Chapter Text
"Dr. Lan!"
One of the nurses called out to Lan Wangjin, when he was about to head into the dressing room to change out of the regular turtleneck shirt and dress pants, that he had in so many shades of whites and blues, since they were the only clothes he really wore. Except for his white coat and the light-blue scrubs, of course.
"Good morning, is there anything?" He answered with a smile and walked to the counter of their department for heart and thorax surgery.
"You received a letter earlier, Dr. Lan. A red one. "
The young woman carefully pulled the letter from one of the drawers and handed it over though... it was only taken with a sight and a small 'Thank you', before he disappeared down the hallway.
The red letter... he had almost forgotten that today was such an unlucky day again. Originally, those red envelopes were supposed to be the one thing you looked forward to the most every year, little stars that contained a single information about your soulmate. It could be anything, their favourite colour, the food they hate the most, a day that is important to them. Usually it was something that was supposed to help you find your soulmate, narrowing the crowd down until you had enough knowledge about them to find your other half.
Fate must have disliked Lan Wangji though, he thought. Having read both his brother's and friends' letters before, he knew that the information they received did actually help them. Things like hair colour, the university they attended or a certain coffee shop they just couldn't live without. Their information had been precise enough that Lan Wangji ended up being the only one single out of all of them, the only still 'on the look' for his other half.
And what did he get?
'Your soulmate's blood group is A+.'
'He has a scar on his left palm from trying to prepare a lobster.'
'He suffers from anemia since he is young.'
The usually calm and collected Lan Zhan could feel his mouth twitch in passive aggresiveness, remembering all those details. What was this supposed to be? That read more like a medical history or things to identify a corpse by, than information that would help you find a single person in a population of over a billion that china had.
"Someone is in a bad mood again, " a voice chuckled behind him and dropped on one of the couches with a big cup of coffee in his hand.
He just ignored his brother, finishing to change into his scrubs before putting on his white coat and taking a coup of tee instead from the counter. How his brother could drink black coffee... he didn't understand. It was disgustingly bitter and... there was nothing really on it that could rectify it. But then again, he was the only one drinking tee, the others sometimes cracking jokes how even coffee was too much of a worldly sin to be consumed by someone like Lan Wangji.
"You look horrible, " he said curtly, looking the older up and down who really has had better days. Dark circles under his eyes, hair that looked a little dissheaveled as if he had pulled down his surgical cap in a hurry and a body that looked ready to collapse. Not that it was completely unusual, working as a surgeon surely was draining, but then again Lan Xichen usually took care of himself enough to always look calm and collected.
"Well, that happens when teenagers decide to sneak out at night from the second floor over a tree, slip, fall and land on a fence that ruptures their internal organs and their lung. 8 Hours did we spent on it... in vain."
Lan Zhan changed his expression in a little softer one, taking a seat next to Lan Huan and placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Sorry, A-huan, " he mumbled but the older just shook his head and smiled sadly.
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It was already 2pm when Lan Wangji got his first minute to really take a breather. His first two surgeries had gone well, without any problems at least, but even then they had taken longer than expected and he had to send his surgical residents to do the rounds with Lan Xichen instead, him being knuckles deep in a 16 year old boy that was finally getting a new heart after waiting for three years.
He liked helping people, being able to give them hope when other doctors would decline some of them, taking on the cases that were high-risk or even involved experimental treatment. Everyone might have called him the perfect doctor, not knowing why exactly he had suddenly decided to become one at the age of fourteen:
'If my soulmate gets ill so often, I should become a doctor so I can always save them.'
A frown formed on his face by thinking back to this, back when he wasn't as bitter about it. But now, at 33, still not having met the other one, he was just tired and had given up on it, not even opening the letters anymore. The newest letter today would directly go into his bedside drawer on top of the last four that were still sealed to this date. Why should he be the only one looking for the other? He had tried his best but how would he be able to find a person just with medical data? You couldn't just go on the street and ask a random stranger if they had had a liver transplantation 6 years ago, could you? Sure, he was a doctor and could theoretically look for a patient that did get such a procedure done back then. But how many thousand people would that include in their country? Not to mention that it was illegal to look up people's medical data for private reason, and if there is one thing Lan Wangji liked to followed it definitely were rules and laws.
He shook his head and tried to organize his facial expression again before heading down to the cafeteria and getting a salad, a fruit bowl and a strawberry tee as a drink. Picking up his food tray, he started looking around the cafeteria for his group of friends, just to discover them in a corner right next to the windows. Lan Wangji sighed, having thought to avoid them at least now, but ended up still sitting down at their table and taking a seat across from his brother.
"Woah you really are late. If you had taken any longer, we would have definitely gone back to work, " Nie Huaisang complained and pushed a piece of carrot cake in his mouth.
'Plastic-surgeons,' he inwardly shook his head and picked up a tomato that disappeard in his mouth.
"Not everyone has such an idle life like you, " Jiang Wanyin shot back at Nie Huaisang and gave him an angry glance, fire almost piercing out of his eyes. It almost looked as if the oncologist was about to stab his eyes out, but Lan Xichen was quick to place an arm around his husband's shoulder and smile in order to calm him down a little. Sure, seeing dead as often as he did, could turn someone quite bitter and well.. with Jiang Wanyin's character, it had happened sooner than later.
Everything was normal, the bickering between all of them, the tiredness that could be felt even if no words were lost about it... almost everything. He had finished almost half of his salad when he looked up to the head of their table, a gloomy Wen Qing sitting there, picking at her pasta as if this wasn't probably the first meal in 8 hours that she had. Sure, she usually was a strict and held back person and didn't talk as much as Mr. Anger-issue or Mr. 'I treat everyone to food because I get paid more'... but the oldest of the friendgroup usually wouldn't leave out a chance to calm the biggering, even if it was just by telling Nie Huaisang how annoying he was.
"A-Qing."
The others became quiet and turned their faces to the only girl in the round, married to no other than Mo Xuanyu - who was probably having a great time reading to the kids in the kindergarten just now.
"Are you missing your husband that much that you look like 100 years of rain weather?" Nie Huaisang joked but with one glance of the woman he went dead silent and covered his mouth in an instant.
"Wanna tell us what's wrong A-Qing?" Lan Xichen tried it properly this time and gave her a warm smile, not as caring as for his husband, but still holding the same amount of comfort and empathy.
"We all have it good, you know? We sit here and joke around, pick the food we want, work, hang out with our friends and some of us even have their soulmates, " she mumbled absentmindedly, playing with one of the pork balls on top of the spaghetti. " Sure, we are so close between life and death as almost no one else, but... I don't think we really grasp that all the time. How good we have it."
Lan Wangji slowly raised an eyebrow and placed his fork down, finding it a little morbid to talk about life and death and eating a salad idly on the side. He tried reading from her face what exactly had happened for her to be like this. In all the years they had worked 'together', or better said, known each other as colleagues of different departments, he could only remember a handful of times when she was this shaken by something. Wen Qing was tougher than all of them, something needed as a trauma surgeon. Even though they had the most to do with death, she was the opposite in these regard to Jiang Wanyin, who wore his emotions on his sleeve. She liked to keep them to herself and wasn't as easily touched by all the deaths and accidents she had seen in her career, but she wasn't cold and some cases, some fates had shaken her pretty bad too.
"They'll turn off the machines in three days, " she brought out quietly and lifted her eyes to look at the others. Her eyes, that usually looked strong, determined and straight ahead, were filled with pitty and a deep sadness.
"Who are you talking about?" Jiang Wanyin tried this time, his voice almost soft, as soft as it was possible for someone with his temper.
"Ah... do you still remember that accident that happened on A-Zhan's birthday?"
Lan Xichen became silent, looking down on his hands that had formed fists. Of course, he remembered. The two of them belonged to the doctors that had tried everything to save this young man's life so long ago, trying to fix the damage that was done to his organs and his head. They definitely had tried their best, but even though he somehow made it through the operations and didn't die, when that seemed the most likely thing to happen, he still...
"He's been in a coma ever since then. It looks as if distant relatives of him have used his savings to pay for the medical treatments but now that the money has run out, they decided to turn off the machines. " She pushed a strain of her hair out of her eyes and placed her head on her left hand. "I just feel... His case hits close to home. He was just a normal university student living his life and when he saw that a child was about to get hit by a car, just around the corner from here, he jumped in to save her and ended up like this."
"You said distant relatives right? What about parents, siblings, his soulmate...?" Lan Wangji questioned and bit his lip. Fate seemingly was more than just an asshole to that man. If he hadn't been in a coma since back then they surely could bond over how unfair fate was.
"No siblings. His parents passed away when he was relatively young and afterwards he was raised by his grandma. But she died around two or three years before And for his soulmate... he is still receiving a letter every single year."
"It's unfair, isn't it? He saved someone and now he is supposed to die without ever having met his other half? What an ass could his soulmate be to not have found him by now? " Nie Hausang complained and took his fork, angrily stabbing one of Lan Wangji's grapes that he had kept for dessert.
"I know it's completely unprofessional and stuff... but why don't we try to find his soulmate? He has no one that cares for him anyway, so wouldn't it be okay to do something like this? Maybe we can get his soulmate to at least come here and say goodbye, so he doesn't have to die alone. Or we can... I don't know ... do something. Wouldn't you want to at least meet your soulmate if you were in this position, A-Zhan?"
Lan Wangji got thrown out of his thoughts, slowly nodding but looking away. If that was his soulmate, he would surely appreciate being able to say good bye... or even covering the medical costs to provent his death. That was the least he could do if that was the person he was meant to be with, he felt. But would that person's soulmate feel the same? Maybe they had started a new life with someone else already like Wangji imagnied his soulmate to have done? He couldn't know.
Wen Qing looked at the others with big teary eyes, placing her hands together and bowing slightly in the position she was sitting in. It was nothing like her, all of them knew, there was no one that seperated work and private feelings more than the older sister of the goup... her asking for something like that had significance. Three days to find a soulmate wouldn't be enough for a single person - but with how big of a friend circle they were and their special areas of interest...
"I'll help, " Lan Wangji answered courtly, drinking a sip from his, now cold, tea before giving her a small nod.
"Well... if our ice-face already agrees... is it even possible to disagree then?" Lan Xichen chuckled and god a death-stare from his brother.
Jiang Wanyin was a little hesitant to agree to the whole thing, invading someone's privacy, a patient's at that, being something that he felt more than diclined to do but then again... he had had a similar case with one of his patients where he ended up fulfilling the death-wish of a young woman by finding her soulmate so they could say goodbye to each other at the least.
"We're also in, right, A-Cheng?"
The youngest slowly nodded and with that, Mission '3 Days - 1 goal' was started.
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"There you are ," Wen Qing put on a soft smile when the Lan Brothers finally arrived, Jiang Wanyin still being in the Operation room and Nie Huaisang already coaxing the nurses in the department with some snacks, so everyone would keep their mouths closed about four doctors from different departments visit in the late evening.
"I think I've never been here before ," Lan Wangji let out and looked around, following them down the hallway until they stopped at the door that Nie Huaisang had already been waiting at, with a big grin on his face.
"The nurses really are pretty you know?" He smirked and winked at the one sitting at the central station. It took a moment for his face to become neutral again and he carefully drew the door open, all of them slipping in the room.
A single room, two chairs on the side with a small table, a wardrobe... and of course, the medical eqipment needed. Heart monitor, IV, bed... and on it, the unlucky young man. Tall, long hair and delicate features that would make him easily able to work as a model. It would have been inappropriate to talk about how handsome he was when they had barely any time since he would be dying in 3 days. It just seemed inappropriate, at least Lan Wangji deamed it that.
"Wuxian-ah ," Wen Qing said softly and the group bowed to the man on the bed, "these people are all doctors here and they heard about what will be happening to you. I wish I could get your consent to this but sadly... We all apologize that we will be invading your privacy by going through your belongings and those letters, but we don't want you to be alone, without anyone to hold your hand, when you die. We want to find your soulmate for you."
They kept in their bowing positions for a moment before straigthening their backs again and starting their assigned tasks: Lan Xichen bowed to Wei Wuxian again deeply before approaching his wardrobe and slowly opening it. There weren't really many things in there beside a coat, a pair of sneakers and a backpack, all showing more than clear signs of what had happened to their owner by their slightly ripped state and the blood that still was on them, even after all of those years. Wen Qing had carefully taken the medical record off the bed, taking a careful look through everything that was written down, before quickly leaving the room with the documents. Medical history, background data, the medication and examinations that had happened after the six months that he had still been their care, before a doctor from the long-term care unit took over.
That left only Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang, the latter who had fished 26 red letters from the cuppoard and spread them into two equal piles before they started on the task. They both took a seat at the table, and would be opening letter for letter - even the sealed ones, while writing all the information included down.
Lan Wangji placed his hands together for a moment before he started, closing his eyes and apologizing for trespassing his privacy in his mind. He took his time, before opening the first letter and accidentally reading it out loud:
'Your soulmate likes rabbits.'
The other members of the group couldn't help but giggle a little when hearing this, the absurdity of such a statement being what was supposed to help them complete their mission. They couldn't help remembering how this clue didn't really seem to be better than the ones Wangji had received all this time. Sure, they only had seen one or two but the summary 'weird medical background' was enough to go by.
"Okay, his soulmate definitely is a girl, "Nie Huaisang chuckled.
"Why?" Lan Wangji looked up and tilted his head in question.
"Girls like cute things. I mean, which guy likes rabbits? Do you know any?"
"I do , " he answered with a shrug and placed the letter in the envelope again, before carefully putting it on the side. Lan Wangji just ignored the stares that he was getting at this moment, liking rabbits was a perfectly fine thing. At least, this poor soul's soulmate had good taste, he thought and opened the next one.
It went on like this for the while, before the last letter got placed down by Lan Wangji and they carefully cleaned up the room again before exiting it. Sure, they now had a better understanding on both Wei Wuxian as a person and the soulmate they were needing to look for, but they still needed to bring them together or all would have been away. In the end the group settled on meeting at the shared apartment of the Lan's , since the two brothers and Jiang Wanyin lived there anyway, thankful that they had already changed in streetwear earlier. Lan Wangji was in his turtle-neck and dresspants again, his elder brother wearing a sky-blue cashemere pullover and white cotton pants, their lady all in black-red in a elegant jumpsuit and Huaisang... well... his unique fashion sense of wearing a modern hanfu to work surely was... uncommon as always.
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Jiang Wanyin was the last to arrive, just a couple minutes before their pizza did, and so all five of them took a seat on the gigantic modern couch that was the main highlight of their penthouse, allowing a view of the Skyline of Shanghai.
Nie Huaisang had a pizza with salmon and hollandaise, the Lan brothers went for a non-spicy veggie one, Wen Qing taking a bulgogi pizza and their late bloomer Jiang Wanyin having settled on a peperoni with extra cheese, they were munching down on the hot and crisy delicatess, the right thing after a long day of work and the exhaustion almost being washed away. They took their time, sincefor most of them it was the second meal they had from the early morning till now, when it was almost midnight, not wanting to put an additional strain on their stomachs when the irregularity was already something they suffered from.
It took a good 30min for all to finish, cleaning up the living room before Jiang Wanyin took out his laptop, Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen their notes, and Lan Wangji linked his tablet to the TV in order for them to be able to compose the data together so everyone could see it.
"Alright, we are looking for someone that is a couple years older than him. He's 27 now so we should include everything above that, for now. Hm... that person also seems to be taller than him... " Nie huaisang looked up from his notes and in Wen Qing's direction. "How tall is he?"
"Hm... around 1,8m. He's quite tall already, so going by the height it is likely a man. There aren't that many women over 1,8m though it isn't impossible of course." She added with a soft smile, while Lan Wangji started writing it down neatly, the information almost looking as if he was going for calligraphy right now.
"It's a wild guess, but I think Wei Wuxian was here in Shanghais to meet his soulmate that day , " Lan Xichen said with a dark expression , "He was going to university in beijing and suddenly, on a Tuesday, in the middle of the semester, is here in Shanghai. The content of his backpack is a bit weird though. Laptop, Notes, Pens, Water bottle, university card and all the red envelopes... it almost looks as if he was leaving for university and then suddenly, just ended up here in Shanghai. As if none of this was planned."
The group stayed quiet and looked at each other. He was right, taking a plane or train so far away when you had university lectures to attend every single day and even skipping university short before the exam phase... one wouldn't go to such lengths for nothing. There had to be a good reason.
Nie Huaisang suddenly became quiet, removing something from his phone before he handed it over to Wen Qing and excused himself to the bathroom. The others couldn't help but exchanging glances, but continued nevertheless.
"His soulmate likes poetry, classical chinese music, plays the guqin .... and seems to be a very quiet and reserved person when with others. He dislikes spicy food, is a vegetarian and... "
Wen Qing's eyes widened and she dropped the phone, that thankfully bounced on the couch and was picked up by Lan Xichen whose hand started to tremble at the sight of the next note:
" 23rd January 2016, 5:13pm , Renmin Avenue, Shanghai"
"This... this is the exact time he had that accident... he must have come here in the hopes that that is when he meets his soulmate... but he couldn't have met him that day, right?, " Jiang Wanyin realised and couldn't help rubbing his eyes, since he was sure something just got in them.
Just looking at how there were still new letters... he couldn't have met his soulmate. So was... this all the set-up for the accident? But why?
"Wei Wuxian received the letter with this information on that day. The nurse told me that they always come on the 23rd of january..." Nie Huaisang brought out through thin lips, coming back from the bathroom but he didn't take a seat and stood there instead. The man couldn't help but bite his lip, trying to avoid the eyes of the others. If he was honest... he had figured out Wei Wuxian's soulmate earlier already. The information had been enough, especially with the date of the red letters arriving, the day and place of the accident and the descriptions. He was... almost sure, but this was too risky of a situation to have a 95% certainty of what happened. For the sake of all, there needed to be 100, no maybe 10000% of certainty... so he had taken the last envelope with him, that he was currently holding in his hand.
"There are a lot of small details about his soulmate, but there is something more important than those details, " he started and after opening the red envelope in his hand, he turned it around:
'31st October 2022 9:05pm'
Except for Nie Huaisang, there seemed to only be one person that heard the coins drop, because Lan Wangji jumped up from the couch, running to his backpack and took out the newest envelope. While walking back, he almsot ripped it apart, face turning white and his legs giving out, once he read it out loud:
"Today... is your second chance. Agree to it."
Confused, the three others got up and walked to Lan Wangji, carefully helping him back on the couch. His hands were cluching onto the letter, tears starting to roll down his cheeks and fall like waterfalls, his shoulders violently shaking. Now it finally all made sense.
"Blood Group A+, History of Anemia in his childhood, broke his left leg at the age of 12, scar on his left palm from trying to prepare a lobster, liver transplantation 6 years ago... " he started sobbing, trying to finish his words "... birthday, 31st october. didn't finish university. you live in the same building."
"How do you know all of that about...." Wen Qing started but stopped soon after.
He had met every single neighbour... but of course, his real home was the hospital, the hospital where Wei Wuxian had been in a coma for the last six years, where he was living.
"So Wei Wuxian's soulmate is... Lan Wangji?" Jiang Wanyin asked in shock and could feel his cheeks getting stained with tears as well.
"It all makes sense... I had received a letter on his birthday that he... that he would be coming ... so if I hadn't taken over A-Huan's surgery that day... I would have recognized him by his medical history. I would have been doing the surgery alongside A-Qing and... ," he sobbed his hands clutching his chest while whimpers escaped his mouth. This... This was too cruel.
Lan Xichen carefully placed his arm around his brother, patting his back while trying to sooth him in any way, even if that was impossible.
"Didi... you have to breath , " he brought out caringly, tears threatening to leave his eyes. But he had to be strong for his brother.
The more Lan Zhan cried, the more difficult it was getting for him to continue breathing, his throat feeling as if metal strings were cutting into it, making sashimi out of it, and the tightness that was starting to press all air out of his chest, made it even more difficult. It didn't take long for him to have troubles keeping upright, his body leaning to the side until he was laying on the couch there, on his side, still strugling for air. The voices around him had became disorganized and louder, he could feel more concern from them but it was too difficult to understand what they were saying.
He only knew that his throat felt raw and burnt as if he had eaten chili, that it felt as if someone has used a scalpel to cut open his body, and ripped out his heart without anesthesia.
That's all he knew, before everything turned black.