Chapter Text
‘Have you heard?’
Mo Xuanyu doesn’t look up from where he’s bartering with an Uncle who has a kind smile and a firm tone.
Heavy clouds descend over the village that he’s made his home, the anticipation of rain beating in his blood, but Mo Xuanyu and the villagers take no mind of the dark clouds, or the smell of a storm on the horizon. They’re trying to finish their trades and sales for the day, before it becomes too difficult to pack it up, and everyone is well versed enough in the earth and the sky to know they have time.
‘How are the repairs going?’ Uncle Hu asks, as Mo Xuanyu hands him some radishes and a handful of coins in exchange for some tofu. ‘Have you managed to fix that hole in the ceiling?’
Mo Xuanyu had taken residence on a small farm on the outskirts of town, the villagers intrigued enough and kind enough to let him live there despite not owning it and being unable to pay the full levies and taxes. He, in turn, kept them safe.
‘Not well,’ Mo Xuanyu admits with a ready smile, carefully arranging the tofu so that he does not make a mess of the bag that he has brought through to the village. ‘I don’t know what I was before, but it wasn’t anything that involved building.’
‘Maybe you were a better cultivator than you thought,’ Uncle Hu says with a chortle, ‘that would explain why you’re not afraid of death.’
‘I think even cultivators are afraid of that. I’m just a fool.’
It earns him another warm laugh, and Mo Xuanyu lets himself soak up the familiarity that he has established with the man. Not only is Uncle Hu one of the fairest men in town, refusing to overcharge despite his tofu being the best consistency, but he is also one of the kindest. Mo Xuanyu counts himself lucky to know Uncle Hu.
‘And your… companion?’ Uncle Hu asks, his eyes drifting to the chattier people in the village. Mo Xuanyu appreciates his discretion. ‘He’s not able to repair the roof?’
‘If my skills are unable to, his are even less so,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a shake of his head. ‘Still, he at least was able to come up with a temporary measure, until we can get someone to look at it.’
For once, the mention of Mo Xuanyu’s companion doesn’t get an intrigued look or a whisper of its own.
In the eight months that he has lived in the village, Mo Xuanyu has gotten very used to the gossip that runs rampant in it. They’re too far west from the nearest of the Four Great Cultivation Sects to be anything of note, and they only get one or two major trading caravans passing through a year. There’s little more for the villagers to entertain themselves with but the secrets and rumours.
Since the day he first stepped into this village, with his companion shuffling behind him, he’s had those whispers trailing behind him. They are new, and bright (but perhaps not shiny) and they injected that bit of excitement into an otherwise stagnant village. It’s not every day, after all, when the amnesiac bastard son of a Sect Leader and the infamous Ghost General move in.
The only reason he puts up with the gossip, really, is because Mo Xuanyu has found that despite it, the village is kind.
For them to be gossiping about someone that is not him means that the rumour must be something grand.
‘I’ll get the Vun boy to come over, he’s good at that sort of thing,’ Uncle Hu offers, casting a look up to the sky. The rain will fall soon, Mo Xuanyu thinks. ‘You need to get it fixed before winter arrives.’
‘Do I need to pay him?’ Mo Xuanyu asks, because he might want a solid roof over his head, but he doesn’t have enough money to pay for labour.
‘Only a warm meal. He’s a good kid, but a bit lonely. It would be good for him to spend some time with someone new.’ And it would be good for Mo Xuanyu to have a meal with someone who is not a corpse, is implied with the tilt of his frown.
‘A warm meal I can do, as long as he does not expect it to taste good.’
‘I think everyone knows what to expect of your tastes,’ Uncle Hu says with a shake of his head. ‘Now you better run along and go talk to that sister-in-law of mine, before she sells out your chillies.’
‘She wouldn’t dare,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a laugh and a bow before he’s weaving through the crowd.
‘They say Hanguang-jun is the new Chief Cultivator.’
That makes Mo Xuanyu stumble to a stop. He knows that name.
Mo Xuanyu looks to where two young women stand by a candy stall, one eye on each other and one eye on their children tumbling through the streets.
‘What did you say?’ he asks, unable to keep the curiosity out of his voice.
‘Hanguang-jun is now the Chief Cultivator,’ one of them repeats, looking up at Mo Xuanyu with a devious smirk on her face. Mo Xuanyu thinks he knows her face, but many of the villagers blur into each other if he isn’t trying to buy food or alcohol from them. ‘They say that Zewu-jun himself slew the previous one, the Twin Jades of Gusu are fuelled by ambition.’
Mo Xuanyu can’t help the snort of laughter that comes out of him at that. ‘The Twin Jades are the furthest from ambitious a cultivator can be,’ he says, and as he says it, he knows it’s the truth. He can’t help the surprise from flashing across his face, at the intensity and surety of his own words.
‘Of course,’ the younger of the women says with as much a smirk as her friend. Shi Qian, Mo Xuanyu remembers, who once got so angry at a boy for bullying her son she yelled at him until he cried. ‘You met the great Hanguang-jun? Didn’t you, Mo Xuanyu? Before you arrived at the village.’
‘He helped with a demonic matter in my family home, but I would hardly say that I met him. More saw him, from a distance,’ Mo Xuanyu says, remembering the dryness of his tongue, the bile in his throat and the fear that had engulfed him the first and only time he can remember seeing Lan Wangji. ‘Is his recent promotion what everyone is whispering about today?’
‘That,’ Shi Qian says, leaning in, ‘and the fact that he and his brother have increased their efforts to find his son.’
Mo Xuanyu freezes. ‘His son?’
‘Little Lan Yuan,’ Shi Qian’s friend says. ‘He disappeared a good ten years ago. It’s a shame, he would have been a great cultivator, so they say.’ Her voice is softer now, as she turns fully to her own son. ‘He would have only been about eight or nine at the time.’
‘They say that the Yiling Laozu stole him away in the night,’ Shi Qian murmurs, ‘as revenge against Hanguang-jun for slights that occurred during the War.’
Mo Xuanyu feels a lump growing in his throat.
‘I heard that before he died, Wei Wuxian was so wicked he cursed the Four Great Sects. Think about it…’ Shi Qian continues, ‘they’ve all been struck with such tragedy.’
‘Indeed,’ Mo Xuanyu says, before he excuses himself with a distracted bow and stumbles away from the women, and the village.
‘Please tell me that you were able to get a bucket under the leak before it became too big!’ Mo Xuanyu says as he bursts into the farmhouse. He drops the food onto the table, bypassing Wen Ning bustling back and forth around the house with a bucket, and stumbles to a crouch in front of the stove.
If he had been a better cultivator before he was kicked out of Lanling, he might not be shivering so much. But Mo Xuanyu has heard, from more than one person, that he was so shameful that he could never step foot in a cultivating sect against and thus will never be taught the art of using his golden core to protecting him from the cold.
‘I had to use our good pot, Mo-gongzi,’ Wen Ning frets, shaking his hands in front of him. Mo Xuanyu rolls over, and pouts at the sight of their largest pot collecting the steadily dripping water. ‘Everything else had something in it already.’
‘Ah, Wen Ning,’ Mo Xuanyu says, ‘how will I make rice now?
Wen Ning looks so apologetic that Mo Xuanyu nearly reaches out so that he can pinch Wen Ning’s cheeks.
‘I’m joking, I am sure we can use yesterday’s leftover rice to make some congee.’
It wasn’t going to taste the best, Mo Xuanyu knew that the congee was missing something although he couldn’t remember what, but they certainly didn’t have enough money to waste, even if Wen Ning didn’t technically need to eat.
Wen Ning perks up at that, and Mo Xuanyu feels his own smile grow over his face in response.
‘Someone asked about Mo Manor today,’ he says, standing up properly and stripping off his outer robes. He knows from experience that sitting in them for too long will cause him to get a chill, which will subsequently get Wen Ning worried. For someone who was allegedly trained as a doctor prior to his death, Wen Ning was not fantastic in a medical crisis. He tends to get overly worried over even the mildest of colds.
Wen Ning stills, in that discomfiting way that reminds Mo Xuanyu that he does not breathe. ‘What did they ask?’
‘Not about me,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a shake of his head. ‘They asked about Lan Wangji, about Hanguang-jun.’
If anything, Wen Ning looks even more troubled.
‘It wasn’t anything upsetting,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a wave of his hand. He drapes the sodden robes over the thin bamboo frame they’d built to hang their clothes on. ‘You don’t need to worry, but it did make me think about it. About how bad it must have been for me to erase my own memory with that array.’
‘You’ve said you don’t want to dwell too much on that,’ Wen Ning says, passing Mo Xuanyu a warmer, dry set of robes for him to wrap himself in. It’s not quite enough to shield him from the cold, and Mo Xuanyu shivers a little bit as he curls back into himself in. ‘You have a new life now, one that isn’t weighed down by misery.’
‘I know,’ Mo Xuanyu hums, ‘I think I was just being a bit melancholy. I’m not that curious to find out who I was before, not when I’m so far away from it.’
Mo Xuanyu had woken up nine months ago in his room at Mo Manor, surrounded by his own blood and heart aching in pain that he couldn’t remember. He was disoriented and shaken through the death of his limited family, through the fight involving the Lan disciples and the arm that was so intent on destroying them all. He didn’t know his name, but he knew how to call the corpses to defend that boy, Lan Jingyi. He didn’t know his reflection, but he knew Lan Wangji’s stern frown. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew that what he had done was wrong.
So, he bowed, fled into the night and never wanted to think about his before ever again.
‘But it’s interesting, Wen Ning,’ Mo Xuanyu says, carefully wringing out his wet hair, ‘because apparently Lan Wangji is the new Chief Cultivator. He was appointed after the last one died, killed by Zewu-jun himself.’
‘I’m sorry, Master Mo,’ Wen Ning says, and it takes Mo Xuanyu a moment to realise why.
‘Oh. Lianfang-zun was my brother, wasn’t he?’
It doesn’t feel like Mo Xuanyu had lost a brother.
Sometimes, despite the memories that have been locked away from him, Mo Xuanyu staggers under the weight of emotions that he can’t remember the source of. But there’s not even the hollow emptiness he’s felt when he looks at two brothers playing in the streets, the feeling he’s always attributed to missing a family he can’t remember. There’s just a nothingness, an apathy that washes over him when he thinks about his now deceased brother.
Perhaps he was not as close to Jin Guangyao, when he lived in Lanling.
‘Lan Wangji is a good man,’ Wen Ning says, as he moves to put the last bucket under the last leak in the corner of the room. ‘He will make a good Chief Cultivator.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a hum. ‘I hope he finds his son.’
Wen Ning drops his bucket. ‘Hanguang-jun has a son?’
‘Apparently so,’ Mo Xuanyu says, moving to lift one of their more dinted and weathered pots onto the stove to prepare for dinner. ‘He had a son, although the poor boy went missing when he was quite young. Cursed by the Yiling Laozu, so the women in the village say.’
He can’t help but look at Wen Ning out of the corners of his eyes as he says it. They’ve never talked about the fact that Wen Ning was Wei Wuxian’s greatest creation, have barely talked about the demonic cultivator that the world still fears to this day. Mo Xuanyu isn’t sure he wants to, because despite the stiffness of his limbs and the flatness of his face, there’s something in Wen Ning that radiates an out of character displeasure, an out of character anger. In that moment it is clear that he is indeed a ferocious corpse.
Wen Ning inhales, more to calm himself than any bodily need to breathe. ‘I did not know that Lan Wangji had a child, it must have been born some time during my time in Lanling.’
Mo Xuanyu nods. ‘Apparently everyone is looking for him, Zewu-jun has announced a great reward to those who might be able to help him make his way home.’ Mo Xuanyu can’t help the grin that works across his face at his next thought. ‘It’s a shame we wouldn’t know where to start, that sort of reward would be perfect for us. We’d be able to properly repair this place, set the foundations to live more prosperously.’
‘A shame indeed,’ Wen Ning says, and this time there’s a bit of a curve to his lips, as much a smile as he can manage.
Mo Xuanyu is careful not to spill the buckets and pots of water as he shuffles out of the farmhouse. Wen Ning is usually the one emptying the water collected from the storm, but their new chickens did not like Mo Xuanyu and tolerated Wen Ning. Their morning chores had been switched around after Mo Xuanyu had been pecked one too many times, and Mo Xuanyu was beginning to get used to the slow, steady steps that he needed to take in order to keep the water steady.
The storm from the night before had faded, leaving clear skies, damp soil and a young boy walking down the path towards their farmhouse.
The boy falters, when he sees Mo Xuanyu, before he speeds up with one of the most polite smiles Mo Xuanyu has seen in his entire nine months of life. He smooths down the dull, aged robes that he wears, before bowing in greeting. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this must be the Vun boy.
‘Let me help you, please,’ the Vun boy says, reaching to grab the larger of the two buckets. He lifts it up with an ease that Mo Xuanyu is almost jealous of. There’s an immediate pleasantness that makes Mo Xuanyu understand how the boy has endeared himself to the aunties and uncles in the village. ‘They look heavy.’
‘Thank you,’ Mo Xuanyu say. He might be strong enough to carry the water, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was a fan of carrying it. ‘Uncle Hu sent you to help with the roof, I suppose? He told you that we aren’t able to pay?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that I’m a terrible cook?’
The Vun boy pauses. ‘He didn’t mention that part.’
Mo Xuanyu laughs, so heartily that water sloshes out of his bucket and onto his robes. Hopefully they would dry quicker than the ones from last night, which still had a lingering dampness from the rain. ‘Are you still willing to help us out?’
‘I made a commitment to help you, and I will honour it,’ the Vun boy says, so sincerely that Mo Xuanyu nearly drops his bucket in surprise. He had heard rumours that the Vun boy was unwavering in his respect, but this was unprecedented.
‘Well, luckily for you then,’ Mo Xuanyu says, ‘I will ask my esteemed friend, Wen Ning, to cook for us tonight. He is the best chef I know.’
The Vun boy doesn’t even flinch at the mention of the Ghost General. If Mo Xuanyu wasn’t already sure that he would like the boy, that would have cemented it immediately. ‘Thank you.’
They’re careful as they pour the water out. Mo Xuanyu takes the moment to study the boy as he focuses on the bucket of water in his hands. The Vun boy only looks to be a few years younger than Mo Xuanyu, and yet Mo Xuanyu feels so much older than him as he watches the Vun boy pause to look at some dragonflies buzzing through the plants.
The Vun boy has a look of nobility to him, despite the patched clothes, the dull grey ribbon in his hair and the dirt in his nail beds, something refined in the curve of chin and the smoothness in his brow. But he also has a brightness in his eyes, an ever-present smile that is somehow still genuine.
‘I’m hopeless with house repairs,’ Mo Xuanyu announces, as the make their way back towards the farmhouse. ‘I nearly broke the wall last time I tried to fix it. But I can help you, if you need me to hold something or if you need me to pass you something.’
‘If I am honest,’ the Vun boy says, ‘I would appreciate some company.’
‘So how old are you?’ Mo Xuanyu asks some hours later, when there is no longer a hole in his roof and Wen Ning is quietly serving lunch.
Wen Ning had shied away, when he realised that Mo Xuanyu was not alone, but the Vun boy smiled and bowed in greeting immediately and Mo Xuanyu decided then and there that the Vun boy was his favourite in the village.
The Vun boy pauses for a moment, chopsticks hovering over the fried egg before he exhales. ‘I think I am about eighteen, but I am not actually sure,’ he admits. ‘I’ve been living in the village five years, and I can only remember a handful more beyond that.’
Mo Xuanyu puts down his chopsticks, offended. ‘Did no-one think to tell me that I wasn’t the only amnesiac out here? These villagers gossip about everything from who is pregnant to who makes the worst tea, and no-one thought to tell me something so important?’
The Vun boy laughs, a short little sound before he looks up from his food. Mo Xuanyu feels pinned in place, by the way this boy just seems so incredibly happy despite what he just revealed. ‘I am what the villagers would call “old news”, not when there are more interesting things to talk about.’
Mo Xuanyu reclines back, grabbing his wine to take a sip of it. ‘So, you have no memory either, what was it like for you?’
Mo Xuanyu has never met another person who has lost as much of their life as he, has never considered that there might be such a person who has lost so much and then rebuilt their life despite it.
The Vun boy is quiet.
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Mo Xuanyu says, waving a hand around loosely because he knows as well that there is a sort of cruelty to asking someone about something as dramatic as losing your entire self. He knows that he takes thing in stride, and that this reset life of his is just another one of those things. ‘You do not have to share if you don’t want to.’
‘No,’ the Vun boy says, with a shake of his head. ‘It’s fine. It’s just… difficult to know where to start.’
‘At the beginning is usually the best place,’ Wen Ning says, his voice quiet as he settles down into place.
Mo Xuanyu tries not to betray his surprise. Despite the fact he and Wen Ning get along very well, Wen Ning hasn’t talked to another soul since they arrived at the village.
‘Ten years ago, I woke up in Qinghe,’ the Vun boy says, ‘when I was little more than a child. I had been found on the streets, asleep through the three days wildest storm of the year and for two more days after. The doctors couldn’t find anything that indicated illness, and cultivators couldn’t find anything that indicated a curse. But I slept for at least five and night days and woke with one clear memory and one possession.’
Mo Xuanyu takes another sip of the wine. There is intrigue to the boy’s story, in the way that there was none to his own, and he has to stop himself from leaning forward in anticipation.
‘What were they?’
‘I remember my father, combing my hair and calling me Sizhui,’ Vun Sizhui says, ‘and I have a ribbon, which none of the doctors and cultivators could remove from me while I slept. It is woven with protection charms, I’ve been told.’
He reaches up to the neat bun at the top of his head, tugging the ribbon out and gingerly placing it on the table. Mo Xuanyu can’t help the gasp, can’t help the way his twitch to reach out and wrap it around his fingers.
‘You can have a look,’ Sizhui says. ‘Its spiritual energy is mostly depleted after so many years. I keep it for the sentimental value more than anything.’
Mo Xuanyu’s fingers brush over the edge of the fabric, and he immediately knows that the ribbon is more than it appears. Tied into Sizhui’s hair, it looked dull and old, but looking closely Mo Xuanyu can see that it is actually white and well maintained, although in need of a wash soon.
‘The embroidery is very fine,’ he says, running his fingers over the clouds that are stitched across the centre of the band. It’s expensive, as well, made from a quality of silk that is usually only found in large cities with rich residents. He holds it back out for Sizhui. ‘Whoever bought this for you must have cared for you deeply.’
‘I like to think so,’ Sizhui says, accepting the ribbon back and his smile has turned into something softer, something sadder. Mo Xuanyu thinks that perhaps if he knew Sizhui better he could offer the boy a hug, for he truly looks like he needs it. ‘What about yourself, Master Mo? How did you lose your memory?’
Mo Xuanyu laughs, a bitter sound. ‘I’m afraid my memory loss is far less romantic, although perhaps just as mysterious. I woke up in my bedroom at Mo Manor, with blood staining the walls and an array painted across the floor.’
‘Were you attacked?’ Sizhui asks, immediately concerned, and Mo Xuanyu can’t help the broad grin that works across his face because this boy is truly a kindness that has blessed the village.
‘No,’ he says with a shake of his head, ‘from what I can gather, I had painted and activated the array myself. I’m not entirely sure what the array is, my cousin and his men came in and destroyed it before I could really get a good look to study it, but it left me with no memories of any sort. Everything I know about myself has been passed onto me from servants in my family home, and that itself had been limited.’
‘Are you curious why you did such a thing?’ Sizhui asks.
‘Sometimes,’ Mo Xuanyu admits, ‘but I must have been miserable, more miserable than I can comprehend now, to want to erase so much of myself. And I have decided that it is for the best that I do not tug on that string, not when I am finally at peace.’
Sizhui nods.
‘I like the kid,’ Mo Xuanyu says, later that night when Sizhui has wandered back to the village with an additional meal for dinner wrapped up for him, courtesy of Wen Ning. ‘He was kind, and he didn’t once look like he was going to run away when he talked to you. He deserves good things.’
‘He does,’ Wen Ning says, inspecting the roof from below as if he has any skill in renovations. ‘I am glad that Mo-gongzi seems to be making a friend. Perhaps you can seek him out when you’re in the village, spend some time with him.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a nod, ‘it would be nice to have a friend. I might invite him to the teahouse once we’ve sold enough eggs.’ The additional chickens would help, and Wen Ning said that reducing the stress on the hens would also help. Mo Xuanyu has been permanently banned from the chicken coop. ‘It was lucky that he had his ribbon, he might not be able to remember his family, but he has something of them to hold onto.’
Mo Xuanyu takes another heavy drag of his wine, letting the warmth of the fire and the alcohol wash over him.
‘It was so familiar though, I can’t quite put my finger on why.’
‘It looks similar to the ones that the Lan Sect use in Gusu,’ Wen Ning comments, and Mo Xuanyu freezes. ‘Although they always tied theirs around their foreheads, never tied it into their hair.’
‘Wen Ning,’ Mo Xuanyu says, keeping his voice light. ‘Vun Sizhui is a sweet boy, and deserves to have a family, a clan, that love him and look after him, doesn’t he? And it would be kind and good for me to do my best to help my new friend to find a way to a family like that, even if I have to tell a few white lies along the way.’
‘Mo-gongzi, what are you talking about?’
‘The case of the missing Lan heir, Lan Yuan. It’s rather interesting, isn’t it?
‘It’s certainly a fascinating mystery,’ Wen Ning says with a nod. ‘But what does this have to do with Vun Sizhui?’
Mo Xuanyu feels his smile grow from the corners. ‘Wen Ning, this will be the biggest con in history.’
Mo Xuanyu can usually walk through the village without too many side glances and whispers following him when he’s on his own and he has an offering of radishes for sale. But when he’s with Wen Ning, the eyes of the entire village follow them. It’s nothing new, and eight months has been enough time for it to fade from suspicion and fear to curiosity, but it’s like needles digging into his skin from every direction and he wishes he could tell them to all turn away and mind their own business.
Wen Ning plays well at not noticing the way he’s the instant talk of the village, but Mo Xuanyu can see the way he hunches forward, makes himself seem smaller, as they make their way down to the tavern.
‘Sizhui,’ Mo Xuanyu says, waving his hand as he spots the boy standing near the entrance of the tavern. The boy turns at the sound of Mo Xuanyu’s voice, and he lights up with a smile and a wave as he greets them.
Surrounded by the villagers chattering away in their day to day lives, it becomes obvious that the boy is thin and tired in the same way that Mo Xuanyu is. Mo Xuanyu is struck with the very sudden need to feed the boy and is glad that he and Wen Ning were able to trade enough of their eggs and radishes to get a decent meal for him.
‘Mo-gongzi, Wen-gongzi,’ Sizhui says with a bow.
‘Come inside, we want to talk to you about something,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a nod towards the tavern before leading the three of them inside. It’s the only tavern in the village so there is no competition for it to be the cheapest or cleanest, but the food is hearty and it is the only place where the gossip doesn’t spread.
Sizhui makes an inquiring little sound, but he doesn’t say anything as he follows Mo Xuanyu towards a dark corner of the tavern.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ Mo Xuanyu says with a smile and a wave of his hand. He and Wen Ning settle down opposite the boy, and Mo Xuanyu makes an effort to loosen his muscles and recline into his seat. He doesn’t want to scare the boy off, not yet. ‘We have a proposition for you.’
‘Did you need my help with fixing your house’s door? It’s probably best we look at it before it falls off.’
‘My front door’s broken?’ Mo Xuanyu asks. ‘Wait, no that’s not what we’re talking about.’ Though Mo Xuanyu will have to remember this, for when they return with enough money to hire someone to fix it. ‘We wanted to talk to you about something else, about what we were talking about when you helped us with our roof. About your past.’
Sizhui pauses, a stillness to him that seems out of character to the smiles and sweetness that he had shown before. It’s different to Wen Ning’s natural stillness, there’s something very deliberate about it that tugs at Mo Xuanyu almost like déjà vu. Mo Xuanyu wonders who he knew before who was so cold.
‘My past?’ he asks, carefully and quietly. ‘What is it?’
‘You showed us your ribbon, the only item that you have from before,’ Mo Xuanyu says. Each word feels like a delicate step, like he has to get it exactly right in order for the boy in front of them to understand what they are trying to say. ‘Wen Ning. You know who he is.’ There’s a little hum, from Sizhui. ‘He’s familiar with the great sects, from when he was… younger.’
Wen Ning lets out his own small laugh, although his face barely shifts from its flat nonchalance. ‘When I was alive,’ he corrects gently, ‘my sister and I studied at Gusu Lan for one year, with the other sect heirs. The Lan sect all wore a ribbon across their forehead, as a sign of restraint and respect. Your ribbon is similar to what I remember the disciples wearing.’
It’s the most he’s said to someone beside Mo Xuanyu since they first crossed paths, and Mo Xuanyu can’t help reaching over to squeeze his forearm in reassurance.
‘Are you saying that you think I might be a Lan?’ Sizhui asks, confusion and wonder at war within his voice as he looks up at them across the table.
‘We’re not sure, but there’s a high chance,’ Mo Xuanyu says, accepting their tea from the waiter with a smile and a nod. ‘No other sect has something so distinct and so important. And, well,’ he takes a steeling breath before he speaks, and tries not to delight in the way Sizhui leans forward, ‘I’m not sure if you’ve heard the rumours, but apparently the Lan heir went missing ten years ago.’
‘That can’t be me, surely,’ Sizhui says.
‘You were found on a street ten years ago, with a ribbon on your forehead that is very similar to what the Lan sect wear. We’re not saying that you are definitely Lan Yuan, but we’re saying that Lan Yuan might be the best starting point in unlocking what we can about your past, about your family.’
There’s something in Sizhui’s eyes that light up, something that looks so much like hope that Mo Xuanyu might have felt guilty if he dwelled on it too much. The way the boy inhales, the way his fingers clench in his lap, there’s hope and genuine belief in his eyes and that’s all Mo Xuanyu needs.
‘Wen Ning and I,’ Mo Xuanyu says, drawing Sizhui back into the moment to look up at them, ‘we have to find some work over the winter. We’re thinking that we might travel, and do some night hunts in order to earn a little bit of money. Did you want to come with us?’
‘You want me to come with you?’
‘Only if you want to.’ Mo Xuanyu is quick to assure him, but he can already see the excitement in Sizhui’s eyes, can already see that the boy is going to say yes. ‘Lan Yuan’s father is the new chief cultivator, and it would be difficult to get an audience with him, ordinarily. But my nephew is the head of the Jin sect, and I’m sure if we talked to him that he would be able to get him an audience.’
Sizhui looks up, so suddenly with eyes filled with a sort of earnestness that makes his refined features look sweet. ‘I thought you were uninterested in finding out more about your past, Mo-gongzi. I wouldn’t want you to follow down this path, just for me.’
Mo Xuanyu laughs, low and steady. ‘You are a kind boy, Vun Sizhui, and although you do not remember them, I am sure you do your parents proud. You’re right, I am uninterested in finding out about my past, but I should at least greet my last living relative, at least once. Wen Ning will not be able to join me in Lanling, and I would like to have your company.’
‘Then I would be honoured if you would let me come with you,’ Sizhui says, smile still pulling at the corner of his lips.