Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji returned later that afternoon with armfuls of presents that I later found out were from the villagers and four teenage boys I recognized from the night before. I suddenly felt a surge of panic and urgency rising in me that I hadn't felt in a very long time. When you're a young child and meeting someone new for the first time, there's this instinct you have to run and hide behind someone because you don't know if they're going to hurt you or if you can trust them. If I wasn't already injured and bedridden, I probably would have done that. And because I was in a position where I couldn't duck and hide behind someone so easily, I had to settle for pulling the sheets up in front of my face, hoping to make myself invisible. It obviously didn't work.
"Wait! Why is she hiding from us? We're not THAT scary looking are we?" One of the boys asked in a confused and alarmed voice.
"It must be confusing and scary to see so many people in the same room together." Another one of them sighed.
"She's been through a lot so just be gentle with her okay?" Another of the boys spoke up.
"Do you want to try talking with her?" Asked Wei Wuxian, "I think if you show her that you're not going to hurt her then maybe she'll be less scared of you. Who wants to go first?"
"I'll do it. I'm not sure how quickly she'll warm up to me but it's better than nothing."
I heard the sound of footsteps padding towards me across the floor. Each step was very slow and deliberate, as though they were trying not to spook me. I couldn't help but feel annoyed. I wasn't some dangerous or frightened animal! I was just a sick and injured adult inhabiting the body of a child! This only served to make me want to melt further into the bed and vanish underneath a mountain of blankets and pillows. The bed creaked and moaned as I felt one side sink slightly.
"Hi there," a soft voice spoke out, "We're not going to hurt you. My friends and I just wanted to see how you're doing today. Will you let me see your face?"
I hesitated for a moment. I did watch them and countless other teenage boys risk their lives to protect me last night from harm. If they had wanted to hurt me, they would have already done so after rescuing me from the fierce corpses. The teenagers back in my world would have wet their pants and high tailed it out of there if they encountered and witnessed half of the things I did in the span of one night. But these teens didn't. Their courage and resolve to protect those weaker than themselves was like a breath of fresh air. After some deliberation, I nodded, earning a few excited whispers from the other boys in the front of the room.
I felt a hand gently but firmly pushing my hands down from over my face, revealing to me a young man with a side parted fringe, kind purple-grey eyes and a sweet disarming smile that calmed my nerves. He had his hair up in a half waist length ponytail and was wearing the same kind of white forehead ribbon with the swirling clouds and white and light blue robes as Lan Wangji, but made to be less intricate, and more practical. He had what looked like a set of child-sized clothing in his arms. Meng Yao's voice pinged in my head as a notification window popped up in my field of vision.
"ACCESSING DATABASE. CHARACTER PROFILE FOUND. NAME: LAN SIZHUI. COURTESY NAME: LAN YUAN. AGE: 19. OCCUPATION: SENIOR DISCIPLE"
"Thank you…" He said affectionately, the smile on his face growing wider. "I'm glad you're okay."
Wei Wuxian strode up next to him and placed his hand on his shoulder, seemingly satisfied with what he did. He looked at him the same way a proud father would to a child who did something worthy of praise. In his hand he was holding a child sized cane made of polished and lacquered wood, which he set to the side of the bed.
"See? That wasn't too hard. Good job, Sizhui." He said, beaming with pride.
I couldn't help but feel a small twinge of jealousy and resentment blossoming in my chest. The only times I would get praised back in my world would be anything related to getting high marks in school or bending over backwards to please someone I didn't even like. And as an adult, not once had I gotten a "Good job" or a "Thank you for your hard work" compliment out of any of my coworkers. I know it's to be expected once you enter the working field, but even having someone tell you that they appreciated you once in a while makes you feel less like just another replaceable cog in a machine and more like someone worthy of respect and love.
Wei Wuxian pressed the back of his hand to my forehead, checking to see if my fever had gone down. I was still a bit warm to the touch, but the medicine did help with keeping it down, even if it was extremely bitter and tasted like death. Two other boys soon came up to me, both with matching expressions of relief, curiosity and excitement. The first of these two was a boy wearing an identical white and light blue uniform and forehead ribbon to Sizhui and his long hair in a half topknot with asymmetrical bangs that framed the right side of his face. He looked to be very loud and rambunctious, with grey eyes that glittered with excitement and a motor mouth that went a mile a minute.
The other was a boy with a long messy fringe that covered his forehead and all his hair tucked into a messy bun. He wore a short sleeved dark teal hanfu that split at the sides over a white long sleeved shirt with teal arm braces that went to his elbows and white trousers. He was a bit calmer than the boy beside him, but he looked nonetheless relieved to see me. Two notification windows popped up, signaling that I unlocked more character profiles.
"ACCESSING DATABASE. CHARACTER PROFILE UNLOCKED. NAME: LAN JINGYI. AGE: 19. OCCUPATION: SENIOR DISCIPLE"
"ACCESSING DATABASE. CHARACTER PROFILE UNLOCKED. NAME: OUYANG ZIZHEN. AGE: 19. OCCUPATION: SENIOR DISCIPLE AND BALING OUYANG SECT HEIR"
"You gave us quite a scare last night." Jingyi said, taking Sizhui's place on the bed. "We'd thought you'd gotten kidnapped or attacked by more fierce corpses after we saved you the first time. Who would have thought we'd be seeing you getting chased by a fox demon? I'm sorry that we didn't get to you sooner."
I could feel my face flushing with embarrassment and shame as I buried them into my hands. So they'd seen me flashing my panties at them while being held upside down by fierce corpses, get chased by a giant fox demon, run down a steep hill with no shoes on, trip and then roll and bounce around like a ragdoll off a cliff and into a ravine? Somebody please just kill me right now… And to do this in front of a lot of cute teenage boys just rubbed more salt into the wound.
"Jingyi!" Exclaimed Zizhen beside him, "You don't need to remind her about how she nearly died!"
He turned to me with an apologetic expression on his face.
"Please excuse this silly gege beside me." He said with a smile "He means well, but sometimes he'll just say things without thinking."
"Yes, don't mind him." Said a voice with a resigned sigh. "I've lost count of how many times he's stuck his foot in his mouth and gotten yelled at for it."
I looked up to see a fourth boy walking up to us. He was the flashiest out of the four of them, with a decorative golden crown and red ribbon holding a waist long ponytail in place and straight fluffy bangs with a center part framing his face. He wore a very familiar looking short sleeved yellow hanfu with a stylized peony embroidered on the front over a long sleeved white undershirt and white trousers. Around his waist was a golden sash with a small white peony surrounded by green leaves as the buckle. On his wrists and calves were pairs of decorative bronze bracers with stylized golden lotuses on them. Though what immediately took the wind out of my lungs was his face! He had those same deep golden eyes, delicate features, and vermillion mark in between his eyebrows like Meng Yao!
Normally, there'd be a notification window popping up with a character profile stating who I was looking at, but Meng Yao just seemed eerily silent. That flashy boy with the accessories was currently arguing with Jingyi while Sizhui was trying to calm the two of them down.
"Meng Yao? Are you alright?" I asked telepathically "You got awfully quiet when that fourth boy came up to us."
At first there was nothing but silence, and then I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and sorrow washing over me, tears beginning to leak out of my eyes and my throat tightening in response to this foreign feeling of sadness. Images of him and Meng Yao from various stages of life began to fill my head, some of them of happier times, and others of sadder times.
I doubled over in pain, clutching at my chest and trying to keep my breathing steady as unfamiliar screams and broken sobs made their way out of my mouth. It was a sadness that was so terrible and soul crushing that I felt like my chest was going to burst. I could hear Meng Yao in the back of my mind sounding like he was trying to keep himself from crying but failing miserably at it.
"Jin Ling... Jin Ling!" I heard him choking out in between broken sobs "Please forgive me! I-I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
I must have caused quite the scene with the noise I was making because the next thing I knew, I felt a pair of arms lifting me up from the bed and my face being pressed against someone's chest while rocking me back and forth in an attempt to calm me down.
"Shh… it's okay, it's okay Xiao-Hua…" cooed Wei Wuxian as he gently bounced me in his arms in a soothing manner to get me to stop crying. "Those geges are just blowing off steam and aren't going to hurt each other. It's okay, I'm here."
I wanted to tell him that it wasn't them that I was reacting to but rather, having a ghost sharing a body with me releasing god knows how many years worth of pent up sadness and grief in a way that my poor body couldn't handle. I felt another pair of arms wrapping around me in a tight embrace and hands rubbing my back in an attempt to get me to stop crying.
"Meng Yao! Please stop!" I begged him desperately "I can't handle all this sadness! Please calm down and let's talk about it! Why are you in so much pain?!"
What terrible things had he done to this Jin Ling person to cause him so much emotional distress? And how long has he had all this sorrow bottled up inside of him? I could hear Meng Yao's broken sobs gradually die down to a few hiccups and a whimper. The tightness in my chest gradually faded away to nothing and I found myself able to calm down, only letting out a few whimpers every now and then. I looked up to see Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji looking at me with worried expressions, making my mind fog over with guilt and regret.. I looked towards the four other boys, who all wore identical looks of horror and shock on their faces. Oh no… my little outburst must have scared the daylights out of them!
"Xiao-hua, what's wrong?" Wei Wuxian asked me quietly as he wiped my tears away with his thumb "Are you okay?"
Lan Wangji offered me a handkerchief, which I gladly took and blew my nose with. My face was red and splotchy from all the crying I had done and my eyes stung every time I blinked. I was dehydrated and sleepy, having worn myself out from experiencing someone else's own pent up emotions. I couldn't very well explain what's going on, so I had to make something up on the spot.
"M-mommy and Daddy always fought so much at home. S-seeing the geges fighting like this made me think of them. I don't like fighting…" I hiccupped.
The four of them exchanged glances at each other, each whispering variations of "Oh god, what have I done?" amongst themselves. I knew I was going to have to lie a lot while I was in this world, but it still filled me with guilt and shame each time I had to do it. One day someone really was going to get hurt because of me lying, and it was going to be my fault. Jingyi placed both of his hands on my own and gave me an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry if I brought back such painful and sad memories for you. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you at home every day."
He threw an arm around Jin Ling's shoulder, showing me that there was no bad blood between them. Jin Ling shot him a confused and annoyed look but then smiled softly and wrapped an arm around Jingyi's shoulder as well.
"Look, Jin Ling and I might fight sometimes but, we're still friends at the end of the day! Isn't that right?"
Jin Ling blushed a little at the comment and then coughed nervously.
"T-that's right! We might not get along all the time, but if I'm in trouble, I know Jingyi will have my back when I need it! Sometimes we geges need to tease each other every now and then to blow off steam."
I felt bad about those two having to waste a friendship speech on me when I didn't even deserve it, but it still warmed my heart a little to see how close the disciples were with each other. I just wished my actual parents back at home could forgive each other and make up like this every time they fought. My stomach gurgled quite loudly, earning a few laughs from everyone in the room. Wei Wuxian set me down on the floor and handed me the cane next to the bed.
"Let's go eat lunch shall we?" said Zizhen with a smile. "I hear the cooks have something special for us!"
Author's Notes: This was one of the most intense chapters I've ever written! I kept wondering if I made Guangyao's outburst sad and heart breaking enough. Poor guy has been through a lot...