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Once Wen Ning escorts A-Yuan and his companions to the Unclean Realm, he occupies himself with exploring its mountains and forests while they participate in the night hunt with QingheNie’s disciples.
He does not expect to run into Sect Leader Nie, perched upon an outcropping of boulders and cradling a jug of wine. In the moonlight, his golden adornments seem silver. In the moonlight, his placid expression seems tired. Lonely.
Wen Ning is wondering what to say, already backing away, when Nie Huaisang gestures for him to come closer.
“It’s beautiful tonight.” Nie Huaisang holds up the wine. “Do you want any?”
“Isn’t there,” Wen Ning pauses carefully before he continues, “a night hunt occurring? And Sect Leader Nie is out here alone?”
Nie Huaisang waves a slender, ringed hand airily. “This area’s cleared. You can see the stars best here. Come, look.” He pats the spot next to him. “Please do indulge me with your company. If anything happens, I trust you to protect me.”
So Wen Ning settles himself next to Nie Huaisang tentatively, as if Sect Leader Nie will flit away as soon as he realizes what he’s asked for. But Nie Huaisang simply smiles at him, unmoving, before turning back to the sky and beginning to point out constellations.
There’s a faint realization that Wen Ning has rarely spent time looking up: either behind his shoulder, forward, scanning all sides for danger. The sun fell from the sky, and he went underground, but then —
So much has happened since, yet it seems now he’s still looking to the side.
Nie Huaisang feels the weight of his gaze and meets it, continuing to smile. It doesn’t reach his tired eyes; it feels cruel to say his usual shine is dulled tonight, gold transmuted to silver under the moonlight, but perhaps Nie Huaisang is letting go, letting the mask fall. Nie Huaisang looks like a walking corpse tonight, just like him. He wonders if this is why Nie Huaisang has asked him to come sit, to feel as if there is another like him in the world.
Wen Ning understands. Thinks he does, anyway. He knows they are not quite the same, but who can be, when it comes down to the half-life that Wen Ning lives?
His mind wanders as he listens to the smooth, soft cadence of Nie Huaisang’s voice: back to the night at the temple, back to the fate of Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, and what Wei Wuxian has said about Nie Huaisang.
Oh, how rage can hollow. How deeply it can carve out the marrow of your bones.
Nie Huaisang passes the wine to him, pressing it into his hand gently. Wen Ning drinks, knows the wine should burn, pleasant and strong, even if he doesn’t feel it. When he hands the jug back to Nie Huaisang, there’s a slight shine in Nie Huaisang’s eyes.
“If I ask you to kiss me,” Nie Huaisang says, “will you indulge me yet again?”
“If it’s what Sect Leader Nie truly wants,” Wen Ning says.
“I had this fantasy,” Nie Huaisang says wistfully. “Of drinking, looking at the stars with someone. When the sun would rise, I would kiss them. I would bid them goodbye, walk home, and paint. I haven’t painted in so long, you know.”
The sun is not due to rise any time soon, but things rarely happen as you want it. But this, this is something that Wen Ning can make happen: he holds Nie Huaisang’s chin gently, looks at his wine-flushed cheeks, the flutter of his dark eyelashes.
“Kiss me,” Nie Huaisang says.
Wen Ning kisses him, barely a touch of cold lips to warm ones, but Nie Huaisang sighs, smiles and presses into it, his hand finding Wen Ning’s cheek, stroking gently.
Absurdly, Wen Ning hopes the sun will rise. But when Nie Huaisang draws back, the night is still dark. Yet Wen Ning wonders if it feels just a bit warmer, somehow.
“Will you go home and paint?” Wen Ning asks.
Nie Huaisang smiles, a pretty little thing. “I think I will. Thank you.”
“Do you want me to escort you? Or would that spoil the fantasy?”
Nie Huaisang laughs softly, hand over his red mouth. “If you wish, I wouldn’t mind your company for a little longer.”
“I’d like to.” Wen Ning rises, and offers his hand to Nie Huaisang. When Nie Huaisang takes it, smiles yet again, Wen Ning thinks that he’s shining just a bit more.