Chapter Text
In Jingyi’s mind, panic could be perfectly described through a select range of scenarios.
Panic was forgetting to do your homework before Lan Qiren started collecting the carefully transcribed pages, trying not to cower as said teacher stood in front of your desk with a terrifying pool of blackness emanating from within his stoic aura. Panic was the furry chaos of multiple rabbits breaking free from a lousily maintained hole in the fence, the even more frantic scramble to get them back into their pens before Han Guang Jun heard the commotion and came over to investigate.
It was the coldness of water and the heat of an unbridled flame. It was the horror of an unseen ghost, the stifling, revolting sweetness of corpse poisoning. It was the recurring onslaught of fierce corpses that rained down on them at the Burial Mounds. Most importantly, panic was now: hunting down the boy that had run off into the woods.
Well, perhaps “boy” wasn’t the correct term to use. Jingyi and his friends were all on the edge of eighteen, preparing themselves for adulthood where they could officially pass into the ranks of seniority befitting of the experiences they had seen. This was especially true for the current Sect Leader of the Jin Sect. The responsibility and burden of his position had sharpened the edges of his jaw, sanding down the softness of his cheeks and masking the mischievous mirth in his warm-toned eyes with feigned indifference. Out of the three of them, it was undoubtedly he who had been forced to age the fastest.
Speaking of which, Jingyi thought tiredly, you’d think someone this responsible would be mature instead of poking someone in the ribs and gleefully sprinting off into the darkness shouting ‘catch me if you can.’ The pain was still fading in his left side and Jingyi schooled the waning excitement he felt at the chase into a grimly irritated expression. “Jin Ling better pray to the gods that he isn’t discovered or God help me,” he murmured aloud without heat.
Everyone heard but paid no attention to it. Although he had no reason to think anything of it at the time, in the weeks that were to follow Jingyi would regret this simple, light-hearted comment.
Up ahead of them Ouyang Zizhen was leading the group. A slight rustle to Jingyi’s left told him that Lan Sizhui was moving a couple paces behind him, completing the trio that swiftly stalked through the bushland. Jingyi knew that if he were to look he wouldn’t be able to see too much of the Lan disciple, what with the blackness of the night sky settling down around them and casting disorientating shadows upon the floor. And yet the two of them had grown up together for so long that the image of what he would see was nonetheless seared into Jingyi’s mind: a figure of elegance and immense control, perfect white headband framing a calm face, with glimmering eyes that summoned to mind the image of white pearls being distilled over a grey pebble stream.
Perhaps Sizhui would even be smiling faintly, as was his usual sign of contentment when around Sect Leader Jin. Jingyi couldn’t help but feel satisfied too, particularly as they could all agree that it had been a good night. Not only had they had a successful night hunt, dispatching a handful of fierce corpses and other beasts, it had also been one of the first carefree nights that they could spend with Jin Ling in a while. With such conflicting schedules and responsibilities, this night had been the opportunity that the four of them needed to meet up and hunt with the carefree wild-like youth that they had been before. There were no pretences or the need for carefully-chosen like at the courts, simply the gentle thread of happiness that had undoubtedly linked them to each other.
Sizhui drew Jingyi out of his reverie, appearing to have grown tired of this prolonged game of hide and seek. Of course, he was the wisest of the four after all. “Sect Leader Jin,” he called out, peering up into the shadowy canopy of the trees. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing. Then again, Jin Ling often liked to play into suspense. The rascal.
Sizhui cupped his hands to his face to amplify his voice. “We should head back now, the hunt is over. You can come out.” Again, there was nothing. The effect made Sizhui’s words reverberate off the trees and surrounding rocks, echoing back to them in a dissonant manner. It was not the first time that night that Jingyi seemed to realise just how quiet their surroundings were. He swallowed down the feeling that threatened to well up within his chest and tried for a joke.
“Young Mistress Jin,” Jingyi called, knowing full well how Jin Ling swore he hated the nickname, if his brilliantly flushed cheeks would be any indicator. “Young Mistress Jin, aren’t you getting lonely out there? Come on, let’s go back now.”
When they were met with silence for the third time, Zizhen turned towards the pair. With a quick swish of movement the yellow glow of a newly lit lantern filled their vision. The normally soothing light created deep hollows in their faces, doing nothing to quell the concern that had slowly but surely begun to dwell upon him. Nonetheless, Zizhen sounded surprisingly logical.
“How many minutes has it been now?” He asked.
“Couldn’t have been that long,” Jingyi replied, the exact same time Sizhui answered “fifteen minutes, give or take twenty seconds.” Jingyi pursed his lips. Of course the Lan disciple had been counting it all in his head this whole time, keeping track of every passing moment where the Sect Leader was not by his side. Jingyi was surprised at his own lack of surprise at the revelation.
Jingyi blurted out what everyone was thinking. “What should we do?”
There was a pause whereby none of them answered. The three of them were still huddled around the lamp, the discomfort of the situation beginning to seep into the thinness of their clothing.
Zizhen shivered, peering around at the ominous, isolated setting. “Do you think it’s a joke? I mean, Jin Ling has a scarce-to-nothing sense of humour and maybe this is his way of joking around?”
Sizhui’s eyebrows creased at the statement and Jingyi was far too tired at that moment to explain to Zizhen that Jin Ling actually had a great sense of humour, albeit one which he only chose to express around Sizhui and Jingyi.
“I don’t think so,” Sizhui whispered, and the fact that he whispered meant Sizhui didn’t trust the way his own voice might sound if he tried to speak at a normal volume. He raised his voice to a slight murmur, “Jin Ling knows better than to do something as serious as this.”
As Sizhui’s eyes momentarily flickered to the side, Jingyi realised just how much he had overlooked the fact that Jin Ling had become his friend’s right hand man. Of course he would instinctively look in that direction for comfort in a time like this. Zizhen and Jingyi watched the Lan disciple slowly straighten up, right index finger tracing his headband like a hair was out of place. “Okay, I think we should-”
No one would ever know what he was planning to say because right at that moment a male’s scream punctuated the silence. It must have been at least a hundred meters away and yet the sound that travelled was extremely clear. The three of them jolted backwards, light flickering wildly, flames brandishing hands in the darkness. Jingyi could see fragments of his brilliantly violent world: Sizhui’s full-blown eyes, the paleness of Zizhen’s face, the decisive moment the three of them locked eyes with one name in mind.
In a moment of shock, Zizhen dropped the lantern. The light went out.
Panic tore the skin off Jingyi’s eyelids and left him seeing the world through night black.
Too fast. Too thick.
Another blood-curdling scream bled through the darkness, lanced with so much fear, scorched pink with so much pain that Jingyi felt his heart freeze. Peony pink. Blood red.
Jin Ling was shouting for help- Jin Ling was screaming- he was - he was-
“Sizhui! Sizhui help me!” The howls pierced their ears, driving stakes into their heart.
“Sizhui-” the boy cried out, and this time his voice splintered off like vocal cords were being ripped out from his throat.
Jingyi whipped his head around to what Sizhui was doing- and found himself staring at nothing. He swore, brilliantly, vibrantly, head in complete disarray as he plunged after his two friends to join the chase five seconds too late. Anger. Horror. Fear. Regret.
Panic.
He felt it all, felt it in every stone-cold jolt that reverberated through his entire being when the sole of his foot collided with the bumpy, uneven floor.
Felt it in the weight of his drawn sword, the strain in his quickened breath, the tightness of the headband binded around his temples, too strongly, like a hangman’s rope.
Death, death, death, death: Jingyi had never felt so close to it.
And then-
A voice, ten meters ahead in the darkness. “Jin Ling!” It took him a second to recognise the voice as Sizhui’s, the boy a mere husk of his usual, impeccable self. Sizhui’s timbre was tainted black with madness, saturated with fear and grief. Ouyang Zizhen was right behind him, shouting just as loudly. “Jin Ling! Jin Ling!”
They all sounded so far away from Jingyi, like drowned victims mumbling beneath the surface of a stream. A glint of gold caught Jingyi's eye, mind barely registering the yellowness of a chain trodden over in the soil before his fumbling hands reached for it and plunged the contents deep into the creases of his inner robes.
The ice-cold metal burned itself into the skin above his beating heart.
Jingyi never slowed his sprint, running continuously, towards his friend who needed help- who was God knows where- who could be, could be-
“Gone.”
Jingyi reached a clearing in the forest, where the road billowed out into a forked park. Distant village lights gleamed just a hundred more metres down the tracks. He blindly forged forwards, wishing that Zizhen would light another lantern. He could just make out the tall build of Zizhen standing next to Sizhui, their backs to him, the Lan disciple on his knees in the mud, and then he was almost grateful that it was too dark to see clearly.
He wouldn’t want to see the scene.
He wouldn’t want to see the fineness of the golden robes that Sizhui was no doubt holding in fistfuls to his chest. He wouldn’t want to see the incongruous beauty of the Sparks Amidst Snow motif, which even now glimmered in the night like a soft, dewy beacon. He wouldn’t want to see the bow, snapped in half with the quiver almost empty, or the sword, Sui Hua, unsheathed and lying askew. Jin Ling never went anywhere without it.
“I’m telling you, he’s gone.” Zizhen said again as Jingyi approached. His voice was as flat and lifeless as the dead. Jingyi wasn’t sure why but he was overcome with the sudden, visceral urge to go and punch the Baling Ouyang sect member in the face. Instead, Jingyi struggled up to Sizhui and he meant it when he said ‘struggle’ because his entire body felt just about as mobile as a stack of wooden chips. One did not need light to see the way that Sizhui was bent over the golden robes like his insides were already scraped clean, like a child burying themselves within a safety blanket. His white shins were definitely stained with filth but it was apparent that the Lan disciple was beyond caring.
Jingyi attempted to find the right words. “There’s no, there’s no-”
There's no body, is what he wanted to say, but it was like a Silencing Charm forbade his lips from speaking properly. Sizhui moved slightly, and that was the moment Jingyi realised that his friend was actually shivering.
“I saw them,” Sizhui said. “They took Jin Ling.”