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It all started with a little girl. Wei Ying and Lan Zhan had been out on a night hunt, chasing down a particularly nasty monster who had already caused several civilians’ deaths in the area around Yiling, and when the forest turned silent as Lan Zhan delivered the killing blow, another sound was picked up by the wind. A crying child.
Wei Ying’s head whipped around towards the sound, and without even having to say anything, Lan Zhan came up right beside him as he ran towards it. By an overturned cart lay two corpses, and by them sat a small child, maybe two years of age, sobbing her eyes out.
“A-die! A-niang! Wake up, please!”
When she heard someone coming, she looked up in fright, but seemed to relax when she saw Wei Ying. Wei Ying, on the other hand, froze in his steps.
He knew this girl. He had never seen her as a child, but something inside him knew that he was correct. He knew her soul, who she had been before.
Wen Qing.
They took the bodies back to Yiling, and stayed there long enough to make sure they were properly buried. All that time the girl refused to leave Wei Ying’s side, as if she knew he would protect her. When they asked for her name, she just shook her head. Wei Ying insisted on still giving her the name “Qing”, and later, when they brought her back to Cloud Recesses and went through the same process Lan Zhan had done years ago for A-Yuan, her last name officially became “Lan”.
When Wen Ning saw Lan Qing the first time, his legs gave out and he sunk to the ground. He couldn’t cry, but his whole body heaved in dry sobs for the sister he hadn’t seen for so long. That was when he asked Wei Ying to finally put an end to his existence as a fierce corpse, so that his soul would be free to be reborn again, and maybe one day once more get to meet Lan Qing in life. With tears stinging his eyes, and Lan Zhan’s comforting hand on his shoulder, Wei Ying complied.
And Wen Ning’s soul must have been determined to succeed in his wish, for no more than a year passed before Wei Ying got to meet his friend again. During a grocery trip in Caiyi Town, Wei Ying once again got that same feeling as when he’d first seen Lan Qing. This time it was a baby, held by his elderly uncle. The man explained that the baby’s mother had passed away in childbirth, and that the father, unable to cope with his wife’s passing, had slit his throat. The baby boy had no other relatives, and the man worried about his ability to care for him. And since Wei Ying had already decided, and Lan Zhan would do whatever his husband wanted, they gained yet another son, Lan Ning.
After this Wei Ying continued to recognize the souls of those he’d lost. It was as if his own soul was resonating with theirs, greeting them back to life. A better life, if all went well. Jin Ling got married and his wife bore them a daughter, whom Jin Ling named after his own mother. Wei Ying only told Lan Zhan that he knew that Jin Yanli was the same as his dear shijie. He wasn’t sure anyone besides Lan Zhan would even believe him. Then on Jin Yanli’s one month celebration, Wei Ying happened to spot Ouyang Zizhen and his young son, and while the boy bore another name this time, Wei Ying was sure that his soul was that of Jin Zixuan. And somehow he felt assured that the two would find their way to each other even in this life.
Even Jiang Cheng eventually got married, much to everyone’s surprise, and when he named his second child Ziyuan people wondered how much of her grandmother's traits the girl would inherit together with that name. Wei Ying could almost already see her one day wielding Zidian, and when ten years later one of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples gave her a pretty jade pearl that she thereafter wore braided into her hair, Wei Ying smiled. That boy would eventually add a jade hairpin to all the gifts he would give Jiang Ziyuan.
And the years came and went. The children grew. Wei Ying thought that somewhere out there, perhaps both his and Lan Zhan’s parents were also enjoying their new lives, but he had reconciled with the thought that he would likely never meet them. They could be older than Sizhui, or perhaps their souls were still biding their time, waiting for the right moment to once again live. Wei Ying was just happy for the ones he had gotten to meet again, the people whose lives were ended so cruelly in an unjust war, who now had gotten their well deserved proper chance for happiness.
Then, many years later in a busy marketplace, a five year old boy with dark, serious eyes bumped into Wei Ying’s leg. The boy looked up at him, turned his head slightly to the side and blinked slowly.
“You don’t wear any red on your cheeks today,” the boy said in a tone that seemed to wonder why. Then the boy’s mother picked him up and apologized profusely for her child’s rudeness, but she tickled the boy’s stomach so that he laughed as they walked away.
Wei Ying watched them leave, and he hoped that this time life would be kinder to Mo Xuanyu. Then he turned away and hurried to catch up to his husband and their children.