Chapter Text
-1-
Wei Ying drags himself up to the tavern’s wood-worn bar and collapses onto a chair, dripping rainwater and freezing cold. He couldn’t say how he found this place, tucked away in the forest and hidden from the main road as it is, but here he sits. Two seconds from falling asleep. Filthy from head to toe. Never mind a bath, Wei Ying might need to be shoved under a waterfall for ten minutes to scour him of all the dirt he has accumulated on his travels.
“If you need a room, I’ve got one available for the night,” the tavern’s proprietor says. He chuckles and gives Wei Ying a once-over. “Comes with a bath and a meal.”
Wei Ying braces himself with a deep breath and digs into his dwindling supply of coin, sliding the money to the proprietor with a weary smile. “I’ll take it,” he says. “And a jar of Emperor’s Smile if you have it.”
“Of course. Thank you, gongzi. My son will show you to your room whenever you’re ready,” the proprietor replies, nodding toward the young man serving a table of guests on the other side of the dining room.
After Wei Ying stables Li’l Apple for the night, he can settle in for a quiet, relaxing evening with a jar of wine and the first hot food he’s had in weeks. As he returns to the inn from said stables, however, a cacophony of panicked clucking erupts from the chicken coop out back. With one hand on Chenqing and his heart pounding in his throat, Wei Ying skirts along the side of the building toward it.
“Girls, girls! What’s the fuss?” a young man’s voice says as the back door opens with a creak and the glow of a lantern illuminates the area.
Wei Ying turns the corner to find the proprietor’s son shushing the hens, having finished with the guests inside.
“Did something startle you?” the young man murmurs to them, apparently unaware of Wei Ying’s presence. “Was it the yaoguai? It’s already gone, so there’s nothing to worry about.” He looks out into the darkness, away from Wei Ying. “Maybe I should move you inside anyway.”
“Everything alright?” Wei Ying calls to him as he steps into the ring of light.
The young man’s head snaps up and he stares at Wei Ying with wide eyes.
Wei Ying placatingly holds up his hands. “Just me.”
The young man exhales loudly, his whole body sagging. “You startled me, gongzi. Thought you were... uh.”
“You thought I was what?”
“Nothin’. One of the local kids, maybe,” the young man says with a dry laugh and a shrug. “No big deal.” A silence hangs between them as the young man keeps staring. Finally, he says, “Are you ready to be shown to your room? You can come with me through the back way, if you want.”
Wei Ying follows the proprietor’s son inside, the agitated chattering of the hens cutting off abruptly as the door closes behind them. “You mentioned a yaoguai?”
The young man stumbles on his way up the stairs and turns to Wei Ying with an eyebrow raised. “Pardon?”
“To the chickens. You were wondering why they were so nervous.”
“Oh! That. It was just a little joke. Those kids I mentioned, always playing cultivators and monsters, you know?” The young man’s lips pull into a tight smile. “Come, gongzi. I’ll show you to your room and have a meal brought up for you.”
Outside his door, Wei Ying bows. “My apologies for not introducing myself sooner. My name is Wei Wuxian.”
“Zhao Huang. It’s an honor to have you here, Wei-gongzi.”
As Zhao Huang turns to go, Wei Ying pauses outside the door. “If there’s any way I can help—”
“We’ll be sure to make use of your services. Thank you.”
Nervous, or hiding something? Wei Ying can’t tell. He contemplates whether or not to pursue it while in the bath, staying there until the water turns cold and his skin prunes.
Zhao Huang seems like a sensible enough person; if the village required Wei Ying’s assistance, he’d have said something. Every village has its quirks. Any experienced cultivator knows most of them are probably not ghost-related. Wei Ying’s feet itch with the desire to keep moving. Instead, he falls into bed and a dreamless slumber until well into daylight the next morning.
The dining room has already emptied out after the rush of breakfast by the time Wei Ying makes it downstairs the next morning. He finds himself the sole recipient of the proprietor’s attention while waiting, learning that the congenial man’s name is Zhao Yuchang, and that Zhao Huang is learning to take over the family business, has two older sisters, and has recently taken an interest in recording village happenings for the posterity of future generations. All of this information is imparted to Wei Ying within minutes of the conversation starting. “Your son seems like a hard worker,” he says, barely awake.
“He is!” Zhao Yuchang replies with a hearty guffaw. “Responsible, too—insists on taking care of the animals all by himself. I’ll bet you’ll never see a happier bunch of hens in your travels, gongzi!”
“Can’t say that I have,” agrees Wei Ying. He smiles wanly. “Though he did mention something startling them last night.”
“Ah,” Zhao Yuchang says, shaking his head. “Must have been one of those kids again. They like to sneak up on the chickens and give them a scare. Brats, the lot of ‘em! The hens will be nervous enough as it is with all the visitors come summertime. Thankfully, my A-Huang has never been like that.”
Zhao Yuchang chatters on about his son’s merits as though trying to get him access to a prestigious school. He laments that his son hasn’t even been to any of the larger cities in the region before. “I don’t get many wandering cultivators after the summer festival’s over,” he admits at length. “I can’t get away from the tavern, so it’s nice to chat with travelers every now and then. I know A-Huang appreciates it, too.”
Wei Ying, already a month and a half into his own self-imposed solitude, nods. “I couldn’t agree more. There’s nothing like company when you’re on the road.”
From what he gathers, the village—called Meiduo—doesn’t suffer from the usual problems plaguing rural dwellings. The local deity brings them luck and fortune all year round, and every summer they hold a festival in her honor. Indeed, as Wei Ying leads Li’l Apple toward the main road after taking his leave, remnants of the festival adorn pillars and rafters all along the main street—lanterns, red streamers, and paintings, all with a rabbit motif.
One of the merchants has a rabbit lantern still on display—it would tempt Wei Ying, if only it could survive until he travels to Cloud Recesses again. Whenever that will be. While contemplating whether he should get it anyway, a woman steps up next to him and surveys the merchant’s offerings, then leans close.
“You’re a wandering cultivator,” she says, and it takes Wei Ying a moment to realize she’s speaking to him.
“Of a sort,” he replies. He hasn’t made any efforts to obscure his identity in these last few weeks, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be forthcoming about it, either. There’s a certain comfort in lying low. “Is there something I can help with?”
Humming noncommittally, the woman produces a small, cloth-wrapped object from a pouch at her waist. “You’ll return here one day.”
“How do you know that?”
The woman’s eyes sparkle with a youthfulness belied by the lines on her face. “A feeling, Wei-gongzi. Take this. Don’t lose it.”
Wei Ying unwraps the cloth bundle she places into his palms to find a small carved stone statue of a rabbit, oddly curved along its front. He is immediately struck with the thought that Lan Zhan would like it very much. With a furrow of his brow, he peers back at the woman. “Thank you?”
Her eyes crinkle when she smiles. “Return here if you ever find its match.” Without waiting for his agreement, she turns on her heel and wanders away into the crowd.
Wei Ying turns to Li’l Apple. “What do you figure that was about?”
Li’l Apple kicks at the ground, impatient to get moving.
“Intriguing argument,” Wei Ying says, tugging her reins and leading her out of the village.
---
Wei Ying closely examines the figurine when he next stops to rest. It’s not high quality, but the craftsmanship isn’t shoddy, either, and it bears no strange markings or resentful aura. So, why had she placed such importance on it? What was it she’d said—come back if he ever finds its match? Curious. He tucks it into the bottom of his pouch and has forgotten about it by the end of the day.
Not long after that, Wei Ying falls in with a small group of unaffiliated wandering cultivators who don’t care what method of cultivation he uses, so long as he pulls his weight with the rest of them. He makes friends. Has somebody to watch his back on night hunts, is able to watch others’ backs in return. As the months progress, their journey takes him farther and farther from Meiduo village. From Gusu. From Lan Zhan.
But all journeys must come to an end.
---
His new jindan sparks to life on a dew-soaked Gusu spring morning.
It starts with a flicker of his shen mixing with curls of unfamiliar jing—a final gift from Mo Xuanyu, over a year in the making. He spends eight days focusing his qi through the combined energies in his lower dantian, practicing inedia and not sleeping at all. The golden core that forms is a tiny little thing, a pellet in his belly compared to the furnace of power he had once cultivated. But it’s enough. It’s a start.
He descends the rocky peak alone and unties his donkey, trembling fingers barely able to hold onto the rope. His stomach has long since stopped aching. Coreless inedia had perhaps been ill-advised, but he lives the vagabond life of a wandering cultivator. He needs his jindan. He needs it to be strong. He won’t tolerate any more uncertainty on his night hunts, whether he’s alone or not.
“Too little, too late, eh Li’l Apple,” he mutters, rifling through the saddle bags for his dried trail rations. Wei Ying had been on top of the world once. Back then, attempting the impossible meant achieving it, too. Now, memories of that time echo like empty promises in his aching heart, and the impossible has never seemed farther from his reach.
---
Wei Ying night hunts. He cultivates. Walks, restless, for weeks on end, skirting Gusu’s border and avoiding the route that will take him where he truly, deep down, wants to go. He gets hurt more than once, gets back up on his own strength every time. After a particularly bad hunt, he finally finds himself on the ridge where he and Lan Zhan parted ways nearly a year ago.
Routine dictates that Wei Ying not spend more than a day or two in any given place, but after many a sleepless night spent under the stars, perhaps he has earned a rest. The sing-song voice of one of his travelling companions, a cultivator from one of Lanling Jin’s subsidiary sects named Bai-guniang, rings in his head: “Wei-gongzi,” she used to say when they travelled together, “you won’t be of any use to us if you can’t keep your eyes open on a hunt.”
She’d been right, of course. And now that he’s solo, it’s more important than ever that he stays on top of his game. If something happens to him, who would care for Li’l Apple? Who would even know?
Ah. He shakes his head and huffs a little laugh—no need to be so grim. There are better ways to spend an afternoon, so he spreads a blanket on the grass, brings Chenqing to his lips, and tries playing himself to sleep.
If Lan Zhan were here, he could pluck out some calming melody on his qin that would put Wei Ying right out. Wei Ying would tease him about it being boring, but they both would know the truth: that Wei Ying can relax better around Lan Zhan than he can with anyone else.
Wei Ying doesn’t sleep well that night, either, so he thinks of Lan Zhan. Lets his hands wander over his body, under his clothes; lets himself imagine they don’t belong to him. But under it all, it’s only a proxy. His efforts at solo relaxation fail him and leave him entirely unsatisfied.
With the dawn of the third morning, Wei Ying sits cross-legged in front of his fire. Maybe he should make his way back to that crossroads inn he had passed at the bottom of the hill and get a drink. He could talk to somebody. Socialize a bit. He toys with the idea of finding his way into someone’s bed to try and quell the longing in his heart, but the very thought burns like a hand on a too-hot kettle.
He eats breakfast. Gets off. Bathes himself in the little stream he’d come across on his way up. If he can’t sleep tonight, he will seek out a warm place to stay for tomorrow. For now, he simply closes his eyes and allows himself to be.
That afternoon, while playing Chenqing, the hair on the back of Wei Ying’s neck stands on end.
“Wei Ying,” says a deep, familiar voice.
The melody cuts out mid-note. Wei Ying turns around, halfway afraid he might be hallucinating. He smiles. Whispers, “Lan Zhan.”
Although not even a full year has passed, Lan Zhan descends that hill like it’s been another sixteen.
