Author's Notes:
This chapter has depictions of child abuse in the beginning. Please read at your own discretion. Also, I apologize to anyone who works in the fast food industry. Keep up the good work, you're all awesome.
One night, I had a dream about the past again. It was something I'd thought I'd buried deep within the recesses of my memories that I've forgotten about. In my dream, I see my parents and my sister in the living room. The sound of soft, fleshy skin being struck with an open palm echoes like a gunshot. My face was hurting and I was sobbing to the point where I couldn't breathe properly. It's me that's been slapped. There's an awful sensation in my chest and a stinging sensation radiating from my cheek into my jaw. A sharp female voice makes my ears ring and my heart thud in my chest painfully. It was my mother, and she was in one of her tirades.
"You stupid child!" she screams at me as she grabs a handful of my hair and lifts my head up painfully so that I could look her in the eyes. "How could you mess up playing such a simple song?! There are going to be scouts from good schools at your recital tomorrow! Do you know how much people frown upon those who aren't perfect?! Mistakes don't get you into good colleges and jobs! Do you know where making mistakes gets you?! Sleeping on the streets and working at McDonalds!"
She's still half rambling, half lecturing me about being perfect while she still has my hair in her hand, my scalp beginning to burn as individual strands are forcefully being torn from the follicles and spittle is flying from her mouth. That's what it's always been about isn't it? She claimed that she was doing all this for my sake, but really, she just wanted an excuse to brag about our accomplishments as though they were her own. She never once asked me or my sister about what we wanted. She didn't even want children, she wanted trophies to go around showing people how good of a mother she was, even if she didn't really deserve that title. We were nothing more than pawns to her.
"Mom!" screams my older sister while tugging at her sleeve. "Please, let go of her hair! You're hurting her!"
She's backhanded with a scream for her efforts instead. I could only whimper as I heard her begin to cry as well. The pain in my head gets worse. I think she's even torn out a chunk of my hair with the way she's still holding me.
"You insolent child! Don't get in my way!" she screams at her.
"Darling! That's enough!" yells my father as he grabs my mom's wrist, "She's a fucking child! Hasn't she practiced enough for one day?!"
"If I don't punish her now, then she's never going to learn! Do you want her to grow up to be a good-for-nothing?!" she snarls at him, wrenching her arm free from his grasp.
My sister and father are begging her to let go of me, but it all falls on deaf ears as she drags me by the wrist to where the piano is sitting in our practice room and forces me to sit on the bench. She angrily slams the door behind us, almost breaking it off its hinges from the force and trapping us both inside.
"You are not allowed to leave this room until you can play this song perfectly," she tells me coldly. "You have until 6' o' clock, or else you don't get to eat dinner tonight. Now quit snivelling and start playing! I don't have all day!"
I then wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and tears leaking from my eyes. Though I have died and have been transported to this world, that woman still haunts my dreams, an ever looming spectre I can't seem to escape from. Would I truly be free from her? Even in the afterlife?
I'm sitting in the Yashi watching Lan Qiren playing the guqin for me. His brows are knitted in concentration as he skillfully plucks at the strings without any hesitation or mistakes. I'm mesmerized by the way he's playing his instrument. Of course he'd be good at this, after all, Lan Wangji had to learn how to play the guqin from SOMEBODY right? As he plucks the last note of the song he's playing, he places his hands back on his lap.
"And this is how you play Rest," he says as he takes a sip of his tea.
I look at him with wide, curious eyes, eager but scared to start playing too. It's funny really, how I went on to become a theater kid despite having painful memories of being forced to play the piano without making mistakes. And now here I am taking music lessons again. The past me would have begun crying again if she knew what I was doing. Although Lan Qiren was a teacher, I couldn't help but wonder if he ever beat small children like myself for making mistakes while playing songs like my mother did to me long ago. But unlike her, these were people I WANTED to play for, which made me twice as nervous.
"Why don't you try playing the first part first?" he asks me as I get my own miniature guqin out. "We'll work on the second part of the song at another time."
I look down at my instrument, hands shaking nervously and fingers trembling with anticipation. My mouth feels dry and my heart is thundering loudly against my ribs like a caged bird trying to escape. I shouldn't be scared since this would be like me playing for a grandfatherly figure, but I can't help myself. Some wounds never heal over, and this is one of those things.
"YOU'LL BE OKAY," says Guangyao reassuringly, "JUST RELAX AND DO YOUR BEST."
Closing my eyes, I willed my heart to stop beating so loudly and focus on the task at hand. A guqin was vastly different from a piano. You plucked and slid your fingers over strings instead of pressing down on keys or pushing a foot pedal. It was more like playing a harp or a guitar than anything. The strings make a soft and metallic rasping noise as my fingertips glide over them and press down. Playing the guqin, much like the piano, required a lot of hand eye coordination and the right timing. One wrong move and everyone will be able to hear it.
The first few notes of Rest are simple enough to learn. It's the next few parts that I struggle with. This song is supposed to temporarily quell and calm resentful energy. If you were to play this song incorrectly, you could wind up making things worse if you were in the middle of purifying a monster or a ghost. I gasp when I accidentally pluck the wrong note, causing me to cringe at how awful it came out.
"O-oh no…" I sputter nervously, heart racing and going a mile a minute. "I-I-I can fix this! I can fix this!"
He places a hand over my left hand, making me flinch and brace myself for a beating. This was it wasn't it? Had I managed to anger him enough to warrant a beating? Instead, I watch the older man place his other hand over my right hand.
"Your notes are coming out muddy," he tells me as he gently but firmly repositions my hands in the right places. "When you play this part, make sure you're also moving your other hand. A guqin can't be played with just one hand, It needs a partner to compliment it."
He plucks a clear, crisp note with a flick of his index finger while sliding his hand up the string in one fluid motion. I'd heard from the other disciples and my classmates about how strict and scary he was as a teacher. But compared to my mother, he was like a breath of fresh air. She would hit me whenever I played a note wrong or threatened to starve me. By the time I was done with piano lessons, my arms and body would be covered in welts. It wouldn't be until I moved in with my grandma that I would learn to love playing music again without threats of being beaten.
"Now try again from the beginning." he says as he takes his hands off of my own.
Taking a deep breath, I clear my head of all thoughts and start from the top. I play as normal until I get to the part where I messed up last time. It takes me a few tries, but I managed to play that part perfectly without any hiccups. I feel my heart soaring with excitement.
"A-Yao! Did you hear that?" I ask him.
"HEAR WHAT?"
"Exactly! I did it! I played that part without any mistakes!"
I look up at Lan Qiren expectantly. Though he remained stone faced and stoic, I swore that for a brief moment, I could see a faint smile on his lips.
"You did well," he tells me. "You're beginning to improve."
It's after lessons that he's invited me to have tea and some snacks with him while I wait for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji to pick me up.
"Do you think I'll be able to be as good at playing the guqin like Hanguang-jun?" I ask as I pop a peanut into my mouth.
Lan Qiren seems to hum for a bit before taking a very long sip of his tea.
"Not right now," he says as he puts his cup down, "but if you continue to practice your playing and study hard enough, you might be able to. There's no need to rush doing things."
I furrow my eyebrows as I chew on another peanut. So it was going to be like that huh?
"But… I want to be good now…" I murmured, "I…I want to play something for Zewu-jun!"
At the mention of my Shibo, Lan Qiren looks like he's been caught off guard before he puts his cup down again, a pained expression on his face. Was talking about him a taboo subject here?
"I see…" he says as he strokes his beard thoughtfully. "How much did Wangji tell you about him?"
"He…he told me about how Shibo's closest friend betrayed him and why he's living in the woods," I tell him while staring at my now cold cup of tea. "Is there a song he likes that I can play for him?"
He pauses for a moment as if to mull something over. Then I watch him stand up and walk over to a wooden chest on a shelf and pull a stack of papers out for me. I realize it's sheet music when I flip through it. Though it's not like the sheet music I'm used to playing back at home. I recognize the Chinese characters for numbers, but there are other characters in there that I'm not familiar with. Guangyao's voice pipes up in the back of my mind.
"KEY ITEM OBTAINED: LAN XICHEN'S FAVOURITE SONG. TOTAL POINTS EARNED: 20. GOAL FOR COMPLETE REINCARNATION: 190/1000 POINTS''
"This…this is Xichen…no, your Shibo's favourite song," he says with a sad look in his eyes, "he used to beg me to play this song for him and your shifu when they were younger. And although I am entrusting this with you, please make sure you focus on your classes too. I don't want you getting in trouble with your shifus after all."
"I will, Sir," I tell him as I put the papers away in a qian-kun pouch. "I just want to cheer him up anyway that I can."
I watch him shaking his head, a small laugh escaping from his lips.
"You're such a sweet, thoughtful child, Lihua. I'm sure Xichen will appreciate your efforts."
Later that night, back in the comfort of my own room, I'm carefully reading and rereading the sheet music while cross referencing several books to decipher what it all meant. Having Guangyao with me was fine and dandy, but I sometimes felt guilty about leaving him to do most of the heavy lifting. He was already ridden with guilt over the things he had done in the past. To ask him to help me with translating and explaining things to me in a way that I understood them, wasn't that already a lot on his plate? My fingertips by now have been rubbed raw and red from continuously playing the strings that skin is starting to toughen around the pads.
"Alright… right hand on the 10th dot, sixth string… flick the sixth string with your nail…" I mumble as I figure out where to place my hands.
"NO LIHUA, THAT NOTE IS A HALF NOTE. YOU HAVE TO MOVE YOUR HAND CLOSER TO BEING IN BETWEEN THE 9th AND 10TH DOTS. THE STRING IS MEANT TO BE PLUCKED, NOT FLICKED."
I do as he says and manage to play a clear note perfectly. Turns out he was right. Shibo must have been a very good guqin instructor.
"Was it this hard for you when Xichen was teaching you how to play the guqin?" I ask him.
"NOT REALLY," he says nonchalantly, "YOU MIGHT NOT BELIEVE THIS BUT, DESPITE MY MOTHER BEING A PROSTITUTE, SHE KNEW HOW TO READ, WRITE AND PLAY THE GUQIN. SHE…SACRIFICED SO MUCH FOR ME, TO MAKE SURE I DIDN'T LIVE IN POVERTY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. ER-GE WAS THE ONE WHO TAUGHT ME MANY OF THE TRADEMARK SONGS AND TECHNIQUES OF THE LAN SECT."
I hear him give a soft laugh, as though he was remembering a fond and happy memory, though the burning sensation in my chest said otherwise. I knew where he was going with this conversation, and it wasn't going to be pretty.
"WHEN WE WERE STILL SEEING EACH OTHER AS LOVERS, I'D PROMISED TO ONE DAY WRITE AND PLAY A SONG FOR HIM, SOMETHING ONLY FOR HIS EARS. EVEN AFTER WE'D BROKEN THINGS OFF, I WAS STILL WORKING ON THAT SONG FOR HIM IN BETWEEN SECT LEADER AND CHIEF CULTIVATOR DUTIES, BECAUSE I FULLY INTENDED ON KEEPING MY PROMISE TO HIM."
"Did you ever finish it?" I ask him.
"NO, I DIDN'T," he replies sadly, "THAT SONG FOR HIM WAS ONLY ABOUT 3/4THS COMPLETED WHEN I DIED. I CAN'T HELP BUT WONDER IF THE DISCIPLES OF THE JIN SECT RANSACKED MY OFFICE AND THREW MY HARD WORK OUT AFTERWARDS…THOUGH I DOUBT ER-GE WOULD EVER WANT TO HEAR IT ANYWAYS AFTER WHAT I DID TO HIM. I WISH I HAD FINISHED THAT SONG SOONER."
I think about that memory I saw of him playing on the guqin for Xichen. So he had really meant it when he said that he was going to write a song for him one day. It wasn't just something he said in the heat of the moment, it was something that he was dead serious about.
"A-Yao, perhaps Xichen doesn't need to know that you wrote that song you were working on," I tell him as I change out of my regular robes into ones made for sleep.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" he asks.
"I could help you with finishing the rest of that song. And if anyone asks me where I got it from, I could just say that I found it in a book that I discovered in the library. Nobody has to know after all."
A knock at the door interrupts our conversation, making the burning sensation in my chest vanish as quickly as it arrived. I hurry to the door and open it to see Lan Wangji outside, seemingly unbothered by the cold night air and the falling snow.
"H-Hanguang-jun!" I murmur. "What brings you here?"
"I just wanted to see how you were doing, it's almost bedtime." he tells me, brushing snow off his shoulders. "May I come in?"
I nod to him, opening the door wider for him to walk in. He sees what I've been doing after dinner, with various books scattered around my desk. He picks up the score I've been deciphering, his pale crystalline eyes widening with shock and realization.
"This is…where did you get this from?" he asks me.
"Lan-Xianshang gave it to me," I tell him, fidgeting on the spot. "A-a-am I in trouble?"
Lan Wangji shakes his head no, a small smile on his lips as he pats my head affectionately.
"You're not in trouble, Xiao-Hua," he tells me reassuringly, "It's just been a while since I've seen and heard this song being played. Would you like me to give you a demonstration on how it's played?"
I nod excitedly, taking a seat on the bed. I watch him glide over to where my guqin lay on my desk, tucking his legs neatly underneath his body and ready to start playing. Without any hesitation or mistakes, he begins. My room is once more filled with the sound of strings being plucked and flicked, long, slender fingers working in tandem with each other to create something beautiful. He opens his mouth to sing as well, his voice instantly grabbing my heart. He has such a sweet and lovely singing voice, one that could quell whatever storm was brewing in a person's heart. Even though he's playing on a miniature version made for children, he still manages to make it work.
I imagine a warm summer evening with the moon shining brightly above us, the scent of sandalwood lingering in the air and the image of two lovebirds having a private midnight rendezvous, away from prying eyes. Maybe this is why Xichen loved this song very much; I could only just imagine in my mind's eye Guangyao singing this song for him, that heart of his filled with love for the one person who never once judged him for being different. I feel my eyelids growing heavy with sleep, a yawn escaping from my lips. The sound of singing and guqin playing stops when Lan Wangji looks up and sees how sleepy I look. He walks over where I am seated on my bed and motions for me to lie down.
"Why did you stop?" I ask him as he pulls the blankets up to my chin. "I wanted to hear you play more."
"Because it's time for you to go to sleep," he replies as he brushes a stray wisp of hair from my eyes.
"Hanguang-jun? Will I be as good as you one day?" I ask him.
"One day you will be," he says, smiling fondly at me, "but I want you to be your own person, not a copy of me or Wei Ying. We don't want you to compare yourself to us. We want you to be happy. "
My own person, huh? No one's told me to become my own person in a long time. I was always told to stand there and look pretty while my mother lied through her teeth about how good of a person she was pretending to be. That my sister and I were tools to be used by her however she wanted. I'm snapped out of these thoughts by Lan Wangji leaning over me. He gently pushes my fringe to the side so that he could place a light kiss on my forehead. The gentle scent of sandalwood and soap wafting from him makes me even drowsier, as if to lead me into the realm of sleep once more. I let out a small giggle as I adjust my body so that it's more comfy. The way he and Wei Wuxian would do this for me always reminded me of the way my grandma would tuck my sister and I into bed each night. I wished that they had raised both me and my sister back in my world.
"Goodnight, Xiao-Hua," He says as he blows out several candles lit around my room.
"Goodnight, Hanguang-jun," I tell him with a sleepy yawn, flipping onto my side.
Moments later, I hear his footsteps headed towards the front of my room and the door closing behind him. The sound of snow crunching beneath his feet echoes through the air as he makes his way back to the Jingshi to turn in for the night.
Author's Notes:
I watched how someone played the guqin and how to read sheet music made for this instrument on youtube as part of my research. I used this video as a reference: watch?v=8i1l8emZpo0&t=323s