Chapter Text
One
He had been seven when he had first laid hands on a guqin . It was a patchy memory, but the parts he could recall were as clear as crystal - sitting solidly in a warm lap, the cool strings under his hands, Hanguang-Jun’s fingers covering his own, the crisp notes sounding out around the jingshi.
Ever since that day, Sizhui had cherished music as a part of his own soul. At ten, his foster-father had gifted him his own instrument, and by all accounts, he played it as skillfully as was befitting of the gifter. With beautiful intonation, phrasing that was natural and elegant, a rich, warm tone and sophisticated musicality that impressed even the strictest of their elders.
And yet, at thirteen, it was not Sizhui who managed to first make contact with a spirit. It was Jingyi, perpetually beside him, with his music messy and unstructured and loud and without finesse (and yet so full of feeling) who succeeded first. One by one following that, his classmates began to discover their powers; the sacred ability passed down through the Lan family lines.
They were not like the Nies or the Jins, where abilities only appeared in select disciples. Cultivation ran strong in their blood. And yet, year after year, Sizhui strained to hear even the faintest of replies while spiritual response poured in through his classmates’ music, mingling with the sunlight or the snow in the clear air. Jingyi knew him better than almost anyone, and only smiled sympathetically and suggested that they sneak out to town for a night, or joked until Sizhui laughed and they were both punished with handstands.
He excelled in each of his other classes, both written and combat. But the power that had been gifted to them by the Gods, that place of origin where they had touched the blood of each of the Great Clans, slipped out of Sizhui’s grasp like a fish into running water. It was unlike a Lan to show frustration or fear, but the older he grew, the more difficult it became to harness the power of his clan - and increasingly harder to understand why.
After all, nobody had ever heard of a Lan who could not commune with the spirits through song.
“I recognise you.”
Sizhui didn’t realise the man was speaking to him until he felt the hand on his arm. “Oh,” he said in surprise, turning. “Excuse me, xiansheng. What did you say?”
The man was of middle height, dark hair ragged at the front, one eye chestnut and the other spliced with a bright, unnerving silver. He smiled at Sizhui oddly. “I recognise you.”
“You must be mistaken,” Sizhui said. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
“No,” the man agreed. “But I recognise you.” Then he sniffed and Sizhui struggled not to simply tug his arm out of the grip. “The smoke.” The man sniffed again. “The fire. The shadows cast by the Sun.”
“Kindly,” Sizhui began, Let go of my arm.
“Yes,” the man interrupted him. “That scent is familiar.” He grinned, and it was a little savage. “You’re the Wen boy.”
Sizhui froze. “What?”
“A Wen boy,” the man said thoughtfully. “I thought you were all gone.”
“Who are you?” Sizhui asked. “How do you know that?”
“I told you,” the man said, releasing Sizhui casually. “I recognise the scent.” Sizhui’s mouth fell open despite his utter lack of words. The man swept his gaze up and down, frowning. “If you’re a Wen, why do you dress like a Lan?”
Sizhui swallowed several times. “I-I thought you said you knew who I was.”
The man laughed. “I said I recognised you,” he corrected. “I didn’t say I knew who you were.” He eyed Sizhui curiously. “Do you even know that?”
“I-”
“Sizhui!”
The call startled him; made him turn away from the man. Jin Ling, Jingyi and Zizhen were making their way towards him, white, gold, blue, red in the sunshine. “Are you ready to go?” Zizhen asked as they reached him. “Jingyi told us that Hanguang-Jun was fussing over you this morning.”
“I did not - Hanguang-Jun was not fussing,” Jingyi said, sounding offended on Lan Wangji’s behalf. “I just said he told Sizhui to be careful!”
“Which is the equivalent of Hanguang-Jun’s fussing,” Zizhen replied.
“And he told Sizhui not to forget his weapons,” Jin Ling snorted. “A lot of faith he has in you, clearly.”
“Sizhui, I did not tell them that!”
“Then how would we know?”
“Sizhui,” Zizhen said, interrupting the bickering. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Jin Ling said, less gently. “Why are you just standing here looking into a dark alleyway?”
Sizhui frowned. “I was just-” He turned around, but the man had completely vanished. Disappeared completely like a wisp of steam in the fresh autumn air.
Jingyi laughed and slung an arm around Sizhui’s shoulders. “He’s getting air-headed in his old age.”
Jin Ling snorted again. “Too much time studying the Lan Sect rules, more likely.” He shoved Sizhui’s shoulder, clipping Jingyi as well. “Come on. A couple of night hunts should set you right.”
They all laughed, and Sizhui felt his unease slipping away in the ease of the day. Still, as they led him away towards frivolity, he glanced back to the entrance of the dark alleyway. The smoke. The fire. The shadows cast by the Sun. Something lurking, both familiar and strange.
Sizhui turned his face away.
Evening swept through town like a breeze, night lamps popping into existence like scattered leaves. They slept together all in one room, like they had as children, Zizhen sprawled out like a starfish, Jin Ling curled around his pillow, Jingyi straight as a true Lan. Sizhui slid the door open as quietly as he could in order to avoid waking them, although in hindsight, he needn’t have worried.
Sizhui’s birthday always coincided with the full moon, and he gathered his robes up neatly as he seated himself on the porch and counted down until midnight. Five, four, three, two…
The moon seemed to glow a little brighter. When he had been younger, Hanguang-Jun had broken curfew every year to deliver him a gift - a new brush, fresh ink for his essays, a scroll of music from the forbidden library. Tonight, there was no gift, but it made Sizhui smile to remember it. There were those who would never believe that Lan Wangji could be a competent father, but Sizhui knew differently. There was warmth in him, and compassion too, and Sizhui always looked forward to those evenings, when Lan Wangji would give him tea and a gift and say in his quiet, steady voice -
“Happy birthday.”
Sizhui toppled backwards with an un-Lan-like incoordination, tangling his robes in his legs. When he had regained his seating, he glanced upwards and was almost startled into another fall. There was a woman standing there in the centre of the small courtyard, bathed in moonlight; the loveliest woman he had never seen, dark-haired, doe-eyed, milk-skinned and smiling at him.
A goddess, was his first thought since she was clearly not a normal human, but a goddess would be emanating far more power and anyway, it had been millenia since the Gods had come down to earth. Next, he considered he might be hallucinating, but they had all four eaten the same food and none of their sleep had been disturbed like his, nor had the others seen anything odd at all. There was only one possibility left, and Sizhui admitted it was not the most polite overture he had made, but he couldn’t help blurting out - “Are you a ghost?”
The woman was clearly delighted. “They said you wouldn’t be able to figure it out, but I had faith in you.”
“Who did?”
“I’m so pleased that we’re finally able to talk,” she continued as if he had not spoken, and as she laid her large, deep eyes on him, he felt a jolt of recognition.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“The question is, who are you?” she asked. “I see the white robes of Lan.”
“I’m Lan Sizhui,” he responded, still in shock that he was talking to a ghost. She seemed completely lucid, not at all hostile. Even so, he couldn’t help the wish that he hadn’t left his sword inside.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” she told him as if she’d read his mind. “I won’t harm you, and I won’t come any closer. I just wanted to speak to you.” She smiled, and once again, that flash of recognition. “You have a beautiful name,” she told him. Her voice was soft like spring flowers. “Who gave it to you?”
“M-My father,” he replied.
“To recollect,” she translated. “To long for.”
“He was...missing someone,” he told her.
“Yes,” she replied, gazing off into the distance. “I’m sure your father had good reason to be missing the person you were named for.”
He asked, surprised, “Do you know my father?”
Her face was sad and sweet, and he wanted to capture the sight and the melancholy romance that accompanied it. “I knew your father,” she replied. (Of course, Sizhui thought. She was a ghost.) “And only in passing.”
He felt he had to ask. “What are you doing here, then, ma’am?”
She laughed. “Ma’am,” she repeated, eyes full of mirth. “If only I could’ve seen the future, still I never would have predicted that .” He blinked at her. “I came to check on my brother,” she continued. “He hardly needs supervision anymore, but I can’t help but worry.”
“Your brother?” he asked, glancing around. She didn’t look like a town citizen; she had the wrong robes. Hers were a deep crimson interwoven with black, far too rich a colour and cloth.
“Not to worry,” she said, almost to herself. “He has others to protect him now.”
“If there is something you’d like to do for your brother,” he ventured. “Perhaps I could help.” After all, ghosts had purposes, unfulfilled purposes. The Lan education didn’t cover much about the spiritual afterlife, but this much he knew.
“Sweet boy,” she said, so impossibly, inexplicably fond. “You already do.”
Sizhui stared at her, unabashedly perplexed. He already did? Was that a metaphorical statement or a literal one? Who did he help - was she perhaps Wei-qianbei’s sister - but no, he had seen paintings of Jin Ling’s mother. She was softer than this woman, with a more gentle countenance but less of a sharp beauty, and she never wore those clothes. He opened his mouth to ask, but just at that moment, the door to the room behind them slid open and Sizhui twisted around in alarm.
It was only Zizhen, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing out here, Sizhui?” he asked, bleary with sleep.
“Nothing,” Sizhui answered automatically. “Just talking.”
Zizhen looked around with a raised eyebrow. “To whom?” he asked. “The moon?” Sizhui whipped back around, afraid that, like that morning at the market, the woman would have vanished. But there she still stood, with a placid smile upon her face. It was quite clear that Zizhen could not see her at all.
“Just myself,” Sizhui told his friend.
“You Lans are weird,” Zizhen replied with a grin in his vice. “Want company?”
Sizhui couldn’t help but feel touched when clearly all Zizhen wanted to do was get back to bed. “No,” he replied. “You sleep. But thank you.”
Zizhen’s reply was lost; he was already shuffling back inside and closing the door. The woman was still watching him and when Sizhui turned around once again, the displaced sense of recognition hit him so hard that his heart jumped in his chest. “Why can’t my friend see you?” he asked quietly, in case Zizhen was still awake. But the woman did not reply. Instead, Sizhui said, “We’ve met before.”
Her smile faded a little. “Once,” she replied. “A long time ago. But I’m sure you’ve met a lot of people.”
“Why are you here now?” he wondered.
“I told you already,” she said, giving him a look. “But this time, I also came to talk to you. Now, listen.” And her tone was suddenly brisk and business-like (and so familiar, and comforting somehow). “When you and your friends reach the bridge, you will come across an unfamiliar puzzle. To solve it, you will need all the gifts at your disposal between you, and you will need help. Fortunately, help is coming to you.”
“What help?”
“No unnecessary questions.”
Are you my mother? slipped to the tip of his tongue, but he trapped it between his teeth and swallowed it. “Will I see you again?” he asked her instead. “Why am I seeing spirits? Ning-shushu...er, Wen-qianbei told me once that only the ghosts of cowards exist, and you don’t seem like one, so how can you be here?”
The lady’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth, then closed it again. “At the crossroads, when you send for aid,” she said finally, her voice slightly unsteady as she continued. “Make sure to remind your father’s brother to wear his ring.”
“What?”
“Take a left at the fruit-seller’s stall in the morning. Do not let your friend’s love of literature avert you now; you must make haste. Although it will be useful to you in solving your puzzle.” She looked squarely at him. “And when help comes to you on the bridge, you may ask him your questions.” Suddenly, she looked rather smug. “It would serve him right.”
“Who?” Sizhui asked, lost, adrift beneath the moon.
“No unnecessary questions,” she repeated, but there was a smile on her face. “It’s time for you to be asleep. I will bid you farewell now. Good luck, A-Yuan.”
She said his name with so much love. Even as he wondered who on earth she was, it made his eyes fill with longing tears.
“No, Zizhen.”
“But it’s his newest work; Sizhui, let me just have a quick-”
“No, Zizhen, come on.”
Sizhui was uncharacteristically forceful, taking hold of his friend’s elbow and tugging him down the left road away from the scrolls and books of poetry. Zizhen grumbled but good-naturedly allowed himself to be led along until they were far enough that Sizhui felt it was safe to let him go.
As they wandered, Jingyi fell into step beside him. “Not that I’m not pleased we don’t have to spend hours listening to Zizhen commentate the genius of some poet we don’t know or understand,” he began lightly. “But it was a little strange to have you be the one to stop him.”
Sizhui said nothing, only stared ahead at the bright road.
“Is everything alright?” Jingyi asked.
“Fine.”
Jingyi chuckled. “Hanguang-Jun’s style of speech is rubbing off on you, I see. Alright, well, if you want to talk about it.”
Sizhui nodded. “Thanks.”
Jingyi squeezed his arm lightly, then spoke again with a raised voice. “And at least we don’t have to listen to Young Mistress Jin complaining all day about Zizhen’s obsession with poetry.”
“Who are you calling Young Mistress?!”
“Here we go again,” Zizhen said. They all heard the eye-roll in his voice, and that, as no doubt Jingyi had intended, made Sizhui laugh aloud.
“Why,” Jin Ling said in an unimpressed tone, “is there always an abandoned town that looks close to ruin, where an evil nocturnal creature probably lives, and maybe a few murderous lunatics are lurking about?”
Or ghosts, Sizhui thought, but didn’t speak aloud. He didn’t need anybody thinking he was crazy.
For once, Jin Ling and Jingyi were in agreement. “Why can’t it ever just be a few paranoid freaks or a scary story around a campfire or maybe a lantern festival gone wrong?”
“That wouldn’t be very poetic,” Zizhen commented.
“A lantern festival gone wrong is the definition of poetry,” Jingyi protested.
At the same time, Jin Ling squawked, “And what is poetic about chasing a monster through a muddy forest, covered in leaves and thorns?”
“It’s epic poetry for a reason!” Zizhen exclaimed, riled by literary criticism like he was by little else. “It’s epic .”
“Never feels epic when it’s happening,” Jingyi pointed out.
“That’s because poetic license hasn’t been taken yet.”
“Poetic license be damned!” Jin Ling scowled. “The last time we went on a night hunt, I ruined my robes completely - jiujiu was furious, and I had to put up with his threats to break by legs for two whole weeks!”
“Oh, grow up, Princess; getting your hands dirty is part of the fun.”
“Who,” Jin Ling actually growled, “are you calling Princess.”
There was something moving in the middle distance. Something that looked too long and lean to be a dog, but ran on all fours. Something flickering at the edges of his vision that made his nerves fray and his hair stand on end. “Be quiet,” he said.
The constant bickering that Sizhui usually enjoyed faded away behind him. “Why?” Jin Ling asked belligerently.
“Because,” Sizhui said. “There’s something out there.”
“Hello, evil creature,” Zizhen muttered.
“What is it?” Jingyi asked, coming up behind Sizhui’s shoulder, his voice low.
“Don’t know,” Sizhui said shortly. “Didn’t get a proper look. Four legs, low to the ground. Fast.”
There was a scrape as Jin Ling drew his sword. “We’ve dealt with worse than four legs.”
“It’s not about the number,” Jingyi returned, and they all fell easily back into their banter. “Unless your plan is for us to all grab one leg and pull.”
“It’s gone,” Sizhui said with a frown. “I can’t see it anymore.”
“It saw us?” Zizhen asked. “Is it hunting us?”
“Hunting us,” Sizhui murmured. “Or hiding from us.”
Jin Ling screwed up his face. “Why would it be hiding from us?”
The hazy image of the creature, loping across the street between the dilapidated houses, flashed through Sizhui’s mind. “It looked-” like a person, he wanted to say. There had been something distinctly, strangely human about it. But even now, the memory was fading from him, and it sounded almost as insane as the ghosts. “Nothing,” he said at Jingyi’s curious look. “It’s nothing. Let’s find cover. If it’s like other creatures, it won’t do anything until night falls.”
He gestured for them to go ahead of him and Jin Ling gave him a sideways look that was both confused and concerned. “If it’s like other creatures?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “What makes you think it isn’t?”
Sizhui wanted to say nothing but lying was forbidden, so he only smiled and Jin Ling eyed him suspiciously before moving on. In the back of his mind, it occurred to him that ironically, all of his friends had grown into being incredibly observant without him noticing.
The inside of the Town Hall was as run-down as the outside. Sizhui ran his the tips of his fingers over the surface of a nearby broken table. They came away grey and fuzzy with dust. He blew gently on them and watched the particles fly outwards. Dust to dust.
“Half a year,” Jingyi said, examining his own area of dust. “Possibly longer.”
Sizhui lifted his hands into a patch of sunlight cast by a cracked section of the roof. Day and night cycled through this town, but there were no more people to observe them. “Where did you go?” he whispered. “Why did you run?”
Zizhen had unpacked all the records from the shelves and spread them carefully across the low reading desk. Jin Ling had his head tipped back and was scanning the rafters and the upper floor, wrapped around and overlooking the hall. Jingyi bent down to rescue a fallen screen. The once-vivid paint had dulled to faint pallor. The silence was as thick as the dust, viscous and sorrowful.
“Gods above,” Zizhen exclaimed suddenly and Jin Ling jumped so violently that he almost put his elbow through the window.
“Don’t do that, Zizhen,” Jingyi exclaimed back, and Sizhui put a hand on his chest to calm his racing heart.
“Sorry,” Zizhen said, not looking or sounding sorry in the slightest. “Look at these books.”
“Yes,” Jin Ling said, clearly not ready to forgive Zizhen for making him jump. “You like books. We’ve noticed.”
“No,” Zizhen snapped. “I mean, yes - I like books. But no, I mean, look at these books.”
They all crowded around him and leaned over his head and shoulders. Zizhen turned several pages in silence so that they could see. “Gods,” Jingyi said at last, horror in his voice. “That is awful.”
It was a curse. An old curse, from what they could discern, that had been around for centuries. Presumably cast by a particularly powerful Clan leader onto the head of a smaller sect, turning him into - “That?” Jin Ling asked, his voice shaky. The sketches were as near to lifelike as it was possible to be. The creature depicted was lupine and humanoid both in horrifying proportions. In some images, the snout was well-defined and the muzzle bloody and snarling; in others, there was a human face, contorted with pain and suffering. Claws and hands curled alternatively. Standing on two legs, grounded on four paws, tearing at its own skin.
Either nobody had ever been close enough to tell properly, or the curse was one that refused to allow a settled form. Sizhui veered away from that line of thought; it was too horrible to contemplate.
Someone had made extensive studies of this cursed creature before the town had been emptied, but it was now quite clear why nobody lived here. The images were almost transfixing, they were frozen with gazes glued to the paper. But suddenly, Zizhen rather sensibly swept a hand across them, sending pages and dust tumbling across the desk in a messy swirl. “That’s enough,” he said, voice rough, and Sizhui leaned back in relief. “What are we going to do?”
Jingyi cleared his throat several times before he answered. “What can we do?”
“We can kill it,” Jin Ling said flatly, matter of fact. “Or we can break the curse.”
Sizhui ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know if we can do either.”
“Or leave,” Jin Ling finished. “But that would be…”
“Yes,” Jingyi said wearily. “Sizhui, now might be the wrong time to tell you that we arranged a surprise for you that you’re not going to get.”
Sizhui frowned. “What surprise?”
“Dinner,” Zizhen said. “At the next town on the map. We asked them to cook it in the bland, tasteful, awful style of your Gusu Lan sect.”
“But,” Sizhui said slowly, “why?”
“Because it’s your birthday, idiot,” Jin Ling said. “And it doesn’t matter now, because there’s a centuries-old cursed wolf-man about whom something needs doing!”
Sizhui blinked around at all of them, and despite the fear and dread and tiredness that he was experiencing, something cracked open in his chest and spilled warmth through his ribcage and stomach and throat. Sweet like honey. “That’s very-”
“Never mind,” Jin Ling interrupted him, a blush spreading over his face as if he could sense Sizhui was about to say something sentimental.
Jingyi’s gaze flitted between Sizhui, Jin Ling and Zizhen with a smile in his eyes. “Never mind,” he repeated quietly. Then, louder, “What’s our plan, then?”
They needed, they all agreed, to get a closer look. Preferably without losing any of their limbs or getting eaten. The town was too complicated and there were too many nooks and crannies for it to be simple. An old map pinned to the wooden board on the wall showed a forest area nearby that looked like a better option. They marked a clear path to take and lit some lamps. As night fell, they set up watch in the hall and lit a fire for warmth and for comfort.
Zizhen had shuffled the pages so that none of the rest of them could see, and he had chosen only the most pertinent ones for them to study, until they were familiar with the consistencies - the creature’s long body, the muscled limbs, the manic eyes. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Jin Ling said to Zizhen, “but it’s lucky that you love books.”
You will need all the gifts at your disposal between you.
The words flashed through Sizhui’s mind, unbidden. There was a whisper around the room, as if the woman were there, but he didn’t look around.
They could all hear the growling. Sizhui and Jingyi were leaning on the same tree trunk, panting in the darkness. “This might have been a mistake,” Jingyi whispered between breaths. Sizhui didn’t reply, too busy trying to catch his breath.
They had waited until they heard growling and crackling before leading the creature out to the woods along a path marked clearly with the lanterns. They had all caught glimpses, but even now, Sizhui knew all their memories would be different and likely equally inaccurate. It was faster than they had anticipated and immune to their talismans and swords. So now they were running in full robes through an unfamiliar forest, trying to escape from a wild, cursed beast.
“What now?” Jin Ling bellowed as they wove their way through the tree trunks.
The golden eyes flashed at them at Zizhen’s side, Sizhui felt his heart lurch horribly in his chest at its proximity to his friend, but then it faded away, leaving behind the panic. “Run faster,” Jingyi shouted back, having sheathed his sword for easier mobility.
“We can’t run forever,” Zizhen gasped. “We need a better plan.”
Sizhui clenched his sword tighter and focussed on not tripping over. What would Hanguang-Jun or Wei-qianbei do? They would have some plan, some way of fighting the creature. They wouldn’t have underestimated a powerful curse in the first place. Rule number 674: Arrogance is not allowed.
I will take punishment, Sizhui thought. Enough for all four of us. If only we survive this night.
“Dawn!” Zizhen yelled suddenly. “The sky’s getting lighter. Lead him east and the dawn will frighten it away!” Seeing the prudence in this plan, the four of them veered in unison towards where the tiny slivers of light were emerging.
“Where’s the edge of the forest?” Jingyi called over his shoulder. There was the sound of thundering paws behind them, fading and coming into hearing again. It hadn’t eaten them yet. Sizhui didn’t have the energy to wonder why.
“There’s a bridge,” Zizhen cried. “Look for it; that’s where the trees end.”
“How do you remember that?” Jin Ling shouted back.
“A bridge?” Sizhui said, not nearly as loudly. Help is coming to you.
Jingyi was the fastest among the four and he was the first to reach the treeline; they heard his cry of surprise as he burst from the trees. When Sizhui came to his side, he saw what his friend had seen and his stomach lurched. There was a steep drop over the edge of a rocky chasm, and the ‘bridge’ was less a bridge and more a rickety two-sided series of swinging planks that had seen too many years. “I can’t,” Sizhui said immediately, stomach already churning with motion sickness.
A snarling sound behind them turned Jingyi’s face from concerned to determined. “Come on, Sizhui. I won’t let you fall.”
“The sunlight will keep it back,” Zizhen said. “It will give you a little more time to cross.”
“But-”
“For Heaven’s sake, let’s just fly across,” Jin Ling said, ripping his sword from its sheath.
This seemed like a good suggestion to Sizhui, who began to position his own sword, but just as they prepared to ascend, two things happened. First, the Sun burst out from behind the mountain peak in dazzling, glinting rays. The creature was so close now that they could see clearly that it did indeed have a snout, but also human-looking teeth between the alarming canines, the saliva that spilled from its snarled mouth. But its eyes, Sizhui realised, thrown into sharp relief by the new sunlight, were constantly shifting between the yellow of a wolf’s and the recognisable ones of a human.
“Oh, Gods,” Jin Ling breathed, hand over his mouth. Sizhui knew that they’d seen the same thing.
“Time to go,” Jingyi said, his voice tight with tension.
“Wait!” Zizhen cried out. “Look!”
There was a shadow against the Sun, a spot of darkness that was growing larger and larger, and came towards them. Soon, they saw that it was in the shape of a person - an extremely familiar person. The glow of warmth and safety and family kindled in Sizhui’s chest, made him cry out - “Ning-shushu!”
And it was indeed Wen Ning, wielding his chains as he descended in the path of the dawn. Without sparing them a glance, he went straight for the creature and allowed the chains to unfurl, lashing out viciously and without hesitation. Although he had no spiritual power to unleash, his confident strokes made the creature retreat until they could no longer see it. Wen Ning followed it into the trees and they heard the sounds of the fighting dim and then disappear entirely.
Sizhui held his breath until Wen Ning appeared again, looking relatively unharmed with the chains wrapped safely around him again, gazing around at them all with his characteristic concern. Then, relief coursed through him so strongly that it made him wobbly at the knees and he abandoned all of his Lan aloofness and rushed towards Wen Ning. “A-Yuan,” Wen Ning said as they came close together. “Are you alright?”
“Ning-shushu ,” he said weakly and Wen Ning took his hands; looked carefully into his face and then over his shoulder at his friends. “You’re here.”
“Call me Wen-qianbei ,” Wen Ning reminded him gently, but he was smiling and Sizhui knew that it was going to be alright.
To be continued.