Chapter Text
One of the earliest memories Jin Ling has about his jiujiu is sparks. Purple sparks dancing around him and jiujiu, and how it feels when they dance on his skin. He doesn’t remember how old he was back then—perhaps four?—but he remembers the awe and the happiness and the warmth, and how jiujiu held him in his arms.
Later, perhaps when he was seven or eight, jiujiu sits him down in his office and takes his hand in his. Jin Ling’s hand drowns in jiujiu’s hold, his big, sword-callused hand covering Jin Ling’s short fingers and soft palm.
”This is Zidian,” jiujiu says, holding his hand so that Jin Ling sees clearly how the ring sits snug around his finger and the chain runs from the ring into the snake curling around jiujiu’s wrist.
”Zidian, this is A-Ling,” jiujiu says next, and then Jin Ling stops breathing when the snake comes alive and slithers up his arm and around him and tickles him under the chin and—
”Zidian,” jiujiu sighs.
The purple snake completes its exploration and wraps itself around Jin Ling’s wrist, shrinking down so that it looks like it was made for him.
”Hello, Zidian,” Jin Ling says.
As Jin Ling grows older, he slowly learns that not all sparks are real. Sometimes jiujiu adds sparks and crackles just for the drama, for making the people he didn’t want to deal with jump and hurry away. Jin Ling never really bothers to jump—he knows jiujiu would never really hurt him and even if jiujiu did, Zidian would refuse.
Sometimes he wonders how it would feel if the ring was destined for him. Zidian is a formidable weapon but it comes with a lot of baggage, and frankly, Jin Ling doesn’t feel like he’d be up to it. He isn’t sure that he’d ever be really comfortable with the looks the sparks draw, or carrying the legacy of the Violet Spider and Sandu Shengshou.
He’s far more comfortable with the sparks and lightning as visitors, not as permanent residents.
And even later still, when Jin Ling meets the man he thinks is his weird cutsleeve uncle; when he watches Zidian come alive with a malice he’s never witnessed before; when he closes his eyes against the blinding bright light when Zidian collides with Hanguang-jun’s spiritual energy—
Jin Ling turns his head and blinks the spots away from his vision and looks at his jiujiu, sees a teenager where his strong and fearless jiujiu stands, sees grief and loss and rage, sees love and hate and so much desperate hope that for a moment, he finds it hard to breathe.
He watches as Hanguang-jun gathers the man Jin Ling thought was his weird cutsleeve uncle in his arms and leaves, watches the juniors disperse, watches as jiujiu vibrates in place, and wonders.
(And even later still, when it’s all over, when Jin Ling is numb with shock and nauseous with terrible revelations, when there are more deaths than he could even imagine, jiujiu wraps him in such a tight hug it hurts. Jin Ling tucks his face into jiujiu’s chest and shudders.)