Chapter Text
The pictures of the South look like something out of a movie, horrifyingly desolate in a way the city is never meant to be. To think, a fraction of a fraction of a gram of matter, spiralled out of control, is capable of destruction like this. For some reason, this ungodly power was granted to a clumsy, mistake-ridden, fumbling humanity.
Survivors of the initial impact had fifteen minutes to get to shelter. That was enough time to get the remaining survivors off of Yangtze bridge and lock it down, and for people on the west to get to safety where they could. The news tells him that they likely wouldn’t be launched into a worldwide nuclear winter, but the city will be inhabitable for a while yet.
Jiang Yanli tearfully begs him and Jiang Cheng to seek refuge in her temporary apartment in Beijing until all of this blows over. She looks hollow, sullen. Like everything inside of her is withering away.
There’s a cold in the air in their corner of the room. Wei Wuxian does everything as he’s told until Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli go to sleep, and then quietly slips out from under his sheets. A rush of blood floods to his head in seconds but he grits through it, wobbling down the stairs until he sneaks past the chaos through the front doors.
It’s cold to the bone outside. The red sky has streaks of orange and a dull grey smog lurking over the width of it. It bathes everything underneath it in crimson light and orange mist, but the air bites and stings of a discordant deathly coldness.
He doesn’t know where he’s going, exactly, so he follows his feet. The road gives way to the metropolitan of the North. It’s a deserted, neon ghost town. The lights are all left on, doused in a haze from the vermillion sky. The monorail is switched off, no LEDs lighting up its underside. Whatever painkillers he was on are starting to wear off, and the cold is starting to sting.
He doesn’t realise how slowly he’s dragging his feet along the ground until he hears how quickly the car coming in his direction is driving. At the last second, the car swerves onto the sidewalk, centimetres from Wei Wuxian, and brakes. The driver seems to push a button and the passenger door, the one next to Wei Wuxian, swings open.
She leans towards the open door. She’s wearing a surgical mask, and she has pure anger in her eyes. “Wei Wuxian. Get in the fucking car.”
He has to gulp before he speaks, and even then, he feels like someone poured a bucket of sand into his mouth. “Why would I get in a stranger’s car?”
She rolls her eyes and pulls her mask off. Her face is beautiful, yet terrifying. She has large blue hooped earrings that glow with light in the darkness of her car, interweaving with the red daylight that dances off of the black car hood and filters through the windows.
“I’m Wen Qing. You know me. Jiang Cheng wants you back.” She softens her look slightly, but her voice is still laced with venom. Or maybe just exasperation. “I’m not a stranger anymore. Just get in the car.”
Wen Qing? Isn’t that Wen Ning’s sister’s name? This intimidating woman is the polar opposite of Wen Ning, so a typical Wen, then. Wei Wuxian doesn’t think on it too much, thinking that even if this woman is lying and is planning to brutally murder him somewhere, he could at least warm up in her car beforehand.
He tentatively places himself inside. Wen Qing pushes another button, and the door next to him swings shut. She turns to fully face him, leaving the vehicle on standby. “It’s only been two days since the meltdown, and you’re walking around the city, no gas mask, no fallout protection. Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli called practically every single person they knew looking for you. Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
“Where are you taking me?”
She sighs and pulls out her phone. “Back where you came from.”
“Please,” he coughs, his entire body rattling as he does. “Anywhere but there.”
“Let me tell Jiang Cheng that you’re alive first.” She puts her mask back around her face and steps out of her car, leaning on the drivers door. Wei Wuxian can’t hear a thing from inside, probably for good reason. Considerate of you, Wen Qing. The fingernails on his hands are slowly fading from blue to pink.
She’s back in less than a minute. “Why don’t you want to go back?”
“Why do you think?” She must have gathered that there’s a reason he wanted to run in the first place.
She studies him for a few seconds. He feels naked under her scrutiny. This is a renowned, esteemed doctor, sitting next to him , who probably looks like a walking corpse.
Keying in her destination onto her navigation system on the car’s dashboard, the engine of Wen Qing’s car growls lowly. With a crawling start, the car sets off. She puts her hands on the steering wheel, holding tightly, and mumbles under her breath, “I’m sorry about this.”
Wei Wuxian bites his tongue in response.
“I don’t want to go to Beijing.”
The badly hidden look of shocked betrayal on Jiang Yanli’s face is almost enough for him to immediately take it back.
“What the-” Jiang Cheng screws his eyes shut and sighs through his nose, lips pressed into a thin line. “What do you mean, you don’t want to go to Beijing?”
The hospital lobby is crowded and his conversation isn’t the only one sounding so tense. He hopes the chatter masks the weird emotional twinge coming through his voice. “I mean exactly that.”
“Wei Wuxian. There are people stranded in the city that would give anything to leave. You have the opportunity and you’re just throwing it away?”
“Yes.”
“What is there left for you here?” Jiang Cheng’s voice grows louder, more irate. “What reason could you possibly have? Where would you even stay?”
He would tell Jiang Cheng his answer if he knew it himself. Jiang Yanli looks down at the watery americano from the coffee machine that she only bought to have something to do with her hands. “A-Cheng. It’s okay. Let him stay.”
“Stay where? Jie-jie, how are you okay with this?”
“…” She puts the cup to her lips, sips, stalling. “Give him some time, A-Cheng. A-Xian, you’ll come once you feel okay, right?”
Wei Wuxian only manages a nod before Jiang Cheng snarls at him. “But where are you gonna go?”
“I’ll figure something out.” He has to.
Looking for an escape to the topic at hand, Jiang Yanli pulls out a yoghurt drink, one with a billion probiotics that he’s seen in the vending machines in the hallways here. “A-Xian.” She puts her other hand on top of Wei Wuxian’s, reassuringly, tightly. “Don’t take your meds on an empty stomach.”
It goes down like sandpaper and makes him want to gag, but he finishes the whole thing, for her.
No part of the hospital is truly quiet, but Wei Wuxian finds an undiscovered enclave and finally takes out his phone, ignoring everything on the screen and punching in a number he hopes is right.
He presses the call button. His call is answered in seconds. “Wuxian-ge?”
“Wen Ning.”
“How are you?” Wen Ning’s voice wavers with worry, but then again, it always does. “Um, I sent you my A-jie’s number.”
“I saw. Did you talk to her?”
“I-I did.” That’s honestly more than Wei Wuxian expected. Wen Ning is a commendable individual, but yet so very frightened of his sister. After he met her himself, Wei Wuxian understood. “She says she wants to hear from you.”
“I won’t keep her waiting then.” He isn’t sure how much good his persuasion skills will do. He hopes she humours him, even if only out of pity.
“A-Jie wants me back in our apartment, so I think I’m leaving the shelter tomorrow.”
“You aren’t leaving Xin Shanghai?”
“Didn’t you hear? They’re only putting up a perimeter around the South.” Ah, Wei Wuxian did see something like that on the news. He never pays attention to the television. Or anything, really. “The North is going to be, um, fine. They have to do a lot of work, demolishing buildings that could be contaminated. I don’t think most people will want to stay. But A-jie will. To help the people that do stay. So I’ll stay too.”
“What do you think she’ll say about me?”
“I… I don’t think she’ll mind.”
“Will you?”
“Wuxian-ge! O-Of course not!” He breathes. “Of course not.”
“… Thank you, Wen Ning.”
“Erm, by the way. Wangji-xiong called me, asking about you.”
“What did you say?”
“That you were fine. He’s worried about you.”
“If he calls again.” Wei Wuxian stares outside the window, looking for the city, but he only sees the reflection of himself. “Tell him not to be.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t go to the train station to see them off. They’d be taking the bullet train, so it would only take a few hours. Before they leave, Wei Wuxian can tell, Jiang Cheng wants to say something, do something, but he doesn’t. Wei Wuxian wants to tell him, “Say whatever you want to say. Do whatever you want to do.” But he doesn’t. After a long minute, Jiang Cheng steps out of the hospital without a word, and Wei Wuxian lets him.
Jiang Yanli, on the other hand, stays behind, stretching out her goodbye. She hugs Wei Wuxian, holding him close to her chest and cradling his head in her hands, rocking in place as she utters misty goodbyes under her breath. Tears prick at the sides of her eyes, and she presses a soft kiss to his forehead. “Come back soon, A-Xian. Promise me.” She holds out a delicate pinky, and Wei Wuxian loops his own around it.
“I promise.”
When she steps through the doors, the hospital seems to go ominously still, like all the air molecules stop moving and Wei Wuxian freezes in time. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He doesn’t know if it would have hurt more if they left while he was sleeping, without saying goodbye. There’s an innocence in sleep, after all.
He wanders in a sense of listlessness, stopping in front of one of the vending machines and staring at the yoghurt bottle Jiang Yanli bought him, wide-eyed like a child dreaming of candy. At least if he looks at the strange inconsequential things hard enough he can tune out all of the people and the grief and pain that hangs around them. He is not one of them.
An indeterminate amount of time passes wherein he has been solely watching the vending machine, when he finds a hand upon his shoulder. Wen Qing is holding a black duffel bag and two gas masks in her other hands. She has her glowing blue hoops on her ears, like before.
There’s a steely look in her eyes. “Let’s go.”
And so almost too easily, Wei Wuxian’s life at the Wens in the nuclear wastelands of Xin Shanghai comes to be.
The three of them, Wen Ning included, travel to the citadel of North Xin Shanghai. The monorail still winds around the city buildings, unridden. The neon lights glow, their colourful auras pulled apart by the scarlet hue that has settled throughout the city. The car weaves its way through the foggy, desolate city like a maze before slowing down in front of a general practice building, bordering the outskirts of the most urban areas. Even from the outside it looks impeccably sterile. From one emergency room to another.
Wen Qing points her chin. “Wei Wuxian. My lab is behind there.”
“That’s yours out front?”
“Yes. My apprentices have left town, so it’s just us.” And Wei Wuxian was grateful for it. “I wanted you to see it.”
He sees it well. He comes to know the place all too well. The small, homely apartment that he always feels a little uneasy in. The general practise that Wen Qing works at, overwhelmed with too many broken patients from the meltdown. And the research lab tucked away at the rear of the building, where Wei Wuxian anoints himself a role as a trainee-intern-whatever.
He didn’t really have to beg her to stay, surprisingly enough. It was a small proposition at first, but she readily agreed to let him work for her in exchange for a roof to sleep under, likely because she needed the help. Wei Wuxian may not be much of a medic, but data assistance is something he can do, while he tries to figure out how exactly their power plant exploded and how he ended up in the corner of an empty dusty computer lab in the grungy province of Yiling.
The first day, he doesn’t work. She won’t let him. She stuffs him with home cooked food and nags him to take a shower and calls Jiang Yanli on his behalf. The stars aren’t visible tonight. They never are in Xin Shanghai. Although, the moon is new, barely there in the Stygian sky.
Wen Ning has escaped to his bed, and Wen Qing is furiously typing away on her laptop on the opposite sofa to Wei Wuxian. Maybe she isn’t furious at all, and that’s just her face, he can’t quite tell with her yet. He doesn’t know if he wants to know. Still, he calls, “Wen Qing.”
“Yes?”
“Do you want me to call you Wen Qing,” a moment, “or Qing-jie? Or maybe A-jie?” Maybe it’s too soon. She’s older than him, and he doesn’t want to be rude. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to be here, with her.
She shifts in her seat, mostly unperturbed. “What would you prefer?”
“It’s up to you.”
“No.” It’s hard to argue with her. “It’s up to you. ”
He looks to the floor deep in thought. “A-jie it is, then.” Fewer syllables, for efficiency.
She nods, and looks back down to her textbook, turning the page. “A-jie it is.”
He thinks, if he looks very very hard, he can see the outline of the new moon, through the smog and clouds. It’s tiny, like an old tainted copper coin in the vastness of the sky. Its darkness melds with the black of the night, making it nearly indiscernible, and through all the earthly elements, it looks so small and fragile.
But the new moon is still there.
Facing the road is a general medical practice with a glowing red sign that reads ‘YILING WEN PRACTICES’ on its front, and the ever-familiar green cross jutting out of its wall. It doesn’t really belong there with how clinical and meticulous it is, against the grain of the dingy little forgotten establishments that surround it.
Wen Qing clambers out of the car, and Wei Wuxian follows her. What is with hospitals and their obsession with the colour white? The reception area is always ghostly at this time in the morning. The posters on the noticeboard paint a rather cute picture of the je nais se quois of Yiling. Wei Wuxian doesn’t recall the province being too memorable, but last he was here he was young and afraid, and it was the last time he let himself be afraid.
Leading out from the reception area, Wen Qing shimmies her mask off, and Wei Wuxian does the same. She starts to walk down towards the corridor, and calls for Wei Wuxian to follow her with a wave of her hand. Pausing, she types in a passcode at the doors at the left end of the hallway, to which the doors slide open.
Once they reach the lab, she flips a switch to trigger the ceiling lights. It’s the same as he left it - the computer laboratory is crammed to the brim with monitors and equipment and random scrawlings on the chalky blackboard, but it still feels lonely. There are shelves and racks, all messily stuffed with binders and yellowing books.
His home away from home, with all its idiosyncrasies. She runs around setting things up for him again, even though he’s been here a week now and at the very least he knows how to turn on her computer. Still, he lets her have her way and totters behind her, pulling his combat boots off. “A-jie. Weird question.”
“Go ahead.” She pushes a button, stepping back from the computer, seemingly content.
“Do you know where I could find a shrine? Or a temple?” He hops as he wriggles into his slippers, one at a time.
“A shrine?” She slings her mask around her arm, making for the door. “I can look around for you. I didn’t take you to be the religious type.”
“I’m not, really.” He takes his gas mask in his hand, looking into its wide glass eyes. “I’m just desperate.”
Here and there, Wei Wuxian catches snippets of the news. Apparently, in the wake of the meltdown, there’s been a severe spike in drug overdoses in the city. “Tiger steel is a stupid name for a drug,” Wei Wuxian thinks out loud.
It’s potent, the newscaster says, and dangerous, but its popularity is skyrocketing as it’s suddenly become dirt cheap post-meltdown. “Good.” Wen Qing quips. “If it sounds stupid people won’t want to do it.”
Of course, the TV people always come back to the meltdown. The city will never be the same, and yet, the planet is still spinning. Adaption is integral to the human condition, they say. They have to pick up the pieces and move on. Perhaps the new city to come will be even better than Xin Shanghai ever could have been. Perhaps this is an opportunity to test the upper limits of what humanity can do in the face of a city’s total annihilation.
On the thirtieth day that he’s been staying at the Wens, Wei Wuxian has made a program that will do all his number-crunching for him so he can sit in Wen Qing’s lab and watch anime while his work runs in the background. She won’t let him smoke inside, because obviously, so he’s chewing on candy sticks from the corner shop to stop his mouth feeling so bored, when Wen Qing approaches him. He looks up at her. Her usual blue hoops dangle from her ears.
“I’m taking you somewhere.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“No.” She has his gas mask hanging over her arm. “We might be a while.”
Wen Qing puts the car into cruise control and sits back for the duration of the journey, quietly staring at the road. Wei Wuxian broodily gazes out of his window. They’re speeding down the highway, and it’s deserted.
Has she decided she’s finally had enough of me? He starts to think about anything he might have said that would make her so melancholy.
“You’re trying to find information on the meltdown, aren’t you?”
“Huh?” That was out of nowhere.
“After you find out. What will you do?” She tears her eyes away from the road, and looks straight at Wei Wuxian. “Will you go to Beijing?”
“…'' It's not that he doesn’t miss his siblings. But he likes playing pretend with the Wens, in a home that isn’t his, with people who don’t share his grief. He likes being able to think alone in their living room, where they won’t bother him because they don’t want to overstep. He aches for Jiang Yanli, to hear her voice and see her smile and have her tell him everything will be okay. But he knows things aren’t okay, and they won’t be for a while. He can’t keep leaning on her. Half of him wants to keep going as he has been, shutting out the real world and letting the Wens play along with his charade. Half of him wants to run all the way to Beijing and spill his heart out to his brother and sister and release his nurtured little creature of despair from its barred cage in the pit of his stomach where he keeps it under lock and key.
He knows which half he plans on listening to.
“I don’t think I can go back yet.”
“I’ll sign you on to a contract at the clinic. It isn’t formal. I’ll void it if you change your mind.”
Something tugs at the corners of his lips. Where the pain in his gut dies down, the fire in his chest grows stronger. He doesn’t think he’ll be changing his mind.
The clouds thicken and the sky darkens, a faint red glow emanating from the horizon. The road is wide, and climbs uphill. It isn’t until they get to the top that Wei Wuxian realises where she’s taken him.
Yangtze bridge lies collapsed in the river. The bridge entrance above the abutment on their side still stands tall, the gates towering over Wei Wuxian’s head. He cranes his head upwards, trying to take in the height of the goliath structure in front of him. In front of him, the bridge gives way, and the road submerges and disintegrates into the river. Suspension cables hang pathetically, sagging off of the ends of the bridge, and the pieces of debris are scattered, floating all over the river. In the distance, he can see the entrance gates of the bridge on the other side of the river, cracked and broken. The topmost part of the far gates hangs off of the rest of the structure at a crooked angle, threatening to snap off and fall at any moment. The cityscape of Xin Shanghai is a ghost of what it once was. Most of the skyscrapers he can see have caved in, fallen to pieces. The Oriental Pearl’s elusive and dazzling purple has been stained over with black and grey, and its elegant form is crumbling, segments and slices entirely missing from the cracked sphere.
A small distance from the car, there’s a small mountain of flowers, and at its feet, an ocean of candles, all collected in the centre of the road before the bridge. Wei Wuxian takes it in silently. There are all different colours, some flowers he’d seen in his own backyard. Most of the candles have been blown out. A soft breeze combs through his hair and continues beyond, making the petals flutter and the few remaining flames waver.
Wen Qing walks out from behind the car, holding a bouquet of flowers, and a small woven basket with two candles and a lighter.
She looks at him and for once, he understands the expression on her face completely. Her veneer from before is gone, and he thinks her face probably looks a lot like his own. Her blue earrings gleam brightly in the grey atmosphere around her.
He looks at her from over his shoulder as she walks towards him, and holds out the flowers in his direction. “This is the closest thing to a shrine we have.”
Precariously, he holds the flowers close to his chest. It’s beautifully something , but none of the words in his mind fit right.
He gingerly adds the flowers to the pile. He takes the candles from Wen Qing, who stands earnestly by his side, and places them next to all the rest. Striking the small lighter open, he holds the flame just above the wick of one of his candles, but pauses for a second. He flips the lighter lid shut, and shuffles around to the far side of the candles. He can’t reach the ones in the innermost part of the cluster, but he leans over and starts as far in the middle as he can and works his way out, lighting every candle he can reach. He has to lean his arm at strange angles to make sure his jacket doesn’t catch, and it takes a few minutes. Wen Qing stands behind him, shielding him from the breeze.
He lights the last candle, one of theirs, and steps back. The flowers form a makeshift wall, providing protection from the wind. The flames stretch up, flickering and swaying in the air. The little constellation of candles reminds him of Xin Shanghai, the city’s glowing lights that refused to die out, and the fire that refuses to give up. From above, did Xin Shanghai look as small as this sea of candles? Did it, too, look so fragile that its lights could be blown out in an instant?
Wei Wuxian falls to his knees and bends over, his forehead brushing against the dirt of the road beneath him. He just sits on his knees, and looks on. Wen Qing sits beside him, the two looking at the view before them in reverence.
Xin Shanghai. The nightless city.
He wakes abruptly, and he feels his knees buckle underneath him. Within seconds, there’s a pair of arms circling him, holding him up. It’s dark, but the small night light in the hallway just about highlights the soft curves of the face that looks back at his own.
“Wuxian-ge-”
“Wen Ning?” They’re both dressed in night clothes, shrouded in darkness, standing in front of the front door to the apartment.
“Wuxian-ge.” Wen Ning hesitantly lets go, letting Wei Wuxian gain his standing before releasing him completely. Worriedly, he still hovers around him. “I… I think you were sleepwalking.”
“I was?”
“Yeah. Do you sleepwalk?”
“I don’t tend to.” He tries to jog his memory, but through the headache he feels coming on, he feels like he’s wading through a swamp trying to grab hold of a single tiny pearl. The last thing he remembers; it was a nightmare he was just in the middle of, but that isn’t exactly a new experience, in recent times.
“Well, I was afraid you might try and leave.” They both glance towards the door. It’s locked, and the safety chain is drawn. “It’s a good thing I heard you…”
“Ah, I woke you up. I’m sorry.” Wen Ning is a light sleeper, noted. Wei Wuxian will have to tie himself down to try and stop his sleepwalking. Hopefully it’s just a one-off thing. “What time is it anyway?”
“Ah, no, it’s okay, don’t say sorry. It’s about three.”
“Damn. Go back to sleep.” Wei Wuxian starts stumbling back towards the living room. “Oh, Wen Ning?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Wen Ning’s smile reaches his eyes. “It’s really nothing, Wuxian-ge.”
He clambers into his sofa bed again, sheets haphazardly strewn. The painkillers he took a few hours ago are still coursing through his body, he can feel them.
The rest of the night, he sleeps dreamlessly.
He tries to write a letter. His handwriting is awful as usual, but some things have to be written.
‘ Jiang
Jie-ji
To the Jiang Fa
He tosses another scrunched up paper ball behind him.
Ah, I’m wasting paper like this. What to do?