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Wen Ning is tending a garden and it’s—it’s nice. Shockingly nice. It’s the most at ease he’s been since they returned to Cloud Recesses, him and A-Yuan. He’s only inside the walls on A-Yuan’s request and it’s not. Comfortable. Not because of the passive wards, theoretically intended to bar resentful energy and the dead from entering the mountain. The active wards keep Wen Ning out as well as anyone else, living or otherwise, but the passive ones are no more than a mild itch under his skin when he gets too close to one. Apparently the Yiling Patriarch still did better work than the Gusu Lan wardcrafters even in the Burial Mounds, with no help and no food and no equipment and no plan. It’s strange to be proud of himself as a masterwork of demonic cultivation, even after all these years, but Wen Ning quietly files that fact away, in case anyone needs to be reminded.
No, Wen Ning gets the luxury of being uncomfortable purely because of the people.
He’s fairly sure that he wouldn’t be much better off if he were alive. There are six Gusu Lan members who willfully spend time around him, including A-Yuan and Hanguang-jun, plus Wei Wuxian. Everyone else, at best, ostentatiously ignores him. He doesn’t particularly blame them. They don’t even know what to call him—Wen-gongzi, while technically accurate and polite, is too bitter to be spoken even after all these years; Ghost General too dramatic for the polished Lan disciples; A-Ning and Qionglin and Wen-xiong all too familiar.
It’s been three days since they arrived at Cloud Recesses and, except for a very stiff greeting from Lan Qiren, Wen Ning has been left almost entirely alone. He avoids the main buildings and tries to look harmless and waits for A-Yuan to be ready to leave.
He’s grateful to Hanguang-jun, though, for showing him the tucked-away herb gardens on the second day and saying, in that expressionless way of his, “I believe you have experience, Wen-gongzi.”
Wen Ning likes Hanguang-jun. He remembers when they were young and he was terrified of the man, unsmiling and severe, but—
But.
Hanguang-jun loves Wei Wuxian so transparently that Wen Ning can’t believe it wasn’t the talk of the cultivation world, back then. And he saved A-Yuan, saved him, saw to it that he grew up loved and safe and strong, and Wen Ning can never hope to repay that. The last of his family walks free under the sun, and Wen Ning would do anything for the man who made it possible.
And this, showing Wen Ning the gardens, offering him something to do, calling Wen Ning gongzi like they’re still teenagers being polite across sect lines—Hanguang-jun is kind, is what Wen Ning has learned lately. Kind like so few people are kind.
He and Wei Wuxian are a good match.
That was yesterday, and now Wen Ning is carefully uprooting autumn weeds from the hardier beds. The more fragile perennials have already died with the advent of cooler weather, and there’s a grove of golden larch and other proper trees some distance away, but these are tougher, and won’t die until the first good frost snap-kills them. The goldthread is struggling, he can tell even at the end of its growing season. Maybe Wen Ning can find whoever normally tends it and make suggestions, or maybe write them a note. Qishan is too hot for goldthread to grow happily, it likes cool mountains, and jiejie had a number of tricks to keep it alive.
The sound of footsteps on the path makes Wen Ning jerk upright, and he tucks both hands behind his back, weeds hidden in his fist. He has permission to be here, he reminds himself. These beds are medicinal herbs, and he tended jiejie’s herbs all his life. If someone is coming to reprimand him, they won’t have much of an argument going for them.
Wen Ning really doesn’t want to be yelled at right now, though. He thinks about jumping away, for the treeline, and hiding there from what sounds like rather a lot of people, but he’s afraid of hurting the garden.
The first thing that he hears clearly, though, is a piping young voice saying, “Da-shixiong, where are we going?”
“I’m going to a meeting, shimei,” says A-Yuan’s voice, calm and good-humored and drawing closer. “But it will be very boring, so I’m going to find you a different teacher instead of bringing you with me.” He turns the last corner and Wen Ning finds himself looking at A-Yuan and a gaggle of—children? “Ning-qianbei,” A-Yuan says, and smiles, and Wen Ning kind of wants to hug him on principle, but he’s getting good at handling that impulse.
“A-Yuan? Um—Lan-gongzi,” Wen Ning corrects, trying to set a good example. The children are young, seven and eight, exactly a dozen of them lined up in two crisp lines of tiny blue and white robes. Wen Ning can feel them staring at him, even though most of them have already mastered that Lan trick of neutrality. The smallest, a little girl with liquid dark eyes, is clinging to her nearest shijie’s sleeve and half-hiding. “Can I—what can I do for you?”
“I hope we aren’t interrupting, Ning-qianbei,” A-Yuan says, still smiling. “Hanguang-jun told me I could find you here. Do you have a moment?”
“Of course,” Wen Ning says, because he always has a moment for A-Yuan, Lan Sizhui, his cousin, the son of his family’s erstwhile savior. He tries to look friendly and approachable, or at least completely hopeless at being a fierce corpse, and steps carefully out of the garden, adding the last of his weeds to the pile to be taken away. “I was just—doing some weeding.”
“Perfect,” A-Yuan says, warm. Wen Ning loves this boy so much. “The little ones were supposed to come with me for basic sword forms this afternoon, but the elders want to see me urgently. Would you mind taking them for a while? It shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“The children?” Wen Ning glances at them, and then back at A-Yuan, and wonders just how much of his outright alarm shows on his face. A-Yuan looks amused, so probably a fair amount. “Is that—um, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Absolutely. Kids,” A-Yuan says, turning to his charges like it’s a settled matter. “This is General Ghost. He’s going to take care of you until I get back, so be respectful.”
“A—Lan-gongzi, your elders--”
“He’s scary,” one of the children whispers, tugging on A-Yuan’s sleeve, and Wen Ning stops talking and looks down. His hair is held back to keep it out of his way in the garden, a few locks from either side of his face tied back like he used to wear it working in the Burial Mounds. He regrets it, now. He knows that he looks unkempt with his hair loose, like a beggar or an escaped prisoner, but at least it conceals the black veining his neck, softens the deathly pallor of his skin, and lets him bow his head and hide his face.
Jiejie had tried to talk him into putting it up again, at least at the settlement, where everyone knew him, but it made him—not queasy. He can’t get queasy anymore, which is almost a relief, after spending a lot of years in a state of sick anxiety about pretty nearly everything. But something like the sense memory of queasiness had always rushed through Wen Ning, at the idea of putting his hair up. And besides, it’s not like he has a family to lose face for, these days.
“He’s not scary,” A-Yuan says, crouching down gracefully to look at the boy who tugged on him. “Ning-qianbei is very nice. He just looks a little different.” A-Yuan neatly detaches the boy’s hand from his sleeve and rises to his feet, and he’s not smiling anymore, a serious look on his face as he tucks one hand behind his back and looks over the children.
Wen Ning takes a deep breath, a pointless gesture that’s only lingered because he can still hear jiejie telling him to do it, when he’s nervous, and raises his head. “A-Yuan,” he says quietly. “You should find them someone else.”
“One moment, please, Ning-qianbei,” A-Yuan says pleasantly. “A-Mian, what are rules numbered two hundred and ninety through two hundred and ninety-three?”
Lan Mian, the little boy, swallows audibly and glances around at his classmates as if for help. Then he squares his slender shoulders and raises his chin and obediently recites, “’Do not speak hastily. Do not take your words lightly. Consider—um—consider the--’”
“’Listeners,’” mutters another boy, and then visible dismay flashes over his face when A-Yuan glances briefly at him. “I’m sorry, da-shixiong.”
“That’s all right,” A-Yuan says, nodding. “This isn’t an exam, asking for help is permitted. A-Mian, keep going.”
“’Consider the listeners.’ I—I can’t remember two hundred and ninety-three, da-shixiong, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, shidi. Does anyone else know two hundred and ninety-three?”
It’s the littlest girl with the dark eyes who raises a hesitant hand, and A-Yuan makes a permissive gesture.
“’Do not—do not speak unkindly to a friend,’” she says, in a near whisper, visibly petrified by the eyes of her classmates on her.
“Very good, A-Zhi,” A-Yuan praises, warm, and she musters a small smile. “General Ghost is my friend, understand? Do not be unkind to him. He will take good care of you while I talk with the elders, he knows a lot. Do as he says and respect your seniors, hm?”
Wen Ning despairs of getting out of this. A-Yuan is as bullheaded as anyone Wen Ning has ever met, and once he gets the bit between his teeth, there’s no stopping him from doing exactly as he pleases.
Wen Qing would be so, so proud of him.
A handful of moments later, A-Yuan is on his way back down the path, speaking over his shoulder to say, “Thank you, Ning-qianbei! I’ll be back for them later! Kids, be good!”
“Bye, A-Yuan,” Wen Ning says dismally, and looks at the twelve tiny faces staring back at him. “Um,” he says, and does his best to rally his thoughts into good order before he speaks again. Do not speak hastily. Maybe Gusu Lan is onto something with all those rules after all, although he’s sure Wei Wuxian would say that anyone with that many rules would say something useful eventually. “Your da-shixiong will be back soon. What would you like to do until then?”
He’s greeted with absolute silence. All twelve children, seven girls and five boys, look back at him with wide eyes and a nervous, wan look to their faces, and Wen Ning takes another pointless calming breath.
“All right,” he says, and drops down to the ground. He kneels properly, the way he would be expected to if he were still the student, and it puts him a little below eye level of A-Mian, the tallest of the lot, because Lans are usually tall and Wens are—were—usually a bit short. “My name is Wen Ning. Would you like to ask me any questions?”
A-Mian’s hand goes up immediately. “General Ghost, why do you look like that?”
“A-Mian!” one of the girls hisses. “Don’t be rude!”
“He’s not a teacher! I didn’t interrupt!”
“It’s okay,” Wen Ning says, a little alarmed. He doesn’t know what it looks like for a bunch of little Lans to get in a scuffle and he’s not sure he’s prepared to deal with it. Now that he’s thinking about it, Wen Ning doesn’t think he’s ever actually been around this many children at once—he’s good with them on a one-by-one kind of basis, that’s all. “I’m not your laoshi, he can ask questions. Um…I’m—well, I’m dead. Wei-gongzi—you know Wei-gongzi, right? He made me into a fierce corpse so that I could protect my family. That’s why I look—scary.”
“You don’t seem like a fierce corpse,” the girl hiding A-Zhi observes. “I thought fierce corpses…”
“Were fierce?” the boy who helped A-Mian offers when it becomes obvious that she doesn’t have a plan to finish the sentence.
“Um…yes.”
“What’s your name?” Wen Ning asks her.
“A-Lin,” she says, and bows as properly as she can with A-Zhi still holding onto her sleeve, and then points to the tallest of the girls, the one who corrected A-Mian’s manners. “But so is she, so everyone calls me as xiao Lin.”
“Lan Tian,” the boy says, and bows as well. “Hello, General Ghost. You don’t seem very fierce.”
Wen Ning can’t help giving a faint sigh. He doesn’t think he’s the right person to walk these kids through the legacy of the Ghost General just now, so he settles for answering the primary question. “I’m—different. Wei-gongzi made me a fierce corpse and then put my spirit back into my body. So I’m still me. I’m just dead.”
A-Mian raises his hand again, and Wen Ning nods to him. “What does being dead feel like?”
It takes a long moment before Wen Ning can snap his mouth shut and answer that one, all twelve children staring at him in rapt attention. “Um—not much,” he says hesitantly. “Kind of cold? And—still?” If they start asking about how Wen Ning died, or, heavens forbid, who killed him, this conversation is liable to take a turn that will definitely get someone in trouble.
“Do you miss being alive?” A-Tian asks, and A-Lin, the elder of the two Lins, hisses wordless reprimand at him.
“Yes,” Wen Ning says matter-of-factly. “I don’t recommend being dead.” A-Tian makes a nervous squawk of laughter at that, and Wen Ning manages a small smile. It seems to give the others permission to giggle, a rustle of quick-stifled laughter moving through the group, and Wen Ning feels slightly reassured.
“General Ghost-qianbei,” A-Lin says, all stiff good Lan manners. “How do you know da-shixiong? Are you part of the Lan sect?”
A wave of something indefinable sweeps through Wen Ning—part relief, part grief, part sudden, jarring confusion. That’s right. The Wen sect has been gone so long that there are children growing up who are being taught that there are only four major sects. They don’t hear the name Wen Ning and associate him with his people, not anymore.
“Ah—no,” Wen Ning says after a moment. “I’m from the Yiling branch of Qishan Wen. They were—um. You’ll learn about them someday, if you haven’t already. I knew A-Yuan—Lan-gongzi—when he was little, and we’ve been traveling together.”
Three hands go up all at once.
Oh, wonderful.
Wen Ning gamely starts on his left and points at a boy with a round face and upturned nose, and says, “What’s your name?”
“Hui Bo,” the boy says. “My mother says that Yiling is cursed.”
“Is that—is that a question?” A-Bo nods. “The Burial Mounds aren’t—it’s not really a curse. Some very bad things happened there. The rest of Yiling is okay, though. And you?”
“A-Yue,” a little girl whose hair is already escaping her neat pins. “Do you know Hanguang-jun, too? You look too young to know Hanguang-jun.” She pronounces the title carefully, one syllable at a time. Unfortunately, it’s adorable.
“Yes,” Wen Ning says. “We were…classmates, I guess.” These kids don’t need to be dragged through the whole messy saga of all the assorted circumstances of Wen Ning’s encounters with Hanguang-jun. He’s not sure they were ever friends, except that now it’s most of seventeen years later and Hanguang-jun trusts Wen Ning to follow his son over hill and valley, regardless of any of it, so maybe they’re friends now, or something close to it? Wen Ning doesn’t have the gift of reading Lan Wangji’s stony expressions and asking would be universally mortifying, so he’s resigned himself to not knowing.
He points to the last hand, raised by a girl who already has a scowl on her face.
“My name is Lan Yin,” she says. “And you can’t be from Qishan Wen, Ghost-laoshi, because Qishan Wen are all dead. My baba says so.”
Wen Ning raises his eyebrows as far as he can—not as far as a living person might be able to, but enough to make an impact, he thinks. “Well, I’m dead too, aren’t I?”
Lan Yin apparently wasn’t prepared for this argument, because she shuts her mouth with a click and frowns for a while before she says, “But you seem—nice.” She sounds offended, in the way of a young child taking it personally that the world isn’t conforming to her expectations, and Wen Ning tries not to let the ache of her words show in his face.
“Sometimes,” Wen Ning says, very carefully, so carefully, feeling as if he can sense the sword hanging over his head and just waiting for this sentence to come out wrong, “nice people are punished for things that bad people did. My family…they were all very nice. Especially my jiejie. But we were still Qishan Wen, so we were punished anyway.”
His words settle over the children slowly, almost visible, and he hopes that he hasn’t just prompted a cascade of conversations with their seniors. At least if they do, they’ll probably point to Wen Ning as the bad influence, rather than A-Yuan.
It’s tiny A-Zhi who says, quietly, “That’s not fair.”
“Not everything is always fair,” Wen Ning answers, just as solemn.
He can’t tell if this, all twelve children silent and thoughtful, is an improvement over their jittery unease from earlier. He thinks maybe. Regardless, he doesn’t want to hand a bunch of miserable faces back to A-Yuan, so Wen Ning fidgets with his robes for a moment and then claps his hands together and rises from where he’s been knelt. The kids skitter back, just a bit, but they settle quickly, looking at him attentively.
“All right,” he says. “Um, do you have any more questions?” No one raises their hand, so he does his best to smile reassuringly, like someone who knows what he’s doing, and asks, “Have you been taught about medicinal plants at all?”
“No, Ghost-laoshi,” they chorus.
“Okay. I’m going to tell you about some. And--” Wen Ning hesitates. It’s—nice, these wide-eyed kids calling him laoshi so politely, even if he’s nowhere near qualified to teach anyone much of anything, and he’s reluctant to call them to task when he doesn’t have a better alternative. But he’s sure they’ll be in trouble if they get caught. “And you can just call me General Ghost. Or Wen Ning.”
A-Zhi raises her hand, and Wen Ning gestures to her. “Ghost-laoshi,” she says, as if faint with her own courage, “da-shixiong told us to be respectful.”
“Ah,” Wen Ning says, and he and A-Zhi stare at each other for a handful of heartbeats, her child-round face going red and neither of them sure what to do. “Um. A-Yuan—your da-shixiong—he calls me Ning-qianbei?”
“It’s rude to call a teacher by their personal name,” A-Mian says, getting a stubborn set to his mouth. Wen Ning glances over to him. “Ghost-laoshi, do you really know Wei-qianbei? He’s not allowed to come see us. Lan Qiren-laoshi says that he’s a bad influence. It’s on the wall.”
Wen Ning has the feeling that something—he’s not sure what, but something—is getting out of hand here, and he surveys the attentive faces helplessly. “I—okay. If you are all very good, I will tell you a story about Wei-gongzi, all right? But you have to pay attention! Medicine is important!”
“Are you a doctor, Ghost-laoshi?” A-Zhi asks, and she’s let go of xiao Lin’s sleeve, her little hands hidden in her sleeves and her eyes huge with interest.
“Oh—no, no, I’m not. But I used to help my jiejie, Wen Qing.” Wen Ning tries not to look too proud, but he can’t help it. “She was the best doctor in the world! I used to keep her garden for her, before—well. Do you—do you want to be a doctor, A-Zhi?” A-zhi smiles, shyly, and nods. “That’s good! You have to pay especially good attention then, okay?”
“Okay, Ghost-laoshi,” she says, and Wen Ning resigns himself.
“All right,” he says, and points to the nearest bed, the languishing goldthread. “Can anyone tell me what this plant is called?”
A-Yuan is gone much longer than he said he would be. Wen Ning thinks it’s been nearly two hours, maybe more, by the time he finally comes back, and Wen Ning has been keeping the kids cooperative with regular breaks to wander around and stories. He’s managed to weed most of the herb beds while he talks, and jiejie would probably despair of his teaching method, but pointing out which plants are hopelessly toxic without expertise seems like a good starting point.
“What about this one, Ghost-laoshi?” A-Zhi asks from his lap. Her classmates are on a break, but A-Zhi shifted her shy cling to the edge of Wen Ning’s robes about an hour ago and she won’t be pried off, so he’s given up and sat down on the ground with her. He wonders which character her parents used for her name—maybe she’s always been so delicate that they named her for it. It’s a strange feeling, holding her. She weighs nothing at all to him, as light as her robes, a shadow of a little girl, but he can feel the spiritual power in her like standing slightly too close to a fire. Not quite a golden core, not yet, but the potential for a powerful one—maybe the strongest of all her classmates. It reminds him of holding A-Yuan.
It’s strange to have a child on his lap again, foreign after so long. Wen Ning likes it. He can see all the young Lans from where he’s sat cross-legged, and they’re quieter than most of the children he’s known, less inclined to run and shout, but they’re flitting excitedly from one plant to another and not-quite-yelling to Wen Ning to check their uses. He has had four children ask him about clover. It’s—nice.
A-Zhi is pointing at a withered bed that can’t be more than a single pace in each direction, but the plant is familiar, even on its way to winter death.
“This is, um, it’s called datura,” he says, reaching out to brush its leaves. “It’s very dangerous if you don’t know what to do with it. Don’t touch it until you’re learning to be a doctor, okay, A-Zhi?”
“You’re touching it,” she says, and twists her neck to frown up at him.
“I’m already dead, A-Zhi.” He makes sure to make a show of wiping off his fingertips before he pats A-Zhi on the head, careful not to touch her ribbon or muss her hair, and she smiles a little.
“—a great idea, Yuan-er,” a familiar voice says, laughing, and Wen Ning’s head snaps up, startled. It’s been a long time since he was so distracted that he didn’t feel the tug on his bones of Wei Wuxian drawing close, but he guesses that wrangling a dozen inquisitive children would give even the most competent fierce corpse something to think about—which is to say, Wen Ning.
Wei Wuxian is striding down the path to the gardens in a swirl of black and red, with A-Yuan walking more sedately by his side, both of them visibly delighted.
“Wen Ning!” Wei Wuxian calls, waving. Wen Ning freezes for a moment, A-Zhi still in his lap, obscurely convinced that he’s about to be in trouble—that’s absurd, Wei Wuxian probably doesn’t even know these kids and A-Yuan is right there, but the thought is still there. The past couple of decades have led Wen Ning to the fairly confident belief that he’ll be accused of kidnapping someday, through sheer bad luck, and if there was ever a time for it to happen, it would be now.
A-Lin, apparently unable to help herself, straightens up from inspecting the bark of a golden larch to tell Wei Wuxian severely, “It is forbidden to shout in Cloud Recesses.”
Wei Wuxian gasps, delighted, as he reaches them, and says, “I love baby Lans, you’re all so cute! Wen Ning, introduce me to your ducklings!”
“Wei-gongzi,” Wen Ning says, trying to jump to his feet. A-Zhi makes a high sound of alarm, clinging to the front of his robes, and he ends up having to hold onto her, hitching her higher on his side so that she doesn’t fall. “Ah—hello. A-Yuan, you’re late.” He tries not to sound too reproachful, but the little Lans are all rushing up around him like a very polite flash flood, all fairly bouncing with the obvious urge to chatter.
Wen Ning sounds a little reproachful.
A-Yuan doesn’t seem fazed, just smiles pleasantly and says, “I knew they were safe with you, Ning-qianbei. My meeting was longer than I expected. Were you good for General Ghost, children?”
“Yes, da-shixiong,” the little Lans chorus.
“They were very, um, they’re very smart,” Wen Ning says awkwardly. “I told them about some plants—I hope that was okay?”
“Ghost-laoshi, is that really Wei-gongzi?” A-Zhi whispers to him, peeking out from behind Wen Ning’s hair to look at Wei Wuxian.
Ghost-laoshi, Wei Wuxian mouths back, absolutely gleeful. Wen Ning tries to look helpless. At least A-Yuan has the manners to hide his smile behind a sleeve. Hanguang-jun was a good influence on that boy.
“Wei-gongzi, this is A-Zhi, and A-Zhi’s class,” Wen Ning says. “Everyone, say hello to Wei-gongzi.” Wei Wuxian pouts at the little girl, and A-Zhi giggles a bit, loosening her grip on Wen Ning to wave.
“Hello, Wei-gongzi,” she says, a split second before the others.
“Wei-gongzi,” A-Mian says, his eagerness overtaking his training, “did you really kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter?”
“I see how it is,” Wei Wuxian says, giving Wen Ning a look. “Don’t let your Ghost-laoshi lie to you, Lan Zhan did all the work! What has General Ghost been teaching you?”
“About poisonous plants!” A-Tian volunteers promptly.
“And fierce corpses!” xiao Lin says, from somewhere near Wen Ning’s elbow. “He’s really strong!”
“And he taught us a clapping game,” A-Lin says—she had loved it, the old game that Wen Qing had made up to learn all the bones in the body.
“And he told us all about you, Wei-gongzi!” a girl named Lan Bai says. “He says that you play the dizi—my gege plays the xiao but I don’t like it, I want to play the dizi instead. Will you teach me?”
“Absolutely not, I’m not supposed to give Lan Qiren a qi deviation unless I really can’t help it,” Wei Wuxian says, grinning so hard he looks set to sprain something. “What about you, A-Zhi, did you learn anything fun?”
“I’m going to be a doctor,” A-Zhi says in a bold rush, the loudest Wen Ning has heard her speak thus far. “Just like Wen Qing.”
Wei Wuxian’s face-cracking grin goes desperately soft for a moment, and the sense memory of being on the edge of tears hits Wen Ning so abruptly that he’s suddenly clinging to A-Zhi as hard as she’s holding onto him, and has to consciously avoid crushing her fragile little frame. Wei Wuxian brushes a stray lock of hair away from his face, and in the moment of the motion seems to brush away the wet glitter in his eyes. He’s always been good at that.
“I bet you’ll be a great doctor,” Wei Wuxian says warmly. “And I bet you won’t threaten to stab people for fun!”
“That was mostly just you, gongzi,” Wen Ning says.
“Sounds like you had a good afternoon,” A-Yuan says, with that unmatched serenity of a Lan disciple having achieved their goals. Wen Ning feels suspciously like he’s been had. Somehow, even sixteen years in Cloud Recesses doesn’t seem to have stripped the mischievous streak out of A-Yuan, nurtured all those years ago by his Xian-gege and now brought out to do things like arrange the lives of his seniors to his satisfaction.
“We did!” A-Mian says, bouncing on his toes. “It was so much better than calligraphy practice, da-shixiong, really--”
“A-Mian, stop bouncing,” A-Lin snaps, and Wei Wuxian smirks a little.
“Good.” A-Yuan is all kindly young disciple when he wants to be, but when he gestures behind him, the children set up a small choir of sighs and disappointed humming, and A-Yuan grins in a remarkably un-Lan-like way. “Come on, kids, I have to take you back for dinner. Let Ning-qianbei get back to his gardening.”
“Can we come back tomorrow, Ghost-laoshi?” A-Lin asks, not at all her usual commanding self. She sounds almost—nervous, sidling up and grabbing the hand that Wen Ning isn’t using to hold A-Zhi in place. A-Lin’s spiritual energy isn’t as strong as A-Zhi’s, but the unexpected shock of heat directly against his skin is almost like—life. It hurts, or it feels more like pain than anything else Wen Ning has felt since his death. Wen Ning doesn’t let go of A-Lin’s hand.
He doesn’t answer, either. He’s too busy staring down in shock at the young girl looking back at him, looking full into Wen Ning’s face and holding his corpse-cold hand without concern for anything except that he’s about to chase her off.
“Ghost-laoshi travels,” A-Yuan says, and he really does sound exactly like Hanguang-jun when he’s pleased with himself, so maybe Hanguang-jun wasn’t such a good influence after all. “But he and I will be here a few more days.”
“So we can come back?” A-Mian asks, bouncing again. “Ghost-laoshi, we can come back tomorrow?”
“If your teachers say it’s okay,” Wen Ning says, watching A-Yuan for an indication that this is the right response. A-Yuan gives him a smile, tucked into the corner of his mouth like he’s hiding it from everyone else, and gestures behind him again. This time, the children go obediently, a gaggle of white and blue like the ducklings Wei Wuxian likes to call them, falling in neatly behind A-Yuan in two lines.
A-Zhi hugs Wen Ning tight around the neck, a tiny brand where her hands and cheek press against him, before she lets him set her on the ground and not-quite-runs to take her place at the back of the left one.
“Thank you for taking care of them, Wen-gongzi,” A-Yuan says, and gives Wen Ning a very proper bow, deep and careful, as if he really were bowing to the young master of another sect, to someone of his own status. Wen Ning—Wen Ning isn’t any better equipped for this kind young man and his sincerity than he was on the docks of Lotus Pier, when Lan Sizhui offered to sit outside with him, so that Wen Ning, of all people, wouldn’t be lonely.
From the kind way A-Yuan looks at him, upon straightening, he’s aware.
“It was—it was my pleasure, A-Yuan,” Wen Ning says, and bows back.