" She glanced at Xie Lian but had enough self-control not to ask. Wei Wuxian would have. He would have buried their guest under a barrage of questions as if they were friends who hadn't seen each other in ages. "And who's that?"
"This one's name is Xie Lian." Wen Qing's eyes widened when he bowed to her deeper than anyone else had ever done before. His accent once more caught Wen Ning's attention, but yet again it was unrecognisable. "Young master Wen needed help so I've come."
"Young master Wen, huh?"
Oh, how Wen Ning wanted to hide from her scrutiny and knew it was a futile endeavour. Nothing had ever escaped his sister's attention unless she let it go—least of all him.
"Well, if young master Wen needed help, then by all means, we welcome you to our humble abode." Wen Qing gave Xie Lian one last measuring once-over and turned on her heel. "Don't expect payment or luxuries, though."
"I'm not here for money."
That made her stop and finally look at Xie Lian rather than glance and move on. He held her attention steadily, much better than any of her patients. Wen Ning wished he could remain just as calm and collected under his sister's gaze as this bizarre cultivator who didn't mind lowering himself to begging for scraps and donations.
"Which Sect are you from again?" she asked, even though the three of them knew well enough no Sect had ever been mentioned.
Xie Lian's smile took on a strained edge. "I'm afraid I don't belong to any Sect. Is that acceptable?"
Had he claimed otherwise, no one in their right mind would have believed him. Not when the hems of his clothes were frayed and patched up by someone who clearly wasn't familiar with sewing; not when faint traces of old stains were still noticeable on the rough fabric. His sword was obviously old and the bamboo hat tied around his neck was close to falling apart. Not even a rogue cultivator would have cared so little for his appearance.
Xie Lian looked like someone history chewed up and spat out. Not unlike the Wen remnants.
"More than acceptable." For the first time in what seemed like forever, Wen Qing smiled without reservations. "Come. Please. I think dinner is ready."
And with that she looked at Wen Ning, and there was nowhere to hide.
"I'm sorry, A-jie," he muttered. The ground was an interesting thing to look at, wasn't it? The most interesting thing of all those around them. "It... It didn't go well."
"But I gave young master Wen a box full of mantou!" Xie Lian said immediately afterwards, before Wen Qing's temper even had time to flare up. "I can only hope it will suffice for the time being."
Wen Ning had known his sister his entire life and even he couldn't read the expression on her face right now. It spoke of something no one else should ever witness.
"I'll give them to Granny," she finally said in a voice so, so soft. Taking the box from Xie Lian's hands, she smiled and motioned them towards the direction of the biggest open tent. A crowd had already gathered there. "Come, let's talk."
No one said a word as they settled at one of the rickety tables, but the curiosity in the air was nigh palpable. Xie Lian's didn't seem to mind. He sat down, prim and proper, hands folded in his lap and eyes taking in the surroundings. Wen Ning was looking closely for any sign of discomfort or pity but found none. If anything, no one would dare claim Xie Lian didn't fit in the place they had torn from the world and made theirs.
He looked just as rejected by everyone else as the Wens did.
"I'm sure A-Ning already told you what we knew before he left." Wen Qing came back without the box of mantou but with A-Yuan in her arms instead. The boy was looking at Xie Lian with the particular kind of curiosity only children were capable of. "But now we know more. Isn't that right, A-Yuan? Say hello to Daozhang Xie."
"Hello," A-Yuan repeated obediently and waved. Xie Lian waved back as if humouring children was nothing to him.
"A-Yuan, why don't you tell Daozhang Xie what you told me earlier? About your Xian-gege?"
A-Yuan squirmed in her lap, but Wen Qing held him steady. He was holding something in a closed fist—whatever he found, it was small enough to fit in his hand. It better not be a bone; there were already too many of those lying around.
"Xian-gege went there," A-Yuan said and pointed in the direction of the mountain range looming behind them.
Wen Ning's heart sank.
Of course it had to be there. Where else could he have gone if not there, back whence no living soul had ever returned except him? Too often had Wei Wuxian looked at the winding roads and paths dissolving in the shadows. Were they telling him the way out of this inescapable situation they'd found themselves in?
Whenever Wen Ning looked at the mountains, he only saw death.
"Why would he do that?" Xie Lian asked with no hint of disbelief.
A-Yuan squirmed again and looked away, holding his hands close to his chest. "Because I hid and he ran there instead of where I was."
"Oh."
"And when I called him, he was too far away."
Xie Lian only nodded, his posture still respectful. Only a hint of a smile playing in the corner of his lips betrayed his amusement. It seemed like no matter who it was, A-Yuan always brought them joy.
Without him, life here would have been unbearable.
"I'll find your Xian-gege, don't worry. But you must stay here, all right? It's not safe for you to go there."
"It's not safe for you, either," Wen Qing said, even though she couldn't hide her relief. Despite living here for months, the Burial Mounds had never become their home. Wen Ning doubted they ever would.
"Don't worry, I know my way around here." Xie Lian got up to his feet and picked up his sword. How could be he carrying it? Even looking at it left Wen Ning queasy, despite not being physically capable of such. "May I borrow young master Wen? I wouldn't want your friend to mistake me for a foe."
For a while, Wen Qing was silent. Wen Ning didn't blame her. People claiming to know the Burial Mounds weren't an everyday occurrence. "Of course A-Ning will go with you, that idiot Wei Wuxian can be unpredictable sometimes." She rose, too, and let A-Yuan go. "Daozhang Xie..."
"I'll be fine, don't worry."
Did he ever stop smiling? Even Wei Wuxian sometimes raged at the world, on those long, lonely days when the Burial Mounds became unquiet and resentful energy flowed turbulent. But apparently not Xie Lian, no. He believed a child's tale with no qualms whatsoever and agreed to go where no one willingly went without a word of protest.
All because of a stranger's plea for help.
"Daozhang?"
He kneeled in front of A-Yuan as one would before a king. "Yes, A-Yuan? Is there anything else you want to tell me?"
"Here." A-Yuan opened his up till now closed fist. In it, a tiny butterfly sat, silver and translucent; a thing taken straight from a dream that had no place in the overwhelming greyness of the Burial Mounds. "For good luck."
"A-Yuan, where did you get that?" Wen Qing reached out to chase the butterfly away but froze when Xie Lian grabbed her wrist so swiftly not even Wen Ning noticed him move.
"Please, don't," he said and for once, his voice wavered and his face was devoid of the smile. The butterfly flapped its wings and shot up from A-Yuan's hand to Xie Lian. With every frantic circle around him, it grew brighter. It brushed against his hair and clothes, perched on the tip of his nose for a moment only to eventually settle in his palm. Xie Lian cradled it in his hand like the most precious of treasures. "A-Yuan, where did you find it?"
"It came from where Xian-gege had gone to."
Xie Lian looked down at the butterfly and oh, how soft his expression got, how warm his eyes turned. "Little one, is San Lang there?" he asked the butterfly. "He must be, mustn't he? You wouldn't be here otherwise."
The butterfly just flapped its wings again and flattened itself in Xie Lian's palm. Somehow, it was glowing even brighter now.
"Will you take me to him? Will you lead me to your master?"
In a blink of an eye, the butterfly was up. It bobbed up and down in front of Xie Lian; flew away and returned and then flew again, and Xie Lian scrambled to his feet in a frantic pace so unlike anything Wen Ning had seen from him.
In that silver butterfly, Wen Ning saw the end of Xie Lian's search.
"Daozhang," he said, "your missing friend is here too, isn't he?"
"Yes! Yes, he is. I don't know why, but he's here."
What a fool he was, thinking he knew what Xie Lian's smile was. Only now did he see the difference. When Xie Lian smiled—when he truly, genuinely smiled—he was aglow with joy. It was like looking at the Sun in the midst of summer, untouchable and inhumanly beautiful.
For the first time, Wen Ning wondered if Xie Lian was human.
"Well then," he forced himself to say. Maybe if he hadn't been dead, his throat would've constricted at the sight of Xie Lian's boundless happiness. Maybe he would've smiled because of it, too, for true joy was contagious. But Wen Ning was dead and he could only speak. "Shall we go, then?"
Notes:
I'd appreciate it if you didn't add my fics to Goodreads. Thank you.
I'm on Twitter, Tumblr, and Pillowfort if you'd like to say hello!
Chapter 3
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
One butterfly became two. Two became three. And so on, and so on, and by the time they reached their destination, Xie Lian was surrounded by a shimmering swarm that brought starlight from the sky all the way down to the Burial Mounds.
For once, the mountains were quiet around them. It left Wen Ning ill at ease. Not just corpses roamed the Burial Mounds, but only those were under Wei Wuxian's control. Spirits and ghosts were aplenty, coming out of the mountain paths without warning and heading to destinations unknown, eyes unseeing and mouths open in screams that echoed long after they were gone. Some of them made no sound and only lingered on the edge of vision, disappearing the moment anyone looked at them directly. Mostly harmless they were, and more than just a little formless.
But they had always been there, in the background, and now their absence was more than jarring.
They followed one of the butterflies between the rocks and gnarled trees, through the ruins of what once might have been houses but now resembled only piles of rubble. The heavy air always weighed on Wen Ning even though he didn't breathe; his clansmen felt it even to a greater degree. Sometimes, he though the mountains had mood swings, as impossible as that sounded. He had never brought it up, but he was never going to forget the night on which Wei Wuxian had got drunk and been staring at the mountains for hours.
"They're whispering, Wen Ning," he had said that night. "They're looking for someone. Can you hear them?"
All Wen Ning could hear then had been wordless whispers, but now even those were gone.
"Are you sure these will lead you to your friend, Daozhang?" he asked, watching another butterfly flying towards Xie Lian with a frightening speed. On its way, it cut clean through a rock and yet around Xie Lian, their wings were only ever gentle.
"Completely sure. They're San Lang's." As if that explained everything. "He'll help us find your young master Wei in no time."
Even this deep into the Burial Mounds, there was no sign of discomfort on his face. He walked ahead with the ease and determination of a person who knew where they were. And hadn't he said he'd known his way around the area? Even though it had sounded inconceivable at the time, now Wen Ning clearly saw the signs of it. He must have come here before young master Wei had brought the Wen remnants in. Otherwise, Wen Ning would surely have remembered someone like Xie Lian.
"What would your friend even be doing here?"
Xie Lian missed a step and the butterflies fluttered around him. "Ah," he said. "That's the thing. I don't know. He'd disappeared without a word and I'm aware of it only because his subordinate came to me to ask if I saw him. We... He has been very busy recently, so I was letting him deal with all that in peace, but... I couldn't just sit and wait, you know? What if something happened to him? There are so many people who want him gone."
And oh, Wen Ning knew that all too well. That was exactly the kind of sentiment everyone regarded Wei Wuxian with. Wen Ning didn't know anything about Xie Lian's friend, but if his reputation was anything like Wei Wuxian's, then vanishing without a trace certainly couldn't have meant anything good.
"And I admit, this is the last place I expected to find him, but if he's here, then I don't care. What's important is that he's found."
"You don't seem... fazed with how things are here, Daozhang." That was an understatement, but Wen Ning had always been courteous and far too nice, even in the worst possible circumstances. It had cost him his life. "Most people wouldn't dare to go into these mountains."
Most people wouldn't be so stupidly, mindlessly brave, was what he didn't say. Xie Lian, being here out of the goodness of his heart, didn't deserve derision.
"I've been to these kinds of places," he said. "It's not the worst I've seen. Besides, I've been here before."
Even though Wen Ning was expecting that, so blatant an admittance still took him by surprise. "You have?"
"Yes. Many times. A long time ago." He made some vague gesture visible even through his shimmering shield of silver butterflies. "It looked quite different, back then. There was a village, not that far away from here, but I'm not surprised everyone ran away from there."
A village? Wen Ning looked around and saw only rubble, rocks, and an ever-present decay. Not even a shadow of human presence remained. If someone wasn't desperate enough, they wouldn't survive a day here.
"Why?"
"It's the last battlefield of a long war. Someone went through a lot here." He fell silent for a moment and Wen Ning didn't dare to press. "It was a very troubling time."
It felt like a question and an answer alike, a fairy tale spun out of long forgotten tales and stories scattered across history Xie Lian had picked up along the way. He did look like someone who would do just that.
He didn't say another word on the subject. Wen Ning let it go and followed him through the mountains and the rubble. The road meandered between rocks and went up and up until it opened to a huge valley by a dark, silent lake. Ghost fires littered it, some small and faint, others—blazing bright. Vague, human-like silhouettes stood here and there, too. A black, cracked patch of ground lay some distance from the shore, but the ghosts gave it a wide berth.
In the midst of them, illuminated by the sickly light of their faint fires, stood Wei Wuxian and a red-clothed man Wen Ning had never seen before.
He would have remembered if he had. After all, that man was woven out of resentment greater than the Burial Mounds'.
"San Lang!"
In a blink of an eye, Xie Lian was gone. He ran down the path towards the man in red, the butterflies fluttering in a mad chase after him. Wen Ning raced after him, too, more than certain that if he had a beating heart, it would have stopped.
He had to take Wei Wuxian away from that... being as fast as possible.
The ghosts parted before Xie Lian as he came to a stop in front of that man. Before they arrived, the buzz of whispers had been steady and loud. Now they fell as silent as they had never been, even in death.
"Gege?" asked the man in red. "What are you doing here?"
The butterflies flew over to him and dissipated into nothingness in his vambraces one by one. Only the ghost fires remained, quiet and wavering. Anticipation was heavy in the air, an old, castaway, unsaid and unanswered thing.
"Your officer has come to me and told me you disappeared without a warning. With everything that happened recently, I couldn't just ignore him."
"He overreacted," said the man in red. His face was soft as he looked at Xie Lian. That was the only soft thing about him, actually. He was made of coiled, timeless fury and power so vast that it left Wen Ning trembling. "Gege shouldn't have worried."
What did Xie Lian call him again? San Lang? There couldn't possibly be a name more inappropriate for him.
"Nonsense." Xie Lian didn't seem fazed by that crass statement. "I know San Lang is more than capable of handling things himself, but I still worry."
"Gege—"
"Anyway!" Xie Lian purposely looked at the gathered, silent ghosts. It didn't detract from the blush spreading on his face, but it did help to hide it from his friend. If they were only friends. Wen Ning wasn't so sure about it. "What has brought San Lang here? This is..."
The man in red fixed his eyes on Wei Wuxian, and if Wen Ning thought he had been afraid earlier, now he learnt what debilitating terror felt like. Wei Wuxian must have felt at least a sliver of it, too, because he simply stood as he was, silent and motionless, hand clenched around Chenqing in a white-knuckled grip.
"Long story short, that idiot pranced around a place he wasn't supposed to enter. And then he had the audacity to ask me for help."
"Oh." How had Xie Lian even befriended a man like that? If he was just a man—Wen Ning wasn't so sure anymore. No simple man would have held in him resentment so enormous that it overshadowed even the Burial Mounds. "This master, is he Wei Wuxian by any chance?"
"My, my, Daozhang," Wei Wuxian said with a wide grin that was anything but an expression of happiness. "I'm clearly at a disadvantage here. You know me, but I have no idea who you are."
Xie Lian bowed once, short and shallow but no less respectful. "This one's name is Xie Lian. I offered to help young master Wen find you. I admit, I thought it would take much longer."
Weu Wuxian looked at Wen Ning as if he only just noticed him. The line of his shoulders, up till now tense and high, relaxed somewhat. Wen Ning wasn't able to smile reassuringly, but he could stand by his side and do his best to show his unwavering support.
"Wen Ning," he said and scratched his head with Chenqing. "Ah, I should've told you where I was going, right? But there was no time for that, you see, and I'm still wasting it right now because someone isn't willing to let me go."
The man in red grinned. It was the kind of expression a predator would make before going for the killing blow. "There's a reason why nothing and no one comes here, little man."
"Obviously only a fool would willingly enter an area with so many ghosts."
"You did."
Xie Lian cleared his throat loud enough for echo to carry it. "San Lang, be nice to him, he must have been desperate." His smile did wonders—even Wei Wuxian relaxed a bit. "There's no need to worry, young master Wei, the child is safe."
"You found him?"
It was such an impressive sight to witness the fog of determination clear from Wei Wuxian's eyes and leave only elated relief. Rarely did he smile at the Burial Mounds, and mostly thanks to A-Yuan more often than not, but now he was radiant once again, just like he had been the day Wen Ning had met him. So much had happened since then, so many things had changed, but not that smile. Never that.
"He's safe with A-jie," Wen Ning said. "He told us he'd hidden and wanted to surprise you, but you ran off too quickly for him to stop you."
"He disappeared! This is the Burial Mounds." As if they didn't know. "There's no telling where he might've wandered off to or what could've happened to him."
"It's commendable that you went looking for him without hesitation, young master Wei," Xie Lian said with that gentle smile of his. The ghosts flickered and got closer, a sudden murmur rippling through them like a wave. "You're a good man."
Wei Wuxian nearly dropped the flute. "I'm... I," he stammered, for once bereft of words. Rarely did someone render him speechless. "Thank you."
Wen Ning was watching the man in red like a hawk, ready to act on the tiniest hint of a killing intent aimed at Wei Wuxian. Only because of that did he notice how many emotions were brimming in his eyes when he was looking at Xie Lian, how a ghost of a small but genuine smile played in the corner of his lips when he thought no one was paying attention. It spoke of the depths of regard he held for Xie Lian better than any word ever could.
Maybe this was why they were friends. Maybe one day, Xie Lian had decided to look past the crass exterior and unearthed the man hidden beneath. Now he was doing the same for Wei Wuxian, based only on what Wen Ning had told him.
"San Lang, why were you angry at young master Wei?" Xie Lian asked, warily watching the ghosts that began to move closer to him. "Is it because of them?"
"They were here before I came," Wei Wuxian said before anyone else spoke. He regained his composure but let the guard down, getting more and more relaxed with each passing moment. It resonated in that part of Wen Ning that remained linked to him and depended on his temper. "On the other hand, Daozhang's friend appeared out of nowhere when I wanted to summon whatever died over there so that it would help me find A-Yuan."
He pointed at that blackened, cracked spot on the ground not far from them. Xie Lian glanced at his companion and then walked over to crouch near the edge of the patch. With a furrowed brow, he ran his fingers over it. Smudges of soot clung to them.
"San Lang," he said slowly without even cleaning his hand first. "Is this what I think it is?"
His friend's face lost each and every trace of softness. "Gege..."
"Tell me." Xie Lian's voice was steel turned to sound, the authority so natural that it could have only come with birth. "Tell me who died here."
"No one." How easily he submitted to Xie Lian's wishes, how willingly he let himself be ordered around. To have this kind of power over another person was the greatest responsibility. "But this is where I burnt my corpse."
If Wen Ning had been alive, his heart would have stopped. Wei Wuxian gasped; he grabbed Wen Ning's sleeve and held onto it tightly. And Xie Lian...
Xie Lian's face only fell, but before he could say anything, the ghost fires flocked to the man in red like overexcited birds.
"That's not all of it, Your Highness!" said the biggest ghost fire, who expertly avoided a slap coming its way. "He died here in the battle with the rest of us."
"We've been looking for him all over," piped in another one. "We stayed and stayed, but he never came back."
"Xiao Hua is so big now." A tiny ghost fire, brighter than most of them, circled the man in red a few times and settled above his head. "So strong! We could hardly believe it was him when he came to stop that summoner from binding us."
At first, Xie Lian said nothing and only wrung his hands helplessly. "You never told me you were in the army," he eventually said. His friend looked away. The ghosts fell silent, flickering and going in circles around them. "I didn't know you died because of me."
"Gege. Your Highness." He took Xie Lian's hands in his and only that stopped Xie Lian from fidgeting. "It wasn't your fault. Shit happened. No one could've predicted that."
"Yeah, Xiao Hua held on for so long," the tiny ghost fire immediately chimed in. "He was so ferocious on the battlefield, almost unstoppable!"
And yet he had died. Wen Ning wasn't certain that counted as unstoppable... but then again, the man in red was still around, wasn't he? Much more powerful than regular ghosts—or rather much more powerful than anyone Wen Ning had ever met, alive or dead.
Questions buzzed in his mind. Wei Wuxian was no different; Wen Ning could see it in the way he played with his flute and shuffled from one foot to another. If only they had known the man in red, if only he hadn't been looking at them both with undisguised hostility, one of them would have probably asked. Xie Lian could have—should have—done it, but it didn't seem like he was going to. Perhaps their relationship wasn't as good as it appeared to be, or maybe a lot more was going on to which no outsiders were privy. Whatever it was, Wen Ning wasn't going to pry and Xie Lian clearly wasn't willing to demand answers.
"Xiao Hua?" he asked instead with a small smile. His friend opened his mouth, closed it, and then angrily swatted the tiny ghost fire away.
"Don't listen to them, gege."
"We didn't know his name," one of the barely visible ghosts said, "so we called him Xiao Hua because every day he brought flowers to Your Highness's temple."
"San Lang..." Wide-eyed, Xie Lian was looking at him with a blush slowly spreading on his cheeks.
The man in red grabbed the ghost by the throat and held him in an unbreakable grip. "Shut your bloody mouth." Then he looked at Xie Lian with an apologetic expression that looked so out of place on his face. "Your Highness, please ignore those idiots, they're..."
"Idiots?" One of the ghost fires bobbed up and down right next to his face. "Who are you calling an idiot, I'm your sergeant!"
"Were," the man in red corrected. "Now you're just a whiny, useless ghost who won't listen to reason!"
Xie Lian waved his hands. "Calm down, calm down, there's no need to shout."
Next to Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian was quiet as never before, his face blank and eyes wide. Neither of them spoke. For all the time they had already spent at the Burial Mounds, what they were witnessing was a novelty without compare and a novelty in a place so perilous as this was a thing best avoided.
And a humble, quiet, raggedy man was the last person anyone would ever refer to as 'His Highness'.
"Didn't you hear His Highness?" the man in red said to the ghosts. "Stop wailing."
"San Lang, be nice, they're your friends." Now that was a stretch of imagination if Wen Ning ever heard one. "But... why haven't you all moved on? You should've moved on, I sent you away."
The little ghost fire flickered again, faint and uncertain. "We didn't know where Xiao Hua had gone."
"How could we move on without him?" another one added. "He was such a tiny, scrawny thing back in the day. All alone."
What had that man done in life to deserve such loyalty even in death? It was hard to believe he was capable of inspiring such emotions in anyone.
And yet—here he was, surrounded by long dead ghosts unwilling to let him go. Here he was, sought by a man who gave kindness and smiles abundant to everyone, but only ever genuinely rejoiced at the thought of his friend. Here he was, at the heart of the Burial Mounds, with the mountains and their spirits sprawled at his feet, docile and obedient.
"Why don't you take them with you to Ghost City?" Xie Lian suggested and that very sentence was enough to flip one's perspective even without thinking too much on it. Wen Ning saw Wei Wuxian's eyes light up. "They shouldn't stay here if they don't want to move on."
"I don't have time to babysit them," grumbled the man in red but at the same time he stopped swatting the ghosts away.
"Someone has to keep an eye out for you," said the ghost who still remained in his hold.
"Has Xiao Hua built a home? We want to see it!"
"I do not have time for you." If someone spoke to Wen Ning with that tone, he would have run for his life. The ghosts didn't move, though, and remained as they were, hovering around Xie Lian's friend like a horde of over-excited puppies. "You can come with me, but the moment we're in Ghost City, you're on your own."
"It's San Lang's realm," Xie Lian explained when none of the ghosts said anything. "You'll be safe there. And you'll be seeing him around all the time."
"How come gege's on their side, it's unfair."
Xie Lian only smiled wistfully as the ghosts shivered, their light and flames pulsing. "They deserve something good for a change. They've spent too much time here already and with Mount TongLu about to open..."
"Oh. That." The man in red looked to the side but it wasn't because of the ghosts. Wen Ning knew avoidance better than anyone and he saw all the signs of it on that man's face and posture. "Yeah. All right, I'll take them and... find someone to help them settle."
"That would be best. I know San Lang has been busy recently."
Even Wei Wuxian noticed the tension between them and dragged Wen Ning out of earshot. He didn't have to put too much effort into it—Wen Ning went willingly, more than happy to give Xie Lian and his friend at least a little bit of privacy.
"Where did you find this Xie Lian?" Wei Wuxian asked, unable not to throw an occasional glance over his shoulder. "He's so... I don't even know how to describe him."
That sounded about right. Wen Ning hadn't known Xie Lian for long, but 'indescribable' was the perfect word. Maybe even 'incomprehensible'.
"Daozhang Xie offered his help in finding young master Wei," he said. "He was... kind. Is kind."
"Just like that?" Wei Wuxian glanced at Xie Lian again and this time Wen Ning did the same. In the distance, the man in red was walking away with the swarm of ghosts.
"Yes," Wen Ning said; softly, quietly. "Just like that."
Xie Lian turned around before they did; he waved at them and jogged up the hill as if it was the easiest thing in the world. The smile was back on his face. "Young master Wen, it seems like our searches have led us both to one place. Thank you." He bowed again and officially became the person who had shown Wen Ning more respect than anyone else over the course of his entire life. "I shall take my leave then."
"Won't you join us for dinner?" Wei Wuxian asked because he wouldn't be himself if he didn't. His hunger for knowledge was too great.
Or perhaps, just like the Wen remnants, he missed the company of someone who didn't treat them like the worst trash to ever walk the Earth.
"Unfortunately, I must decline. A prior engagement I've already put aside needs my attention."
"An engagement Daozhang has put aside because of his missing friend?"
Xie Lian's smile turned just a tad brighter, a little more genuine, and all of a sudden he looked just as young as he appeared to be. "Yes. But he's been found now, so I can rest peacefully and carry on with the tasks I've been given."
Wei Wuxian tapped his flute against his chin. "Daozhang let him go his own way without asking him to stay or inquiring for his reasons for coming to this wretched place."
"Why would I try to stop him? He has his own problems to solve. An entire city to oversee." Xie Lian looked at that blackened patch of ground. "As for his reasons... Young master Wei will be wise to remember there are certain questions one doesn't ask a Supreme Ghost King. One of them is how he died. If San—if Hua Cheng one day decides to share that with me, I shall cherish it and keep it a secret. If not, then it doesn't detract anything from our friendship."
Hua Cheng? That was a poetic name for someone who seemed to hold enough power in his hands to raze the Burial Mounds to the ground without breaking a sweat.
"You care about him, don't you?" Wei Wuxian asked. His voice was distant, full of melancholy Wen Ning understood all too well. All of them had people they missed and tried their best to live without.
Xie Lian laughed and scratched his neck. "Am I that obvious?"
If only he could see the way his entire face lit up at the thought of Hua Cheng, if only he knew how his eyes sparkled at the mere shadow of red robes, he wouldn't be asking. And so Wen Ning nodded without a word. None were necessary.
"It doesn't matter, he has a beloved." Without leaving a room for discussion, Xie Lian rummaged through his sleeves and took out a paper talisman. "Here, take this as a thank you. If you ever need help, just hold it and say 'Your Highness the Crown Prince of Xian Le, please protect me!' aloud and I'll come as soon as I can."
Dumbfounded, Wen Ning could only take the talisman and watch Xie Lian put on his bamboo hat.
"Young master Wen, young master Wei, I wish you good fortune."
And with one last bow, he was gone; running swiftly up the mountain path they had arrived. Without a word, Wei Wuxian took the talisman from Wen Ning and inspected it with all the focus of an inventor trying to tell the secrets of the craft of a fellow cultivator.
"It's nothing," he said after a while. "Just a random talisman you'd find in a temple."
Random or not, Wen Ning wasn't going to let go of it. Kindness was a rare commodity nowadays, and that from Xie Lian had been abundant. Even the air felt lighter now, less oppressive than it used to be. Maybe it was because of the ghosts that finally left, or maybe Xie Lian's presence made it so. Whatever the reason, Wen Ning hoped it would last.
"Let's go back, I'm starving." Wei Wuxian twirled his flute. "And I need to tell that nephew of yours not to hide without telling me first. I've been running all over these mountains looking for him! I'm going to bury him between the radishes again, you just wait."
The warm talisman in his hand and a happily chattering Wei Wuxian by his side, Wen Ning started his way back to the camp and for once, his heart was light.
Notes:
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Chapter 4
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Ashes of the remnants of his clan were heavy in Wen Ning's hands.
The pouch weighed next to nothing; just as much as the fabric and the dust within did, but to him it was akin to holding an entire world in his hands. In a way, that was exactly it—the last Wen alive, holding what was left of his family in a small pouch. How he wished he could cry.
He was kneeling in dirt far, far away from the Demon-Slaughtering Cave and the cultivators still roaming its vicinity. The Burial Mounds were silent around him, devoid of ghosts once upon a time aplenty. They had never returned from wherever Xie Lian's friend had taken them and that alone had made living on the mountain slightly more bearable. Now, after years away, Wen Ning was back but his clan had never left.
The pouch was heavy with the shadows of suffering.
He should go to Qishan and bury them there. That was where his sister had died, after all. She would have appreciated the company, had she lingered.
Wen Ning thought back to the ghosts of the Burial Mounds, the last remaining soldiers of a war he hadn't known anything about back then and still knew nothing of now. What had become of them?
What had become of Xie Lian, now that Wen Ning was thinking of it?
The talisman he had got from him was no more, lost to the Jins on the day he and his sister had surrendered to them, but the prayer remained in Wen Ning's memory. After all, it was as simple as Xie Lian himself, nothing but heartfelt sincerity and genuine will to help.
"Your Highness the Crown Prince of Xian Le," he said and his voice was a whisper, "please protect me."
His voice was a whisper, even though there was no one around. His voice was a whisper and as such, it barely carried on the wind. His voice was a whisper and yet—
"Young master Wen?"
—someone heard.
Before he even turned around, Xie Lian kneeled at his side. His robes were still white, though slightly less frayed than years ago, and the bamboo hat was still tied around his neck. But something in his face—something radiant and beyond comprehension—gave him an air of timelessness and otherworldliness he hadn't had before.
"Daozhang Xie," Wen Ning said and only belatedly realised that maybe he should have, after all, addressed him as the crown prince he apparently was. "I mean, Your—"
Xie Lian put a hand on his shoulder. It was warm and steady, comforting even. "'Daozhang' works perfectly fine, don't worry about it."
"Daozhang..." Why did he even call upon him? What he wanted, no man could give him.
Xie Lian waited patiently, unbothered by the dirt or the silence. Wen Ning appreciated the sentiment. Years later, and he still was treated with kindness by this bizarre conundrum of a man.
Without a moment to think or second-guess himself, he gave him the pouch and parting with it nearly didn't hurt.
"Daozhang," he said. His limbs were too stiff to kowtow, but he would if need be. No price was too high when it came to his family. "Please make sure they're at peace. They've suffered enough."
He expected Xie Lian to look into the pouch, but he didn't. Instead, he held it just as gently as Wen Ning himself.
"What about your sister?" he asked after a moment. Wen Ning could only gape at him, confounded. "Her remains aren't inside."
At this point, Wen Ning wasn't even surprised. "No," he admitted. "Her ashes were scattered in Qishan after she was killed."
"Why are you giving this to me? Ashes are precious to the dead."
Was that why he hadn't cared for Wen Ning's state all those years ago in Yiling? Only someone who had seen their fair share of death and suffering could be so unbothered by having the dead around them.
"They will be safer with Daozhang than with me. I still have something to deal with."
Wei Wuxian's wellbeing was still as uncertain and in peril as it had been before his death. And then there was that Lan junior, for whom the corpse that used to be Granny Wen had crawled out of the blood pool and spent her last remaining strength on cupping his cheek like a precious thing. It was a question that bore hopeful answers and Wen Ning was itching to get them.
"Aren't you going to ask for justice?" Xie Lian asked, his face impassive. It was such an unusual expression for him, even though Wen Ning had only spent with him a few hours many years ago. "To make whoever's responsible for their deaths pay?"
Maybe if he asked someone else, the answer would be different. But because Wen Ning was Wen Ning—tired, quiet and dead for a long time—what he got was, "What's the point? It won't bring anyone back and... I don't think inflicting death is any form of justice, anyway."
Once upon a time, he and his clan had been put into a labour camp while their only crime was their name. Once upon a time, he had killed a father of a one-month-old boy and it led to a nightmare. What right did he have to call for blood?
Xie Lian smiled at that, and it was as if the sun came out after a storm. "I shall take care of them for you, young master Wen." He stood up and bowed—this mystery, this prince of a country gone and forgotten for who knew how long. "Thank you for trusting me with that honour."
It hurt, to let them go, but right now Wen Ning had neither time nor the ability to care for a treasure like that. And who was better to do it in his stead if not a man who had befriended a disaster made person?
"Daozhang?" In his mind, there were red robes and silver butterflies, and the oh so soft look in his eyes as he gazed upon Xie Lian. "How is your friend?"
Once upon a time, Xie Lian's grin had been blinding; now, it was indescribable. "Husband," he corrected in the happiest voice Wen Ning had ever heard from anyone. "He's well, I'm grateful to young master Wen for asking."
If Wen Ning could, he would have smiled. Every bit of happiness was a blessing in a world like this—even if it wasn't his own. But smile he could not, so he got to his feet and bowed before Xie Lian. "Thank you, Daozhang. Thank you."
"No need to thank me, young master Wen." Xie Lian touched his arm. Under his hand, warmth erupted and for a moment, Wen Ning felt alive. "Until next time."
A year later, with Lan Sizhui by his side, Wen Ning arrived at the countryside far away from the cultivation world.
A masked man dressed in black had brought an invitation from Xie Lian to a village in the middle of nowhere for no specific reason. Wen Ning had debated only for a moment. After all, he had nothing else to do—no mystery to solve at Wei Wuxian's side, no clan to provide for; only the endless days and nights without sleep. And so he had set out on a journey, and Lan Sizhui had followed.
The weather was mellow this time of year, and rice fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Somewhere in the distance, a hill stood and a brightly coloured temple was on top of it. A small village lay at its feet. Echoes carried the sounds of distant chatter far and wide.
"Uncle?" Lan Sizhui asked, ever so polite. Wen Ning was forever going to be grateful to the GusuLan Sect for giving his nephew a chance to live. And if the cost of it was his name, then so be it.
Maybe it was time for the Wens to disappear from the face of the world altogether.
"Yes, A-Yuan?" It was so easy to slip into the old patterns, but Lan Sizhui didn't seem to mind and so Wen Ning allowed himself this tiny indulgence.
"Where are we supposed to go now?"
And wasn't that the question Wen Ning was asking himself? He looked around, his eye catching a few figures working in the fields. Neither of them could be Xie Lian, couldn't he? A prince—a god—surely wouldn't be working in the rice pads arm in arm with farmers.
"Let's go and find someone so we can ask where Daozhang Xie is," he suggested. Soon enough, they reached the fields; fresh, lush, full of water and rapidly growing rice. If only the Burial Mounds had looked like this, if only they had left the cultivation world behind and ventured beyond its boundaries to find a place like this—maybe then everyone's fate would have been different.
But they hadn't, and there was no point dwelling on regrets and impossible dreams.
"Young master Wen?"
Someone was walking towards them through the fields. Dressed in white clothes and a bamboo hat, with hair tied up in a bun, they looked like any other peasant. Only up close, Wen Ning recognised Xie Lian.
Anyone would have mistaken him for a random villager.
"Daozhang." Wen Ning bowed and Lan Sizhui followed suit. "Thank you for the invitation."
"Of course, of course, don't mention it. And A-Yuan!" One would think Xie Lian was seeing his own relative, with how wide he smiled. "It's good to see you in good health."
"Thank you, Daozhang." Lan Sizhui bowed again, a paragon of good manners. "My uncle speaks highly of you."
"He's a good man."
No one had ever said Wen Ning was a good man. At first, he had been a laughable nobody, then he had become a monster and that reputation followed him to this day. There was no fighting it, so he didn't even try.
Xie Lian, apparently, cared not even the tiniest bit for rumours. Maybe he didn't even know them, with how far away from the cultivation world he lived.
Did gods even care for mortal affairs?
"Come, come, I want you to meet someone."
He walked back the way he came without asking or waiting, and Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui could only follow. The villagers didn't seem to mind them trampling over the fields and they worked on, exuding a particular air of contentment that came only with life lived unhurried. It was the kind of life Wen Ning had eventually come to dream about, no matter how impossible and futile his hopes were. Cultivators didn't get to experience this.
Neither did fierce corpses.
A flash of red caught his attention. He looked that way. Xie Lian's husband was slowly walking towards them, his red tunic wrapped around his head in a makeshift hood. An old woman was holding onto his arm; she was bent under the weight of years and wore signs of them on her face.
Xie Lian stopped and looked expectantly at Wen Ning.
"Daozhang, what..."
"We've had some experience in nurturing souls these last few years," Xie Lian said as if that explained everything. "As it turns out, it works not only on heavenly officials, but on ghosts too."
Wen Ning slowly turned toward the woman. Her clothes were simple, light colours and a practical cut, and the hat on her head was as typical as they got, but something about her...
"You see, young master Wen," Xie Lian went on, "I took the liberty of asking your family what they wanted. Some of them moved on and we sent them on their way, me and San Lang. But a few refused to go, so we did our best to give them a chance at a peaceful life."
Hua Cheng came to a stop next to them and patted the woman's hand. Slowly, she raised her head and looked at Wen Ning with eyes that could barely see but still were enough.
"A-Ning," she said and gave him a toothless smile. "A-Yuan. It's so good you've come, you're just in time for dinner."
She extended a hand. Dazed, Lan Sizhui walked over to her and took it. For a moment, neither of them moved; then, she pulled him into a hug and he went willingly, breaking into a sob like a newborn child.
"How...?" Wen Ning couldn't even articulate his question. "How did you... It's Granny."
Granny Wen, who had been dead for fourteen years and turned into dust as he watched it happen.
"Don't you know, young master Wen?"
"A-Ning!"
Wen Ning whipped around faster than he had since his death. Through the fields and over the paths, Wen Qing was running with open arms and tears streaming down her cheeks. He moved too, and caught her in the middle of the rice field, and pulled her close to him like he should have done so many times in the past but never got the chance until it was too late.
When Xie Lian approached them, it was with his husband in tow. This time Wen Ning felt no evil intent from him. It didn't matter, for Wen Ning held his sister in his arms again and was never going to let go.
"Not only resentment makes a ghost, young master Wen," Xie Lian said with all the gentleness of an ancient, benevolent god. "Some of them stay for love."
FIN
Notes:
I'd appreciate it if you didn't add my fics to Goodreads. Thank you.
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