Chapter Text
The Story
“While rowing the boat, the night breeze came and I took a short nap.
The boat floated across a misty lake.
At night, the stars returned.
I plucked a willow leaf and blew tunes that drifted off to the heavens.
Spreading out the yellowing kite,
reminiscing old times.
The paper lanterns on the lake drifted away.
Old memories resurface like ripples, chapter after chapter.
Behind the railings of a tall building,
I drink wine and admire flowers along the whole street.
But I also once washed my sword in blood at the Xuan Wu cave.
Criticisms and ridicules endured by my ears.
My heart knows only of absolute courage. Why would I fear the words of others?
Even when leaping into a sea of fire, I still carry a merciful heart.
I once tried to snatch a wine bottle with a smile,
challenging the most beautiful person in Gusu to a duel.
Regardless of life or death,
we become the protagonists in worldly folk tales and poems.
Outside the window, magnolias cast deep shadows. Was the past a dream or real?
Generations passed and seasons gone by.
Our fate in the past have become stories that were once heard.
Death by the Nightless City.
Who would believe that young men tell no lies?
For a promise of brotherhood, I once crafted a flute and abandoned my sword.
Gossips fly before me, but there's no need to explain while my loyal heart is still warm.
A thousand people have a thousand faces and a thousand stories.
I took a glance at you and was mesmerized.
Teasing your cloud patterned waist tie with my finger tips.
The zither string vibrates unexpectedly.
I wonder why I still remember this moment so deeply in my dream?
Beneath the tree, flower petals scatter.
Is this moment a dream or real?
The legend of our journeys pass down as folklore.
Is there any need to speak out about the loyal heart?
I simply play the flute carefreely under falling stars.
Even if I leave behind an empty name of fame,
I would rather have a cup of wine at the perfect moment.
I once embraced a beauty who was solely mine to enjoy.
Regardless of life or death,
How did we become protagonists in worldly folk tales and poems?
Outside the door, with soft voices and long shadows,
Was our chance meeting a dream or real?
Generations passed and seasons gone by,
our past and present will eventually leave its mark.”
Qu Jin Chen Qing - Translation by wenwen
Gusu, after the story ends
“And when you're gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
Who tells your story?”
Wei Wuxian will always remember the morning he woke up in the Jingshi and he realized it. He and Lan Zhan have been together for decades, centuries now, and his golden core, the one that Mo Xianyu gave him with his sacrifice, has grown stronger than it was in his previous life, stronger than he ever felt it. Lan Zhan has been his cultivation partner since they got married and the union of their energies achieved the impossible: they reached immortality.
Time, after a while, stops being relevant.
Contemplation, exploration, everything blends in the life of the two of them, immortal beings wandering the earth. Everything feels different and the same at once, like a suspended note on the qin that keeps vibrating endlessly. He hasn’t used Chenqing for long now, not for anything that wasn’t playing harmless melodies with his husband. His cultivation has evolved to a level where no blood or wicked tricks are needed anymore. He can raise talismans with a flick of his hand and will his energy to bend reality just with his breath.
The autumnal equinox is close and it seems like the right moment to finally close the last tie with his own past. Life and death are stories for others to tell and he doesn’t need any spiritual tool anymore to tame resentful energy.
He walks into the woods alone that night, following old and familiar paths, to the depths of the mountain behind the Cloud Recesses. He is alone, the wind quiet and the stars silent witnesses of his parting.
He knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Even if dormant for long, the spirit of Chenqing refuses to leave him. It’s a painful struggle to sever the tie that binds them, forged in the Burial Mounds with his own blood and the need to survive.
He stands breathless, blood pooling in his mouth, as he summons all his qi to break the flute that has been so connected to his identity and sense of self. He doesn’t realize it has started to rain and the droplets are mixing with the tears on his face. The snap is quieter than he expected, but the energy blast emanating from it knocks all the remaining air out of his lungs. When he raises his head he sees a pale face in the darkness. A woman is looking at him, mouth agape and frozen on the spot. She is wearing unusual robes and holding books to her chest.
He passes out.
China, 2015
“First there was an emotion, then a character, and at last a story. In the process of transformation, expression, and conveyance, the energy would naturally be shifted and lost. But with my current self, I’ve tried my best.” Mxtx
When he wakes up he doesn’t recognize the trees around him. The air smells different and there’s lots of unfamiliar sounds. When he stands up to look around him he can tell that he is clearly not in the Cloud Recesses anymore. This forest has sparse trees and weird lanterns between them. He starts wondering what happened. Clearly the breaking of Chenqing affected reality, or maybe it opened some pathway that was hidden before. Just his usual luck!
He sees people on the edge of the forest, walking fast and wearing simple robes. His head is still pounding. Before he can start to properly panic at the idea of having just thrown himself in some unexpectedly mild hell dimension, the woman he saw before passing out reappears in his field of vision. She is walking with a friend and talking fast and loud.
“It was right here, I’m telling you, it was like a vision from a xianxia drama. I wonder who he was, what was his story?” The two women stop close to him, without acknowledging his presence at all. He stands and pats his robe from fallen leaves and dirt.
“Hello there,” he tries, “could you tell me where I’m finding myself?” But they don’t turn to him when he speaks, and it seems that they can’t see him even when he leans close to inspect their appearance. Did he just turn himself into a ghost? That would be something complicated to explain to Lan Zhan, which he now realizes must be extremely worried by his disappearance. He needs to find him, soon. And maybe make himself corporeal before that.
“I want to write about him” the young woman says, “What could make such a beautiful young man look so tormented? I know there is a good story there and I’m going to find it.”
Wei Wuxian smiles at the praise. This person seems to be quite insightful. Maybe she is the key to all of this? Wei Wuxian decides to make good use of his current ghost status and starts following her.
The day goes on in a whirlwind of surprising discoveries. He figures out he must be in another time and place, for sure. The laws of nature and gravity seem to be the same, but the life of the people and the tools that they use are completely different from the ones he’s used to and like nothing he has ever seen before. They seem to use a specific form of energy to power all their instruments and tools. He tries to feel it and it crackles under his fingers like Zidian would do. Jiang Cheng would love this place. The food smells the same and people’s habits are not that different. They keep all their dogs always on leashes and Wei Wuxian thinks it’s one the best developments he could have hoped for. They live in big crammed palaces with thousands of small rooms, and he’s currently in one of them, the residence of the woman who caught him in this plane of existence, even if he still doesn’t know how, or why.
She is sitting at her table in front of a bright mirror, rhythmically pushing some keys that make words appear on the white lit surface.
“Who are you, mysterious man? Tell me your story,” she says to the mirror, while writing what seems like a description of their encounter.
He starts talking aloud, even if he has no hope of being heard: “I’m Wei Wuxian, founder of Demonic Cultivation and husband to the Second Jade of Lan, Hanguang Jun.”
She doesn’t hear him, and keeps staring at the bright mirror.
He tries again, shifting closer to her ear, putting his ghostly hand on her shoulder. “Do you want to tell my story? Let me tell you how I died and came back to life.”
She shudders. Can these humans feel ghostly presences? That would be at least a small comfort.
“I’m thinking… A story of transmigration. A mystery. A discovery of the past of somebody people told stories about, but none of them true. A story about revenge.”
Wei Wuxian gasps and breaks into a hearty laugh. “You really have a good intuition, young lady! I think we can work together on this.”
What “this” is, he still doesn’t know. By now His own memories have been warped by time and grief, and they all come and go like leaves floating on a pond. But there's one image that will always shine through the dark waters of his mind: finding Lan Zhan again, after he came back to life. He closes his eyes and puts his hand again on her shoulder, trying to recall in his mind the memory of that moment.
She starts writing.
Later that night, after the young woman goes to sleep, he walks up to the top of the palace where her rooms are. The roof is empty and full of mechanical boxes and black ropes. The hum of this world’s energy is strong here, so strong that he hopes it could help him reach his Lan Zhan across the layers of dimensions.
He starts whistling their song to the wind, and waits.
“Wei Ying...”
“Lan Zhan!” His heart starts beating fast in his chest. If he can contact Lan Zhan then not everything is lost. Maybe he doesn’t have to remain a ghost forever. Communicating turns out to be quite complicated, like using Inquiry the other way round, but such a small nuisance has never stopped him before.
Their conversation needs to be succinct, and it’s hard to explain what is happening or where he is, not just for the limitations of the medium. Lan Zhan doesn’t take the ghost news very well. But no body was found where he disappeared, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t feel “dead”. Just… displaced. Lan Zhan keeps explaining what happened on their side.
Apparently the energy blast was so strong that the whole sect was affected, every disciple feeling nauseated and weak. Even more, it has just happened. Wei Wuxian has spent a full day away now, but for them it’s been just one hour. That could be slightly comforting. Or... extremely worrying. If time is not aligned, then the two worlds must be further apart than he thought. Lan Zhan will do some research and they will talk again tomorrow at the same time. Which, Wei Wuxian realizes, it will mean one month of hanging around here, wherever here is. He groans. At least he has something to do.
In the following days he observes the young woman and her life. He finds out she wrote other stories before. She’s a writer, then… An author. Wei Wuxian has never had a biographer before, a legit one, who would try to tell things straight. All his lives have been full of people making stuff up about him, and again, his own memory has never been that reliable. Lan Zhan is the only person that knows his truth deeply, and that’s enough for him. For… him. But maybe that wasn’t enough for everyone...
He shivers as the realization comes to him. Chen...Qing. Damn! He really should have thought better when naming his flute.
He starts pacing around the small room, while the woman is bent over her keys, tapping away the story of how he and Lan Zhan ended up finding Nie Mingjue’s arm.
A theory forms in his brain: the attempt to destroy Chenqing must have released the destiny etched in its name, and it created this… whatever this is. The need to explain his thoughts and actions, his past. He never thought about that, happy to let people think of him whatever they wanted. And the more the years passed, the more he stopped caring, letting their lives become many different legends with many different endings. But that clearly wasn’t enough for his spiritual tool. It needed him to set the record straight. So... it found him an author. He still doesn’t know why the author of choice ended up being a young woman in another dimension and another time; if it was by chance, by design, or by destiny. He just knows that he needs to go through this.
Maybe, when his story will be told as Chenqing considers satisfactory he will be able to go back to Lan Zhan. Oh, he wishes he could already talk to him and let him know! But alas, rules of time and space bending and what not, many nights will have to pass until they can speak again.He resigns himself to wait, and focuses on the task at hand. He needs to take care of his author. His... Author. He smiles to himself and goes back to watch her write his story.
Wei Wuxian’s days go by like this. At night, he sits close to The Author and rambles endlessly about everything he remembers of his life. Sometimes a random memory sparks another and he loses himself in digressions and weird turns. It seems that The Author can sense his inputs, somehow, and what she writes rings true to him.
It’s embarrassing at times, to see his past written black on white inside the bright mirror, but it also feels like a relief, like finally reorganising a forgotten storage room, letting the sun in and dusting each memory.
During the day he naps, or wanders through the city, observing with interest the life in this world and being fascinated by pretty much everything, even without understanding much of it. There are still too many dogs hanging around for his liking, but his ghost status makes him feel safe enough to ignore them. They can sense him, he knows, and he finds secret delight in scaring them a little. Other people don’t react to his presence like The Author, and he keeps wondering what sets her apart, if it was already there or if it came from Chenqing choosing her.
He discovers that his story is being read by other people directly on their own bright screens. He heard The Author talking excitedly about it to a friend, the day it started being officially “published”. It was his birthday. He should probably have felt more surprised by the coincidence, but at this point it only made sense.
The Author will publish it in chapters as she writes it and people will read along. Wei Wuxian is curious to know how people will react. Do people in this place like stories from another time?
Apparently they do, and some of them are especially excited about love stories with cut sleeves, which is something he really didn’t expect. But hearing how The Author talks about Lan Zhan to her friend, he can understand. Who can resist a story with two handsome and charming protagonists like him and the Huanguan Jun!
Finally a full month passes by, and he finds himself again on the roof of the building. During this month he experimented with this world’s energy, and discovered that it’s called electricity. He has even developed a talisman to harness it and use it to steady the connection with Lan Zhan.
He sits on the roof, surrounded by the stabilizing talismans, glowing scripts he traced mid air, hair rising and fanning around his face and the now familiar crackling almost touching him, and he waits. Not long after, the intimate sound of wangji’s Inquiry rings through the air.
“Lan Zhan! Can you hear me?” he speaks into the night.
“Wei Ying! Yes. I can hear you clearly. What did you do?”
“Oh you won’t believe this, Lan Zhan. Basically this place is packed with a very strong energy, like Zidian’s? And it’s fast and goes everywhere and it’s been used for long distance communication for so long that it basically does it by itself? I just needed some talismans to give it direction and a path, and it’s done. We can talk! It’s much easier this way, right?”
“I see Wei Ying has made good use of his time and invented something new.”
Wei Wuxian can hear his husband’s soft smile in his voice, even across time. Oh, how he misses him. They haven’t been apart for so long in a while. It feels strange.
“Oh yes! And I have a theory about what happened! The woman I’ve found, or who found me... remember? She is writing my story now. Our story. And I’m trying to remember all the details, but you know how my memory is. So we’re kind of going back and forth in time and it’s probably getting confusing for her, and I should ask you things and take notes to avoid messing things up, because the thing is, I’m pretty sure all of this happened because of Chengqing. I mean, Chengqing made it happen.”
“What do you mean?” Lan Zhan asks gently.
“I think Chenging could not be destroyed without this step. The story. A full account of what happened, to me, to you, to itself.” Wei Wuxian hopes all of this somehow clicks with whatever Lan Zhan has discovered while researching too.
“Mn. It seems an explanation that fits with what we observed on this side. Last night everybody who was alive during the Sunshot Campaign had very vivid dreams from those years. And I…” Lan Zhan pauses, “I dreamt about the first time we met.”
“Ah, Lan Zhan, how can you still be so romantic after all these years?” Wei Wuxian teases. But he knows it’s probably because The Author has been writing about those exact things.
“Wei Ying, I’ve researched in the Library and there is an array that can be used to bring back people from different dimensions, but it needs to be adapted for this… peculiar situation. Is it dangerous there for you? Are you feeling strong enough to attempt this tomorrow? Your tomorrow?” Lan Zhan’s voice can’t hide the worry, and Wei Wuxian aches to be with him again.
“Of course Lan Zhan, I’m doing great here! You know how much I love talking about myself. And it’s impossible to get bored, this city is so full of people and things! Describe me the array and I will work on it. I am confident that this energy is going to be strong enough to power it.”
They go over the array at least three times (Lan Zhan really doesn’t want him to end up anywhere else that is not beside him) and then they keep talking and talking about the past, with that serenity towards old pains that only time can gift to people. Wei Wuxian takes notes and apparently he has been too kind with his younger self. He really was obnoxious as a young man. Still, most of the things he inspired in The Author are correct so he secretly preens. His memory is not that bad after all.
Wei Wuxian is still not sure about how the time bend between them is even working. The current theory is that when they are connected and communicating it seems to freeze, or match up somehow, like the moment two different orbits align before separating again, Wei Wuxian’s spinning fast and far away and Lan Zhan’s slowing to a standstill. Or maybe it’s Wei Wuxian who’s orbiting around Lan Zhan, like a planet around its own star, the gravity pull so strong that whatever curse got him drifting away will never push him too far.
Wei Wuxian forces himself to sleep that night. Or whatever is the physiological equivalent of sleeping for a ghost. It’s a sort of deep meditation state. He has no physical perception of his body falling asleep, his breathing slowing down, his limbs getting heavier. What’s left is only the drifting of his consciousness, but he doesn’t dare lose awareness of himself completely. Without a body to come back to, it feels too scary. Too risky.
The next day he sets up everything he needs to use the array during the night. Before heading to the roof, he tries to transmit as much as he can to The Author - he thinks she will manage to put down all the details by herself, she has proven to have a strong intuition anyway - and probably goes a little overboard, as she laments an headache and stops writing to make herself some tea. But after that he sees her taking notes about timelines and events in a small notebook, and everything lines up, so he doesn’t have anything to worry about. The spirit of Chengqing should be more than happy with that.
The air is still on the roof tonight, regardless of the height, as if the world is collectively holding its breath. Or maybe it’s just Wei Wuxian. He just wants to go home. It’s not only the separation from his soulmate that’s hurting, but the inability to interact with the world. Wei Wuxian has never realized how much of the joy he found in life was related to the interaction with other people.
Now that he thinks about it, he has never been alone and isolated like this: when he was young, during his first life, there was Jiang Cheng, and his fellow disciples; even during those dark three months in the Burial Mounds he wasn’t technically alone. Yes, resentful energy may not make the best conversational partner, but they were there, seeing him, reacting to him, torturing him. Oh boy, is he really missing torture now?
And then he travelled with Little Apple, but even then he met many people along the road, and then Lan Zhan found him again, and then… Damn. He has never been alone. He really doesn’t like it. And it’s not only for the lack of conversation or responsive audience. He realizes that without other people he can’t really have a perception of himself, like the only way he can find his own edges is from the effect that his words and actions have on others. Well, if that’s not a revelation. He makes a mental note: “Things he was not expecting to learn from the cursey side effects of the destruction of a first class spiritual tool: self awareness”.
He groans and goes back to tracing the array, channeling through his fingers the electric energy emanating from the boxes surrounding him. When everything is set up he sends the agreed signal to Lan Zhan. He waits a heartbeat, then steps into the glowing array, closes his eyes, and concentrates.
And nothing happens.
Wei Wuxian tries again, pulling more energy into the array and focusing his whole self towards home, Gusu, Lan Zhan.
The array starts vibrating, the growing hum of the electricity so different from a cultivator’s qi, louder and louder, so loud that Wei Wuxian has to cover his own ghostly ears before it snaps like a qin string mid note. Wei Wuxian opens his eyes and everything around him is dark. Then he turns and realizes he’s still on the roof, but all the buildings are void of the usual clusters of small lights. He peeks from the edge. The roads far down on the ground are still crawling with the mechanical carriages people use here. He sits on the cold concrete and rests his arm on his knees in defeat. Even draining the whole reserve of energy of these buildings, he could not make the array work.
“Wei Ying, what happened? I felt you so close for a second, our array seemed to react to something, but the only thing that happened was the appearance of a glowing sphere of unknown energy, I suspect the one you were telling me about is so common in that world? It dissipated quickly, the only effect on me and the others was a strange prickling on our skin and a very inconvenient hair levitation.”
“Lan Zhaaaan, I literally drained this palace of all its electricity and it did nothing. I don’t even know how to fix it. What if I hurt someone in the process?” Wei Wuxian feels a metaphorical chill down his ghostly, metaphorical spine.
“It’s not true it did nothing, Wei Ying. If my educated guess is true, the array itself worked. It transported what was there, here. It just happened to be only the energy you collected, and not yourself, for some reason. Even though I don’t see why your current - and hopefully temporary - ghostly status would not follow the energy through the array… Wei Ying, I have the feeling the curse may still not be done with you.”
“Ugh, ok. Clearly I can’t just let The Author work on her own while I go back to have fun with my immortal husband and his infinite stamina. I get it. Well, I guess we will have to wait until the book is finished and then try again. I’m sorry Lan Zhan…”
“No need to apologize between us, Wei Ying. For me it has merely been a couple of days. And knowing you are… safe, even if currently living as a ghost in an unknown time and space, it’s enough. I know you will come back to me. The Heavens will not want to test my patience again, I’m fairly certain.”
“Ah Lan Zhan, always so wise. Well… I guess I will go back to my job then.”
They stay silent but still connected for a while, until Wei Wuxian yawns and Lan Zhan scolds him for not resting enough. What does resting even mean for a ghost?
And so Wei Wuxian waits.
He knows better than to force a creative process, and The Author is already pushing herself so hard to meet the deadlines. She spends all her nights writing, while Wei Wuxian paces around the room and watches over her shoulder, nudging her when she gets sidetracked by some muddy plot point or description.
Wei Wuxian thinks she may have developed a crush on Lan Zhan, if the dreamy sighs she sometimes makes after writing an especially heroic or emotional scene are to be trusted. Who can blame her? And after all she’s writing through his inspiration, and even if his younger self was hopelessly blind to his own feelings, his current been-married-for-centuries one knows well how lovable and awe inspiring the Huanguan Jun is.
The winter holidays come and go, and Wei Wuxian is highly entertained by all the different traditions of this place. He can’t get enough of going around the city and observing people and trying to taste food and drinks by inhaling their spiritual energy.
Lan Zhan forbade him to share any specific information about the place where he is, in case it would affect their future, somehow. So Wei Wuxian gets excited running around all day, and then comes back to The Author’s rooms and starts his usual non-stop chatter, before he realizes that there is no point in it.
Maybe it’s the coming Lunar New Year that makes him melancholic. Maybe it’s the fact that The Author hurt her back because of all the hours spent sitting at her desk and she’s constantly in pain, powering through her writing by sheer force of will. Maybe it’s because his story is gaining praise but also criticism; he heard The Author’s resolve to stop reading readers’ comments. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what he expected. This world seemed so different from his own, he almost thought… He doesn’t know what he was expecting, after all. The Author said that his story was supposed to be about revenge, but it ended up being about complicated gratitude, resentment, and relationships.
Complicated gratitude… that feels like a fitting definition of his past.
He has never been one for introspection or self-reflection, even after all these years, avoidance has always been the way he navigates through life. The only person he trusts to show his vulnerable side to is Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan is not here. Yes, they can talk sometimes, but never for long, and he doesn’t want to make him worry. Neither of them wants the other to worry, while they are both worried. Wei Wuxian is stuck as a lonely ghost gods know where, and Lan Zhan is once again waiting for him to come back, from gods know where. The ironic simmetry of this should make him laugh.
Winter slowly melts away as the first weeks of spring warm the air. The first draft of his story is done. He almost tears up reading the final lines:
“Just like before, Wei Wuxian called his name with a grin, and he looked over as well.
From then on, he could never move his eyes away again.”
He wonders, again, how this person managed to capture the essence of his own self and what makes him... him. The motivation behind all his actions. The depth of his love for Lan Zhan.
After their first disastrous attempt at using the array he is more wary now. He knows The Author is still writing, correcting, adding, changing elements. The story is still not an accurate account. So he waits.
While waiting, he investigates his ghostly status in depth. He can’t affect solid things, but he can perceive their spiritual energy. This doesn’t have much use other than allowing him to taste foods. After thorough research he decides he likes the intensity of the spice of instant noodles (or maybe he grew fond of them because it’s the food that The Author always eats at night) and he really doesn’t like the excessive fake sweetness of modern candies.
Other people don’t react to his presence the way The Author does, at all. Which is, frankly, disappointing, since more than once he has come across someone who deserved a good old-fashioned scare or haunting.
The only creatures that can perceive him are animals, some more than others. He can play tricks on dogs but then neither he nor they are interested in pursuing further interaction, where cats seem to be able to actually see him. There aren’t many other animals in this city, mostly pigeons - who barely acknowledge him - and some other small house pets. He saw rabbits, but they made his heart clench with homesickness in an unpleasant way.
That’s how he ends up making friends with all the neighborhood stray cats. There’s a colony living in the nearby park, and they welcome him without much fuss. He likes spending afternoons with them, before The Author comes back home and starts writing. He can’t really pet them, but they kind of hover around him soothingly, and they react to his chatter with some meows and unimpressed stares. It’s not much, but at least he’s being seen.
He wonders what it would look from the outside if somebody could see them: this man from another time with black robes and long hair, surrounded by a bunch of cats.
Summer comes. One day, in the middle of august, The Author writes her final note to his story. He has been here for almost a full year now, and in his perception it has mostly gone by in a haze of relived memories and new explorations.
That night The Author opens herself a beer and silently celebrates the end of her work. It feels final, and Wei Wuxian feels different. In the past couple of months, while lying to rest in his sort of floating meditation state, he started feeling… things: surges of joy or pain, connected to whatever memory of his life he was thinking about. But those were not his own feelings. He thinks they might be the feelings of the people reading his story, reaching him somehow. Connecting to him.
Maybe this is what Chenqing wanted for him: to experience the empathy and compassion people have for his story. He doesn’t know. But he knows that now, for sure, there is nothing else for him to do here. It’s time to leave.
He looks at The Author, her tiny frame curled on the sofa while she drinks and writes to her friends on her portable bright mirror (Wei Wuxian is seriously fascinated by all the communication inventions everybody uses here. Way more efficient than the Jin butterflies, for sure.)
It feels wrong to leave without saying goodbye.
So that night, when The Author goes to sleep, he lies beside her on the bed. He wonders if he can use the same principle as the Incense Burner Spell to connect to her dreams. He’s been thinking about it since the first flashes of feelings and emotions from other people started to come to him during the spring.
He lets himself drift in a conscious dream state. Nothing happens at first, but after an hour or so the darkness in his mind starts to brighten up, and if he focuses he can feel the source of The Author’s dream. He moves his consciousness in her direction, with a measured and gentle pace, like walking on eggshells. He is invading the privacy of her dreams and he doesn’t really know if there is a way to “knock” and ask for permission. He lingers on the edge and strains his consciousness to focus more, to make out images and sounds.
They are somewhere in the Cloud Recesses. Or the version of the Cloud Recesses that exists in The Author’s imagination, somehow more beautiful but less detailed than the real thing.
He walks past a low stream and catches the sight of his own reflection: he looks like his usual self. Over the centuries, the body that Mo Xianyu gifted him had slowly and with microscopical increments started to also show traits of his former self. Lan Zhan has expressed appreciation for the combination more than once. Wei Wuxian doesn’t have specific feelings about it. What even is the thing that gives him his sense of “self”? His body is probably the least important aspect of it.
He looks around and sees The Author, a faint shape of consciousness looking inside a building from a low window. There are qin notes floating in the air, nothing he’s ever heard before, and nothing that makes actual sense in a musical way? It’s more like the impression of the sound of the instrument, rather than a proper melody.
He gets closer and sees what The Author is looking at. It’s Lan Zhan, and he’s even more breathtaking through the eye of her mind. His features are absolutely sharp, like drawn on a silk canvas. He looks more like an animated painting than a real person and he’s beautiful in his grace. Wei Wuxian smiles to himself - it feels fair that they both share the love for the Second Jade of Lan.
He keeps walking towards her, trying to make noise on the gravel path to avoid startling her and waking her up. She feels his presence and turns around, eyes surprised and bashful when she sees him.
“Hi there,” he tries, following with his widest smile. He hopes she can hear him.
“Oh!” She says, almost taken aback by his voice. “Hi… Wei Wuxian?”
He can feel his grin growing. He points his thumb to his chest with pride. “That’s me! Oh gods, I can’t believe I’m finally able to talk to you! That’s brilliant, I had no idea if this was going to work at all” he concludes, with a dramatic gesture of his arms.
The Author lets a small laugh shake her frame, covering her mouth.
“Are you here to scold me for lurking on your husband?” She asks, more confident than he expected her to be.
“Oh no, not at all. This is your dream after all, and Lan Zhan deserves to be ogled, indeed. I’m here to say goodbye, in fact.”
“Goodbye?” She asks, clearly confused by the direction the conversation is taking.
“Yes. I’m not going to get into details, but I’ve been looking over you this whole time, while you were writing my story. And now the story is finished, and I will go back home to my husband. It has been a while and I don’t like to keep him waiting. You know how he gets.”
She blushes delicately at that, but her words go back to the first topic. “You have been watching over me? Really? I hope you didn’t take offense when I cursed you all those times while I was writing!”
She did have a couple of fits of frustration during the writing process indeed, but Wei Wuxian had been too busy feeling embarrassed by the thickheadedness of his young self to take it personally. He would have punched himself in the face, if he could have.
“None taken, I deserved it.” He bows formally “Please accept my thanks for dedicating your time and craft to writing my story. I truly appreciate it.” He looks at her in the eyes, trying to convey how deep and heartfelt his gratitude is.
She looks around and then comes closer to him, lifting his arms and fussing “What are you thanking me for? I should thank you for the inspiration, I guess! It’s not easy to find characters whose story is worth writing. And you were worthy indeed. I’m sorry I made you suffer so much, actually. But that’s what writers do, isn’t it? Have their character suffer to make the resolution feel even sweeter.” She smiles apologetically at him.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t really know how to explain that all his actions were his own choices, but probably there’s no need to. After all this time, his own memories feel like somebody else’s story anyway.
They keep talking, taking a walk around the Cloud Recesses. The paths are a mixture of his own memories and her creation, full of small corners of beauty. A lonely tree, a gentian bush.
They talk about his story, about her life, her dreams as a writer. Wei Wuxian feels moved by the easiness of their connection, built up over a year, but only now palpable.
They reach the rabbit meadow and lie there among the rabbits, looking at the sky and the clouds running around.
“What story do you want to write next?” He asks.
“Mhhh… I don’t know. There is an image in my head, a broken and abandoned temple with a soon-to-be forgotten god and a young devout follower. Maybe I will write about them. Now I’m gonna rest a little. Enjoy the accomplishment, you know?”
He hums in acknowledgement, “You worked hard. You deserve to enjoy yourself a little now.”
After that they lie there, silent, until they fall asleep.
Wei Wuxian comes back to consciousness with a jolt, the last memory from the dream the endless softness of the rabbits around and over him, before he sank into the earth and the earth became void, and then he was back on the bed beside a still asleep Author.
He shakes his head, stands up, pats his robes and gives one last warm look to the sleeping figure of the woman that shared his story with the world through sweat and tears.
The time has come. The story has been told, in great detail. It has been read, by a number of people way higher than he would have ever expected, and it has been understood, somehow. Controversy was inevitable. But there was also so much love. It should be enough.
He walks the now familiar staircase to the roof of the building. He could float, or project his consciousness there directly, since he’s so acquainted with the place, but he rarely does that. He has some kind of reticence in using ghostly skills, as if by doing so he would have to acknowledge having been one for a full year now. Lan Zhan has been without him for just two weeks, unable to do anything more to save him than monitoring the array’s stability.
The night is hot and still, the air thick and damp with humidity when Wei Wuxian steps outside on the roof.
“Lan Zhan, I’m ready to come back home.” He says, bringing their connection to life again. They always have so little time before the time warp stretches too much and the connection snaps again.
“I am ready to welcome you back. We all are.” Lan Zhan explains that this time most of the disciples and sect members are waiting behind the back mountain, shielded from any potential repeat of crackling energy’s blasts.
They go through everything perfectly, like the first time. Using an array properly is the most basic thing for them, after all. Perks of being an immortal cultivator and the inventor of a brand new cultivation path.
The array lights up, Wei Wuxian gives one last look at the sky above this weird city, and steps in. Something happens, different than last time. He feels pulled in every direction, spreading out and snapping back in the most compact form and then bending and expanding, the crackling electric energy flowing through him and carrying him along.
He can see the Cloud Recesses, the same meadow where he went to destroy Chenqing. He can see the trees closer to the edge unearthed by the blast Lan Zhan told him about. He can see Lan Zhan, sitting on the ground with Wangji, playing a stabilizing melody to support the spell. Wei Wuxian still can’t stop, everything keeps moving fast around him and through him.
He sees Lan Zhan looking up from the strings and they lock eyes for an endless second and he knows. He sees the fear, the frustration.
It’s not working. He can’t stop. He can’t get off this avalanche of energy and electricity and there is nothing he can do about it.
Lan Zhan knows. He must have realized the moment he appeared, that only his ghost was zooming through the array over and over. No body.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian screams, over the static of the array pulsing, “My husband, my soulmate. I have to go.” His throat feels raw with the effort of being heard. “Maybe I was not destined for immortality after all. Please wait for me.” He sees the single tear falling on Lan Zhan’s cheek. His heart aches. “I know you will recognize me. You always do.”
He lets go.
After all, if he can’t go back, the easier way to be with Lan Zhan again is to let this life go. Wait for the next one. They’re soulmates for a reason. His soul will find Lan Zhan again. Everything is better than being away from him, stuck in a world where he can’t interact with anything, anyone.
The problem is… He is a ghost. In a world where nobody gets rid of them anymore. Because there aren’t ghosts around. (He searched, those first months. He hoped to find some conversation partners. But no luck.) He has no way of dissolving his own essence. He is stuck here.
No.
Energy will dissipate no matter what if there is no pull or purpose to keep it together.
He lets himself drift out of consciousness. Inexorably. Completely.
There is only silence, and dark void. He waits for it to end.
It never does.
The last day before the end of september, a young man debuts on screen.
He never thought about acting before, but he discovers the pleasure of bringing characters to life. He doesn’t know what the future will bring to him, but he’s ready to fight for it.