Archive of Our Own

There's no need to rehash the details of the Yiling Incident. After all, it was splashed across every newspaper and tv station in the country for months, precipitating a media firestorm that became the hot water cooler topic everywhere. As we all know, official reports initially stated that, horrifying though it was, the Incident was cut-and-dry. A local man goes missing with some of his friends. Three months later, a geological surveyor enters the area to appraise the local fault line for potential issues that could arise following the planned damming of a nearby river, and finds the stuff of nightmares.

That's what all the headlines said: "The Stuff of Nightmares."

The entire country was thrust into a frenzy over this find.

Then the rumors of hauntings and curses started flying. Cao Boren took sick less than a week after he discovered the cave. A vocal corner of the internet started posting about you hun ye gui, and the risks of proceeding with damming the river when it might cause additional... troubles.

The official story changed. The people who’d disappeared weren't accounted for among the bones, which were too old and too strange to belong to someone just three months gone. Some of the bones didn't seem quite human... or even animalistic... at all. There was another media frenzy, and then conversation died down. The focus of netizens discussing Yiling turned to the next crime. Still, there was enough uncertainty that the status of the dam project is still "postponed," nearly seven years later.

And so we come together today. I've spent these years researching the incident in depth. I've talked to most of the people involved — and am hoping that still others may come forth when I begin to release this podcast. I have explored every possible explanation and have formulated my theories, listeners, and I would like to hear yours as well:

Was the Yiling Incident a hoax?

The terrifying thing about Inquiry was just how many people were talking about it. A good twenty percent of Wei Ying's daily passengers would bring it up, either with their travel companions or on their phones or trying politely to make small talk with Wei Ying.

Each time, Wei Ying would smile politely, mention that he didn't really listen to podcasts, and change the subject.

And yet every evening, at the end of his ten hours, as he cruised along the congested streets on his way home, he pulled up the latest episode to listen, and relisten, and listen again — to keep abreast of whatever complications Hanguang-jun's work may throw his way, but also, to search fruitlessly for answers.

Who was Hanguang-jun?

Wei Ying didn't know. The cadence of his words, the phrasing he used — they were reminiscent of Lan Zhan. But the tone was wrong. The pitch, the timber. Wei Ying still had one voicemail saved on his busted old flip phone with the sim card removed. He'd played it several times to be sure.

Hanguang-jun's voice was different.

Why was Hanguang-jun doing this?

Hanguang-jun said, in every podcast introduction, that he was doing this to shed light on the dark secrets and obfuscated realities of the Yiling Incident. And that was well and good and all, but… now? After so many years?

Wei Ying had thought he was safe, moving away from Yiling and slipping into the fast-paced traffic in Shanghai, cutting off almost all communication with Wen Ning when he, likewise, melted away into the bustle of Guangzhou. He'd even adopted a new identity altogether. Mo Xuanyu was an unassuming Didi driver. He worked the evening shift for a team led by a reasonable man who didn't scrutinize Wei Ying's residence papers. Mostly this meant taking workers home and bringing people to bars and airports alike, driving either in silence or under the soft patter of small talk, engaging in a facsimile of friendship in twenty-minute bites. The job, he thought, protected him; no one paid close attention to their drivers, and it let him keep his finger on the pulse of casual conversation.

He was probably still safe. Even if he hadn't changed his name, Hanguang-jun hadn't identified Wei Ying in so many words, and neither had the guests he had on his show. They just talked about the Yiling Laozu, a local quirky farmer who overestimated his abilities to tend unyielding dead soil and who’d disappeared shortly before the incident. No firm, accurate description of Wei Ying's appearance or mannerisms, no allegations about his potential whereabouts. No clients had gotten into Wei Ying's car yet and pointed at him and said "Hey, aren't you that guy who started that whole Yiling incident?"

Still, Wei Ying started wearing an appearance-adjusting talisman. Just in case.

What would Hanguang-jun's conclusion be?

Wei Ying couldn't tell. Hanguang-jun entertained more possible explanations than any netizens had back when Wei Ying was first embroiled in the incident — first slipping away to Luanzang Gang with his talismans, planning to scare officials away from damming the river and rendering thousands of homes destroyed by faking a haunting with a truly elaborate array, then getting caught up in his discovery of the bloody, resentful remains already present in the cave he'd planned to use. But would Hanguang-jun divine Wei Ying's true purpose?

And what would Wei Ying do if Hanguang-jun did correctly identify Wei Ying's goals, his smooth voice laying out motive and effect in a recording listened to by millions of people around the country?

"It would feel nice to be understood," Wei Ying told his bowl of hot dry noodles from the place down the street as he stretched out the kinks of six hours behind the wheel. He went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of beer. "But I think… maybe not in this way."

There was a sort of flexibility in the strain between those who maintained their connection to historic cultivation practices and those who embraced modern China, in the mutual incompatibility between the two. A certain refusal, from each side, to recognize the other. This is what Wei Ying had relied on when he used talismans to affect policy and progress outside of the cultivation world. This was how he managed to obscure his motives and allegiances.

And now every Thursday at four, Hanguang-jun released new episodes slowly, methodically drawing back the curtain on Wei Ying's choices. He hadn't quite revealed all the details; hadn't quite landed on every single one of Wei Ying's motivations, but it felt inevitable that he eventually would.

Wei Ying took a large drag from his beer bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Between his actions, and Hanguang-jun's uncovering of them, they had rendered the divide between the vestiges of the cultivation world and modern China into the thinnest farce of a membrane in recent memory. He wondered if Hanguang-jun was a cultivator, or just a history enthusiast. Those who engaged in cultivation, who understood the path and power inherent in using the sword to hone the meridians and golden core, also generally were raised in families that admonished them not to reveal details to the uninitiated. It was risky, elders agreed. Risky and ill-advised; just short of being outright forbidden.

So if Hanguang-jun was a cultivator, he was bucking a lot of convention. And if he wasn't, he was stumbling across truths long obscured by careful, deliberate actions.

Here are some important things to know about ghosts:

First, they are real.

Second, they are varied, both in their reason for remaining in our world and in the way they can interact with it.

Third, they will relentlessly pursue their objectives, and, if thwarted, will grow in resentment until they must be dealt with using swift, decisive actions.

Why am I talking about ghosts? you may wonder. Horror stories — and mentions of the old ways — surely aren't germane to what happened in Luanzang Gang, regardless of what the netizens who kept you hun ye gui at the forefront of conversation insisted at the time.

The Yiling Incident revealed a long history of crime and some very pressing, urgent structural faults in the area besides. These events are, according to official reports, disconnected.

And yet when I went to Luanzang Gang, to speak to residents of the nearest village, they weren't so sure.

Uncle Four isn't the only resident who suggested the situations may be complicated by ghosts. A woman who insisted I call her "Popo" agreed.

In addition to the abandoned old flip phone with the sim card removed, snapped, and dropped into the floodplains of the Yangtze river, Wei Ying had two working cell phones. One was a smartphone registered to Mo Xuanyu, Didi driver in Shanghai, a man who lived alone with an enormous seven-year-old spider plant that refused to die no matter how much he neglected it. He used this phone for work — to take jobs, to check in with his boss, to order food, to pay for coffee from the shop downstairs. It had Mo Xuanyu's WeChat and bank accounts and contacts. It was a year or two old, at this point, but it still held a charge nicely even without the use of the talismans he used to paper on the back of his phones, and its screen was still smooth and uncracked.

His other phone was cheap. It held charge for weeks. It could make calls and send texts and not much else. Wei Ying never used it, but always kept it charged and in the qiankun pocket of his cargo shorts.

There were four numbers saved to its contact list. Wen Ning, obviously; they cut off most of their communication but needed a backdoor in case of emergencies. Wen Qing, too, even though he wouldn't be able to reach her if he tried.

The third was Jiang Cheng's. He had it marked "in case of emergency." He figured that if something terrible happened to him and someone found this phone, Jiang Cheng deserved that closure.

The last number was Lan Zhan's. He considered deleting it after Lan Zhan came to confront him in Yiling, all those years ago, sweating in that cheap noodle shop, having their fierce whispered argument about his plans to camp out at Luanzang Gang, to find a way to make his point irrefutably loud and clear. He knew that Lan Zhan had his old number, from his old busted-up phone with its destroyed sim card, but not the number of this new burner. But he kept Lan Zhan's. Just in case, he would tell himself, every time he opened the phone to check that it still worked.

He didn't know what would happen if he used Lan Zhan's number. Probably Lan Zhan wouldn't even pick up. If he did…

Well.

They had been friends, once. Perhaps more than friends. There was a time Wei Ying thought Lan Zhan might answer the phone gladly, if he knew it was Wei Ying calling. But that time had long passed. Six years of silence had almost assuredly eroded any lingering vestiges of goodwill Lan Zhan had for Wei Ying after they fought and Wei Ying ignored all of Lan Zhan's concerns to go right ahead with his plans.

(There was a path Wei Ying refused to go down. He imagined it as narrow, over steep chasms crossed by treacherous single-plank bridges, slick with driving rain. What if Lan Zhan was listening to Inquiry? What if he recognized Wei Ying's actions in Hanguang-jun's words? What if it made him think favorably, once more, about Wei Ying and Wei Ying's efforts? What if there was a world where they could —

Ah, but Wei Ying left the world where he and Lan Zhan could be anything behind, decisively, when he tripped his array in Luanzang Gang and slipped away to Shanghai. Imagining otherwise was fraught, a path full of peril. Wei Ying was not the sort of man to pick at scabs, to keep wounds fresh. He should not, would not, travel this path.)

It was the cheap phone Wei Ying drew out now as he ruminated on the latest episode of Inquiry. Hanguang-jun, whoever he was, kept edging closer and closer to the truth. The fact that Uncle Four and Granny Wen even consented to talking to him was… major.

Who was he?

He ran his thumb over the soft keys of the phone, then sighed and dialed the first number.

"Wei Ying?" Wen Ning sounded confused. Half asleep, maybe. His voice sounded the same way Wei Ying remembered it sounding, even two years since their last check-in. "What happened?"

"Have you heard about Inquiry?" Wei Ying asked. "The podcast?"

There was a pause, and a rustle. Wen Ning's voice came through the line more clearly. "Yeah," he said, sighing. "One of my coworkers kept talking about it so I listened. It's— there's a lot going on in it, huh." He paused. "How worried do you think we should be?"

"I don't know," Wei Ying admitted. "I think it's pretty clear that whoever Hanguang-jun is, he knows at least one of us, so I guess it depends on if he's trying to clear our names or bury them deeper in the mud."

"You think so?" Wen Ning asked. He cleared his throat. "I keep thinking Hanguang-jun is a cultivator, but I can't think of any who would risk revealing..." He trailed off.

"Yeah," Wei Ying agreed. He sighed. "For a while I kept thinking it was Lan Zhan, actually? But I couldn't imagine him talking about cultivation on a podcast that normal people could listen to, especially after, you know."

"Your fight?"

"Yeah," Wei Ying sighed. "Plus the voice is all wrong. Hanguang-jun sounds nothing like Lan Zhan."

A longer pause. "Well," Wen Ning said, eventually. "You would know."

Wei Ying nodded to his empty room. "Yeah," he said. "I suppose I would."

"Well," said Wen Ning. "I have to say that this isn't as alarming, to me, as those first few months when everyone was talking about us online and the only reason I knew you hadn't been found was because it hadn't been posted to the forums."

"I guess," Wei Ying said. "But Ning-er, I thought that we were getting to a point where this could be really well and truly behind us! Even the biggest conspiracy boards had moved on before Hanguang-jun started releasing Inquiry!"

"I think," Wen Ning said, his words slow in the way they always were when he was thinking something through. "If there was really a risk, Hanguang-jun would be using our names instead of, like, Yiling Laozu and Ghost General."

"I thought that too," Wei Ying admitted. "But then he had Uncle Four and Granny Wen on, and that shufu of his with all those big cultivation talking points, and…" He paused, running a hand through his hair. "I'm not worried enough to, like, go hide somewhere else. But I guess I just wanted to get your thoughts on… how bad it is, and if it's really bad, what our options are, I suppose."

"If there was going to be a really awful fallout from our… aggressive environmentalism," Wen Ning said, "I think it would have happened already. We hid, but like — I think we're both still traceable, honestly? If the government had gone to, say, whichever Jin sits in Lanling now, or Lan Xichen, or even the Nies to merge resources, both the sects and the government could have found us. But they didn't, so I don't think they will. And I could be wrong, but I don't get the vibe that Hanguang-jun has it out for us. It sounds more like he's trying to clear your name, honestly?"

Wei Ying took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Meditation was different, now that he'd bled his core into the Luanzang Gang array, but visualizing the familiar feeling of energy traversing his meridians still soothed him. "You really think so?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the optimist between us?" Wen Ning asked.

"This has… really thrown me," Wei Ying admitted. "When I think about it. Hanguang-jun… I feel seen in a way that I haven't in years."

Wen Ning made a quiet noise on the other end of the line. "It's been hard for me, too, Wei Ying," he said. "But we did the right thing."

"Obviously we did," Wei Ying said. He sighed, leaning over until his head thunked against his wall. He tried to let the worry building in him bleed off, to melt away into the warm air of his room. It sort of worked. "Anyway! Wen Ning. Since I've got you on the phone… how have you been?"

There was another rustle from Wen Ning's end. "I got a promotion last month," he said, voice warm and soft as he started catching Wei Ying up.

This was good. This was helpful. Wei Ying took another deep breath, listening to Wen Ning's stories. If nervous Wen Ning wasn't worried about Inquiry, Wei Ying needn't be, either. There were, apparently, not too many more episodes left in the season. He could keep an eye out, maybe try in earnest to figure out who Hanguang-jun was. He could be prepared. He could be okay.

In the first flush of conversation following the Yiling Incident, of course, Yiling Laozu's name did not come up much. He disappeared, yes, but his bones weren't among those found in the cave, and so his involvement was de-emphasized in all but the most conspiracy-driven forums and message boards.

So it may seem odd that his name has come up so much in this podcast — and, especially, in this episode. But it is impossible to talk about Yiling without talking about its patriarch, the man who tried to bring life back to the dead soils in Luanzang Gang without using fertilizers that would further upset the fine balance of the region.

I believe my focus on him in this podcast may be controversial. Yiling Laozu was a controversial figure in his community as well. A staunch environmentalist who dabbled in the tricky art of cultivation, he still embraced the employees implicated in the Sunshot Investigation and found them jobs in the broader Yiling area when they resettled there from the Qishan region of Shaanxi.

Little is known about his birth family, but his adoptive brother's views encapsulate general attitudes toward him at the time of his disappearance.

Ahem.

So. Yiling Laozu, to the… consternation, of many, was a determined young man, focused on issues of environmental justice and standing up for those marginalized by, shall we say, industrial progress. Those in the know say that he spent a chunk of time appealing to the modern-day vestiges of the cultivation world, imploring them to help make sure that our natural heritage be preserved. When he didn't gain traction in those spaces, he went off to Yiling, an area with a complicated history of overfarming and industrialization. You may remember the Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution Law that passed, in part, due to successful remediation efforts closer to the river.

But Yiling Laozu never successfully got the soil in Luanzang Gang to grow more than the sparsest of radishes. And it wasn't until he disappeared that Cao Boren found the bones… and the fault lines.

Wei Ying's passengers were two young men — teenagers, really, deep in the throes of early puberty — traveling from Shanghai Hongqiao to a relative's home halfway across the city. He cut off the rerun of Inquiry playing over his car's bluetooth before picking them up — he didn't need any passengers to see his face when he was trying to figure out, yet again, who Hanguang-jun was and how he managed to interview Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng, who clearly hated him and missed him in equal measure. It was hard, not to give in and reach into his qiankun pocket to get his burner phone. It was very, very hard not to call.

But with passengers, he couldn't call even if he wanted to. So that was a plus.

Stopping the episode was ineffectual in getting his mind off the problem, though; the boys were very enthusiastic about Inquiry.

"I can't believe Hanguang-jun thinks the bodies weren't related at all to Yiling Laozu's disappearance," the taller of the two said, eagerly, as Wei Ying merged onto the expressway. "Or that guy who disappeared with him? There's no way that was a coincidence!"

The shorter one scratched his chin, upon which he was sprouting two long, coarse hairs and several pimples, all of which were obvious enough to be plainly visible in Wei Ying's rearview mirror. "Maybe he'll say more when he gets into the reasons behind the disappearance," he said. Something about his voice when it cracked struck a chord in Wei Ying. Like he'd maybe heard this boy talk before. But that was impossible; he was just getting worked up about the podcast. "Cuz it kind of sounded like the disappearance was a total surprise."

The first boy leaned forward in his seat, tugging his belt aside so he could squirm closer to the edge. "Excuse me," he said, and checked his phone, which was still open to the Didi app. "Shifu Mo?"

"Yes, sir?" Wei Ying said. The 'sir' had the boys giggling a little at each other. Cute, cute. A nice thing to focus on besides Wei Ying's growing alarm.

"Do you listen to Inquiry?"

Wei Ying was forced to admit that yes, he was familiar with it. "But I haven't had time for this week's episode yet," he added. He'd skimmed the show notes for the summary, but his week was, so far, a hectic one, and so he'd been focusing on reruns.

"Oh, you have to listen," the boy said, flopping dramatically back in his seat. "It's so... intense!"

"Lots more about the ghosts," his companion said. "Even more than episode four! Jingyi was scared."

"I was not," Jingyi said, elbowing his friend. "Yuan-er is full of it, I'm not scared of ghosts."

"Have you ever seen a ghost?" Wei Ying asked him, slamming on the gas to leap forward and claim a gap in the yawning monster that was Shanghai evening rush hour traffic. He pumped the brake and slid over one lane to the left before downshifting into third. There: he was both moving forward and well positioned to avoid the construction around the inner ring road.

Navigating this traffic was bracing. Not as bracing as some of the cultivation training sessions he'd gone through in his youth, nor as bracing as hearing dozens of possible explanations for what happened in Yiling six and a half years ago laid methodically out on the cutting edge of China's podcast scene, but certainly more invigorating than anything else in his life since he'd left the cultivation world behind.

"Uh," Jingyi said, laughing nervously after exchanging a glance with Yuan-er. "No?"

"They're not so bad," Wei Ying said, thinking fondly of the ghost girls who'd helped him construct his entire ruse. Implicating the ghosts at all had been A-Qing's idea, this little slip of a half-blind ghost girl who had a penchant for devastatingly witty observations.

"I thought grown-ups didn't believe in ghosts," Jingyi said.

"Ahahaha," said Wei Ying. For all that he'd been living in the modern world for over six years now, he still wasn't entirely clear on certain norms. "Is that so?"

Jingyi and Yuan-er exchanged glances. Yuan-er said, "You've seen ghosts?"

Wei Ying was torn. He loved impressing kids, but this conversation topic seemed… fraught, all things considered. No need to give any additional ammunition to a bunch of kids already obsessed with Inquiry.

"Perhaps," he settled on.

Jingyi and Yuan-er exchanged even-more significant glances. "So do you think the ghosts did it?" Yuan-er asked. "Did they make W— Yiling Laozu disappear?"

Wei Ying scratched his chin. "It does seem like a possibility," he allowed. "But maybe just one of many."

Yuan-er sighed, reaching over to pat Jingyi's knee. "Anyway," he said. "Yiling really isn't that bad, Jingyi, but you don't have to go to Luanzang Gang just because your uncle is obsessed with it. It's not like he's going to force you to, uhhhhhh, go there."

"You've been to Yiling?" Wei Ying asked the kid, intrigued. The kid really did remind him of Wen Yuan. But Wei Ying couldn't get tied up by coincidence. He was just primed to make the connection, given the podcast; given everything. "Is that why you listen to Inquiry?"

"I grew up there, actually," Yuan-er said. "I keep telling Jingyi it's a cool place, but it freaks him out."

"I think it's totally reasonable to be wary of ghosts," Jingyi pouted.

"Ah, kid," Wei Ying said. "That's wise."

"Yeah, but you're a cul— um, ESP enthusiast," Yuan-er said. "So I think it doesn't make any sense."

Oh no. Did Wei Ying have a couple of baby cultivators in his car? He was using the glamour talisman again — Mo Xuanyu was smaller and thinner than Wei Ying, with messier hair and bigger eyes, and he'd been leaning into looking roughly less like himself since Inquiry had started airing — but still. This, somehow, was more alarming than the podcast itself. Baby cultivators! This close to him!

And Yuan-er… he was of the right age; he had the right name, he came from the right area… but the Wens had insisted that Wen Yuan not be taught cultivation, and so it really did have to be coincidence. Wei Ying couldn't imagine what might have changed, for this Yuan-er to be the same kid he left behind in Yiling all those years ago.

He squinted into the rearview mirror. There were definite similarities, but… oh, it must just be wishful thinking. Wishful thinking with such alarming implications.

Wei Ying cleared his throat, and redoubled his focus on the road. He would get them to their destination. They would visit with their relative, and likely not find their Didi driver worthy of note.

He had a plan.

He made it to their destination relatively painlessly, gaps in traffic opening up enough for him to make continual progress toward the far side of Huangpu. He answered the boys' questions when asked directly, but tried to remain nondescript and not worthy of further note.

"You can stop here," Jingyi said, as Wei Ying pulled up to the gate of a newly-built old-fashioned shikumen. "My uncle said he'd meet us at the gate."

His thumbs flew over his phone as he sent a flurry of texts. As Wei Ying watched, the gate to the little lane opened.

Lan Zhan emerged.

Wei Ying couldn't help it. He gasped, immediately trying to cover the noise up as a hacking sort of cough. That, he discovered, was a great excuse to hunch over the wheel, obscuring his face while still being able to peek at Lan Zhan out of the corner of his eyes. The light blue of his pants; the white of his soft sumptuous sweater. He looked good. He looked the same. He looked older. Even just the glimpse of him ached.

Wei Ying groaned, a little. That was harder to cover up as a cough.

"Uh, are you okay, Shifu Mo?" Yuan-er asked, and Wei Ying flapped his hand, nodding wordlessly.

"Okay, then," Jingyi said. He grabbed his backpack and opened the door. "Thanks for the ride, sir."

Wei Ying cleared his throat. "Have fun with," Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan. What the fuck was Lan Zhan doing in Shanghai? He'd often said he had no interest in modern cities; that he preferred the cool remove of ancestral Gusu. "Your uncle."

He watched as the boys skittered across the road. Lan Zhan wrapped an arm around Jingyi's shoulders and then leaned over to help Yuan-er with his bags. He wanted to get out and say hi. Maybe Lan Zhan had been listening to Inquiry, if his nephew (nephew?! Lan Huan didn't have any kids six years ago. Where on earth had Jingyi come from? A Lan disciple?) was so into it. Maybe Lan Zhan would want to see Wei Ying, since Hanguang-jun had been painting him in such a positive light.

While Wei Ying was still ruminating, Jingyi and Yuan-er disappeared into the little alley behind the gate. Lan Zhan followed.

It latched behind them.

Wei Ying thumped his head against his steering wheel, twice, then marked the journey as complete. With pique, he accepted the first new trip to pop up in his app.

Still, it took him another moment to put the car into drive.

These are the facts:

Yiling Laozu and his so-called Ghost General disappeared from Luanzang Gang. Months later, Cao Boren found the bodies left behind. None of the bones belonged to Yiling Laozu or the Ghost General. None have been definitively proven to be human remains, though locals remain convinced that the malevolent dead led to the developing fault lines in the region.

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, whether you believe that Yiling Laozu was a cultivator who could communicate with ghosts, ultimately consumed by the detritus of his efforts, or a farmer tilling an unforgiving field who just went off to seek his fortune elsewhere… he has been unfairly, incorrectly central to conversations about the Incident.

After all, what man would purposefully instigate such a frenzy? Yiling Laozu's friends claimed that he wanted to do good in the world, to lend his power and skill to causes that were important rather than those which would bring him attention and add to his consequence. He was, by all accounts, more interested in finding the quickest and most successful route to his preferred outcome than he was in the politics surrounding his choices.

Listeners, I have spent years researching Yiling Laozu's disappearance. I had hoped, fruitlessly, to find him again. To tell him I believed in him. That I had all this evidence of his lack of wrongdoing. That I —

Ah, but I am sharing facts now, not feelings. The fact is, I have followed his trail from Yiling to Yunmeng, from Hubei to Shaanxi to Jiangsu. I have not found him. I do not think he wishes to be found.

But if I did — if he ever listened to Inquiry — I would want him to know:

Laozu, I would sit down over dinner with you. I would tell you what I have learned about your motivations, and how I respect them. That I believe in your cause and your ghosts. I would tell you of a friend I had, years ago, who shared your idealism. I would tell you of how I miss him.

I would tell you of the feelings that have led me to seek these facts.

These are the facts: I have no clear answers. It is up to you to decide what you truly believe. When we seek the truth of the matter from the ghosts around us, we cannot demand. We can only… inquire.

Hanguang-jun was Lan Zhan.

Hanguang-jun was Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying sat, stunned, in the late evening traffic. The last lingering tendrils of sunlight were fading between the Pudong skyscrapers, swallowed easily by the lights flickering on across the city.

He'd thought, maybe, Hanguang-jun was reminiscent of Lan Zhan, and then decided it was impossible.

But not only was Lan Zhan aware of Inquiry, he was behind the entire podcast, quoting things about Wei Ying's goals that Wei Ying had told him and no one else. He'd spent years, years researching the Yiling Incident, because he was… looking for Wei Ying?

To tell him that Wei Ying was right?

And now he was in Shanghai. Wei Ying even had the address. The trip, driving Jingyi and Yuan-er to Lan Zhan's place, was no longer registered in his phone, but there was absolutely no way Wei Ying could forget that location. He remembered the address, he remembered the surroundings. He remembered the way he felt, sun drifting through his windshield, watching Lan Zhan from the corner of his eye. He felt drawn to that little stretch of street in Huangpu, a moth seeking the same bright flame that would inevitably lead to its demise, and so he had spent weeks crystallizing Lan Zhan's location in his memory by carefully avoiding it.

But he would avoid it no longer.

Wei Ying deleted his pending trip from his app. He marked himself as done for the day — his team leader would probably be fine with it; the next trip would have brought him a few minutes over maximum driving time, anyway — and took the next left-hand turn he could.

The drive was only thirteen kilometers. The traffic wasn't so bad — rush hour had cleared up and the streets with it. He could cruise through the city streets, avoiding the final flush of cars on the major thoroughfares, and nip easily through a tunnel under the Huangpu river. He only had to stop twice.

Still, the drive felt like an eternity. Like twenty lifetimes instead of twenty-five minutes.

The first spot he found to park was a garage two streets over from Lan Zhan's apartment. It was exorbitantly priced; it didn't matter. He paid quickly and ran.

It occurred to him, as he reached the gate to the shikumen, that he didn't know where, exactly, Lan Zhan lived. It occurred to him that it would be rude to disturb the residents by shouting for Lan Zhan from the alleyway once he pushed his way past the gate.

It occurred to him that he did not care.

"Lan Zhan," he yelled, rushing down the street, glancing up at the windows for any sign that Lan Zhan might be behind one.

What would he do if Lan Zhan wasn't home?

He'd wait. He'd wait until Lan Zhan came through the gate.

"LAN ZHAN?!"

An old woman was making her way along the alley with a bag full of produce. She jerked her thumb behind her. "Third door on the left, rude boy," she told Wei Ying.

"Sorry, sorry," he said. He gave her a half-bow of apology even as he rushed forward.

He could call, he supposed. He still had that burner phone, fully charged, tucked deep in his qiankun pocket. But Lan Zhan didn't know the number; Lan Zhan may not pick up.

It will be my backup plan, he decided, skittering to a stop before the correct door.

The door opened even as he raised his hand to knock. Wei Ying prepared to tell the person opening it that he was looking for Lan Zhan, could he please be let through to knock on the door to his residence?

But it was Lan Zhan standing in the entryway. He wore his long hair tied back; one loose strand dashed across his chest. He was wearing workout clothes, the sight so incongruous with Wei Ying's memory that he nearly laughed.

"Lan Zhan," he breathed, reaching forward.

Lan Zhan took a step back, frowning. "Can I help you?"

Oh. Right. The talisman. "Lan Zhan, it's me," Wei Ying said, ripping his necklace away and, with it, the permanent little talisman that altered his appearance ever-so-slightly. "Lan Zhan, you're Hanguang-jun?"

Lan Zhan's entire body sagged. His shoulders slumped. His careful expression collapsed, folding in on itself as he blinked rapidly. "Wei Ying," he breathed, hoarsely. "Wei Ying?"

"Lan Zhan, it's me," Wei Ying said. He reached forward again, and this time Lan Zhan came forward to meet him, pulling Wei Ying into a tight bear hug, burying his face against Wei Ying's neck. His breath was hot and moist. It tickled Wei Ying enough for him to giggle. Or maybe that was the elation. "Lan Zhan, you don't hate me?"

"Never," Lan Zhan said, devoutly, the word muffled, face still mashed against Wei Ying.

"I thought you must, after I ignored our fight like that and just… went ahead with the array," Wei Ying said. He felt weak with relief. "Lan Zhan."

"Wei Ying."

Wei Ying loved the way his name sounded safe in Lan Zhan's mouth. "Lan Zhan, you found me," he said. "Inquiry worked."

"You listened," Lan Zhan said. His grip on Wei Ying loosened slightly and his hands began to roam, stroking over Wei Ying's back, running over Wei Ying's shoulders. "How — How did you know where —"

"Where you lived?" Wei Ying asked.

Lan Zan nodded.

"Um, I'm, ah." Wei Ying laughed a little, his smile growing broader when Lan Zhan lifted his head up to regard him. "I'm a Didi driver these days? I dropped your nephew and his friend off here a few weeks ago? I saw you when you came to greet them."

Lan Zhan gave him a very complicated look. "And you didn't say anything."

Wei Ying rolled his eyes, rueful. "I didn't realize Hanguang-jun was you until today's episode!" he said. "I— hoped, maybe, that you were listening, and I thought it might be you at first, but the voice was so different and he — you — didn't sound mad at all, and—"

"You listened to tonight's episode," Lan Zhan said, intently. "And you came here."

"I listened and I came, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said. "How could I not? You mentioned feelings, Lan Zhan, and I want to know if they're the same as my own." He paused. "I've missed you. I kept my useless old phone just so I can listen to your old voicemails. I hoped—"

"I missed you too," Lan Zhan interrupted. It was unlike him. It was so like him. Wei Ying wasn't sure. His memories of Lan Zhan were muddled with the intoxicating liquor of his hopes. Were his memories true, or just wishful thinking? Did the difference even matter?

"Facts and feelings, right?" Wei Ying tilted his head against Lan Zhan's shoulder. "The fact is I feel like… I don't know if Inquiry will clear my name or not, or even if it matters, but. I don't care. I missed you. I love you. I had to see you."

Lan Zhan stared at him, eyes moist, mouth slack. "I love you too," he said, and licked his lips. "I didn't know how to tell you before. Hence — the podcast." He licked his lips again. Was he nervous? Cute. Ahhhh, Lan Zhan was so cute. "If the podcast does not clear your name, we can try other ways."

"Okay," Wei Ying said. He tangled one hand in Lan Zhan's hair, tugging lightly so that Lan Zhan was forced to meet his eyes. "So maybe we wait and see how the public receives the episode, and in the meantime…"

"In the meantime," Lan Zhan echoed.

"I think Hanguang-jun promised dinner with the Yiling Laozu?" Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan nodded. Gravely, he said, "He did."

"So maybe we could eat in?" Wei Ying suggested. "And, like, I don't know about you, Lan Zhan, but if I love you and you love me then it just makes sense to kiss about it."

"Kiss about it," Lan Zhan said. He was staring, blatantly, at Wei Ying's mouth. "Just kiss?"

"Whatever you want," Wei Ying said. "Wherever your imagination takes you."

"My imagination," Lan Zhan said, eyes dark, "is robust."

Wei Ying had gotten that impression from the sheer volume of explanations for the Yiling Incident that Hanguang-jun had entertained in his podcast. "Oh, good," he breathed, and leaned in for a kiss.