Chapter Text
After frantically searching for any other evidence, noticing Wei Wuxian had added his phone number to his contacts ages ago, and kicking himself for never noticing it, he calls the number, heart beating frantically.
The result is a pleasant voice telling him the number he’s trying to call has been disconnected.
He has no other of getting hold of Wei Wuxian, but he can’t shake the feeling in the pit of his stomach, the fear, the anxiety. He goes to his brother’s room and tells him what’s happened, showing him the empty notes app.
His brother tilts his head thoughtfully.
“What do you want to do now?” he asks. The simplicity of the question initially shocks him, but the answer, how simple it is, how quickly it comes, surprises him even more.
“I have to find him,” Lan Wangji replies, and Lan Xichen just nods.
The only thing the two of them can recall is Yunmeng, so Lan Wangji takes an early flight out from Shanghai to Wuhan, hailing a taxi after he lands. He stares out the windows of the cab as it travels past stretches of countryside, farmland interspersed with forest, roads winding snakelike here and there.
Lan Wangji gets off the taxi at Yunmeng, coughing at the dust cloud the wheels kick up. The area around him is decidedly unfamiliar, packed with people squawking in an accent that grates at his ears. A few teenage girls stop to stare at him, whispering among themselves.
Well. This isn’t one of the most intelligent things he’s done, but he wants—no, needs to know what has happened to Wei Wuxian. He needs to know whether the last month of his life—tough, tiring, and strange, yes, but also bright, sparkling, precious—has been real. He doesn’t have anything with him besides a sketch, the last faint memory he has. It’s the view from the cliff, the place Jiang Cheng showed him, the hidden, solitary shrine at the edge of the forest.
He walks up to the girls, and they stare at him, eyes wide. One of them whispers to another, but he can barely catch any of the words, between the quietness of them and the weirdness of the accent.
“Excuse me,” he says, holding up the drawing. “Is there somewhere that looks like this, around here?”
The girls peer at the drawing. The one that was already whispering begins whispering even more furiously, and the girl in front, the ringleader it seems, shushes her.
She turns back to Lan Wangji and shakes her head. “Doesn’t look familiar,” she replies. Lan Wangji nods and thanks her, and when she nervously asks for a selfie, poses with the group for a picture before moving on.
The rest of the day goes much the same way—lots of polite no ’s, several compliments on his artistic abilities, and a few more selfies—and ends with no leads. Lan Wangji drags himself to a quaint little teahouse as the sun begins to set, to take a break before beginning the unknown process of finding a place to stay for the night.
He sits down heavily, spreading the sketch in front of him. He looks up briefly when someone comes over to take his order, but spends the rest of the time pondering, thinking back over the sights he’d passed, what kind of places might match.
“Holy shit. Is that Lotus Pier?”
Lan Wangji looks up in surprise. A different waitress stands in front of him with a tray bearing his tea, but she’s looking at the sketch, a complicated expression on her face.
“You know where this is?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “Well—where it was, at least. Had some family there. I used to visit every summer.”
Was. “What do you mean, was?”
She looks at him for a moment. “You’re not from around here,” she says. It’s not a question. It’s probably obvious, with his slight Shanghai accent and general mannerisms, so he just nods his head slightly.
“Do you remember the meteor from three years ago?” she asks. He thinks, briefly. It was in the news for a bit, but he can’t remember if that was from his time in Wei Wuxian’s body, or his own.
“I think so.”
She looks grim as she busies herself with setting the teapot down, and the teacup, and pours the tea out, slowly, precisely. “It hit Lotus Pier.”
“Hit?”
“Blew the whole place off the map. It’s just a crater now. Pretty popular tourist attraction, actually.” She sighs and sets the teapot down. “Everyone in the town died. It wasn’t in any of the predictive models, so no one was warned. No one knew.”
“Oh,” Lan Wangji says, because she looks sad, and he feels like he should respond, and he doesn’t know what else to say.
“Why do you have that sketch?” she asks.
“I’m looking for someone,” he says. “They live there.”
She gives him a long, long look, before sighing. “Give me paper and a pencil,” she says, taking a seat across from him. Lan Wangji sees the owner looking at them oddly from across the room, but the waitress seems oblivious. He hands her what she’s asked for and watches as she begins to draw two crude maps, one a detailed view of the surrounding area, the other a bird’s-eye view of Hubei province.
“That’s where it used to be,” she says, pointing to a large circle on the second map that he assumes is supposed to symbolize a crater. “And this,” she continues, moving her finger to a starred area on the close-up map, “is the prefecture library. They have records there. Of the people who… lived there.”
Who died, Lan Wangji realizes.
“Thank you,” he says, and she gives him a smile, a quiet, sad one.
“No, thank you,” she says, casting her eyes back towards the sketch as she walks away. “It was nice to be able to see it again.”
He leaves the sketch at the table when he leaves.
The waitress’ map is neat and easy-to-understand, and he finds his way to the library quickly. It’s quiet when he walks in, but not empty—people are spread out across the building, sprawled across sofas, hunched over desks, kneeling between shelves.
He walks up to the reception desk.
“I’d like to see the records for Lotus Pier,” he says, and swallows. The next words barely make their way out his mouth, heavy and clumsy. “The people who died.”
“Certainly,” the librarian replies, all politely neutral and professional, and brings out a binder for him, setting it on a reading table nearby.
“Since these are municipal records,” she explains, “they cannot be checked out, but you can stay here and peruse them for as long as you’d like.”
Lan Wangji nods, and she strides away to help another patron. He sits down and takes a deep breath.
He flips furiously towards W, hoping, hoping , that he won’t see the name.
Wei Wuxian. It’s halfway down the next to last page, and Lan Wangji sits frozen for a moment, mind blank. These records are from three years ago. Wei Wuxian has been dead for three years.
But—but just a week ago, Lan Wangji had been Wei Wuxian. He’d been someone bright, and smart, and beloved. Just a week ago, he’d lived that life, had seen that person with his own two eyes.
He flips forward, head spinning, heart hammering. Nie Huaisang. Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng.
All real.
All dead.
He doesn’t realize how long he’s been sitting there, mind still trying to make sense of what he’s learned, until the librarian comes up to him and clears her throat roughly.
“We’re closed now,” she says, but then she gestures to the binder that’s laying in front of him, still opened up to the J’s. “You’re free to make a copy of that page before you leave, if necessary.”
“No,” Lan Wangji replies. His voice comes out hoarse, raspy. Whether it’s from emotion or dehydration, he’s not sure. “Thank you, but that’s all right.”
He stands at the streetlamp in front of the library after he’s been kicked out, deep in thought. The facts are incontrovertible—Wei Wuxian is dead, has been dead for three years. But this whole body-switching thing, what’s been happening for the past month—on the other side of that, Wei Wuxian is still alive.
There must be a reason that happened. There must have been some reason for him to know both sides, to know the future and the past. The obvious reason is to prevent the tragedy, to prevent the senseless deaths of Wei Wuxian and the people he loved, the people who loved him. But how?
Lan Wangji stares down at his hands. They seem so plain, so fragile and weak. What is he supposed to do now?
His brother calls him soon after he’s found a hostel room for the night, a decent place with a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
“So, you didn’t fly back tonight,” Lan Xichen says.
“No,” Lan Wangji replies.
“You found a place to stay?”
Lan Wangji nods before realizing his brother can’t see him over the phone. “Yes.”
“That’s good.” His brother pauses, before asking, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Lan Wangji thinks for a moment in silence. “No.”
“Well,” Lan Xichen sighs heavily, and the phone audio crackles. “You know you have to come back tomorrow, right? It’s qingming. ” The day of the dead. “Uncle will be here in the afternoon, to pick us up. I know we usually go in the morning, but I told him it’ll take you a while to get back here.”
Qingming. Lan Wangji completely forgotten it was so soon, but now that his brother has mentioned it, the realization hits him like a thunderbolt.
There’s something special about this shrine. Can’t you feel it?
It’s his filial duty, he knows, to go to the cemetery with his brother and his uncle, to sweep the tombs of his parents and light incense and pray for their well-being and happiness. He’s never missed it before—he’s never missed anything before, has always done what’s expected of him.
But this time, he can’t.
“I have something else I need to do,” he says. In his mind’s eye, he sees the shrine on the cliff, at the edge of the forest. The wooden lotus motifs along its sides. The single stick of incense left unlit, untouched. Jiang Cheng, telling the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. A love that became a legend.
The silence that follows stretches on for an eternity.
“I understand,” Lan Xichen finally says, voice soft. “I will explain to Uncle.”
“Thank you,” Lan Wangji says.
“I hope,” his brother replies, “that you find what you’re looking for.”
Lan Wangji wakes up early the next day, packing all his stuff and preparing water and food for the day ahead. He follows the directions from the waitress, hopping on a bus with a few tourists headed in the direction of Lotus Crater.
As soon as he steps outside of the bus, a sense of familiarity washes over him. It’s a bit odd, feeling nostalgic for a life, a time, that isn’t his.
The bus driver says something about the time of the last bus, some warnings about staying safe in the area, but Lan Wangji tunes him out. He sweeps a glance over the crater. He understands how it’s a tourist attraction, especially with the sunrise perfectly behind it, emerging and illuminating the slopes of the crater and its sheer enormity; a testament to nature’s wrath, her strength.
He turns away. He doesn’t remember the exact path, couldn’t write it down on paper like the waitress did for the route here, but his feet take step after step, further and further from the crater, up the mountain, until finally he emerges from the trees to a cliff with a breathtaking view of the crater. He steps forward, cautiously. At the end lies the shrine, wooden and weather-beaten, but intact. And a single stick of incense in the burner, somehow also still intact, unbroken.
Lan Wangji kneels in front of the shrine, and prays. He prays for Wei Wuxian’s safety. He prays to be able to see Wei Wuxian at least one last time, to help him live. Because someone like him—so full of light, of love—deserves much more than this senseless end.
And then he lights the match.
Lan Wangji opens his eyes to a world of pure and dazzling white. A woman stands in front of him, a benevolent look on her face, one hand held in front of her, closed into a fist. Somehow, he knows this is Zhu Yingtai, deified, and she has been waiting for him.
“Why am I here?” he tries to ask, but when he opens his mouth, no sound comes out. Zhu Yingtai puts a finger to her lips and shakes her head. Lan Wangji watches as she opens up her other hand. Slowly, a butterfly emerges, wings unfurling into a deep and beautiful crimson.
Lan Wangji holds out his hand. He waits.
The butterfly flutters to him and lands on his finger.
When Lan Wangji wakes up, he has a pounding headache, and it’s late afternoon, from the way the sun bleeds orange into the sky.
He’s also wearing purple pants.
He pushes himself up into a sitting position with a wince, dusting off his knees. He’s not quite sure where he is right now; definitely not in front of the shrine anymore. He looks up into the concerned faces of Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang.
“You okay?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“Yeah,” Lan Wangji replies, looking around. The memories are starting to return; this area looks like the halfway point of the path to and from school. But they’re not on the path; they’re under a copse of trees near it. “What happened?”
“You suddenly collapsed,” Jiang Cheng says sourly.
“We thought it might be heatstroke,” Nie Huaisang pipes up helpfully, “so we tried to get you into the shade.”
“You’re heavy,” Jiang Cheng follows up bluntly, never one to pass up on an insult. “You need to eat less of those sesame balls.”
Agreed , Lan Wangji thinks, but truth be told, Wei Wuxian has a really nice body. A body he’s imagined more than once—he tears his thoughts away, focusing on the problem at hand. The comet.
“Thanks,” he says.
Jiang Cheng shrugs. “Let’s get home,” he says as he turns and walks back towards the path, Nie Huansang trailing behind. Lan Wangji gets up and follows them without a word, lost in thought. He’d like to warn them as soon as possible, but there's no easy way to bring it up, really. Hey, you know that comet everyone’s really excited for tonight? It might hit us and kill everyone . They already think he’s been a little bit crazy for the last few weeks; saying something like that won’t exactly help his case.
But what other choice does he have? There won’t ever be a perfect moment or a perfect way to say it, not for something like this; if he waits for perfect , everyone will die.
He takes a deep breath.
“What,” Jiang Cheng says, before he can utter a single word.
Lan Wangji blinks.
“You’ve been quiet for five consecutive minutes,” Nie Huaisang explains. “We figured you were thinking about something.”
There’s the feeling again, the feeling of being laid bare, being read like a book, of being known. But this time, it’s not as strange, not as awkward; in fact, it’s a relief—it’s given him an opening.
“We need to evacuate the town,” he says, and then immediately regrets it. Sure, there might not have been a perfect way to break the news, but there were definitely far better ways than the way he’d just done it.
Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang stare at him for what seems like an eternity.
Lan Wangji stares back, and finally, Jiang Cheng breaks the silence with a deep sigh. “We’re waiting for an explanation,” he says. “C’mon. We’re not gonna call you crazy, at least not before we hear your reasons.”
“Part of the comet tonight will hit Lotus Pier,” Lan Wangji says, trying to remember how the waitress had phrased it. “A large piece, not a small one. The whole town will be destroyed. Blown off the map.”
“Okay, you are crazy,” Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, but Lan Wangji ignores him, because behind him, Nie Huaisang is staring at him with eyes wide-open, as if he’s had a realization, an epiphany. Lan Wangji nods at him, hoping he’ll speak.
“My brother,” Nie Huaisang says, haltingly. Jiang Cheng turns at the sound of his voice, and he takes a step back. “He was being weird, last fall, before the semester started. Before he returned to Beijing, he said…”
Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji both wait with bated breath for Nie Huaisang to continue, but he stops, and shakes his head.
“I can’t remember exactly,” he says, hands held up in a gesture of apology. “But it had to do with the comet. Something bad about the comet.”
“And why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Jiang Cheng snaps.
“I didn’t remember!” Nie Huaisang flinches, taking another step backwards. “He was being weird back then, so I dismissed it, but after what Wei- xiong said…”
Jiang Cheng still doesn’t look totally convinced, but Nie Huaisang does, and that seems to be enough.
“How exactly do you propose we evacuate everyone, though?” Jiang Cheng asks. “We’re just three high schoolers.”
“If we talk to your mother—” Lan Wangji begins, but the expression that flits over both Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang’s faces makes him pause.
“No,” Jiang Cheng shakes his head emphatically. “Mother would never—I’m going to be real with you here, I’m still not convinced this is going to happen. But you seem to be, and Nie Huaisang too, so that’s enough for me. But that won’t be enough for Mother.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” Lan Wangji says, because he can’t not try it, even if Jiang Cheng says it won’t work. He has to do everything he possibly can, even if that means braving Yu Ziyuan and the complicated relationship Wei Wuxian has with her, or else all this—all this will be for nothing.
Jiang Cheng sighs again, but then he says, resigned, “I’ll come with you.”
“Oh, just in case,” Nie Huaisang says, a rare but familiar glint in his eye, “there’s also an emergency broadcast system built into the PA room at school.”
“Can you do it in a way that can’t be overridden from city hall?” Lan Wangji asks. Nie Huaisang’s grin stretches dangerously wider.
“As long as you have the principal’s key,” he says, in a way that implies he knows how to get it, but also that it’s a trade secret. “I’m on it.”
He throws his backpack at them without warning, Jiang Cheng just barely catching it with a muffled thump, and then he’s off in the direction they came.
“The comet will break into two?” Yu Ziyuan asks, her voice a low, steady whisper. “It will hit Lotus Pier? Everyone will die?”
“It’s true,” Lan Wangji replies, straight-faced. Yu Ziyuan scoffs.
“And you,” she says, addressing Jiang Cheng, who’s standing behind him, staring downwards, face stony. “You believe him? Really?”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t answer. Lan Wangji feels his anger rising. He’s never felt so ignored, so—disregarded. Insignificant. So not-enough . Is this how Wei Wuxian feels every moment, wondering whether he’s worth his borrowed home, his borrowed life?
“Thirteen years,” Yu Ziyuan leans back in her chair. No, not her chair. Jiang Fengmian’s chair. “Thirteen years we’ve raised you, Wei Wuxian, and this is what you’ve become? You barge into my office, you harass my secretary, you spout these ridiculous conspiracy theories in front of me. You’ve even dragged Jiang Cheng into your delusions. You need to see a doctor.” She reaches her hand toward the phone, and in a split second decision, Lan Wangji steps forward and slaps her hand away from it.
She stares back at him, mouth open in shock.
“Wei Wuxian has shown you nothing but respect and gratitude his entire life,” Lan Wangji says, voice trembling with barely-contained rage. “How dare you speak to him this way.”
Yu Ziyuan narrows her eyes. She leans back into her chair again, away from the phone.
“Let’s go, Jiang Cheng,” Lan Wangji turns away, his fury settling into something cold and hard. “Time for Plan B.”
“Plan B? What’s Plan B?” Jiang Cheng asks once they’ve left the building. Lan Wangji doesn’t answer. Instead, he runs around City Hall searching for a bike that’s been left unlocked. He finds one, a rusty one that maybe had been red, once upon a time. The seat is a bit too short, so he sets to work on raising it.
If he’s in Wei Wuxian’s body, then Wei Wuxian must be in his body, at the shrine on the cliff. He’s already set at least one plan in motion, but Wei Wuxian knows the townspeople far better, will be able to contrive another plan that spurs them into action far better than he can. If he goes back and swaps with him now, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang will be able to tell him what’s going on.
“Seriously, what the fuck,” Jiang Cheng seethes, hands on his hips. “You can’t just drag me into this fucking mess and leave me hanging like this, especially after what you did to Mother, like holy fucking shit , I knew you two had beef, but not like, fucking wagyu- level—”
“Go help Nie Huaisang,” Lan Wangji says as he swings his leg over the bicycle and briefly tests the brakes. “I’ll explain later.”
“Fuck you,” is the only thing Jiang Cheng says in reply, but he still complies. Lan Wangji watches him as he hops on a nearby bike and sets off in the direction of the school.
As Lan Wangji takes the route up the mountain path, he looks up toward the sky, adrenaline coursing through his veins. The comet is visible now, a brilliant streak behind it as it arcs through the sky. Time is running out.
He pedals on.
Wei Wuxian drags himself up into a sitting position, rubbing at his eyes blearily.
Suddenly, he freezes. Everything feels vaguely unfamiliar, but not a disconcerting kind of unfamiliarity—everything just feels… different . He looks down. The clothes he’s wearing are none he’s ever seen before, a light-but-warm blue windbreaker, jeans, bulky hiking boots.
A sense of relief washes over him as he realizes that a body-swap has happened again, but it’s quickly replaced by confusion. Why now, in the middle of the day? Just moments before he was walking home with Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang in an almost-picturesque scene of youth, framed by lush countryside and a setting sun. And now he’s…
With one glance, he knows exactly where he is. It’s the shrine at the edge of the forest, the cliff that overlooks Lotus Pier. He’s been here so many times; every time he feels upset, every time he feels like crying, but he doesn’t want to wake up Jiang Cheng or Jiang Yanli, he comes here instead. To gaze over the city, free from people, from the whispers behind his back, the words that haunt him—to be him, and just him, without the need to be anything or anyone more than who he is.
But why is Lan Wangji here, hundreds of miles away from Shanghai? There must be a reason. With another glance, Wei Wuxian notices one other strange thing—the stick of incense in the shrine is shorter than before, smoldering, and he can vaguely smell a sweet scent in the air. Lan Wangji must have lit the incense. But why? Wei Wuxian knows the legend of the shrine, but what does that have to do with him?
He’s jolted out of his thoughts by a faint voice calling his name. His voice. He snaps his head around and scrambles off the ground.
“Lan Wangji!” he yells. “Lan Wangji! I’m here!”
And then, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon, Wei Wuxian feels a sudden rush of vertigo, like he’s been jerked over the cliff, falling. When the spinning ends, he’s back in his own body, pushing a rusty red bicycle, and in front of him—
“Wei Wuxian,” Lan Wangji says. His voice cracks halfway through the name, but from what, Wei Wuxian doesn’t know, and then he says it again, barely a whisper. “Wei Wuxian. You’re—it’s really you.”
Wei Wuxian nearly collapses to the ground out of sheer disbelief. It’s Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is standing right in front of him. “Lan Wangji.”
They stand there for a moment, a strange, beautiful silence.
“Why are you here?” Wei Wuxian finally asks, and then realizes how rude it sounds. “Not that I’m saying I wish you weren’t—I mean, I’m really, really , happy you’re here, but this isn’t Shanghai—well, I guess that’s obvious, but—”
“Wei Wuxian,” Lan Wangji says again, and this time, Wei Wuxian thinks he might detect a bit of amusement, of fondness. It terrifies him how much he wants to hear it again.
“Yes?”
“You must listen closely to what I’m about to say,” Lan Wangji begins. He looks serious, but then again, he always look serious. It’s one of the many endearing things about him. “I don’t know why we’ve been allowed to meet, and I don’t know how long we have either. The comet tonight will break apart. It will destroy Lotus Pier. You must evacuate everyone to Qingminghe.”
“Destroy?” Wei Wuxian echoes.
“In my time,” Lan Wangji begins, and then he stops. The next words seem painful to even think of, but he manages to say, “you are no longer in this world.”
“I’m dead,” Wei Wuxian quickly grasps what he means. So Lan Wangji is from the future, a future where the comet struck Lotus Pier, blew it off the face of the map, and everyone in the town with it.
“Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang are attempting an emergency broadcast from the high school,” Lan Wangji says. “But I’m not sure it will work. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
“No, no,” Wei Wuxian says distractedly, still grappling with the knowledge that he, and everyone he knows and loves, might be dead in less than twenty-four hours. “Thank you. Thank you for—for trying to save us.”
He meets Lan Wangji’s eyes. They’re filled with something else he can’t place; warmth and something else that strikes him so strongly he has to look away. He scrambles in his pockets for something, anything to write with, and miraculously pulls out a marker.
“We should write our names down,” Wei Wuxian offers it forward, and holds out his other palm. “So we won’t forget.” Lan Wangji takes the marker wordlessly, fingers brushing hot against his skin, and writes with smooth, fluid strokes across his palm.
Behind them, the sun dips lower and lower in the sky, twilight bleeding into night, and the air shimmers in front of Wei ’s face—a face he’s seen, many times in the mirror—but now, with Lan Wangji himself behind that face, it’s transformed into something more, something ethereal, elegant, beautiful . Wei Wuxian finds himself staring, transfixed, at his eyes, half-lidded and long-lashed, and his lips, slightly parted in concentration.
And then, suddenly, Lan Wangji vanishes. The sun finally slips beneath the horizon, plunging Wei Wuxian into semi-darkness, and the marker clatters to the ground in front of him. Already the memories are disappearing, even as he keeps searching, frantically, trying to remember. A name. A face. Sunset reflected in warm golden eyes.
He looks at his palm, desperate for a reminder, something, anything , but then he sees what it says, in elegant, beautiful calligraphy, ink spilling across his skin.
I love you.
Wei Wuxian slumps to the ground, clutching his hand against his chest, choking back a sob.
A lifetime away, Lan Wangji wakes up in the ruins of Lotus Pier.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how long he remains on the ground, lips curved around a name that never quite forms. A sudden streak of brilliant light across the sky jolts him back into reality. The comet. Lotus Pier, in flames. Gone—if he doesn’t run. Now.
He scrambles back to his feet. It’ll take him at least twenty minutes to get back to the town center. He’s sure whatever Lan Wangji set Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng to doing will be effective, but in the end, it’s still best if Yu Ziyuan can be convinced. He flies down the path on the rusty red bicycle, hurtling through the forest, branches whacking at his face.
“All residents of Lotus Pier, please evacuate to Qingminghe Municipal High School. I repeat, all residents of Lotus Pier, please evacuate to Qingminghe Municipal High School.”
Nie Huaisang’s voice booms over the town right as Wei Wuxian rounds the corner onto the street with city hall, and as if on cue, the emergency klaxons begin wailing. People begin stumbling out of their homes, confused.
From an upper window, he can hear Yu Ziyuan’s voice, harsh and angry.
“It’s coming from the school?” she says, and Wei Wuxian’s heart sinks. She’s already onto them. “How did they even get the keys? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Cut the line, get them out of there.” There’s the sound of a phone being slammed into its receiver, and then a deep, long-suffering sigh.
He dashes up the six flights of stairs to the top floor and stops for a moment, hunched over, catching his breath. Jiang Fengmian’s secretary, sitting at her desk in the office entryway, peers at him. He flashes her his most winning grin. She just keeps staring.
“I need to see Yu Ziyuan,” he says.
“Madame Yu is not to be disturbed,” she replies primly. By you is what she means, he knows. Well, he knew this was going to happen, and he also knows that she can’t really stop him.
He strides over to the giant double-doors and yanks them open. Inside, Yu Ziyuan stops mid-stride and turns to look at him. Her eyes narrow.
“I see you entered anyway,” she spits.
“You need to issue an evacuation order,” Wei Wuxian ignores her jab. “Now.”
As if right on cue, Nie Huaisang’s voice suddenly stops in a burst of static. There’s the low murmur of an argument, and then silence. The klaxons stop.
Yu Ziyuan picks up the phone.
“Make a follow-up announcement. The previous one was a prank—”
She’s cut off as Wei Wuxian smacks the phone right out of her hand.
“You are responsible for the lives of five thousand people,” Wei Wuxian hisses as she looks up at him, looking simultaneously shocked, offended, and angry. “I will not let you kill them.”
“You are out of your mind ,” she spits back. “If I’d known something like this was going to happen, I would have—”
“You would have what?” Wei Wuxian snaps, seething. “You would have kicked me out, told Jiang Fengmian to leave me in the street? I know you could have. I know you would have. I know it every single waking moment of my life—”
Before his voice can break any further, a metallic chip tune begins to play. Wei Wuxian’s hand snaps to his pocket, but there’s no way, his phone is always on silent.
Yu Ziyuan reaches into her own pocket and pulls out her old, dinky cell phone. He can’t see who the caller ID is. She answers it, and Jiang Cheng’s voice immediately sounds, tinny through the speakerphone.
“The comet,” he says. “Go look at it.”
Wei Wuxian and Yu Ziyuan both turn to face the window. Against the dark sky, the trail of the comet shines brilliantly, a dazzling blue-white.
No. Not just one trail. Two.
It’s almost magnificent, the way the comet trail hangs frozen, the exact point of the separation still visible, another path branching off, veering away on its own. There are other specks around it, too, smaller pieces that also broke off, falling on their own.
Out on the streets, people are gathering to watch. From the inside of someone’s home, Wei Wuxian can hear the faint voice of the radio announcer.
“A fragment has split from the comet,” he says. “It’s predicted to make landfall on Earth, but it’s unclear where it will strike yet. This is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, truly a wondrous opportunity—”
Wei Wuxian stops listening. He’s heard all he needs, and he knows Yu Ziyuan heard it too. He tilts his head at her, arching an eyebrow.
Yu Ziyuan walks to her desk and picks up the phone.
“Issue an evacuation order,” she says. “Everyone should go to Qingminghe Municipal High School. Now.”
Wei Wuxian leaves without looking back.
“You convinced her,” Jiang Cheng says. He and Nie Huaisang are huddled in the corner of the athletic field. A stony-faced policeman stands next to them, eyeing Wei Wuxian warily as he approaches.
“No,” Wei Wuxian shakes his head, because it’s the truth. “You did. If you hadn’t called, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Jiang Cheng shrugs. “I figured a little proof would be helpful.”
Wei Wuxian sits down next to him with a sigh. “Yeah. Seeing is believing and all that. Sorry for making you guys go through all of that.”
Nie Huaisang suddenly bursts into laughter, altogether too cheerful for someone who’d just gone through the experience of being caught doing something probably illegal. Wei Wuxian stares. Jiang Cheng glares at the floor.
“God, you should have seen Jiang Cheng when the security guard came up to the door,” Nie Huaisang manages between breaths. “It was Old Hong today, you know him, he’s always so friendly and cheery. He looked genuinely sad when he came and kicked us out. But oh my God, when he showed up at the door, Jiang Cheng looked ready to fucking fight , some Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon bullshit, but his entire body was trembling and he looked like he was going to cry.”
Wei Wuxian bursts into laughter at the image of Old Hong looking bemusedly at a Jiang Cheng that somehow manages to look both menacing and terrified at the same time.
“Maybe stick to archery,” he says, giving Jiang Cheng a good-natured slap on the back. Jiang Cheng’s forehead somehow manages to wrinkle even more as he mutters the usual “fuck you” in reply.
Nie Huaisang is in the middle of recounting the whole ordeal in lurid detail when, suddenly, everything goes still. It’s not silence; Wei Wuxian knows what silence is like. This sensation is more like the absence of all sound, like in a vacuum, like in space. He turns his head; everyone around him turns too, almost robotic, their heads rotating in slow motion, all staring towards the same thing: a flash of light, rippling outwards from somewhere in the distance and then all at once the sound comes back—the sound of rocks pulverized into powder, tremors traveling and destroying everything they pass—the sound of impact.
And then, just like that, it’s over, leaving behind the very, very loud sound of silence.
“How did you know?” Jiang Cheng asks, almost softly, voice lacking its usual biting edge. It’s the first thing Wei Wuxian hears in the aftermath. In the distance, the meteor continues to smolder, a soft glow of red in the dark night, surrounded by nothing but destruction.
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Something wet falls onto his cheeks. Jiang Cheng backs up in alarm.
“Whoa, whoa,” he says, flustered, hands held out in front of him. “You don’t have to get so upset, I was just asking, I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t know,” Wei Wuxian croaks out. He wipes away his tears with the back of a hand. How did he know? He just knew. Someone told him, maybe. But who?
He looks down at his palm. The text there is still elegant, clear as day. I love you .
Wei Wuxian doesn’t know who wrote it, but the reply still comes to him in an instant, floating up from somewhere deep and dark and unknown.
I love you too.
Somehow, somehow, they make it to graduation.
The first few months are rough; there are only so many hotels to stay in, so many people with open hearts and open doors. No one wants to rebuild at Lotus Pier; the crater left behind by the comet has become something of a tourist attraction, and no construction company will touch the land, citing that the impact only happened because of some curse, or bad fengshui, or something else equally superstitious.
But still, the people of Lotus Pier rebuild their lives, some in the nearby towns, Yitang, Daoqiao, and the rest, far away, Beijing and Shanghai and Fuzhou.
Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang are soon to follow; with the results of the gaokao, they have their pick of schools anywhere in the country. Jiang Cheng will be going to Beida, Nie Huaisang following him and his brother.
Wei Wuxian chooses Jiaotong.
“Your scores are good enough for Tsinghua,” Jiang Cheng mumbles under his breath. Wei Wuxian knows what he’s implying, what he’s left unsaid, because not once—not once has Jiang Cheng ever asked him for anything directly. Come with me.
Wei Wuxian wants to, so badly to say yes. Once upon a time, Tsinghua had been a school he’d always been content to only dream of. But now—after the past year of waking up with tears on his face, a vague sense of loss, but no memory of the dream that caused them; the constant emptiness when he gazes at the horizon—now, he knows, absolutely and completely, that he must go to Shanghai. Somewhere, somewhere, there is the place where he will find his answers. Where he will find the person he’s looking for.
“I know,” Wei Wuxian says. There isn’t anything else to say. How can he explain all that to Jiang Cheng when he can barely explain it to himself?
“Jiaotong is just as good,” Jiang Yanli smiles brightly, always the mediator. But she has another reason to be happy; she’ll be going with Wei Wuxian to Shanghai to teach at an academy there. Wei Wuxian is sure that at least part of the reason Jiang Cheng is annoyed about him going to Shanghai is because he’s petty, and therefore a little jealous he’ll be with her.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jiang Cheng huffs. He shoots a glare at Wei Wuxian. “Make sure she doesn’t get involved with any sketchy guys, all right?”
Wei Wuxian laughs, and wiggles his eyebrows. “I’ll try my best, but you know jie, she can’t be controlled,” he replies, and Jiang Yanli gives him an aghast “A-Xian,” and the conversation devolves into laughter, just like old times.
Jiang Cheng leaves first. It’s a tearful goodbye; even Yu Ziyuan cries a little bit. Next is Jiang Yanli, who has to do some preparations for the new school year.
And then, finally, it’s Wei Wuxian’s turn. He makes it alive to Shanghai on his own, taking a flight out of Wuhan. Both Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan had come to see him off; whether or not it was just of courtesy, it still made him feel a little better, as if he’d been acknowledged, at least a little bit.
He’s walking along the train platform to the elevators, dragging a heavy suitcase behind him, staring up wide-eyed at the high-rises, the metropolitan scenery that surrounds him. A wave of deja-vu crashes over him; something about the view, the atmosphere, seems oddly familiar, even though he knows he’s never been to Shanghai before.
Something pulls his gaze right, and Wei Wuxian’s breath freezes in his chest. Standing there is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen, perfectly-styled hair framing a porcelain face, white-and-blue ribbon trailing in wind Wei Wuxian swears isn’t actually blowing, and finally, warm, warm golden eyes, like the edges of an autumn sunset, bleeding color through the sky.
This is who I’m looking for. The realization, and the relief that accompanies it, hits him so hard he nearly falls to his knees. In front of him, the stranger’s eyes suddenly fill with—tears? He’s crying.
Wei Wuxian touches his hand to his face, and to his surprise, finds that he is crying too. But then he smiles, though, because he feels comforted, as if he’s returned home after a long journey away. Because for the first time in a long time, he feels—he feels whole .
And then, at the same time, the two of them ask—
“What’s your name?”