Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian hummed softly under his breath as he walked through the quiet main street of the town that he had stumbled across during his wandering.
There was something soothing about the little town, something he couldn’t quite put his fingers on.
The people were nice enough, even to a rogue cultivator like himself. Unlike some previous towns he had visited, the people didn’t avoid him, instead, they fought for his attention. Merchants tried to draw him in, claiming they had the best deals, the best products, and some even claiming things he would never experience anywhere else.
He simply smiled brightly as he continued his way through the town, undecided if he would stay the night or continue onwards.
He only had a handful of coins on him, enough for a week’s worth of food or a room for a night, maybe two if he was lucky.
But on the other hand, he was running low on paper for talismans and his quiver was starting to look more on the empty side these days.
He let out a small sigh, breaking his previous cheerful tune.
“Why did you stop?” A small voice asked suddenly, causing him to pause at the sudden question.
He slowly turned around to see a small boy in robes just as black as his own staring up at him with piercing golden eyes.
But it wasn’t the boy’s eyes that caught his attention but the state of the boy.
Cruises and cuts covered what little of the boy was visible to the naked eye. A darkening bruise circled the boy’s left eye while his bottom lip was swallow and red with a rather nasty cut running through the middle of it and that was only on the boy’s face.
“Why did you stop?” the boy repeated himself.
“Because I couldn’t think of a way to finish the song,” he replied while shifting into a crouch. He stared at the boy for a moment longer before raising a hand to move the bangs from the boy’s forehead so he could look at the skin beneath it.
As he expected, the skin was marked with a rather deep gash that looked like it had only just stopped bleeding.
“Where are your parents?” he asked softly.
It was a simple question, so he didn’t expect the response he received. The boy’s eyes, which had originally stared at him with curiosity, sharpened into a glare and a lip pulled into a sneer – that probably wasn’t as affective as the boy hoped with his swallow lip.
“Why?” the boy spat.
“Because no parent would let their child wander around with such injuries without worrying sick over them,” he explained while drawing his hand back.
The boy was silent as they stared at each other for a long moment before letting out a huff.
“… gone…” he muttered in a whisper so softly he almost missed it.
“You’ve got no other family?” he questioned, only to bite back a chuckle at the bitter look that flashed over the boy’s face.
“My aunty…” the boy relented, clearly not happy about admitting he did have other family.
“Oh? And she isn’t worried?” he asked. The boy quickly shook his head in response.
“She… my cousin… he did this,” the boy mumbled while kicking at the ground, clearly unable to control the sudden bout of anger that ran through his little body.
He stared at the boy in front of him for a long moment before holding his hand out to the boy.
“Would… would you like to come with me?”
He couldn’t tell you what caused him to offer this boy an escape.
Maybe he was lonely.
Maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the boy here in such a state when he was suffering at the hands of his family.
Maybe… maybe he could see a little of himself in the boy.
Lost, without parents, waiting for something or someone to come along.
The boy stared down at his offered hand for a long moment before reaching out and putting both of his hands in his.
“My names Mo Xuanyu,” the boy declared, “You better not be tricking me, mister.”
Wei Wuxian let out a soft chuckle as he raised his free hand to ruffle Mo Xuanyu’s hair.
“This is no trick, Mo Xuanyu. My name is Wei Ying, courtesy name Wei Wuxian, and from today onwards we are partners.”
“Partners…” Mo Xuanyu repeated softly, sounding surprised by the word.
He chuckled and gave the boy’s hand a gentle squeeze before raising to his full height.
“Do you need to collect anything before we leave?” he asked while glancing around them.
“Leave? Like, this town?” Mo Xuanyu questioned, moving to his side while still clinging to the hand he had offered to him.
“Yep. We will leave through Dafan Mountain and see where the roads lead us from there,” he explained while pointing off into the distance where Dafan Mountain stood.
Mo Xuanyu stared at the mountain for a long moment before nodding his head, “I… I like the sound of that.”