Lunch was a very awkward and silent affair for me. The Inn staff had prepared for all of us a giant platter of pan fried jiaozi along with a small dish filled with a dipping sauce made from red vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and black pepper. I would normally be excited at the sight of them, but my shameful behavior from earlier killed any enthusiasm I had for food. I gingerly poked and prodded at one of them on my plate with my chopsticks, deep in thought.
"Meng Yao, I'm not sure if you want to talk but, I do need to know what your relationship is with that Jin Ling fellow over there," I said telepathically as I took a bite out of one of them. "I can't exactly help you if you don't tell me what's on your mind."
There was a tense silence before he spoke, voice sounding very hoarse, strained and congested from his outburst earlier.
"JIN LING…H-HE'S MY NEPHEW. I'VE HELPED CO-RAISE HIM FROM A BABY AFTER HIS PARENTS PASSED AWAY. TO THINK I'D RUN INTO HIM AGAIN SO SOON AFTER ALL THIS TIME…"
I glanced over to where he was sitting. He was currently deep in conversation with Sizhui beside him, occasionally laughing at a joke or a comment he made, and brushing a shoulder up against him. Jingyi was also doing his own share of bantering and teasing with them while stuffing his face with jiaozi while Zizhen was telling him to at least leave some for other people to eat. They all looked very close with each other, though Sizhui and Jin Ling seemed to be closer.
"Well then, what was your situation with him before you died? You were asking him to forgive you and apologizing to him over and over again."
Another awkward silence between us filled the air as Lan Wangji helped refill my plate with more jiaozi. I quickly thanked him and began to nibble on one of them, watching my other tablemates tuck into their meals and crack jokes.
"I…MADE A LOT OF ENEMIES WHEN I WAS STILL ALIVE. OVER THE YEARS, I'VE HAD TO DO A LOT OF UNDERHANDED AND ILLEGAL THINGS TO BOTH SAVE MY OWN SKIN AND TO KEEP THE STATUS QUO. ONE OF THESE ENEMIES WAS GOING TO KILL ME SO WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES, I…TOOK MY BELOVED NEPHEW HOSTAGE AND TRIED TO USE HIM AS A SHIELD."
I nearly choked on my tea. I found myself coughing and sputtering so much that Wei Wuxian had to carefully pat my back so that I could catch my breath again. Oh god…what have I gotten myself into? Was I sharing my consciousness with a mob boss?!
"YOU DID WHAT TO HIM?!" I angrily asked him. "You raised him from a baby, and you tried to turn him into a meat shield? How could you do that?!"
"I'M NOT PROUD OF WHAT I DID EITHER BUT, I DIDN'T REALLY HAVE MUCH OF A CHOICE IN THE MATTER. I GOT PUSHED INTO A CORNER AND I WAS GOING TO HAVE ALL MY SECRETS AND LIES EXPOSED TO THE ENTIRE WORLD. I WISHED I HADN'T GOTTEN HIM INVOLVED WITH MY AFFAIRS, BUT IT SEEMS IT'S FAR TOO LATE FOR ME TO APOLOGIZE TO HIM ANYWAYS. HE LOOKED UP TO ME, AND I REPAID IT BY BETRAYING HIS TRUST."
He let out a tired and resigned sigh. He didn't sound like the snarky and snippy gentleman I had met the night before, but rather a very broken and remorseful person at a loss for what to do and how to move forward.
"JIN LING…HE WAS LIKE A SON TO ME. HE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT I DID TO HIM…"
His voice is cracking towards the end and he sounds like he's about to cry again, which in return makes my own chest ache with feelings I've never felt before. I'd already had my own fair share of him sharing strong emotions with him, and I was not looking to make my benefactors have heart attacks all over again. I've already made them worry about me more times than I can count, I wasn't about to add to that already growing list.
"I HURT HIM SO MUCH…" he said in a quiet voice that was barely audible but still filled with remorse.
"Listen, what you did was wrong, but you did say you wanted to make amends to be able to pass on right? Though you may have done things that were as underhanded and illegal as you claimed they were, it does sound like you really want to make things right. I'm not sure HOW I'll be able to do in my current state that, but we'll think of something together. You still love him don't you?"
"YES, VERY MUCH SO." He said voice thick with emotion and unshed tears. "NO MATTER HOW MUCH TIME PASSES, HE'S STILL MY ONE AND ONLY BELOVED NEPHEW."
He had warned me that he'd done some very unscrupulous things in life before he died, but to hear about it to this extent was like someone threw a bucket of ice water on me. If using your own family as hostages to save your skin was just one of those things, then I could only imagine what other unsavoury things I was going to be uncovering about my mentor.
After lunch, Wei Wuxian sat me down to discuss something with him.
"I'm going to remove the spell I cast on you this morning." He said looking apologetic. "I'm sorry that I have to do this, but that spell is only supposed to last a few hours."
I looked at him in shock. It was only thanks to that spell that I could communicate with everyone and learn about how they ticked! Without that spell, I'd go back to being isolated, scared, and confused about my surroundings.
"I know it's scary to go back to not understanding what we're saying, but that's okay. These four geges are going to teach you some basic Mandarin so that we can help you better."
The four boys behind him gave him an alarmed look.
"B-but Senior Wei!" exclaimed Jingyi. "We're still learning things ourselves! Wouldn't you be better at teaching her how to speak Mandarin?"
"Unfortunately, Jingyi, Lan Zhan and I need to go out again to the other nearby villages to check for any cases of human trafficking and domestic disputes. We have our hands tied this afternoon, so consider this a bonding experience with Lihua."
He then looked at me with a smile and patted me affectionately on the head.
"I'm going to begin alright? Be a good girl for these four. There's no need to be scared, they're all good boys."
He took a talisman from out of his sleeve and began to chant an incantation under his breath. I could hear the sound of chains breaking in my mind as the spell was being dispelled. Afterwards, he gently nudged me towards them and then waved goodbye to us as he and Lan Wangji went out the door. Now it was just me left in a room with four teenage boys with no idea what they're doing.
The four boys looked at each other at a loss for what to do. They were quietly discussing amongst themselves what their next plan of attack was while occasionally glancing at me. I still felt guilty about scaring them half to death with my crying and wanted to specifically apologize to Jingyi and Jin Ling. I knew what bantering and light teasing looked like, and it was way different from the screaming matches my parents had at home. Their screaming matches sometimes involved objects being broken and holes being punched through walls. They were made to hurt each other in the most devastating ways and cause as much collateral damage as possible. No one ever made it out of them unscathed.
Zizhen must have noticed how nervous and scared I looked because I found him crouching down to my level. He had a reassuring smile on his face as he placed both hands on my shoulders.
(It's okay to be nervous. This is our first time teaching, but we'll do what we can for you,) he said in perfect Cantonese.
I looked up at Zizhen with wide eyes and a sense of relief washing over me. If I wasn't already holding on to a cane, my knees would have already given out beneath me.
(You…you know how to speak Cantonese?!) I asked incredulously.
(My clan is located near an area where a majority of the people speak the language,) he said with a smile. (In fact, my father is married to someone that speaks it! I've also been trying to teach my friends how to speak it as well, though I think Jin Ling and Sizhui are the fastest to pick up on the language.)
The thing about Mandarin was that when people are speaking, they speak rather quickly so it's hard to keep up with what they're saying. You could say the same thing about other languages, but to a first time speaker of Mandarin, there are a lot of inflections, tones and sounds that are hard to grasp the first time around. Though because Cantonese also had some overlap with Mandarin, there were some words that were the same, just pronounced differently. The Mandarin spoken in this world was way different than the Mandarin back in my world. It was very archaic and there were a lot of different terms and slang for things that I couldn't really understand. Perhaps this was why I was put into this body: so that I could absorb information better.
These four boys as Wei Wuxian put it really were nice and were doing their best to give me a crash course in the language as well as learning how to write and read. But there's only so much you could learn in the span of an afternoon. My mind was bogged down with learning fatigue, and I felt like I was on the verge of a meltdown. I had Meng Yao for sure to help me navigate through this crazy world, but I didn't want to cause too much trouble for him, so I had to be as self sufficient as I could by at least learning the basics.
(Let's take a break shall we? You look tired.) said Zizhen as he put the book we were reading down.
I nodded and scooted off of my place on his lap. They weren't perfect at trying to teach me things, but at least they didn't scream at me when I made mistakes or hit my knuckles with a ruler. My first order of business was to earn the trust of Jin Ling. He was Meng Yao's one and only nephew after all. If I could just establish just one bit of connection with him, then it would make my job of helping him with his unfinished business all the more easier. I also had to apologize to Jingyi too for scaring him. He really was good at heart, even if he did sometimes say things without thinking.
I hobbled over to where a basket filled with peaches laid and attempted to pick them up. Walking around as badly injured as I was, it made things twice as hard and tiring to do since my center of balance was completely thrown off. I tried to bend down, but I lost my footing and was about to fall flat on my face when I felt a pair of hands wrap around my waist and pull me back up. I looked up to see Jin Ling with the basket in his hand.
(Next time you want something; don't be afraid to ask for it okay?) He said as we walked back to where the others were sitting.
As they were peeling the skins off of the peaches and splitting them amongst themselves, I gently tugged on both the sleeves of Jin Ling and Jingyi to get their attention. They both stopped what they were talking about and looked at me with confusion in their eyes.
"Jingyi-gege…and Ling-gege…" I said slowly, trying to get used to speaking in Mandarin. "I'm sorry for scaring you and h-hurting your feelings. Will you…forgive me?"
They both looked at me with a smile and pulled me into a hug. They both felt so warm that it was making me feel sleepy.
"There's nothing to apologize for, silly girl." Jingyi said while ruffling my hair.
"It's okay, if anything, we should be the ones apologizing to you," Said Jin Ling while handing me a peach slice, "but I think we've already done enough apologizing for one day. So let's just let bygones be bygones alright?"
We passed the afternoon with another round of lessons, snacks and stories until Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji returned to the inn. They both looked very tired and ragged from going village to village looking for leads, which only served to make that gnawing feeling of guilt even stronger in me. That night, Bai Lian village threw the biggest banquet I've ever seen as thanks for helping them with getting rid of those fierce corpses and that fox demon.
I was feeling well enough to actually attend, and wore those new robes that had been given to me. Though I did get a few stares from some nosey villagers. Some of them gossiped about me, whispering about my closely cropped hair and wondering if I had done something particularly heinous that required all my hair to get hacked off. It wasn't anything new since people used to talk behind my back about me when I was going through chemotherapy, and even then I still hated the pitying looks I got from people. I wasn't some animal on display at the zoo! I was a real human being that was going through a rough patch!
Of course luckily for me, I had the Gusu Lan disciples as well as Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian to shut down anyone that dared to comment about my looks. From housewives to bored old farts who have nothing better to do than to talk shit about other people, no one escaped from them without getting a tongue lashing.
After dinner, they drew a hot bath for me. Since I couldn't really hop into the giant wooden bathtub by myself, I had to be carried and dropped in. They've probably already seen me naked when I passed out the night before from my fever. Someone had to put those sleeping robes on me while I was unconscious. Even if those two were in a relationship with each other, it was still two grown men that were seeing me in my most vulnerable state.
As I was being scrubbed down and having my wounds cleaned, I took the time to examine my new body in the reflection of the bathwater. I no longer possessed the body of a woman, but that of a child. My new body still carried reminders of how ill I really was before I died. I could count how every rib jutted out of my body and how my hips stuck out in sharp and bony angles. And although I had the soft and youthful looks you'd expect from a kid, my face was still a bit sunken in and I had very dark circles under my eyes. Never had I wanted to cry so much in my life. This was how much leukemia had claimed from me, and it was a painful reminder of how long I suffered for all those years.
"What's wrong?" asked Wei Wuxian as he poured some fragrant bathwater out over my head to remove suds from my hair. "Are you thinking about what those villagers said about you?"
I turned to him and shook my head no, drops of water flying everywhere from the motion. I was probably over thinking things and this was my chance to make a fresh start, even if this body of mine was temporary. Blinking back tears, I attempted to deflect the subject onto something a bit more light hearted to keep from worrying him.
"Umm…what should I call you two?" I asked him
"Well, that's a good question." he said as he massaged a fragrant oil that smelled of flowers into my scalp. "You can call us anything you're comfortable with. For now, do you want to call us gege? You can call me Xian-gege and my husband Wangji-gege"
I nodded as he scooped me out of the tub and began the process of drying me off on a stool. Lan Wangji came in with a tray filled with medicinal salves, gauze and splints for my ankle.
"Xian-gege and Wangji-gege…" I mumbled out, trying to pronounce their names for the first time.
I had a giant purple bruise covering my left shoulder from where I had dislocated it when I fell into the ravine the night before. My back and legs were covered in crisscrossing cuts and scrapes I had gotten from my ordeal. Some of them had finally scabbed over and began to heal while others were deeper and still stung when topical salves were rubbed around them. My ankle had a hand shaped bruise wrapped around it and was pretty swollen, though thankfully the nail marks had disappeared. The soles of my feet were also cut up pretty badly, though this was a consequence of running barefoot through a dark spooky forest late at night.
After having my wounds redressed and bandaged, they helped me back into my sleeping robes and put the sling back around my arm as well as readjusting the splint around my ankle. The evening was spent with them playing me songs from times long since passed on their respective instruments. When they weren't being used as tools to fight monsters, they could also be used to create beautiful and calming melodies that soothed the soul. My eyes began to flutter, and I soon found myself drifting off to the land of sleep, the sounds of an unknown lullaby being sung ringing in my ears.